As parents of seven and eleven year old children, we are preparing for a great adventure. Soon we will be venturing to see the Harry Potter exhibits at Universal Studios. While Star Wars was the great adventure of my youth, Harry Potter is the quest of my children's. Preparations for this journey have included watching the movies as my youngest has not seen them all nor is ready to read the books. Whereas Star Wars provided great examples of constructivist learning, Harry Potter takes us straight to Hogwarts Academy where we discover the truest learning comes from doing.
Why do kids flock to Harry Potter, Star Wars, and the Lord of the Rings? Simple, the unlikely hero finds themselves in unexpected circumstances and learns to do things previously thought impossible. It is the hero who does the doing. Not the mentor, not the teacher, but rather the unlikely moisture farm boy from Tattooine destroying the Death Star. In school, we have traditionally sought opportunities for learning that prepared us by transferring content knowledge. In a world where knowledge was scarce, the skills for quickly remembering knowledge, transferring knowledge, and finding knowledge were paramount. What you knew could quite frankly save your live and those around you. If you were bitten by a brown recluse spider, recognizing that it was a spider bite and getting to the hospital as fast as possible made a difference. Now, we simply take a picture of the infected area, compare it to Web MD, and seek support necessary. In our prior experiences, much like the children of Harry Potter, learning could and needed to look like this:
However, we don't live in a knowledge economy any more. We live in an innovation and creation economy. The value is not in what we know but what we can do. This is a benefit to both us and the children. No longer do we need to be the guardian of the facts but rather the issuers of challenges. It is more effective for us to use the content as the springboard for the creative and collaborative things that the children can do. The experiences and explorations we create can be ones in which children are passionate. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the children learn a series of basic spells. These spells become the groundings in which they are able to collaboratively stop Lord Voldemort from returning. Their learnings and background knowledge, such as Ron's understanding of chess, become effective tools in solving the film's challenge.
In film, much as life, heroes don't save the day as solo acts, but rather collaborative entities. Where would Luke Skywalker be without Han, Leia, Chewie, Lando, C3PO, and R2D2? Frodo Baggins would have never fulfilled the quest without Sam Gamgee next to him. In Harry Potter, like Ender's Game, the true solutions only come from information and skills the children can develop themselves:
Our children crave the opportunities to lead in their learning. Content is important, but what one does with it is more important. Children being given problems, resources, and the challenge to create great things is more powerful than any grounding in rigorous knowledge of our current time.
My youngest has been running around for two weeks with a stuffed owl in one hand shouting, the wand chooses the wizard. For him, the wand is the tool that would allow him to do great things. For our kids, whether it be a tablet or a netbook, the digital tools open the world for them to learn about great wonder and create the unimaginable. I wonder how Harry, Ron, and Hermione might feel if Google and Wolfram Alpha were available in the wizarding world.
Growing up, the mirror was something I never bothered to spend much time with. Sure it was in front of me when I brushed my teeth or washed my hands. Occasionally, at special times I did my hair, but lets face it that was pretty rarely. As I grew older, the mirror was this foggy object I stared at simply to make sure I didn't slice my face up as I tried to shave the six hairs on my face. As a kid, mirrors were that thing other people needed. I don't think I understood the power of a mirror until I was engaged or married. See in the mirror, my wonderful bride would find things I could never see. She could find the tiniest start of a possible scar that I, who had spent hundreds of hours staring into her gorgeous face, had never seen. She could see any little bump in her hair. She could notice any fluctuation in her weight. And she could make judgements on each of these. Like all of us, infatuated with the one we love, while I see amazing beauty, she can provide a deposition of things out of kilter after standing before the mirror.
In the book, Good to Great, Jim Collins identifies that one of the essential components of moving towards greatness is the Stockdale Paradox. This is based on the life and philosophy of Admiral Jim Stockdale, a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War.
“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end – which you can never afford to lose – with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” - Admiral Jim Stockdale
Collins' interpretation of the Stockdale Paradox for individuals and organizations is that we must "confront the brutal truth of the situation, yet at the same time, never give up hope." We need to look into the mirror, and truly see who we are and where we are now so that we can identify not only where we want to go but the next step in the journey.
Good to great is based on a growth mindset. It looks at not how one currently ranks, but what potential we have to become the best in the world and how do we move forward in the journey. So the question arises, when we look in the mirror, what do we see, and what do we expect to see. Do we expect sunshine and rainbows or do we see the flaws, the chinks in the armor, the opportunities to make it better.
On the wall of the chapel at my temple, the words "Know Before Whom You Stand" is written. While the implication is that we stand before god, more readily we stand before ourselves gazing back deciding who we are and who we will become. We make choices and we make strides. We take actions and we act in faith that we will move forward. The mirror is a look into ourselves and into our souls. In the beginning we may believe we are judged by an employer, ranked by others, but the reality is that we are the ones who make judgement, we are the ones who decide who we are and what we can become, we are the ones who look at the standard and decide can we move closer to greatness today.
