A few years back, but what feels like a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

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“I understand what you are saying”, my administrator responded. “But I really need you to complete lesson plans. The improvement plan will stay in place for next year, and we will schedule periodic follow-up meetings to ensure your compliance.”

I don’t get visually agitated very often – I have a cool exterior and can delay my reactions. But inside I knew that this was the end.

I simply no longer had the time for this nonsense.

I had spent 10 years teaching in the public education system, and was blessed to serve as an instructor in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program for mathematics and as the IB Extended Essay Coordinator for our school.

I walked away from that this past year, after a conversation with my supervising administrator served as the proverbial “straw”.

I’m not bragging when I say that I was very good at what I did.

By every measure that the school system cares about, I was killing it – with the exception of one.

Each year I always knew that I would take a hit on my yearly evaluation because I very rarely submitted lesson plans.

Let me be clear, these “lesson plans” are nothing more than a bureaucratic check-box, as the documents are completely worthless when it comes to the actual instruction of a class.

So, I was willing to accept a “Needs Improvement” on my Instructional Planning standard for the evaluation each spring.

Completely worth it, so that I could use that time on things that actually make a real impact on student learning.

On my overall evaluation I only needed 35 points to merit “Exceeds Standard”. Standard 7, Student Academic Progress, carried a weight of 4, and all other categories had a weight of 1. So with my 4 points for “Exceeds Standard” in this category every year, I already had 16 of the 35 points. (4 points X 4 weight = 16 points)

But I was a little surprised when I walked into my evaluation meeting and saw that this year my administrator had marked the Instructional Planning category as “Unsatisfactory”.

I was shocked when she said she was going to put me on an improvement plan.

And I was more than a bit shocked when she told me that she was going to put me on an improvement plan to ensure I was submitting all my lesson plans in a timely fashion the next year.

I didn’t say much in that meeting – I decided to wait until I had even more ammunition at my disposal.

But I certainly wasn’t very pleased inside.

When I got back to my classroom I read that section of the evaluation carefully.

The pre-filled descriptor for the unsatisfactory planning mark said, “The teacher does not plan, or plans without adequately using the school’s curriculum, effective strategies, resources, and data.”

That was downright laughable.

I wrote the district’s curriculum guide for the Algebra 2 course a year earlier.

And I had led the Algebra 2 team in the building for the last several years. Most of them were using at least part of my assessments and my calendar.

And while I certainly cannot take all the credit for this, under my leadership, the Algebra 2 team had gone from having some of the lowest passing scores on the state standardized tests to having some of the highest of any math course in the building.

And the Algebra 2 standardized test is arguably the most difficult a student takes in all of high school.

As a side note, our standardized tests are known as an “SOL”, or “Standards of Learning” test. But I joke that if you happen to know that acronym, “SOL”, by a different name – yeah, it means about the same thing. 😉

I had created an online course blog that had homework, resources, and updated schedules for upcoming instruction and assessments. Students had no excuses when they missed class, because everything was there.

I had a Google calendar to which all of my students have access, and is shared with the other teachers, which contains all of the useful information that would be included on a lesson plan, plus all the practical stuff that wouldn’t be on a lesson plan.

I had even taken the time this year to go through and find relevant Khan Academy videos and link directly to them from the calendar for the more challenging topics – which is most of the topics in Pre-IB/Honors Algebra 2 with Trigonometry.

Students, parents, and other teachers knew exactly what topics were going to be covered on each instructional day, the SOLs that would be addressed that day, and when quizzes and tests were upcoming.

I had similar structures in place for my IB Diploma courses. In fact, I handed students a comprehensive calendar for the upcoming quarter at the beginning of each 9 Weeks, complete with homework assignments, quizzes, tests, and projects.

I plan.

And I plan well.

I just refuse to waste time filling out the school lesson plan template.

So, I bided my time until I had data from the current year’s SOL testing.

I knew I would have an overwhelming case. And I figured my administrator would have no choice but to change her mind and rescind the improvement plan.

