The Professional Leader: Stephanie Hirsh

The fifth guest speaker in Soka University of America's Distinguished Speaker's Series, Stephanie Hirsh, is a fellow Texan and the Executive Director of Learning Forward, an organization committed to professional development for educators.  Stephanie has almost thirty years of experience in the professional development field.   She started her career in my hometown, Richardson Independent School District.  We immediately developed a good rapport discussing my elementary school, Hamilton Park, and high school, Richardson High.

Stephanie started our time together by asking us, “What was our best professional learning experience?”  As we went around the room, it was difficult for some to come up with an answer.  We, like many teachers, in the U.S. did not have a good experience with professional development (PD). Stephanie discussed how this was one of the critical issues in her field.  She then talked about the different challenges to PD and ways to overcome them.  Stephanie said that there are PD resisters and PD omnivores.  One of my classmates, she explained, was a PD omnivore: they took every course available within their school district.  Stephanie explained the best professional development can challenge people’s assumptions about what it means to be a teacher.  In her experience, she sees professional development ultimately needs to address two things: the individual needs of the teacher and the collective responsibility of furthering student success. 

During our time together, Stephanie introduced us to online learning communities that provide techniques and opportunities for educators to discuss and share resources.  Exemplars of collaborative work among teachers for student success were shared, such as teachingchannel.org.  Stephanie was also very interested in getting our input on a tool she called rapid prototyping of solutions.  We looked at one problem in education and analyzed proposed solutions.  My group looked at aligning re-licensure with professional learning opportunities in different states.

Stephanie Hirsh’s Take Home Points and Resources:

1. The Mirage Report by the The New Teacher Project
2. Reclaiming our Democracy by Sam Harris
3. Professional development has a potential for supporting growth but it can get co-opted or have inconsistencies that can negatively impact others. 
4. How do you develop a system that respects the specific areas individuals want to grow in and also help all teachers get better?
5. There are PD omnivores and there are PD resisters
6. PD is a way to create equity for all students
7. How do you ensure fidelity of ideas? How do you ensure quality?
8. There is a benefit to learning from things in the past
9. What do we want to collectively work together on? From whom do we want to learn?
10. When teachers share collective responsibility for the learning of their students then the experience of our students will improve nationally.

 Before leaving, Stephanie gave us some insight on how professional learning organizations are trying to make big changes by looking for disruptor ideas.   She had us each write down #whywelearn and think about ways we could disrupt or reinvent our current school system.  While our time was short with Stephanie, we were able to see the potential of professional learning for educators and get a glimpse at the original purpose of professional learning communities.  I believe these are tools that can make a difference in a teacher’s life, a student’s life, and the entire system.