1.3 Between the Episodes: Performance Evaluations & “Soft Skills”

The first feedback I received from episode 1, “What Has Been Happening to Us?,” came from one of my all-time favorite former students (not that I rank them, but he’s pretty special!). Jeffrey Svajda graduated from the University of Texas as an English major, served as an officer in the army, and now works as an associate at BlackRock in finance and strategy. We’ve stayed in contact throughout the years since he graduated high school, and he is one of the people I asked to review a draft version of my podcast before its release. He reacted to my comment that I was losing my identity as a teacher (this was the reference to how I can’t teach writing the same as I used to and had to rethink what I need to offer students for the future). He pushed me to think about what I offer beyond the curriculum and made me acknowledge that my identity is not really rooted in the subject I teach but in developing students ready to lead satisfied lives and contribute to the world in meaningful and effective ways. While some teachers may go into teaching mainly for love of their content, more commonly, I’ve known teachers to be passionate about positively impacting the lives of students first and foremost. A focus group of students on my campus shared that they really want teachers to be passionate about what they teach, but their engagement heightens significantly when they see purpose in the lessons and feel connected to the teacher and class.

                  When Jeff received his yearly performance evaluation at BlackRock, he shared how it intersected with some of the future skills needed for work I discussed in the first episode (which I got from Beth Rudden’s 2024 SXSW Edu conference session). The skills that intersected with the categories he was rated on for his job performance were emotional intelligence, communication, adaptability, and collaboration and teamwork. He made the comment that it was a given that he should know the technical aspects of his job; it was the human skills beyond those expectations that are often the focus in performance reviews. The three categories he shared that ultimately determined his performance ranking were Business Partnership (building relationships with stakeholders and gaining their trust, leveraging his network of connections to bring the right people together to accomplish something they otherwise couldn’t), Leadership (taking end-to-end emotional ownership of projects/transformative processes, empowering team members to succeed by knowing their strengths and playing to them, simply developing relationships with other people on the team), and Storytelling (presenting, making good decks of slides).

                  Likewise, I reviewed my state teacher evaluation system with an eye to these skills, and here are some of the dimensions that intersect with them:

·      ensures high levels of learning, social-emotional development and achievement for all students.

·      encourages higher-order thinking, persistence and achievement.

·      supports all learners in their pursuit of high levels of academic and social-emotional success.

·      clearly and accurately communicates to support persistence, deeper learning and effective effort.

·      differentiates instruction, aligning methods and techniques to diverse student needs.

·      organizes a safe, accessible and efficient classroom.

·      creates a mutually respectful and collaborative class of engaged learners.

·      reflects on his/her practice.

·      enhances the professional community. (Collaborating, leading, and self-reflecting are central on the rubric.)

·      demonstrates leadership with students, colleagues, and community members in the school, district, and community through effective communication and outreach.

These are certainly important skills to model in our classrooms, but my wondering is this: How many teacher and administrator preparation programs are preparing educators for these in deep ways? The skills can’t just be marks on a rubric to get the adults in the building to develop them. How many professional development sessions teach the adults to develop these skills and have experts delivering them? And then—how many adults know how teach their students things like persistence, social-emotional development, and respect? When these things are only talked about in abstract ways but are included on performance rubrics, it’s bound to lead to frustration. These so-called “soft skills” are the hard ones. As educational compensation is under evaluation, many districts are looking to revisit the idea of performance pay, so our evaluators must be experts in assessing and coaching for these skills; otherwise, subjectivity will reign and conflict will abound.

                  These conversations have fueled my mission for my podcast in coming episodes. I’m hoping that us being required to adapt to the changes AI is bringing will continue to open the door for development around how humans can improve and flourish. I know the underlying conflicts in times of change and the lack of knowledge can exacerbate fear and frustration, but we do have the capacity to better ourselves and our environments.