Putting Out Fires: A Framework for Solving Problems in Your Classroom or School

PREFACE

IF THIS FRAMEWORK WORKS IN JUVENILE JUSTICE CLASSROOMS, IT CAN WORK ANYWHERE!

My greatest passions are creating active learning experiences and designing student-centered educational environments. I have extensive experience working in unique educational environments, including secure schools and international schools. I strive to improve education for students confined in the US juvenile justice (US JJ) system and work diligently to provide purposeful professional development to educators around the world. I, along with Kat Crawford, created the framework found within this book as a response to the consistent problems educators face working in the US JJ system.

Education inside the US JJ system is littered with obstacles teachers must overcome to make learning happen. Education inside JJ facilities is provided at a secure school. To access the secure school, teachers enter and exit a locked facility such as a jail or detention center daily. They teach students with access to very few resources, and they often teach multiple grade levels at once. Despite these challenges, there are incredible teachers working inside secure schools across the country, helping students thrive using lessons that are engaging, relevant, and meaningful. The Putting Out Fires Framework offered in this book has helped teachers in secure schools solve problems by implementing creative practical solutions; it will very likely work for you and your school. I do not mean to belittle your specific challenges. Educators everywhere face problems every single day—but educators in secure schools experience the problems you typically face and many more. This framework works for JJ teachers, and it can work for you, too!

THE ALARM SOUNDS. Firefighters rush to don their protective gear. When they suit up, they understand their purpose in the world changes. They are no longer average folks going about their day—driving to work, running errands, mowing the lawn, or cooking dinner. When they suit up, firefighters understand they may be fighting a dangerous fire, and their mindset shifts, enabling them to complete safety checks and ensure team members are prepared before running into a burning building, saving lives, and extinguishing the fire.

I work with teachers in secure schools across the United States. When I ask them how they are doing, I often get the same response: Oh, you know, I’m just putting out fires. Many teachers in secure schools feel like they spend most or all of their time solving problems. Maybe you can relate to this feeling; I know I can.

Why do educators feel like they are constantly solving problems? Why do educators feel that these problems are the same problems they solved yesterday and the day before and the day before that? What makes these problems persist the way they do? The Putting Out Fires Framework outlined in this book will help you discover the root causes of persistent problems and create lasting solutions. Can this book solve all the world’s problems? No, but what this book can do is present a process that encourages you to shift your mindset in order to create sustainable change in your classrooms and schools. The Putting Out Fires Framework encourages you to select a specific problem, discover its core causes and symptoms, uncover everyone affected by the problem, and create a practical, sustainable solution. I truly believe that you can break the cycle of constantly putting out fires. I’ll show you how to implement sustainable solutions to problems so they do not crop up again and again.

Before we get started, it’s time to put on your firefighting gear. You are no longer a regular teacher or administrator going about the day—grading assignments, creating lesson plans, attending meetings, and advocating for students. You are now preparing to fight a fire—by which I mean a persistent problem. The process outlined over the next several chapters may seem overwhelming at first, but it will present a path forward that is easy to understand and that excites you with its potential. Completing the process will break the current cycle of ineffective responses to recurring issues and will become your own personal firefighting gear as you begin to tackle challenges.

DESIGN THINKING

The Putting Out Fires Framework was created specifically to leverage the design-thinking process to assist educators in solving problems. While there is no single definition of design thinking, it is widely recognized as a way of thinking, a process, and a path forward that allows people using the design thinking process to view problems in a new way while keeping humans at the center. Tim Brown, chair of IDEO, says that design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success (n.d.). Design thinking allows people who may not consider themselves to be creative to address challenges using creative tools, [bringing] together what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable (IDEO, n.d.). IDEO is considered the current leader in design thinking, but the process has existed for decades. We know that early glimpses of design thinking date back to the 1950s and 60s, although these references were more within the context of architecture and engineering (Dam and Siang, 2022). We also know that World War II had a profound effect on strategic thinking, . . . and we have looked for new ways to solve complex problems ever since (Dam and Siang, 2022). In the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, many notable people began connecting design to problem solving, including cognitive scientist Herbert A. Simon. In 1969, Simon published a book, The Sciences of the Artificial, in which he was the first to connect design to a way of thinking. Simon contributed many ideas throughout the 1970s which are now regarded as principles of design thinking (Dam and Siang, 2022), including rapid prototyping, an activity you will complete in a future chapter. One reason design thinking was used as a basis for the framework is that the process helps you remain focused on solutions instead of problems. If we place our focus on the problem itself, we often become stuck complaining about the problem without actually creating action steps to solve it. In the 1980s, Bryan Lawson concluded that scientists were problem-focused problem-solvers whereas the designers were solution-focused (Dam and Siang, 2022).

In 1991, IDEO was founded. They quickly injected design thinking into areas other than business and science by creating a user-friendly path to success for those without a degree in design methodology. In 2004 David Kelley founded the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford—commonly known as the d.school (Dam and Siang, 2022). IDEO and the d.school are both excellent resources for learning more about design thinking. For the purposes of this book, design thinking may be viewed as a process of looking deeply into problems while keeping people at the center of the process and remaining solution focused.

The Putting Out Fires Framework uses design thinking to explore the true causes of a problem and discover all potential solutions for it. With numerous activities to complete for separate steps in the process, this book offers many ways to practice design thinking. The Putting Out Fires Framework includes activities specifically curated or created for educators solving problems. The activities in this book delve deeply into current problems in education to learn about the causes and symptoms, keep humans at the center of the process, stay focused on solutions, and create practical action steps for implementing a successful solution.

THE PROCESS

The process outlined in