![]() It’s already scary to take risks, to try new things in your teaching, to put your hand up when opportunity comes knocking when we normalize comments like this and the social exclusion that often comes with them, we make it even scarier. These comments stigmatize striving, they punish achievement, and they disparage risk taking. They give new teachers the message that it’s not good to stand out, that it’s better for your social survival to blend in, to be average, to find the middle and stay there. “Giving another workshop, are we… what’s that, the fourth one this year?”Ĭomments like these, tossed around casually in the staff room or peppering the conversation in the hallway, are the tip of the tall poppy sword. “Why does she get to go to so many conferences?!?” “Wow, the superintendent is coming to your class again?!?” When a poppy gets too tall, we cut it down to size. Wikipedia defines it as describing “aspects of a culture where people of high status are resented, attacked, cut down and/or criticised simply because they have been classified as superior to their peers.” While I’m not keen on the term “superior” in their definition, I’m sadly all too familiar with the problem itself virtually every teacher I know who has moved into a leadership role, whether in their school or in their system has experienced it. If you’re not familiar with that expression, it’s one of those fabulously apt British turns of phrase (also popular in Australia). One of those easy problems is the tall poppy problem (or syndrome). ![]() And then there are problems that are so darn easy to fix, it’s a wonder they haven’t already been solved. There are lots of problems in education, big systemic problems, governance problems, structural problems that seem unsolvable sometimes because they’re so deeply rooted in the way things have always be done. RTOL: Rapid Transition to Online Learning.Red People, Blue People: It’s Not So Black and White.
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