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Yes, that title was for shock value. It’s something we hate all hate to think about, but my suggestion is that we all begin planning for failure as soon as we are back in the classroom this Fall. That’s a bit dramatic, I guess.

As I type this, I swear I hear a resounding “UGH” across the nation.  But odds are at least one of your scores will be questionable— will be in a range where you realize you might have to revisit a component or two. The process of National Board certification was written BY teachers, FOR teachers. So what separates those who achieve from those who do not?

National Board Certified Teachers Have a Growth Mindset

Teachers who achieve National Board certification are generally teachers with a growth mindset. So it’s not so much as planning for failure as it is planning for growth.  I personally believe that teachers who see the National Board certification process as a growth process are the ones who will achieve. Let’s face it, on any given day we are, each of us, excellent teachers. We can be great teachers even if we don’t understand differentiation or know the word “formative assessment.” So some of the process we are undergoing is proving that we are aware of new trends in teaching. Part of achieving your NBCT is realizing that National Board Certified Teachers are lifelong learners in their professional development and in their classrooms.

I know plenty of amazing teachers who did not achieve their NBCT on their first try. I know of several teachers who missed achieving by five or fewer points! Some achieved by the skins of their teeth, as it were. One of those was me. I managed my certification in one year with 12 points to spare. And I say that not to brag nor to demean myself. I say that to you because it’s a great thing to be prepared to try again. 

“It’s a great thing to be prepared to try again.”

The Process Isn’t for Wimps

As I began school the Fall after I submitted, my mind wandered to how I might feel if I didn’t “get it.” I was the first teacher in my building and the fifth teacher in my district to attempt National Board certification. Would I be a laughingstock? Probably. After all, only 30-40% of teachers who attempted their National Board certification actually received it. (Based on unofficial data— this still seems to be the trend.) So I thought about the mindset I’d need to survive the blow that failing to achieve in such a public arena might deal me. 

Why do I say public arena? Because you have to get signatures from parents and colleagues and sometimes your Principal. You need support of tech people sometimes and other teachers who will read your work. Talk about putting yourself out there! This is why so many really good teachers won’t even attempt National Board certification. It requires the willingness to fail publicly on your first try.

National Board Certified Teachers Value the Process

I advise all candidates to have a canned answer when their friends, relatives and colleagues ask about the results of their National Board pursuit. Something like, “You know, it’s a 1-5 year process and I really don’t know when I’ll be done. There will probably be parts I will have to retake since there is a 30-40% pass rate the first time you take a component. It’s meant to be a growth process, not a check list.” Hopefully they will understand. And I’m betting they will.

The reason teachers say the process is the best PD they’ve ever done is partly because your mind never quits growing after you’ve begun. You will enter your classroom the next Fall thinking about what your work would look like if you were going to submit it this time. And to my way of thinking, that will benefit you. 

Now you know more what you are doing— the product you are trying to synthesize as you pull together the requirements of a component, the NBPTS Standards®, the Five Core Propositions®, and the Architecture of Accomplished Teaching® in the context of your classroom with these students at this particular time. Believe me when I say, the sequence of instruction I taught the Fall after I submitted to the National Board was superior to the one I gave them. Because coming into school after the summer with time to reflect on my experience the year before was powerful.

This is the power I hope you will harness as you await your scores in December. Rest this summer knowing your mind works behind the scenes to assimilate the learning you did this past year. Then, put that learning to work when you enter your classroom by going ahead and re-doing any or all of your components. If you find out that your scores aren’t high enough, you will be well on your way to a better product anyway. If you achieve— well, heck. Your kids just had a great semester with you and you can breathe more easily. You’ve lost nothing since you didn’t have to pay anything before February.

National Board Certified Teachers Have Grit

There’s a lot of great research about the positive effects of failure. Failure makes us stronger when we dig deep and demonstrate grit. I’m sure that’s what you want for your students. One NBCT said she embarked on her National Board journey because she asks her students to challenge themselves every day and she thought maybe she should walk the talk.

So this is planning to fail, but let’s put a more positive spin on it. What if we look at it as putting our experience with the National Board process to good use— which is what great teachers do. What if we look at doing our best work next Fall as what good teachers do.

Do it because you learned a lot this past year, and You Rock! 

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At this point in the year, candidates are writing and revising their written commentaries for National Board certification components, and they’ve heard a lot of advice about how to save space—some of which leave the writing almost unreadable. It’s not because the ideas and information aren’t good, but in general, candidates aren’t really ready for the information and don’t understand the reasons behind the advice.  Here’s what you need to know about writing to achieve National Board certification.

Start by writing your first draft of whichever component you’re on; begin by copying and pasting the prompts into a Word document and then answering the questions as clearly as possible below them. Then follow these tips to make your writing clear and concise.