In my favorite book, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, the story ends with the tale of Ender's new journey as a traveler who goes and tells the stories of others after they have passed. Card describes the role as such, "a believer would arise beside the grave to be the Speaker for the Dead, and say what the dead would have said, but with full candor, hiding no faults and pretending no virtues... their life was worthwhile enough, despite their errors, that when they died a Speaker should tell the truth for them." And that's the thing. None of us are perfect. None of us are always gold stars. None of us should hold ourselves to such a standard. We need to leave the fixed-mindset world and enter the world of growth. Confront the brutal facts as we look in the mirror and recognize the next step forward in our journey closer to greatness. As Mahatma Ghandi said, "Be the change that you wish to see in the world." We need to be honest in who we are and recognize that there are steps that we can take to become even greater.
I know that I have made mistakes in my journey. I recognize the multiplicity of missteps that have happened. Friends I have wronged, things I have impulsively said or done, feelings I haven't considered. There are moments in this life, I wish I had back. Times at which I could have a do over. I also recognize the opportunities I have created for others, the steps and supports that in my words or deeds have helped them move forward toward greater things. My story is not unique but rather the story of all of us. We each need to look in the mirror and not be the deluded queen asking who is the fairest but see who we are and what we can become.
The amazing thing about my bride is that while she can be hypercritical of herself, her hair, and her outfit, after she gazes into the mirror, she makes a myriad of adjustments and comes out even more beautiful than I could ever imagine. I am not sure she sees all the beauty because she sees what she can do next. Very simply each day whether in front of mirror, raising our family, or working with others she is constantly on the journey good to great.
Growing up I dreamed. We all dreamed. We all knew the phrases. "Bases loaded, two outs, bottom of the ninth, down by three, look who's coming to bat." We could smell the air, feel the tension, hear the sounds of the game. It was a game of individuals. In that moment we would see ourselves: the pitcher, the catcher, the bat, and the ball. The rest faded to black for we dreamed an individual's dream. It was our dream and it probably ends with us. My sons, like many other children, don't dream this dream. They don't watch baseball. They enjoy going to a game in the same way I enjoy going to the theater. Every once in a while it's a fun experience. It was my grandfather's game, my father's game, and my game. But it's not their game and not their friends game either.
As I watch movies, shows, and games on the television, in the background plays Stampylonghead. The sounds of video game walkthroughs play as I watch the heroes of my generation dance in front of me. The clash of time occurs and in the end the art of my generation will be replaced by the art of theirs. Who knew that the Fred Savage masterpiece, The Wizard, would foretell of the direction entertainment would go. However, as the Amazon purchase of the Twitch Gaming Network for one billion dollars demonstrates, perhaps the future in sports entertainment is not on ESPN but rather youth watching youth play video games.
In the past three years education has had two forces driving the need to upgrade our digital devices. The primary urgency has been the Common Core State Standards assessments including PARCC and SMARTERbalanced. The second force has been SAMR. SAMR, a methodology by Dr. Rueben Puentadura that analyzes the role of technology in learning. SAMR looks at the learning experience and identifies how the experience is a substitution, augmentation, modification, or redefinition of the prior learning experience. The interesting thing is that these two forces are at odds. The standards and assessment group drives us towards skills of the knowledge economy. How much information can you know? How can we trick you with confusing language on the test? How can we get you to write so that our robograders can read it and assess it accurately? The funny thing is, when was the last time any of us in the work world wrote the five paragraph essay? When was the last time any of us in the work world did the research paper with note cards and highlighters to write the five page paper. However, the PARCC and SMARTERbalanced assessments are driving educational purchasing decisions.
As I start this next dialogue, let me put my biases on the table. In our district we are both an Apple and Google shop. We actively use and promote Google Apps for Education and use Apple products to access them. As a district, we have earned recognitions from Apple and our leaders, myself and our Director of Innovative Technology and Learning, are both Google Certified Teachers. Simply put, we are not currently a Microsoft shop. That being said, if the Common Core State Standards assessments were driving my purchasing decisions, I would have no choice but to purchase Chromebooks. Simply put, PARCC doesn't currently allow us to use the iPad Mini or the Nexus 7 to participate in the assessment. Furthermore it doesn't allow us to use a tablet at all without the keyboard. This is really interesting as most often (as Stevenson and New Trier are finding out) students prefer the tablets but also choose not to use the keyboards. Their work world is not ours. In a world in which cost is the driver, schools have no choice but to choose the Chromebook.
The trick is that my children's world is not my world. They live in a world in which the Washington Post was saved by Amazon owner Jeff Bezos and the New York Times is up for sale. They are going into the world in which Youtube, Khan Academy, and Lynda.com share how to videos on how to do everything. Their writing is not 2,000 word essays but expository scripts that balance humor, visuals and media. They need the world of SAMR, one in which their products are redefined for another generation. Just this week, Educational Technology and Mobile Learning organized the Google Apps in the SAMR Framework. The interesting thing about this poster, is that in order to redefine the learning, the apps require us to work with others. The tools are often not best on the underpowered Chromebook but ask us to interact with a world through visuals. Mobile cameras like those found on the tablet. Video creation, touch interaction, music making are all part of redefinition. Tasks very poorly done on a Chromebook.
