Education Week - April 28, 2021 - 17

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What Ed. Leaders Can Learn From a Wildfire
About Spending Billions in Federal Funds
When recovering from the pandemic, here's what to avoid

n 1949, 15 smoke jumpers parachuted into
Montana to fight what they believed to be
a routine forest fire in an area known as
Mann Gulch. Headed by foreman Wag
Dodge, the young men expected the fire to
be expelled within a matter of hours. Once
on the ground, Dodge quickly became
concerned as he realized the fire wasn't following typical patterns. Within minutes, the fire had exploded-
surrounding the men on both sides of the gulch.
According to Norman Maclean's award-winning
account of this event, Dodge called on his men to drop
their tools and follow him. In the clear brush in front of
him, he pulled out a book of matches and lit the grass at
his feet on fire.
In the heat and flames, Dodge's men thought he'd
lost his mind and ran for their lives still clutching their
tools. Realizing his pleas were fruitless, Dodge wet
a handkerchief, put it over his mouth, and lay in the
ash at his feet. What Dodge remembered, and his less
experienced team did not, is that fire needs fuel to
burn. By creating this escape fire, when the explosive
flames approached Dodge, they simply swept past the
ashes that were once fuel and jumped over the haven
he'd created. When he emerged, all but two of his men
had perished.
The story of Mann Gulch is a popular case study
among sociologists. The University of Michigan's Karl
E. Weick characterizes the tragedy as a cosmology
episode-an inconceivable situation where individuals
face a challenge unlike anything familiar or known.
During such an episode, a collapse of shared sense
making can lead to a sudden loss of meaning, where
individuals cling to rigid routines out of panic when
those very routines stand in the way of creating a new,
liberating path forward.
As children return to school after as much as a year
away, so, too, are educators collectively facing a " Mann
Gulch " moment. Interruptions in schooling, tragic
loss of life, and a new and uncertain normal presents
challenges never before faced by our field. In the

wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented
$129 billion will become available for educators
and students through the American Rescue Plan.
Education leaders making decisions about how to
invest these substantial funds ought not to tightly grip
status quo routines, which weigh down our students as
heavily as the equipment Dodge's men clung to in their
panic.
Here are the entrenched routines that education
leaders should reconsider to reject that panic and
create a new map for the future:
1. Assuming that teachers can do it all. The
impact of teacher capacity on student achievement is
well-defined. But as teachers grapple with interrupted
periods of students' learning, it's unreasonable to buy
into narratives that teachers have superpowers that
will allow them to magically catch all students up to
grade-level tasks and ensure students have the social
and emotional well-being to thrive.
In reality, education leaders must set teachers up
for instructional success by providing high-quality
instructional materials and meaningful professional
learning experiences grounded in those materials.
Ensuring that all students can achieve at high levels
after the pandemic is challenging, but possible, if we
give teachers the tools to focus on their primary role
as academic leaders. This also means that leaders
must prioritize adequate support from related service
providers, including school counselors and social
workers.
2. Underestimating the importance of
family partnerships. Partnerships with parents
and caregivers shouldn't be reduced to breakfast
celebrations and year-end award ceremonies.
Around the country, parent- and family-advocacy
groups have shown education leaders that they
want a seat at the table when it comes to making
decisions about their children. Clear and transparent
communication is necessary between and among

families and educators, and it starts with providing
clarity around what children should be mastering at
each grade level.
3. Reducing equity work to checkbox
transactions. Equity rightfully should frame our
approach to the work of education, and yet commonly,
this work becomes a series of either checkbox items or
performative acts. Equity work ought to permeate and
center not only our mindsets but our actions. Too often,
we sell this work short by patting ourselves on the back
after participating in anti-racist book clubs, without
doing the more difficult but critical work of refining our
approach to curriculum, instruction, and assessment.
4. Deprioritizing student voices. Experts in the
burgeoning field of improvement science say that a
critical step in pursuing growth is prioritizing the enduser perspective. In education, for far too long we've
ignored our users: the students in front of us. As we
consider the road ahead, leaders should be intentional
in creating spaces for student voice and prioritizing
students' agency in their experiences.
5. Ignoring plausible ideas that are right in
front of us. Perhaps the most tragic element of Mann
Gulch was that a viable solution was right in front of
the smoke jumpers had they been willing to drop their
tools. Wag Dodge knew this: He looked at every piece
of data he had, thinking beyond typical firefighting
routines and identities. As their leader urged them
to reconsider their current reality, the young smoke
jumpers may have thought, " Who am I without my
tools? "
We, too, as educators must reconsider routinized
practices that don't serve all students well. If we cling
too hard to standard practices, especially given our new
landscape, we'll waste an opportunity to fully realize
the promise of a free and appropriate education for all
children. n

By Kristen
McQuillan
McQUILLAN is an
education consultant
and a project director
for TNTP who spent over
a decade working for
Baltimore public schools
as a teacher, instructional
coach, and administrator.
She is a doctoral student
at Vanderbilt University's
Peabody College. The views
expressed in this essay are
her own.

EDUCATION WEEK | April 28, 2021 | www.edweek.org/opinion | 17

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Education Week - April 28, 2021

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