So, the conversation has begun. I have a confession to make. I have been charmed and devoted to the McDonaldized education kingdom, both as a classroom teacher and principal. I was a serf in love with my urban public schools, my leaders, and my students. I entered the profession as an overachiever: a second-career teacher driven to exceed the expectations of my bosses. Full disclosure. I was ready to join my education franchise and master standard operating procedures.

Born and raised in the heart of the beast, I was a new teacher when the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) playbook hit the schoolhouse. I was hired to teach at an underperforming school to which a new principal had been appointed. The school community was required to adopt a new reform model that would provide us with evidence-based pedagogical learning to help us meet the NCLB goal of 100% of students performing at or above grade level by 2014. With the guidance of our principal, we adopted the Achievement First (AF) whole school reform model. For me, this initiative was the beauty in the beast.

From the outset, my heart pitter-pattered when I met my AF leaders. I sat in an audience packed with teachers from other schools that also adopted AF. Three women, one African American and two Caucasians, stood on the platform, introducing themselves as AF staff who would be our lead coaches in the work.

As a first-year teacher, I used a louder voice than necessary indoors. The soothing, mellifluous tone of my new coaches was one of the first things I noticed and would later try on in my classroom. As they stood on the podium, I also noted their style best described as urban-chic with comfy sandals. Something about the comfy sandals attracted me to their pitch. Their shoes were like a beacon declaring safety, and they helped me lean in with less anxiety.

My first AF professional learning experience was riveting. We unpacked standards and student writing. We became smart about how reading like a writer improves author’s craft. We developed shared understandings of the power of exemplars and using rubrics to guide the growth of student literary analysis and writing.

The AF vibe sucked me in like hominy grits does butter. As some are star struck by Beyoncé or Idris, I was smitten and ready to become a part of this new wave in Baltimore classrooms. Here I am baby. Signed. Sealed. Delivered. I’m yours.

Literacy was the core of AF praxis. We were immersed in learning from the schools of Ellen Keene, Richard Allington, Lucy Calkin, Janet Allen, Nancy Atwell, Harvey Daniels, Linda Darling-Hammond, Michael Fullan, Tony Alvarado, Jay McTighe, Grant Wiggins, Lucy West, Lauren Resnick, Carol Dweck, and Isabel Beck among others. These folks were the elite scholar-practitioners of literacy – focused whole school change, and some of the seminal researchers. In our classrooms, this change was driven by the theory of socializing intelligence through rigorous reading, writing and talk around diverse texts and tasks in each content area.

The beauty was not only found in what we learned and from whom, but also in how we learned. As second-year teachers, other AF apprentices and I traveled to District 2 in NYC to visit best practice classrooms and observe the gradual release instructional model that remains prevalent. District 2 was recognized for its literacy achievements and was the subject of scholarly research, encompassing both quantitative and qualitative studies.

As visiting teachers, we had comfy chats with school leaders and the teachers being observed, stepped – in for snapshots of learning and teaching, and then debriefed during a working lunch. This is where I first encountered the deep learning within making practice public through instructional rounds. Eye – opening. Inspiring. Life – changing.

AF believed in teacher leadership and efficacy. Students and teachers were THE investment. Our students’ literacy proficiency was the goal, defined more broadly than word calling and the Dick and Jane decodables from my early childhood reading experiences. We were taught how to help children learn to read and write, how to use strategies to make meaning, how to study authors’ craft, and how to find their literacy niche in the world.

I dropped myriad names from the research and am grateful that AF teachers and coaches had intimate learning experiences with these folk. However, I am not done singing the praises of our job – embedded coaches. You Raise Me Up.

Though senior AF leaders, our coaches were elbow to elbow with us in our classrooms as they led us on a journey of linking theory, practice, and outcomes. As former master teachers, they demonstrated lessons, analyzed student data, engaged us in lesson study, and helped us reflect on and adjust our teaching. Our students became leaders of their own learning, welcoming visitors to observe them engaged in the real work of reading and writing. Most importantly, they taught us both the science and the art of teaching reading and writing.

AF was a welcome retreat from the McDonaldization of Education. We taught within a prescribed schedule, yet as we developed proficiency, we were able to move fluidly within the literacy block. Far from cheerful robots, we questioned, challenged thinking, engaged in research, and continuously revised our practices to best educate our students. We were not threatened or punished if we did not respond like bobble heads to emperors without clothes.

It was a sunny Spring day in May 2002. Though still a young teacher, I served as 5th grade team leader. Our team was working smart to close out the year with our students and looking forward to the short week we would have before summer school. We scheduled a class picnic to Druid Hill Park for the day. I had been praying about next steps for me.

I loved classroom teaching; yet, I had four district-level job offers before the end of that year. I watched as our team boarded the buses and silently prayed for God’s will in my life. Then my literacy master craftsman walked into our school. She was wearing a green cargo dress with wedge sandals, with her lush, springy, ebony coils bouncing around her shoulders as she marched with intention toward me. I loved her intellectual prowess combined with her unassuming flair and dreamed of joining her team.

My desire became reality in August 2002. In my mind, she came on the scene with an angel’s halo and wings, delivering the clarity I needed for my destiny. I had soaked in learning as an AF apprentice and was now a part of their professional developer team. Once the receiver, I became the giver of the gift of AF’s best practices.

Unplugged from the matrix, I learned to help teachers cultivate an environment where students have a voice; where they surpass being passive recipients of cookie-cutter lessons. No longer burgers flipped on the grill. I became part of an intellectual community of practice where teachers emerged as co-creators of instructional design, and coaches were devoted to grinding it out in classrooms within the instructional core.

Sharing this lived experience helped me to remember the joy. It even felt therapeutic. Heartfelt thanks to Achievement First. You saved me from a Direct Instruction (DI) model that would have withered my soul. You snatched me out of the matrix.

More to come on how the beast raised its head again and again throughout my tenure as an urban school leader.