I live and teach Sunday School in a Chromebook district. We share 125 students between five fifth grade classes and we invite the children to Bring their Own Devices to Sunday School. We have watched for 12 weeks now and only three times has a Chromebook come to Sunday School. All by the same child. Every other time, the children self-select either no device, a tablet (most often iOS but there have been a couple of Fires and Nooks), or a phone (mostly iOS but some Android). They prefer, when given the choice to research, read, write, and create on mobile platforms. They send in writings via email and google docs. They make songs and videos. They create and redefine the learning each week. A majority are required to bring Chromebooks to school on a daily basis, yet when it is their own learning, their own choice, their opportunity to select, they choose mobile over portable for their future.
Questions remain about the cost-benefit of digital learning. In the ways we currently measure learning, the balance sheet may not tip in the right direction. The question remains whether these tools truly measure the outputs we need to create within our learners. Does the product of a standardized test truly predict the value a student will bring to our society? There is no question that cost is always a consideration, yet cost is relative. In 1984, a 19 inch Television and a VCR cost $868, nearly $2000 in the current economy after being adjusted for inflation. Yet one of those ended up in almost every American household. When making our purchasing decisions, we need to think of not simply of the test but what we want for our children's learning and their future.
My sons spent yesterday creating levels in Geometry Dash. In a world in which they commonly argue, they spent nine hours refining levels, creating new ones, and receiving comments from other Geometry Dash players in the world. They were creative, collaborative, and found an authentic audience. The oldest one wants permission to create a youtube channel so he can share his let's play game walkthrough videos. He wants to make multi-media expository products. I'm not ready for that yet, but he is. While we plan for assessments of an era and economy past, at least they are preparing for their future.
I realized this past week, that my sixth grader reads my blog. It shouldn't be a surprise considering that as an entering kindergartener he sat over my shoulder and that of my wife's and read our email. What surprised me was that he was actually interested in the contents and was making a point of actually reading it. So, Cameron, while these stories and conversations each week may not always make sense, please know that each dialogue is a brick in the palace that I hope to build for you, your friends, your children, and your children's friends.
My dad is one of the smartest people I know. I would say that he's the smartest, but between a family uncle who went to Harvard Law and some of the interesting, or at least odd, people he introduced me to from Argonne and the University of Chicago, I think it is safe to say at least he is among a group of very smart people I know. He doesn't often share stories from his childhood, as he never wanted us to compare our lives to his, but occasionally he drops a fun nugget for us to learn from or at least laugh with. One of his stories was of the economics class in undergraduate which he got something like 30% on the test. He explained that with the "curve" it was a "B." Moreover, students had gotten less than zero because they had missed the extra credit questions on the test and the professor subtracted points for the errors on that question also. He shared that he hadn't known the extra credit so he simply didn't bother to answer the question. I remember being stunned, this from the guy who missed one on the SAT didn't know the extra credit, 30% being a B. Sure, it was the 60's but there certainly were some interesting grading practices.
One of our coaches shared a story of her two children in high school taking the same class at the same time. They both were assigned the same project and being children of the same household took two completely different approaches. The youngest, a studious worker, began working that night. For a week she researched, wrote, and toiled. A week later she submitted the assignment and earned 100 points. The elder son waited to start the assignment until 9pm on Sunday night and whipped it out in an hour. He turned his product and earned a 95. At home that night at the dinner table he looked at his sister and his parents and simply asked, 5 points, was it worth it?
I was a 3.0 student in high school and college. Exactly 3.0. There was a reason for this. After floundering my first semester at Downers Grove South, my dad simply told me that if you want to drive, you need to earn the good student discount for car insurance and that requires a 3.0. Immediately that next semester I raised enough GPA points to bring my Freshman year average to 3.0 and maintained that average at exactly that point for the next 7 years. For every C there was an A. I calculated exactly what points I needed to have in order to maintain that average each semester. For car insurance, it was worth the 3.0. For everything else your work didn't matter. I learned a lot. I shared a lot. I simply created just enough product to insure I kept my car insurance.
That's the funny thing about grades. We want to see them as motivators, but they're not. They are just ways of ranking the output. They truly don't tell us how much someone is learning, but rather what hoops you are willing or unwilling to do. Pernille Ripp wrote an amazing article earlier this month in MindShift about how she has made the choice to become the change we need to occur. She looked deeply into her sole about her classroom practices and the learning environment and opportunities we need to create. The best part of the article was that it was shared with me by a coach and a 5th grade teacher that is working herself to become the change her students need her to be in order to promote their growth as learners, not 5th graders.
As I look at my work in my current district, I think of my legacy as a student that wandered its halls and what my legacy will be as a leader that went through its buildings. I reflect on the great heritage and our amazing work with assessment, 1:1 learning, our biliteracy program, and content area instruction. I look at the children of my friends growing up who sit within the rooms of our schools and I see the opportunities we are creating. I look at all of our activities working together, and wonder which thing will make the difference. I look into the big sea that is our district and wonder which stone thrown into the water will truly send the ripples through that cause the change that enhances their lives as learners. I am pretty sure that stone was thrown this week. In a district of 5000 students and 350 teachers, 100 children didn't receive a math grade. Three teachers made the choice to send home a progress report that simply had what the children had learned and what they needed to learn next. A simple binary list of you either have this or you need to continue to work on it. A two-page document whose story is not that of the grade or what was covered in this quarter but rather what we are working on, what you are done with, and what you need to work on that. Half of those students are 5th graders who through dialogues with their teachers didn't ask what would we do without grades but rather when will we have this for everything else. Half of those students are kindergartners who perhaps will never know what it is to fail math but rather be always pushing themselves to learn more math. The biggest question amongst the parents to the principal was what will the local video store do for the free movie that children earn with A's in the class. He replied to them, we'll figure it out.
