![]() It's too bad I didn't have the book Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High back then! Authors Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler list several principles, skills, and questions to ask during a conversation like the one I had. "What have I done? My points were valid, but now everyone is mad at me!" I even had an e-mail from my director waiting for me when I returned to my classroom she wanted to talk about my "professionalism in today's meeting." Whoops! 6 Tips for a Successful Conversation "Learn to shut up and do your time until retirement," she warned. Darcy, a veteran teacher, shook her head at me. The freshman teachers stood in an angry knot, gesticulating. The bell rang and we started to file out of the room. She was a sophomore teacher and had expressed dismay over the evaluation system, but because she was young and new, she was too afraid to speak up.įurther reading: Dealing with Conflicts in School But I couldn't stop! "There are many factors that go into a student's test score-even the student's own motivation." I looked at my friend, Stella, who was nodding in encouragement. I then realized that I was speaking very loudly and that people were getting angry. "Do you think it's fair that only 11 percent of the teachers are being evaluated this way?" A dark cloud crossed my director's face. "I don't even teach sophomores," I said angrily. In response to this, Lacy, a freshman teacher, said, "You're trying to blame your scores on freshmen teachers!" I spun around to face her. "Do you think it's fair that sophomore teachers are held solely accountable for the success of these students when they only have them for nine months?" I asked. I'd just spent a portion of the summer at a teacher leadership program, where we'd discussed teacher evaluations, and I felt like I had a lot to share with my colleagues. When my director asked if there were any questions, I raised my hand. ![]() ![]() The Right Idea, the Wrong ApproachĪdministrators had just introduced a new teacher evaluation system and were explaining that sophomore teachers' evaluations would be partially based on their students' test scores. That happened to me during an English language arts professional learning group (PLG) meeting. Sometimes, these crucial conversations go horribly wrong because you don't have the right strategies to get your point across. They take place with varying degrees of success or failure. Nearly every day, we have crucial conversations in and out of the classroom. ![]()
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