What Do You Think About Being Required to Read Professional Books?

So what do you think about required reading for teachers?

I'm hearing a lot of principals ask about what books they should buy for their staff, what books they should buy just to give to people and maybe hope that they read, or maybe to do a whole staff book study.

I'd love to hear your reaction to this because I have kind of mixed feelings.

On the one hand, We're educators.

It is part of our profession to read.

I'm a big reader.

I've learned a lot by reading.

I think most of us learn by reading.

And I think it would be un- or sub-professional to say, no, I don't want to read any books.

We have to be readers to be educators, to be leaders.

It's just part of it.

On the other hand, I also think...

education should be a job that is doable and i think all those little things that we pile on contribute to burnout they contribute to the overwhelm and the overwork that people feel and sometimes a book study can feel like just one more thing that people don't have time for especially if there's not a very clear rationale for it you know if it's just we're doing a book study to do a book study that can feel like kind of an insult kind of a waste of time and Sometimes when a good thing is made mandatory, it doesn't feel like a good thing anymore.

So let me know what you think about this.

If you are working to develop instructional frameworks or shared expectations for practice, one book I hope you'll consider reading on your own or as a staff is my book with Heather Bell Williams, Mapping Professional Practice, How to Develop Instructional Frameworks to Support Teacher Growth.

So if you want to get clear about what a professional practice looks like from the insider's view and how to enact that practice and how to help people get better at that practice, this is a great process.

for developing instructional frameworks.

But I'd also love to know what you think about book studies, about being given books, how you feel about being given books.

I personally was given lots of books as a teacher and principal, probably did a few book studies and benefited from those.

But I also get the sense that this is not always a positive experience.

And one of the things I'm trying to recognize is that my experience is not everybody's experience.

So if this has been a negative experience for you, I'd love to know what would have made that better or what just made it not work to be required to read a book or to do a book study as a staff.

Because this is one of those things that I know a lot of schools ask of teachers.

And I cannot be on the side of, I don't want to read or reading is bad.

I'm pro-reading and pro-professional reading and pro-reading to get better as a professional, and I think I always am going to be.

But I also think as educational leaders, we need to get a little bit smarter and a little bit more thoughtful about how we present books that we expect people to read and think about when we want people to read them, because we're already asking too much of people's time.

I really feel like we have to get this down to more of a 40-hour-a-week job, and it's so far from that right now.

So let me know what you think about book studies and other professional reading.