I am so proud of this risk led by these teachers. I am so proud of world of learning and expectation they are creating for our students. And I hope, as Cameron reads this blog he will realize that his mom and I never care what the grade is but rather has he learned it. We are unwilling to bend about him not needing corrections because he got 5 points off nor are we willing to scream when he gets a C after studying for days. What we expect is for him to learn it, understand it, and be able to communicate it. For us, it is not about the rank but rather the learning. These are our bricks we add to your house. We hope it is a glorious palace you build.
Each of us aims to create products that will delight our clients. We want to stun them with the ways we have in a cost-efficient manner innovated in order to create a unique product that fills their desires. We look for employees that will bring ideas and talents to the table so that we can develop new ideas, new products, and reach new clients. Helping grow our businesses, our industries, and our success. This is a simple goal that truly hasn't changed since the 1920's. What has changed is our technologies to reach new clients, capacities to build new products, and our ways to interact with each other. Information, once a scarcity, is now something in abundance. We can have all the knowledge in the world in an instant but can we understand what the client needs, work collaboratively to maximize our talents to fulfill this need, and communicate back to the client this is your product and this is how it works.
In a knowledge economy, information-based assessment made sense. The quicker you could get information, the quicker you could react to the client's needs and make a solution. Standardized-assessments, requiring the good-old #2 pencil could quickly assess what each person knew and identify if they knew enough. The trope used to be, there are no trick questions, you can either do it or not. The funny thing is technology has changed dramatically, the interchange within our world changed dramatically, knowledge is no longer at a premium, and yet our tests merely evolve. Our world has tools straight out of Star Trek, computers that answer questions at a verbal whim, communication devices that fit in our ears and our pockets and can call across the globe, we can land spacecraft on a comet over 300 million miles away. Yet our tests are simple substitutions for the prior generation of Scantrons. Now the questions openly try to trick you with linguistic complexity. The questions build on each other. There are videos integrated. One writes, excuse me types, a little bit of extended responses. Our students will sit for hours demonstrating skills almost useless in the modern workplace. They will sit in classes for hundreds of hours preparing skills almost useless in the modern workplace so they can be assessed by these tests. We can spend billions of dollars and quite frankly the creators of Get Smart or Inspector Gadget could have done better.
See, in those shows, the agent was given a mission to complete. A real task in which they really had to do something. Our lack of vision has created substitutional exams within which we have traditional knowledge based tasks and assessments for a world that requires very little of this. An assessment system that had vision would have used those billions of dollars to have students work together to make real products. Wondering how it could look? Try this:
A school receives 20 boxes for their 79 fourth grade students. On each box are 3 to 4 student ID numbers selected at random by the computer. Each group of 3 to 4 students needs to work together to complete the project inside. They have a week to do it. Inside the box are directions and outcome expectations. The project itself can be both explicit in some details and vague in others. At the end of the week, the children fill the box with their product/project and send it off.
This is real world. One works with people in a group identified by someone else to make a product that someone different requested. One doesn't have a person to constantly ask questions to but instead has infinite access to any knowledge and resource around them. Instead of being bored staring at a screen or a Scantron, our students could be meaningfully assessed based on direct measurable outcomes. Instead of limited knowledge and skill assessment we could be breeding a system that promotes knowledge, understanding, communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking. There are lots of ways to spend a few billion dollars. Just ask Steve Ballmer. It is our lack of vision that limits our ability to spend them well.
Initially, I thought it was just me. I'd sit down at home, "listen" to my bride present a situation, and quickly share with her several possible solutions. This would quickly upset her and over time I learned that she wasn't looking for me to be a problem-solver but rather simply a sounding board as she explored situations and considered a diverse set of opportunities that could possibly occur next. I'd love to say that I extinguished my problem-solver tendencies but perhaps the right word is reduced my problem-solver nature. When I'm sick, in a rush, or doing other things I quickly slip back in to problem-solver mode and I'm off to the races again missing the messages my bride is sharing. As I said, initially I thought this was just me, but as I have had the opportunity to work with hundreds of adults in a multitude of districts I began to realize that being a problem-solver is a cultural role in our society. In my region of the universe, there is this attempt to treat every situation as a task. You have this occurring, here take two of these each day for the next week. Let me know how it works for you. How much time do we sit and listen?
The listening component is not limited to oral communication. As writers, there has been a definitive move towards becoming more formulaic. The formula, a structured argumentative essay, concisely presenting research based components to support our point of view, begins with the classic hamburger paragraph writing. The 6+1 traits writing that swept the nation was simply based upon the writing rubric for standardized assessments. As the world has become more integrated, we have put a premium on even more concise forms of communication. Texts and tweets limited to 140 characters and possibly a link or a picture have become prevalent forms of interactions. The reality is that when young people text and tweet, they text and tweet a lot. In 2013, US Smartphone holders between 18-24 sent and received nearly 4000 texts per day. So while each text was short, the multitude created a significant level of interaction and dialogue. Questions remain regarding the quality of communication? Is this sharing, listening, understanding another's point of view? What are the cultural norms behind this?
