To define a path to instructional excellence, Wink adapted Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The first four levels in the seven-level hierarchy focus on creating the proper learning environment:
1. Resources: Does the teacher have the skillful use of those resources in order to lead every student to excellence? The goal is not to teach, it’s to inspire learning. How does that teacher show those students how to use
2. Classroom routines and procedures: We often get bogged down in the idea that we’re managing kids. The very best teachers create an environment where the routines and procedures are driven by the students–student responsibility and student leadership. Students will manage themselves and lead one another to ensure a safe environment.
3. Relationships for learning: Our job is to create relationships between the student and the content. The very best teachers can sell the most difficult content to any student who walks into the room. They inspire kids before they even begin to bring that content to life.
4. Ability to engage students: Engagement and learning optimization take place when the content is relevant and rigorous, when the content and the way the teacher delivers it leads to a gradual responsibility for the student,
“These four levels are the prerequisites to creating an environment for excellence,” he said. “A classroom that is void of these four levels will never reach high levels of learning for all kids, because we don’t teach content–we teach kids, and those four levels are about creating an environment where we teach kids first, and then we lead to content.”
Helping teachers reach excellence includes building an excellent support system:
1. Through the school-wide system: Guarantee sustainability of broad concepts of teacher effectiveness. Resources, school-wide professional learning, supports and explanations should work to ensure that every teacher reaches high levels of success.
2. Through teacher team supports: Collaborative teams inspire teachers to work and learn together to master each of the levels. Teachers must have time to work with their peers to improve their instructional excellence.
3. Through an individualized excellence plan: These plans, built with teachers, can help school leaders and teachers identify where the teachers struggle and how to improve those struggles.
Educators can build excellence through risk-taking and mistake-making, because failure is a natural part of any process, and the essential to reach excellence, Wink said. No failure means no growth, and no growth means no excellence.
Wink’s forthcoming book, “A Leader’s Guide to Excellence in Every Classroom,” will be released in November.
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