Somewhere beyond Honahlee, Shangri-La, and C.S. Lewis’ wardrobe, there is a place called Pedagogia.

This is where I live, as a Revolving-Door Administrator.

Of course, you can live here too—if you’re willing to shift your paradigm.

Most of the time, I’m in my office. It has a Keurig in the back, next to the shelves of books I’d be glad to lend you so you can read about how to improve your teaching practice and report back to me in regards to how much my advice has unlocked your potential to engage students from bell to bell.

I’m really helpful like that.

Once in a while, I have to talk to students, but I find that when you simply explain the rules and procedures to them, they will say that they understand and leave your office as quickly as possible, so I don’t really know what teachers are griping about when it comes to student behavior.

Obviously, any good teacher is able to manage their classroom to the point where when I walk in, I can immediately see the learning goal, objective, language strategy, and State Standard.

I mean, it’s written right there on the board, if they’re doing it right, and if it’s not, then they probably aren’t a very good teacher, and I have to note that they failed to provide this crucial information on their official evaluation record.

Even if they do that, of course, I’ll spend most of my time paying attention to off-task students.

They’re a real problem. Not mine, obviously, but the fact that this supposed professional couldn’t manage to construct a lesson that engaged every student, regardless of their literacy levels, effective state, and general interest in the subject whatsoever really makes me think that they didn’t read enough Fred Jones, and they need to review their basics.

It’s disappointing, sometimes.

After all, if you have established your procedures in an explicit manner and held students accountable for deviating from those expectations with a series of warnings before reporting their behavior in a Low-Level Referral, which the teacher keeps track of until the behavior actually results in their being sent to my office (you have to supply four Low-Level Referrals along with your High-Level referral, by the way, or else I’ll just send them back because you didn’t do the right paperwork), and which I review with them in a clear and straightforward way until sending them back to the classroom, then it’s pretty much your fault if they continue to fall short of those expectations.

Did you call their parents after every incident, by the way? I won’t, but I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to, and if you didn’t, then why are you even bothering me?

In Pedagogia, parents can control everything their children do at all times, after all, and when you can change the culture well enough, you understand that.

Until you change the culture, though, then you haven’t been doing your job very well.

During passing periods, my secretary will walk around and take notes on which teachers are standing in front of their doors and greeting students as they enter the classroom. If students are late to a classroom, it’ll be note which teachers are not doing a good enough job of inspiring students to be on time.

I’m sure once they walk in the door, they follow whatever explicit behavioral goals are written on the board and adhere to them, because students tend to respond well to things written on a whiteboard and simply shrug off whatever else was going on before they walked through the door, because if they didn’t, well, you didn’t greet them well enough.

That’s part of how we change cultures and shift paradigms: we stand in front of our doors and greet students instead of using the six minutes of passing period to desperately reset our rooms into whatever condition is required for the lesson we’re about to teach, and not read that urgent e-mail I just sent about campus safety or an update on which teams are allowed to be released at which times and here are their names and this parent has been trying to get a hold of you about their child’s grade in your class and what are you going to do to help them, and we most certainly don’t run to the restroom as the passing period is the only chance we have to relieve ourselves. This was always  so easy for me, so I don’t understand why some teachers have trouble with it.

In Pedagogia, these things are handled in your spare time, after all, and if you don’t know how to manage that, then I have a whole shelf of books for you to read. Right next to the Keurig.

Pedagogia is a wonderful place to be, though.

As I walk past closed doors, I know that within these classrooms, differentiated instruction is being applied to a diverse population of various students who have disparate backgrounds of experience, from socioeconomic levels to cultural and national identity, and that certified content experts are utilizing the Zone of Proximal Development through strategic placement of student seating, intentional grouping, SDAIE strategies, and blended learning through an interface of both digital and real-world interaction, including the consistent monitoring of individual data as regards their reading levels and other metrics as measured by a number of standardized tests.

