Stats Solve Sunday Scaries about School

Every year, people across the country get the "Sunday Scaries' because school is about to start. For those that don't know, 'Sunday Scaries refers to the feeling people get, often on a Sunday evening before the start of a work or school week, where the anxieties you are feeling about the days ahead come to the surface. I know I got it as a child, but it may be hard to believe that I also got it as a teacher and even an administrator, even working in Montessori schools for my whole career. The return of the school year comes with so many wonderful new and exciting things, such as making new friends, having new and exciting experiences, and just getting back into real routines. It also comes with a fair amount of wondering about growth, outcomes, and how people will feel about the pressures that come with those things. For years, particularly early in my career, I was plagued by all the "what-ifs," thinking about all the worst-case scenarios when it came to the children and families with which I worked. What if the children don't learn to read? What if the parents get really mad at me? What if we lose our funding because our children don't reach their test score targets? What if I am not good enough? I could go on forever.

As I got more "seasoned" in my practice, I started to learn more about the power of statistics as it related to my personal practice and that of the school with which I was working. Statistics, according to Wikipedia, is the field that deals with gathering, arranging, analyzing, understanding, and displaying data. Now, I never learned to be a statistician, but I did learn to use data in ways that informed the work that I did everyday so that I could make decisions based on facts rather than feelings and remove my emotions (and the emotions of others) out of outcomes. Things got a lot less scary when I could say exactly why or why not something was happening. I'll give you some examples.

When I worked in public Montessori, funding had a direct relationship to test scores. When I was working in the classroom, the way that data helped me was by showing me real numbers around progress and skills. At the beginning of the year, I would assess where all my children were in terms of skills needed. I could track (for example) how many letter sounds my second-year Primary students knew. When my third years took assessments that examined their letter knowledge or reading ability, I could incorporate the information from the test into my practice (ie: kids that knew fewer letter sounds got more 1:1 time with me to practice that skill until they were over that hump). When conference time would come, I would be able to show exactly how I had made progress with particular children. What's more, if progress wasn't being made, I also had the data to share with interventionists or even the special education department to refer for further testing. It was a win-win for me and the children, as it removed the wondering out of it and drastically reduced my worries.

As an administrator, I could look at data across a whole level or program to learn that overall, all 3rd-grade children did well on math facts except for the 3rd graders in one class. That data would prompt me to observe and ask questions. I could present the overall data of strengths and challenges to our teachers and work with the level to help create systems to support the classroom or teacher who needed it. And it didn't matter if I was in a public or independent school. These days, particularly post-lockdown, families are paying attention to their children's education in ways they didn't before. Millenials are the parents of today. They want to know all the details. And we can show them. We can honor their deep interest in all the parts of their child's experience at school.

Again, using data has meant that there have been few questions about what children need, which means that we can figure out tactics to help solve issues that come up. We can have answers when people have questions. This makes everything less scary. There are far fewer unknowns because the problems and worries are now "knowns."

It is amazing how much of a difference data and statistics can make in one's life when one works in education, even in Montessori. For far too long (and in far too many schools), we can still often rely on this idea that we should just "trust the process" and that everything will turn out okay. I think those days are gone. Instead, I say we trust the data. I can and will lead us to the best possible decisions and the best outcomes for children. That is who we are ultimately working for.