By Jill Jackson

      When I was in Michigan a few weeks ago, a colleague of mine gave me a book called The Checklist Manifesto by Dr. Atul Gawande. I was in the middle of reading another book, but decided to start getting the gist of this new one while I flew home that week. I was immediately wowed – and have since put the other book on the back burner.

     Here’s the big idea from the book: We are more productive when we relegate the “must do” tasks, however mundane, to a checklist.  The author of the book illustrates this by outlining how a new plane, hoped to be used during WWII, was initially a failure and literally fell out of the sky because the very experienced pilot forgot to take one tiny step in a series of fifty or so other steps during take-off. It wasn’t that the pilot didn’t know to do it; it was just that he forgot amid everything else he had to do to fly this more sophisticated plane. Once a checklist was in place, the plane flew 1.8 million miles without incident! 

     I have to admit, I’m only halfway through the book, but what I’m so struck and motivated by is the fact that smart people, when tasked with something complicated, perform better with a checklist.

     Here’s how this information immediately connected with our work: As we implement en masse the biggest thing that’s come across our whiteboard in decades, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), we are inundated with so much stuff. So many resources. So many angles. So many assessments. So many lessons. So much professional development. So. Much. Stuff. 

     While I believe some of that stuff is useful, I have seen many of the “resources” out there as rehashing old stuff with the CCSS label. Of course, we have to beware of those traps. Let’s think about this for a second …

     As I read and study the CCSS and how to get them into my classroom, I realize that I have to do a ton of things every day. Here are a few that come to mind:

·         Ask text-dependent questions

·         Require text-dependent responses

·         Choose the right text that’s worth reading

·         Add additional text so that kids can compare and contrast

·         Get students discussing more

·         Have students do multiple readings of text in the close-reading format

·         Require students to do short-term and long-term writing projects as they relate back to           the text they’ve read

·         Prep kids for the SBAC and PARCC assessments

·         Create more performance tasks to do on a weekly basis

·         Add the technology component that is required during research and assessment

     I mean, I had to take a nap after just listing all of these things! And I’ve only scratched the surface! Oh, I have to do these things in addition to the good teaching stuff that I already do?

     So what gives?

     First off, we have to embrace this idea: The standards are built upon a series of excellent habits that kids need to engage in every time they read text. The standards themselves are habitual. I even like to read the standards as if they were a checklist for me as a teacher.

    It’s amazing how quickly I get standard-aligned teaching into my lesson plan book and into my lessons themselves when I use the standards as a checklist. I can’t possibly remember everything to do – winging it or trying to remember everything just won’t cut it.

    Secondly, I have to put my fingers in my ears and close my eyes when I hear all of the Common Core noise. (Kind of like when kids close their eyes, plug their ears, and say, “Na na  na na … I can’t hear you!”) Going faster and implementing things at break-neck speed doesn’t mean that they get done well. And it certainly doesn’t mean that these things will improve the quality of teaching.

     If we will keep our wits about us as we implement the standards and realize that teaching them is about habitual, on-purpose steps, we will be in good shape. In fact, I’m thinking that if we create a planning checklist – a la The Checklist Manifesto – all of the teeny, tiny components that will have big impact on student mastery WILL make their way into our daily instruction. And things that are done daily become habit. And when things become habitual, we become independently skillful. 

     After all, isn’t that what’s going to get our kids to master the CCSS?

     If you’re interested in finding out more about the checklist, simple-is-powerful approach to teaching the ELA Reading Informational Text Standards, join me in my webinar! Click Here to Register.

     Jill Jackson is known for telling it like it really is as she works to simplify and demystify the oft-confusing work of school improvement. She recently wrote Get a Backbone, Principal!  5 Conversations Every School Leader Must Have Right Now and blogs at www.jackson-consulting.com Mondays and Thursdays.