I expect this to be what I see every time I open any door, of course, and if I think anything short of that is going on, I really have to take a moment to try and understand what’s wrong with this teacher.

That’s really my gift. I care about why teachers aren’t doing their jobs right. That’s what makes me such a great Administrator.

But there is a disturbance in the force I sense. I know that behind some of these doors, there is less than perfect instruction being administered. Zones of Proximal Development that aren’t being utilized to their maximum capacity. Grouping that doesn’t optimize the learning capacity necessary to show improvement on standardized metrics in terms of reading level and overall academic progress.

In short, I suspect that Pedagogia is in danger. And I am going to save it.

They just go by “teach.”

I’ve heard of this thing where in low-SES communities, people get ironic nicknames, like when someone who is very large is called “tiny,” and I guess that must be how they got it, because I’ve never seen them teach.

I mean, teaching is a practice like any other, and as sure as pediatricians know when they’re healing a broken bone, teachers know when they’re resolving a cognitive deficit.

Like, it’s science.

You just determine through testing where a student lacks the necessary skills, and then front-load information that they then study independently and refine through other tests that you devise until they score high enough on those tests that you are convinced they know the information.

It’s not that hard, and yet this “teach” seems to be completely incapable of being able to figure it out.

I don’t know what’s wrong with them, but darn it if I’m not an educational expert, and will provide them with all the strategies, theories, books, and PowerPoints that I can muster in order to make them into the high-quality educator I know they can be.

After all, if I can spend five years in the classroom while earning my administrative credential at a for-profit university before applying for a position as some program specialist who then advances to an administrative position, then why can’t they?

If they don’t want to advance as an educator, though, then I don’t know how I can help them.

And I’m obviously a better educator than them because I’m an administrator, and I get to evaluate their job as one even though I might not have the “specific knowledge” that their subject matter requires to really understand what they’re trying to do.

I mean, it’s just good teaching.

Good teaching is really the same thing no matter what you’re teaching, after all, isn’t it?

I mean, you have a clear objective (not that I can possibly keep track of all the various hundreds of standards I’m supposed to be checking for when I walk in your classroom, obviously; like, you could probably have the same one every time and I doubt I’d notice because all I care about is the classroom environment that I encounter and whether it “feels” like learning is taking place, but I totally know what that feels like and will reflect it in my write-up regardless of the context of the lesson or where it takes place in your unit-plan, which I expect you to explain in detail during our evaluation conference, but which requires that annoying “subject-matter competency” thing that I don’t have to bother establishing).

If you know what concept (which is is something you can objectively demonstrate through testing as that which has been sufficiently learned, obviously) you’re trying to teach, then, you just have to design a learning environment where that concept is demonstrated and reinforced through various techniques of differentiated learning.

Like, it’s not even that hard.

When a student enters your room, you just have the directions clearly displayed on the board or a PowerPoint that you project onto the screen.

If they don’t comply with these directions, because of whatever reason, whether it’s the fact that they had to skip lunch because they were avoiding someone who wanted to beat them up or that they only had like two hours of sleep because they have to share a room with their infant sibling, you simply (and firmly) explain that this is a classroom with expectations, and those who don’t meet those expectations are subject to discipline up to and including a visit with their vice-principal.

Oh, wait, that’s me.

First of all, have you filled out four low-level referrals before sending them to me? Because I’m betting you haven’t, and if that’s the case then you really need to brush up on your paperwork, because Pedagogia is a place where every teacher has followed the discipline matrix to a tee, and has documented all infractions of behavioral expectations, and if you aren’t willing to upkeep the standards that this school has, then you might want to consider another career.

And have you made parent contact with each of these low-level referrals? Because I’m betting that you haven’t, and if that’s the case then you really need to brush up on your willingness to improve your contact within the community and help to change the culture and shift paradigms.

I find that after having a stern, yet fair conversation with the parent of any student, their performance will increase because everybody equally values the concept of education as something that is objectively valuable.

That’s just how things are in Pedagogia.

And you’re either on board with that or you need to find another job.