Sure enough, I had a record number of perfect scores on the Algebra 2 SOL, as well as a record-high number of those who scored an “Advanced Pass”.

Only one of my students didn’t pass, and she was close – surprisingly close, considering the only thing she did in my class all year was draw cartoons.

Although I wouldn’t have IB test scores back until July, I had several years of data to go on.

I had averaged nearly a full point above the world average every single year – on a 7 point scale!

That means my students were consistently outperforming the rest of the world, with test scores about 14% higher than the world average each year. And I had no reason to believe this year would be any different.

I thought the data was strongly skewed in my favor. It should be obvious that not only am I very good at what I was doing, but I should also probably keep doing it the same way.

Honestly, filling out a ridiculous lesson plan template would have what impact on my results?

I went back to my administrator at the end of the year and presented my insurmountable pile of evidence.

I even pointed out that I had shared my course Google calendar with her for the last 3 or 4 years.

But despite my undeniable test results, my mountain of evidence showing that I conduct effective planning and instruction, and my track record as a well-respected 10-year veteran and master of my craft, she refused to budge.

Her conclusion was that she still needed to put me on an improvement plan because she needed lesson plans.

My conclusion was that I no longer had time for the bureaucratic games and nonsense.

I spent the next couple of months engineering my escape.

I mean, I had been on my way out the door since I arrived. This very administrator was in the room at my pre-hire interview where I blatantly told them I didn’t know if it would be 1 year or 5, but that I wouldn’t be teaching in the school system forever.

And I had quietly been building a little side-hustle business with a partner in the B2B lead generation space that we hoped would one day take us full-time.

That little side project was already paying me more than school was each month, but I needed a safety net.

In August, I went back to the school and pulled my administrator into a brief meeting with the building Principal.

I told them that it was time for me to move on and do other things.

They were both surprised, and I think more so when my principal offered to write a letter of recommendation and I kindly declined, telling them that I had no immediate plans to get another job.

I jokingly told them that it was time for me to retire from teaching. This elicited a few comments showing they were a bit taken aback, given my apparent age.

I told them I might be a bit older than I appear.

What I didn’t tell them was that I had consistently been making over $100/hour writing freelance direct response sales copy for the last couple of months.

If I only wrote for 10 hours each week, I more than covered my school salary.

Nor did I tell them about the side hustle that was now making monthly deposits equal to twice what my salary paid.

It was time to stop wasting my life mired down in bureaucratic paperwork.

It was time to free myself up to do the truly important work in the world to which I was called – changing the way we approach education across the globe.

I had been telling students, colleagues, family, friends and anyone who would listen that I was going to write a book on “What We Don’t Teach Our Kids”.

Our world is changing at a pace so rapid no one can predict what the landscape will look like for these kids in 20 years.

And we aren’t even adequately preparing them for the world they step out into today!

Technology is going to, and already is to a great extent, change the modalities of instruction and learning.

AI is going to provide a huge leap forward in that regard very soon.

But if we don’t address WHAT we are teaching, we are doomed.

More efficient methods of teaching the same ineffective material is a zero-sum approach.

The real question that demands to be answered is, “What personal operating system will best enable us to survive and thrive in a future where the only constant is a rapid and ever-increasing rate of exponential change?”

I don’t have a complete answer for this.

But I know that the core is an adaptability level that has been heretofore unprecedented.

The approach must be multifaceted – mind, body, emotions, inter- and intra-personal, state change, flow, and spirit.

I mean, what if we merely started with teaching our kids HOW to learn?

Expanding their working, short-term, and long-term memories, teaching them how to encode information most efficiently and effectively and increasing their processing and reading speeds?

Doesn’t it ever strike you as a bit crazy that with all the crap a student is required to “learn” in school, metacognition, “how to learn” isn’t on the list?

Our current educational system is a waste of time, and the students instinctively know it.

It’s time we did something to change it. Will you help me do so?

-Dan Pine