Tip #1— Edit for content before using abbreviations

Before you begin using abbreviations like Sts for students, or the & sign rather than the word “and,” go through the prompts and make sure you’ve answered all of them. Take out any information that doesn’t answer one of the prompts. Go through your answers and look for statements to which someone could ask “Why do you say that?” or “How do you know?” In this case, you’ve been vague and you need to add a concrete example.

To ensure that your writing is concise and relevant, watch this video from Dr. Jenny Santilli, NBCT.

Now that you have thoroughly answered your prompts, used specific examples, and learned to be more succinct—now you can begin to look for space saving techniques.

Tip #2— Look for redundancies

For example, get rid of the double spaces after ending punctuation. 

Another example is using words that aren’t needed to convey the meaning. I used the word “that” too much. I’d write, “I thought that Student A needed more time to work.” It was easy enough to look for all the “thats” and take them out. The sentence reads as well when I write, “I thought Student A needed more time to work.”

One teacher wrote: “I teach grades 9-12 in a public school. I teach Algebra, Geometry, and Consumer Math.” She could easily combine the sentences to say, “I teach Algebra, Geometry, and Consumer Math, grades 9-12 in a public school.” Combining these sentences saved eight spaces. 

Once you’ve identified the places where you are typing unnecessarily repetitive keystrokes, you are ready to begin saving space with smaller words.

Tip #3— Use smaller words and shorter phrases

My best tip is to take out the words “and” or “but” and use a semicolon. For example, “In my classroom we value every student’s opinion; we listen before we speak” replaces “In my classroom we value every student’s opinion, and we listen before we speak.” When you find appropriate ways to join independent clauses, you will likely find that you’ve saved twenty to forty spaces in your writing.

When you re-read your work, look for long phrases that can be replaced with one word. “As well as” can be replaced with “and.” If you’ve used a plethora of words (change that to “a lot” of words) in an explanation, you can use a thesaurus to find a shorter word.  Isn’t it interesting that we can use the skills we once used to make our writing more elaborate to make our writing less so? We are using the thesaurus to look for less impressive words. Another example is in the first sentence of this paragraph. I could have written “As you re-read your work” and saved two spaces.

Educational jargon can sometimes be simplified. For example, which is shorter, “our state’s summative assessment” or “our state’s end-of-year test?”  You can save 4 spaces here. Look for opportunities to choose shorter words and phrases. 

The first time you use an educational term like Common Core Standards (CCS), you can put the abbreviation in parentheses and then use that abbreviation thereafter rather than write it out each time. Whole-brain teaching (WBT) is another example.

Tip #4— Use numbers rather than writing out their names 

Here we are again, undoing all those rules our English teachers taught us. If you can, follow the English mechanics rules. However, if you need to, you can write that you teach 4 sections of Spanish 1, rather than four. As an aside, did you notice that I used a 1 rather than the Roman numeral “I” for Spanish I? The reason we are being careful about abbreviations is that we want clarity.  Spanish I might not be the perfect example, but hopefully you can see what I mean by deciding what looks and reads more clearly.

Tip #5— Write well if you are an English teacher

Although we say you can flout the rules of English mechanics in writing for the National Board, this won’t work if you are an English teacher. English teachers historically have the lowest NBCT pass rates. Assessors of English education cannot look the other way as you butcher your own content area. Writing well is actually a part of being an accomplished ELA teacher. This doesn’t mean you write literature to submit to the National Board; you submit a good piece of technical writing that answers all the prompts. It means you back up your claims with evidence.

Tip #6— Strive to be clear

Clarity is the rule to worry about most. If an assessor hails from a different state than you, he may not be familiar with some of the terminology or names you use. If a font makes a word look odd, perhaps look for ways to make sure it’s clear. And don’t stress over that or take it too far, please.

Finally, If you find you need more space, you can begin to abbreviate names (Student A becomes SA; Robert becomes R; students could become sts.) 

Besides fonts or unusual terms that aren’t clear, I have seen candidates trying to abbreviate to save space to the point that their paper is distracting.  

For example, one teacher wrote: “12 sts age 9-10. Math Cncpts. CCS.4.1.2 numberlines & plc value.”

What a struggle for an assessor to read 13 pages like this! 

There is a reason we have been taught to write well, and that reason is to communicate.  Although assessors are taught to ignore poor writing and to try to power through difficult papers, they are only human and you are doing yourself a disservice if you use too many distracting abbreviations. If you’ve made the effort with tips 1-4, you will not need to chop up your paper in an awkward way. 

So here is the gist of this post--please try to communicate the answers to your prompts and your evidence to the assessor in a clear, consistent and convincing manner. The best method for saving space is to get rid of sentences that don’t have a purpose and to tighten your writing so each sentence means exactly what you need it to mean with the fewest words and letters possible.

This process is rigorous and causes us to think very deeply. Many revisions is the norm. You’ve got this.

If you need more information about writing for the National Board, we have an entire chapter about it in our book, Mapping Your National Board Journey.