What Does Growth Look Like?

Sometimes the tools we need for change are already in front of us — we just need to notice them.

GREGORY PETERSHACK
Professional Development Coach

At our first full staff meeting this semester, I sat at a table with three images of a plant in front of me – a shoot, an unfolding leaf, and a flourishing plant. The header asked “What does growth look like?” I tried to be reflective, present. Take the exercise seriously, I thought. Growth is first painful, then a stretching, then a blossoming. I wrote these underneath each picture: done! I did not feel like I was learning anything new with it, only like I was saying the answers the teacher — in this case, the facilitator — wanted to hear. 

Across the table, my colleague Jen picked up some markers from the supplies that were provided and started illustrating her page, adding sunlight and water to the margins. Even though the markers were provided, and I see them all the time, it hadn’t occurred to me to use them. “This is a professional setting, not a place for coloring,” my inner disciplinarian yelled. But Jen was doing it, and Jen had been here much longer than I had, so I started coloring too. Pain became PAIN with lightning around it in blue and red. S  t  r  e  t  c  h  i  n  g was green, stretched and loopy. Blossoming, well, blossomed! I noticed how Jen had drawn a flower rising through the header and decided to color each word of the title as well.

With markers, “What does growth look like?” split into separate words. “What” got a big blue/purple question mark. “Does” was a sharp comic bubble action. “Growth” was a stretching potted plant. “Look” became a smiling pair of eyes in glasses. “Like” became a thought bubble of feeling. As I colored the words separately, I began to see them differently. “What does growth look like?” became:

• What: a question of kind, type, quality
• Does: an action, a movement, a verb
• Growth: a stretching, a movement, a change in a positive direction
• Look: perception, appearance, noticing
• Like: comparison, similarity, imagery, metaphor

It was like I was seeing the question for the first time. The shoot struggling in the dirt was not just small, hidden growth,  but now “discomfortable movement towards new practices, messier than we’d like, that seems like we aren’t always moving”. My answers to the activity, previously rote and trite, were now literally colorful and new. The coloring sparked generative new thoughts and conversations — not because the activity changed, but because my perspective did.

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Old lessons, new perspectives

​It’s easy to get stuck in a rut. There’s a lesson I know works, but after leading the same material multiple times a day for years, it gets old. But the lesson is pedagogically sound, and I don’t want to add another “to-do” to my list. When I was thinking through how to fix this, I thought back to the box of markers on my table, and how that changed things for me — and hopefully for you as well! As teachers, we don’t always have to create something brand new. Changing how I think about and present a lesson rather than what I present is usually an option. But what can this look like for you? Walking through my experience at the table might help.

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Noticing

​In my example, I had to notice that the box of markers was on the table. There were resources right in front of me that I didn’t see, because I wasn’t looking for them. What does that look like for you? What are your boxes of markers? It could be literal markers and paper. Instead of having students just pull quotes from a text into a Google doc that demonstrate concrete imagery, could you have them write and decorate them on chart paper? Your box could be using a Kahoot, turning an individual assignment into group work, or presenting your lesson with the assistance of memes and videos. Take a look around your room — what is available? What resources does your school let you use in class? What works for your lesson?

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Modeling

​It is not enough to think differently, especially when we all — both teachers and students — are used to thinking in traditional ways. Someone needs to model new thinking. For me, that was Jen, coloring. Now that you have your resources, come up with a model. What could this new version of the lesson look like? For instance, having students play a game to illustrate grammar rules instead of just lecturing. What visual/audio/tactile aids are needed for students to grasp the work? Maybe in addition to your mini-lesson, you share a Youtube video or an Instagram reel that contains the same information.  Is a finished example enough, or do you need to walk through the creation of the work together? What will give your students permission to explore freely?

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Imagining

Now for the easy part — let your imagination run wild! Take the box of markers and spill it out over your classroom. As the lesson wraps up you can call your class together and reflect on how this new experience went. In my group, we talked about why Jen and I colored, how that changed our thinking, and how we could use this exercise in the future. We continued this practice with the rest of the meeting’s activities, and it became a part of the way we interacted with each other. Your classroom is full of opportunities to cultivate a culture of new exploration without adding new to-dos to your schedule. Happy coloring!

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