In the life cycle of a butterfly, there is a stage when the caterpillar sheds its skin inside the cocoon and becomes a kind of glop, or what our first graders called “butterfly soup.” From this soup, the cells organize into a butterfly. This cycle repeats again and again. This is metamorphosis–defined in biology as a profound change in form from one stage to the next in the life history of an organism.
I’ve been thinking about butterfly soup while watching the progress with a new program for teacher leadership in Denver Public Schools. Identified and trained teachers are taking on a role in their buildings as coaches and to some extent, evaluators for their colleagues. While I’ve seen minor confusions in the shift in peer relationships, I’ve seen a higher degree of chaos as the hierarchical structure with administrators is broken into. Now teachers are potentially elevated in power, voice and advocacy in regard to the school building’s teachers and their teaching. They are now part of the conversation in the administrator’s office. In schools where they are sticking with it, there are already signs of a reorganization into a new coherent structure for fostering effective teaching–a metamorphosis in what teacher development looks like.
If we take a stance that growth can happen not only ‘even when’ but ‘especially when’ we are in the muck then we can keep at it long enough for metamorphosis to occur, perhaps to something beautiful.
As Gerardo Munoz, a new teacher leader (and great teacher) said, ‘On good days, I feel like a trailblazer. On bad days, I feel like I’m about to fall off a cliff. At the end of every day, I feel I’m better than I was at the beginning of the day.’