Different languages have different structures. This impacts our interactions and understandings. Beeman and Urow in their discussion of biliteracy frameworks discuss the difference between communication styles of native Spanish speakers primarily from Mexico and typical native English speakers in the United States. They identify the frequent tendency in the native English speaker to be sequential and concise, whereas the cultural norms of the native Spanish speakers primarily from Mexico were to explore situations, discuss relationships from a variety of perspectives, and require the audience to cultivate numerous inferences. These are two distinctively different approaches to communication. In a world in which native English speakers are quickly trying to identify and solve problems, we have multilingual kids that are culturally set to explore and elaborate conversations patiently providing nuanced dialogue.
What happens when we encounter cultures in which the organization of the the language changes, from subject verb object to subject object verb? What does this mean in terms of others interpretation of our actions? What happens when we push students who are culturally set to be linguistic explorers into the concise sequential guidelines of our 6+1 auto-graded writing rubrics? Are we measuring differences in language application and cultural norms, by simply requiring writing in a methodology that one does not naturally order their thoughts in?
We talk about the Internet causing the world to become more connected. In many respects it is. However, it is still in it's infancy. The reality is 55% of web content is currently written in English whereas only 5% of the world speaks English as it's first language. As mobile devices expand and more people have access more people will seek to use and create at least local content in their native language. Communication from our perspective is limited by our own cultural norms and ideas. As we prepare our students for the world, we may need to rethink our styles to embrace wider methods of communication and a discovery of norms and contexts. We can begin this adventure today, with our partners, the parents of our students that we meet in conferences, and our colleagues. Instead of trying to quickly solve the problem, lets ask open questions and see where the conversation takes us. There may be deeper learnings we discover.
The end of the quarter is here. One could here the rush to complete assignments. The groveling for extra credit. The arguing for this point or that point. The accusations of "I turned it in," "You forgot to grade it," and occasionally, "Look, here it is with a marking why don't you have it in your grade book?" It happens all across the country and yet we do nothing to stop it. We own this as teachers, principals, district leaders, parents, and students. And yet, we never ask the critical questions: Did the child learn it? Is learning time bound?
What is it that we want from learning? Is it to momentarily learn a skill? Is it the ability to cultivate a solution to a problem? Is it to be able to identify a piece of information? Is it the ability to understand information and to develop a viewpoint? When we figure out what we want the child to learn then we start to realize that there are important truths that are neither assignment bound nor time bound. These are things that the child must have when they walk away from the class. Skills and concepts for life. One example of this I have seen comes from my child's 6th grade Social Studies class. In one assignment he needed to be able to argue the point of view of Frederick Douglass. He needed to understand the counter-arguments and have answers for them. This was one of the few activities I have seen in which he needed to synthesize a life skill. It was something that couldn't simply be answered by Wolfram-Alpha, Google Search, Wikipedia, or Photomath.
Once we realize that all of the content knowledge is constantly at one's fingertips, it becomes clear that our multitude of content-based assignments are becoming worthless. We need to leave the time when we generated multiple activities for multiple grades. The time where points matter is gone. We are entering a period where constructed learning is essential for our children and their future. Chris Bronke, English Department Chair at Downers Grove North High School, shared with our team that during the first two months of school he had 2 grades so far. Children were working on complex tasks and repeatedly adapting and revising their assignments. The process involved deep development, reflection, and frequent revision. His role was to ensure the children grew and maximized their learning. He owns that each child MUST learn the critical concepts in his class. He owns that learning is essential. And with the students together they own cultivating learning experiences that are as meaningful to the student as the learning process is to the teacher.
Jon Heldmann, Math Department Chair at Downers Grove North High School, also met with our team. He worked on these concepts, Habits of Mind, ways to approach math in order to understand the problem before us and develop a plan and methodology to solve it. In this journey he spoke of a single problem taking multiple days to solve. He wasn't talking about 1-31 the odds happening each night, but the challenge of looking at a situation and figuring out what tool to do. Computers have been able to solve most every math problem I have ever seen in my life. We have moved past the era where my father stacked Fortran cards to program his calculations. We have moved past the time when I sat in the back of the room and pulled out excel on my laptop to calculate the answer. We live in a society within which my 11 year-old knows he can type the equation into Wolfram-Alpha and the answer will appear. He hasn't mention yet the Photomath app within which he could simply take a picture and get the answer. Knowing him, I give it a week or two before that happens. These tools are great but none of them will help a child develop the Habits of Mind. When we stop seeing math as a chain of skills and start seeing it as a thinking process then we will be preparing learners for their future. The tools to solve the chain of skills have been built and are available for less than $2.99 for anyone interested.
