Visit Every Classroom for National Walkthrough Day

Why is it so important for school leaders to get into classrooms?

My name is Justin Bader, and I'm the author of Now We're Talking, 21 Days to High Performance Instructional Leadership, which is the number one book on classroom walkthroughs.

And I know a lot of people don't like classroom walkthroughs because they've experienced them as a negative.

If you're a teacher, you've probably received very few classroom walkthroughs, and there's a good chance that If your administrators have been in the classroom, they've maybe brought a clipboard or filled out a form or gave you a rating or did some things that were not exactly a pleasant experience.

And I believe very firmly that classroom walkthroughs need to be a positive experience, both for teachers and administrators, if they are to be sustainable and if they're to have the value that they ultimately have, which is not what most people think it is.

Most people think the purpose of a classroom walkthrough is to provide feedback, especially corrective feedback, to lead to immediate improvement.

And I don't really think that's what classroom walkthroughs are good for.

I think the main value and benefit of classroom walkthroughs, as I talk about in the book, is decisional information and relationships.

Two good things happen when administrators get into classrooms.

One, as long as we don't mess it up, we develop better relationships with teachers.

And two, we gain valuable firsthand insight into what teachers need and into what our schools need.

So tomorrow, depending on when you're watching this, tomorrow...

Tuesday, September 5th is National Walkthrough Day.

By the power vested in me, by nobody in particular, I'm declaring Tuesday, September 5th National Classroom Walkthrough Day.

And what I want to encourage you to do is simply visit classrooms.

Get into classrooms.

Every teacher that you supervise, stop by for one or two minutes.

And it's very simple.

Just smile and wave.

Make an appearance.

Show that you are happy to be there.

See something good going on.

You don't have to say anything.

You don't have to...

Give any feedback.

You don't have to leave a note.

Please don't take a clipboard or a laptop or anything.

Just go visit classrooms and show that you care about the learning that's taking place.

And keep a smile on your face to make sure that it's clear.

Like I'm not a person who naturally smiles.

I have to like try to look pleasant or otherwise I just have kind of a default scowl.

So...

Try to look happy.

Try to look like you're enjoying yourself when you get into classrooms and really just enjoy being around teaching and learning.

I mean, to me, there is no better way to spend your time as an instructional leader than to get into classrooms.

And I just have one request.

If you join me in celebrating National Classroom Walkthrough Day, just leave a comment below or email me and let me know how many classrooms you visited.

I recommend that if you have an admin team, like let's say you have three administrators, just visit the teachers that you personally supervise.

Everybody kind of divide up so you can get around to everybody more easily and just stop by for one or two minutes and then leave me a comment and let me know how many people you visited.

This will be our first ever national walkthrough day and I want to get a tally, a total of how many classrooms are visited.

So leave a comment below and let me know.

You can also email me at justinatprincipalcenter.com.