As a middle school math
teacher I have sat through my share of professional development. The result was very little developing as a
professional. In almost every situation
I left feeling like I just wasted a day of my life. One year we were pulled out of the classroom
for 8 days which resulted in a binder that I tossed in my desk – never to be
used. (I did actually throw out the papers and use the binder for other things
so I guess it wasn’t a total loss).
As I began to discover the entrepreneurial
world my teaching mindset began to dramatically change. In the world of the
entrepreneur was exciting, fast paced and constant change. The world of education was generally boring
and slow to evolve. I wanted my educational
and entrepreneurial world’s to collide.
Below are some of the
different lessons I have adapted from entrepreneur world to the educational
world. Many are not Earth shaking, but
it is amazing how little of this is done in education.
Begin
with the end user in mind
A
successful entrepreneur will focus on the needs and wants of their
customer. What is their pain? A business
must actively acquire their customers. If
you don’t provide a useful product or service they will go elsewhere. Public schools usually don’t have this
problem. We have customers trapped in
our classrooms. As a result this allows
teachers to take the customer for granted. After all, the customer is stuck
with us. We are sort of a monopoly.
Teachers don’t have that feeling of urgency.
What teachers don’t understand is that we can loss them mentally. If
your students find your product useless they are not buying what you are selling.
You can Pivot (aka Don’t fear failure)
If an entrepreneur
is afraid to make mistakes it’s the kiss of death to any possible
business. It is not uncommon for a
business to change direction (pivot) after an initial idea bombed. Teachers
need to take chances and try new things. Many teachers suffer from paralysis by
analysis. They are afraid to try something until everything is just
perfect. Even then they are hesitant to
change.
It is
always amusing when teachers tell students not to worry about making mistakes,
yet they are afraid to go out on a limb themselves. Many of our best lessons were the result of
tweaking a disastrous lesson.
Be a
Shark not a Holstein (Innovate and Evolve)
A
successful entrepreneur is always on the attack. If you are in the business world there is
always competition just around the corner.
If you become soft you will be history.
The education world is more like a heard of Holstein dairy cows – happy and
content to graze.
Businesses
are always looking for new markets and to strengthen existing markets. The
second a business stops innovating and evolving is the moment when they become
irrelevant.
One
thing we pride ourselves on as teachers is not being content with any
lesson. We do a lot of self-reflection. Every lesson we teach could be better – what
could we have done better? This mind set allows us to be on the attack.
Another
thing we do is study other great teachers.
What are they doing and how can we adopt elements of their
teaching. One thing we focus on is
evolution not revolution. Many school
districts try to scrap everything they have been doing in favor of the lasted
and greatest program. We try to grab
bits of different programs and make them fit our situation.
High
octane work environment
One
thing that has always been appealing about startup businesses community is the
incredible energy level. Work hard. Play hard. Have fun. That is the
environment that I want to be part of and I believe students, in general, do
too.
When you
look at companies in Silicon Valley they are active and creative. Sitting at a desk in silence is not a high
energy work environment (there are times for this – but it should be the exception
not the rule).
Just
like an entrepreneur needs to be able to “tell a good story about the company”
teachers need to be able to sell their product.
Embrace
the Data
One of
the greatest changes in the last decade is the incredible availability and use
of data. Businesses use data to drive
many of their business decisions. You
can never have enough data in the business world. Teachers are also surrounded by data. The key is use and analyze this data. Teachers can use data to find individual and
class weaknesses. Teachers can chart
student progress, guide instruction or just evaluate the success of different
lesson.
Bringing
it all together
By
changing how I view my job I have been able to improve as a teacher. By focusing on your customers, not fearing
failure, being innovative, and creating a high energy environment you can
create a classroom that is fun and productive for you and your students.
Todd Hawk is a middle
school math teacher and the co-founder of the Land of Math website (www.landofmath.com).
You can reach him at landofmath2@gmail.com or follow him on twitter: @landofmath2