We have talked for as long as I can remember about our curriculum being a mile-wide and an inch-deep. By simply teaching skills and content knowledge it has been. The trouble is that all of those things are now available, frequently for free, to anyone who is interested. Learning needs to be about more. Learning needs to be children applying essential processes that can't be recreated by the computer. It needs to be less about points and grades and more about what a child synthesize. We need to present challenges for children to solve and remove the artificial time boundaries to solving them. The end of the quarter shouldn't mean anything. It should be a demarkation of this is what the child has done so far, these are things they are working on, and these are things that we will work on next. In this world extra credit and grade groveling aren't necessary because it is clear that one is providing a status report on the journey. The learning itself is essential and their is no option not to accomplish it. If one needs to identify a child is Failing a concept, than my recommendation is that we give the Incomplete. For if they fail, we all have failed to help the child learn. If it is Incomplete, we all own the importance of completing the task.
The days are short. The sun rises quickly and falls just as fast. Our time each day becomes more precious as the days move quicker. Gone are the long evenings sitting by the barbecue as it slowly cools through the evening. Gone are the early mornings with birds chirping and dew out in front. It is Autumn and here we are in the hustle and bustle of life. Here we are with this person needing this and that person needing that. Our children come home with a variety of assignments. Their lives filled with activities and tasks. It is in this time that it is easy to be distracted by the shadows.
We live busy lives. There is always another assignment, another email, another group we need to help. It's easy to run from place to place to help out wherever you need to and to lose track of what is truly important. This running from place to place, these things we do. They are simply shadows, calling us, flickers of light that pull our attention from what is really important. We lose meaning by looking at the shadows and not seeing the light.
I was a teacher once. I'd like to think that I still am, but in reality I know that I'm not. I taught children wonderful content that made me marvel. As a Chemistry and Modern Political Systems teacher we had fabulous discussions, we experimented on peeps. We read Letter from a Birmingham Jail. We discussed the Taliban before anyone had heard of the Tailban (this was between 1995-99). We learned about ions, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and electronegativity. I enjoyed it. Children learned it. It has been over 15 years and we all have forgotten most of it. This content was only shadows of important value. Meaningful for the moment. Lost as time ticked forward. Meaningless in a world of "Ok, Google" and "Hey, Siri" where content is available in a moment.
The common reflection of learning in the United States was that it was that the curriculum was a mile wide and an inch deep. The Partnership for 21st Century Schools analyzed what we needed in order to prepare learners for jobs that didn't exist and a world that was changing by the moment. It provided the following framework for learning:
In a the hustle and bustle world, one of movement and action it is easy to only focus on the center. The shadows move so quickly that for many it is easy to lose the outside and only see the core. We do this in our lives and our national leadership has done this in education. Common Core State Standards, PARCC, and SmarterBalance may claim to do more, but in reality they are simply core subject content, standards, and assessments. No more, no less. In reality they are meant to be the stepping stones from which we help students develop life and career skills, through which we explore creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication, during which we apply information, media, and technology skills. Content and standards are meant to be springboards from which learning lifts off into meaningful experience not foreboding anvils that drag us down.
We have become distracted by the shadows in both life and learning. Over time I have realized that the value I brought as a teacher was through our conversation, relationships, and collective exploration. It wasn't that they learned who Peter Stuyvesant was or did the flame test in my class. In our world, these are just shadows, little bits of activities, not necessary information. We could have just as much had amazing argumentative papers and expository videos regarding the plethora of effective techniques in performing underwater basket weaving. For the value is in the conversation and exploration and not the distraction of the content itself.
Our time is short in this world. Each day life moves fast. It is so important to grab onto what is meaningful and to avoid being distracted by the shadows.
Wait until next year. Wait until you get there. That's where it's hard. You know, if we coddle you here and help you out, we are just enabling you. We can't do that because you will never learn to be successful. It always seemed that our current year teacher always needed to toughen us up for the big scary future. You remember, you heard the calls, you've seen the long assignments, you've smelled the fear. Around the corner is always the big scary year of high expectations.
In my travels, I have worked in five different districts, two k-12 districts and three k-8 districts in two different states. The underlying themes from the leadership in every district I have been in, we want the students to succeed and if they fall, figure out how to help them get back up. I've seen teachers give incomplete grades for a month after school ended, come in throughout June to ensure a child understood a concept. I have seen children lining the walls of swim pool, coming in at 5:30 in the morning to get extra assistance because they knew the coaches would help them in whatever content area they needed assistance. I've seen math teachers extend hours every single day after school and chase children down the halls to ensure they figured out how to multiply by the reciprocal. The reality at every single level of schooling is that for the most part teachers regardless of children's ages want the student to get it.
Lets start at the top and look at the university level. I have the opportunity to take a graduate level class this fall. The professor for the class has three students who's professional role does not match those of other students. Instead of requiring the exact same product, so that the grades and rigor can be the same, she is modifying products and learning experiences in order to meet the needs of the each constituency. She presents flexibility regarding when assignments are due but also requests two-way understanding that she also has obligations to complete. There are no lines in the sand being drawn but rather individuals listening to each other to maximize the learning and increase the value of the experience. Clearly present in the class is a sense of human worth and as such we all work to learn more and cultivate value in the class.
