ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kristyn Klei Borrero, EdD, is an accomplished educational leader and coach who strives to make a profound difference in the professional lives of educators. Kristyn has committed to improving the education of students in traditionally disenfranchised schools, as a classroom teacher, principal, area superintendent, and cofounder and CEO of the CT3.
Prior to her work with CT3, Kristyn led the research and development of No-Nonsense Nurturer® and Real Time Teacher Coaching®, widely recognized as two of the most innovative, transformative professional development programs in education. She is also a noted contributor to national education blogs, trade journals, and news media.
As an education leader, Kristyn spent 1996–2007 spearheading turnaround initiatives for underperforming schools in Oakland and East Palo Alto, California. She propelled schools under her supervision to significantly exceed all state academic benchmarks, organizational fundraising and financial goals, teacher retention rates, and family and student satisfaction ratings.
Kristyn holds a doctorate in education leadership from the University of California, Berkeley.
To learn more about Kristyn’s work, visit www.ct3education.com.
To book Kristyn Klei Borrero for professional development, contact pd@ SolutionTree.com.
FOREWORD
By Lee Canter
Iam proud of the work I did with Assertive Discipline®, a model that school leadership teams use to establish a schoolwide behavior management program that supports teachers’ classroom efforts. I am grateful for the many teachers who embrace that work and strive to create classrooms where students achieve. However, I know now that my work with Assertive Discipline is incomplete. This work was necessary to our field, but like everything, the next generation of work builds on the effective practices of what came before and, through innovation, often proves even better.
My opportunity to innovate and work on the No-Nonsense Nurturer® model began in 2007 when I met Kristyn Klei Borrero. I was working with a network of urban schools in the Bay Area of California, which were deeply committed to the achievement of traditionally disenfranchised students. Kristyn was one of the eager principals in Oakland, California, I met; at the time, she was completing her doctoral coursework at the University of California, Berkeley. She understood urban youth and critiqued the efficacy of Assertive Discipline in a way that no one else had brought to my attention.
At the insistence of a mutual good friend and colleague, the two of us collaborated to dig deeper and discover what was missing from my previous classroom management work. Together, we found that the biggest pieces missing lived in the area of what we call life-altering relationships, specifically how teachers and students communicate with one another and how they work together in the classroom to create authentic engagement.
The No-Nonsense Nurturer® model is the result of our collaboration and subsequent research, having observed hundreds of classrooms and engaged in interviews with endless educators, family members, and students (Klei Borrero & Canter, 2018). This book, Every Student, Every Day, is Kristyn’s review of what the highest-achieving teachers use to set up classrooms for success, rigor, and caring in culturally relevant ways. This body of work serves students in urban, rural, and suburban schools.
I am proud of cofounding CT3, and since I retired, I am proud of how the work has grown. I am also proud of the countless educators this work has supported and will continue to support. Confidently, I can say that I leave you in great hands. I hope you learn as much as I did on my journey with CT3 and the work of No-Nonsense Nurturers. You deserve the best professional development—and your students deserve the best from you.
INTRODUCTION
The Need for No-Nonsense Nurturers
Necessity is the mother of invention.
–Plato
In my travels as an educational consultant and executive coach, I am constantly reminded of a reality that all too many educators face. While many are well prepared in curriculum, most are not prepared to handle classroom management or support the academic culture necessary for all students to succeed. Teachers spend years studying at universities to learn how to effectively prepare lessons and reach students through content. Yet all that time and expense is potentially meaningless if students don’t see your classroom as a culture of high expectations deeply embedded with a relentless belief in what is possible for them.
Because teachers aren’t typically well trained in how to develop and maintain a classroom culture that balances strong management with high expectations and relationships, I can only imagine how first-year teachers will feel in their fifth, sixth, seventh, or even twentieth year of teaching. Many teachers will still be struggling with the same issues—disruptive behavior, low engagement, and test scores that don’t represent their relentless efforts. Frustrated probably doesn’t begin to describe their state of mind. This book presents the strategies, concepts, and philosophies of high-performing teachers, each a No-Nonsense Nurturer, and the lessons, mindsets, and strategies we all should have been taught in our teacher preparation programs. Here, in the introduction, I investigate the need and reason for No-Nonsense Nurturers.
The Problem
Since the late 1980s, the education community—educators, reporters, parents, communities, and politicians—have documented the supposed failure of U.S. public schools.Especially in urban contexts, they place much of the blame directly on teachers and students’ families. I believe that this blame is misplaced, and a vital cause stakeholders often overlook or discount is the acute lack of classroom management training the majority of teachers receive (Aloe, Amo, & Shanahan, 2014; Chang, 2009; Marzano, 2003). Because teacher preparation programs have not addressed this need effectively, it is one of the major reasons our profession loses so many educators with unending potential. Therefore, effective classroom management is one of the central themes of this book.
Throughout the book, the terms classroom management and classroom culture are interchangeable because they are related, but it is important to define and think about them to support your understanding as you read. Classroom management refers to the strategies and structures teachers use to keep an orderly, high-functioning environment where students can engage in on-task behaviors that lead to rigorous learning objectives. Classroom management is in service of classroom culture. Classroom culture involves the established values, beliefs, and rituals of a classroom that enable strong relationships and high expectations among teacher and students so teaching and learning thrive. With a strong classroom culture, adults and youth are all teachers and learners who share the knowledge, roles, and responsibilities in the classroom environment.
Research validates the importance of teachers’ need for effective classroom management training. A major study from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (2010) finds the key to raising students’ academic performance is a teacher’s ability to establish a positive, disruption-free classroom culture with effective classroom management that promotes student learning.
Other research validates the conclusions of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (2010) study.
