The Tacky Ten

Dear colleague,

In my last article, I warned against using the evil eye and recommended the steady eye instead. That recommendation is just one of many that I gleaned from Kearney et al.'s 1991 study on Credibility-harming teacher behaviors. You can read the study here (or my treatment of the study on pp. 37-39 of The Will to Learn), but today I want to share with you an excellent one-pager I like to use when I give Will to Learn workshops and we're exploring Credibility.

I call this list the Tacky Ten.

The Tacky Ten

When I give this to teachers in a workshop, I usually have to explain a few of the items a bit more.

• Re: humiliating students (#1) — It's critical to reflect on the idea that humiliation and offense-taking are subjective. Just because I don't intend to offend or humiliate a student doesn't mean students don't experience this in my room. They do. It's an inevitable outcome of the many thousands of interactions that comprise a school year. In these cases, the goal is noticing that it's happened and seeking repair.
• Re: acting in a condescending manner (#3) — There are some teachers that can pull off calling teenagers honey or sweetie. But there aren't many. And I'm not one of them. There is no age range in human development that is more sensitive to condescension than adolescence.
• Re: using sarcasm (#4) — I wrote a whole article on this, which you can find here. The gist is, sarcasm is ambiguous language and ambiguous language aimed at a whole classroom is guaranteed to be received incorrectly by at least a few students. This can cause needless offense, alienation, or embarrassment for students.
• Re: moving test dates (#5) — I do it at least a few times each year, and I explain to my students why I'm doing so. I think this actually can help your Credibility when you're moving the test due to concerning formative assessment info or other problems. Moving test dates only hurts your Credibility, in my view, when you're constantly doing it or you're doing it because you don't manage time well.
• Re: taking a long time to grade assignments (#8) — This one typically makes ELA teachers want to throw something at me. The solution approach here is to grade fewer things and to simplify that grading as much as possible. Regarding the difference between grading and feedback, see this article or the Writing chapter of These 6 Things.

If PD at your school or in your PLC is lacking, try putting the Tacky Ten (PDF) in front of the group and using it as discussion fodder. I've never met an honest teacher who's not convicted by at least one item on this list.

And to me, that's good news.

I'm thankful to have a job where I can continue to improve.

Teaching right beside you,

DSJR

P.S. Does your team want to explore things like the Tacky Ten and how teacher Credibility works? My Teacher Credibility Mini-Course gives you 10 strategies in under two hours of video. $99 for individuals, or group licenses for your whole faculty start at $499. Learn more here.