When applying to colleges, admissions departments brag about the wide-range of supports available to students. There are learning labs, tutors, flipped videos. You walk down the hall and three other people have taken the class. Sure there may be that one or two that has their "strict requirements" but generally, it is that individual that lacks understanding and the leadership, the person's colleagues, and just about everyone else knows its an individual's issue not the tone of the university. Go on tour some day on a college campus, you will be amazed at the level of supports available. Personally, I remember struggling in Calculus 1 and 2. I spent hours, week after week, meeting with Professor Fink getting support. I learned far more from him about how people support people than I remember about Calculus. His patience, his understanding, and his willingness to help me look at problems from a variety of perspectives has influenced me in so many aspects of my career. What must have been simple for him but was difficult for me, he explained through 16 different lenses. Those courses could have been, you need to toughen up, but instead they were ones of lets find the path.
In Downers Grove, we have both a k-8 district and a 9-12 district. The High School District has more than 15 feeder school districts. Each school is large, containing over 2000 people. They could be ominous places. However when you go inside they are full of energy and spirit. We meet regularly with leaders from the High School team. Our learning coaches meet with their coaches, their department chairs help us with our committees and learning, the leadership team and ours talk, share, and support each other. When we meet with them, the conversation is never we need you to have the children prepared for this, but rather this is what we are working on how is it similar to what you are doing. While we are truly two separate entities, we have more k-12 alignment than any place I have worked. The reason for this is simple, the high school believes that if you prepare and support children for the experiences they are ready to learn now, then they will be more than prepared to be successful in high school. Furthermore, if they stumble at high school there are a plethora of resources to support them there also. The math department chair, Jon, came in and willingly shared how they are focusing on deepening Math practices. He talked about how sometimes they don't get to all the content and that's ok. He shared that there are times a single problem is focused on for several days. His focus, deep understanding not a race to cover with stringent explanations. The English-Language Arts chair, Chris, came in and shared conversations regarding exploration, thought, revision, and reflection. He talked about having far fewer grades in the book and high quality work that requires personal exploration, deep thought, and revision prior to completion. While large in size, the feeling we left with was leadership desires personalization of practice.
And so the story goes, level by level, we need to understand that we don't need to prepare children for an ominous future of insurmountable expectations but rather meet them in the present. We need to give learning opportunities at their instructional level. Request products that encourage their development realizing that not every child needs to complete the same task but rather each child needs to forward their learning journey. Learning is not an exercise of power and control but rather a journey of discovery, synthesis, and communication. We need to stop worrying about preparing them for next year and provide the learning opportunities and expectations that are appropriate for today. By doing that, they will be ready for whatever the future brings when it arrives.
Learning has not always been synthesized in age-based chunks. In many aspects of life, achievement earns the next set of opportunities not age. Students are neither extended nor denied additional opportunities due to their age but these decisions are based on merit. The most famous of these processes is the learning of all martial arts. There is no set entry age for martial arts, there is no set date of achievement, status is made step by step, unit by unit as the student learns the necessary skills and concepts to achieve each belt. The learning itself is a journey.
The report card is a challenge for many in our system. I was so proud and jealous of my son's district, when I received an email this week from their Assistant Superintendent indicating that they were eliminating grades k-5 and moving to a standards-based document. I applaud their effort and wish I was willing to pull the band-aid in the way they were. They have renamed their document Progress Report instead of Report Card. Their steps are ones we all need to make. I can't wait to see their format.
Our district began this journey before I arrived and landed with a document that has both standards and grades. Many on the committee openly agreed it was a document that would not work for standards measurement is a task of achievement regardless of time and comparative rank whereas grades, from the word gradient, openly means to rank in status. They are two conflicting systems.
The challenge is, this is where we are at with Common Core Standards and Value-Added Measurement Evaluation. The Common Core Standards are theoretically steps that should be progressions achieved over time that each individual should make. They are flawed, gradient by age, assuming minimally each child should step each point up the ladder by the end date of that age's step. Value-Added Measurement Evaluation points that we must move each child forward at least a step regardless of how high they are. The teacher is judged if they are not able to push the majority of their children forward at least one step. Like our report cards with standards and grades these ideas are in conflict.
In the NBA, they have a rule of verticality: "A player is entitled to a vertical position even to the extent of holding his arms above his shoulders, as in post play or when double-teaming in pressing tactics."
The player is allowed to move into the space above them as high as they can reach. There are no ceilings in the NBA, on floors to catch their fall. Perhaps this conflict between Common Core Standards and Value-Added Measurement Evaluation is the same stage as we are with the report card, stuck between standards and grades. Perhaps the next iteration of standards and evaluation will be the place we are striving to move forward to in our district, vertical learning. In a standards-based vertical learning model, parents, teachers, and students are provided a rubric of curriculum outcome steps they need to achieve. Learning is modular and children's opportunities, progress, and outcomes report indicate where the child is at in a standards area and where they need to go next. It informs all parties of the successes and the opportunities. Here is an example:
Children are able to tackle any unit they are ready for. Teachers are provided modular units of learning, the standards of achievement are dictated by the state, the curriculum objectives and modular resources dictated by the district, the learning opportunities designed and implemented by the teacher, and the progression through the curriculum objectives is dictated by the learner. Children can be grouped to take on appropriate task challenges together as merit demonstrates.
I have sent two different children to school. Same genes, same background, same parenting, same opportunities, but two completely different learners. I believe that they will both become happy, successful, high achieving adults. They need different learning opportunities at different times. No set of age-based curriculum, standards, or assessments could accurately measure their strengths and growth areas. For all of us, students, teachers, parents, administrators, and community members, we need to give up the fallacy of grades and age-based standards and admit, we have different kids each with their own-right to verticality. Once we do this, we can design, just like martial arts, levels of achievement based on skills, merit, and outcomes. It will take some thought. High schools will not have everyone achieve the standard diploma. They may need to have different types of outcome diploma's (ie. Associate's Diploma, Math and Science Diploma, Engineering and Design Diploma). They will not all "graduate" at 18. However each of them will leave with skills and capacities to help lift us as a society. Instead of choosing the fixed-mindset of ranking through age-based standards and grades let us move to a growth-mindset of vertical learning, a model in which all can achieve.
So I am a parent of a middle schooler. It's all there: the gym uniform, the locker, the passing periods. I am not sure how it happened as I keep trying to convince my self that he hasn't been around the house long enough to be in middle school, but he has. Somethings haven't changed. There is still a lot of math homework each night. The assignment is different. We always had 1-30something the odds, because the answers were in the back of the book where now he needs to do almost all of the problems. His teachers are far more human and caring than I remember mine to be, in fact, I remember so few of mine its scary.
Sometimes I question, what is it that we are exactly doing here. The structures of most schools feel ancient. The grades, the subjects, the assignments, what's the difference between 1954 and 2014 other than we teach it earlier, children get more of it, and its more likely that the parents won't understand either the content or the process. My mother shares stories of her Grandma Fritzie complaining about "new math" in the 1950's. Scott, who went to high school with me, posted this picture of his child's 2nd grade homework on Facebook:
I was on the floor laughing not because it was "Common Core" math, but because my 2nd grade student had essentially the exact same problem on the exact same day as his child. We live in different communities. We have different teachers. Our school's use different publishers, and yes Pearson has not purchased every publishing firm yet. Our children have never met, yet they are learning the exact same thing on the exact same day.
Slowly we need to break out of this concrete confine of educational structures. We need to recognize that our children our different. They are not better, not worse, not stronger academically, not weaker academically. They are academically different. I know my children are. I have two boys, each with strengths and challenges. One who will be able to do discuss any academic assignment you ask and one who will look at you and be bothered that you are asking him to do an academic assignment. One who can't often put his shirt on in the right direction and one who insists on selecting his outfit in just the right manner. They are different and to assume they both need the exact same assignment on the exact same day as Scott's child is a waste of everyone's time.
The real education reform needs to come from within. It is about communities, schools, parents, teachers, and students understanding that we have different children and each day we need to help students continuously grow and improve. It isn't about how we rank them but rather how fast we can help them understand the next concept. It isn't about if they were graded fairly but rather did they have room to create a meaningful product that demonstrated the concept but also encouraged them to demonstrate innovation and creativity. It isn't about which homeroom they are in but rather is the school working together to make groups of significant enough scale that allows EACH child to have learning experiences at their instructional level and pushes them forward to the next concept. The whole concept of "graded" bothers me. To grade is not to assess in order to determine what the child needs support with and what to teach next but rather to rank against a scale. It in itself is an output of comparison not learning. My biggest worry is that we will have a child sit for two or three years in that math class and not understand a single thing. The push to strive forward and cover the concepts will leave that child hating math and hating school because its a machine not a journey for them.
We are stuck in time. No Child Left Behind, Common Core, Race to the Top, SmarterBalance, and PARCC, are simply tools to reinforce the factory line instruction of children. Interestingly enough only "Value-added Measurement" - growth based teacher and administrator evaluation, challenges the concept that all children need to learn the same and encourages us to push all children at their level forward. While I think the tools behind this may be wrong, at least the concept that all children need to improve and grow is encouraging. We are stuck in time. I need to go now and look at my child's grades on Skyward to see if he is missing any assignments. Those missing points will affect his grade and his ability to get into that next level class. Clearly this is all about what he has learned and what challenge he is ready for next. Stuck in time!
For thirteen years we have hosted Rosh HaShanah dinner. It feels like a lifetime ago the family gathered for the first time at our house on Summerlin. Rosh HaShanah had been Grandma Bernice's and Granddad Milton's holiday. As we married and found a home they slowly passed the gathering l'dor vador (hebrew: from generation to generation) to us. We "shared" the holiday. For thirteen years, like any tradition things from the outside seemed generally the same. In the first year we decided our main dish would be cranberry chicken. For the twelve subsequent years we have had cranberry chicken. I'm not even sure how many members of the family like cranberry chicken but annually we have cranberry chicken. We serve matzo ball soup. I am pretty confident that the family has been having matzo ball soup at Rosh HaShanah dinner since at least my wife was a child and possibly since my mother-in-law was a child. I'll have to remember to ask tonight. We will conclude with a variety of desserts including a Portillo's Chocolate Cake just like the one my Aunt Marsha brought thirteen years ago.
It would seem that this was the same meal done in the same way with essentially the same people present would be the same. Just like teaching how to calculate the specific heat (Q {Heat of Fusion} = M {Mass}* Cp {Specific Heat} * Delta T {Change in Temperature}), a lesson I taught 20 times as a teacher. The reality is that neither the lesson nor the meal has ever been the same. Whether it is hour by hour in class our year after year at the Rosh HaShanah table, numerous factors cause what should be a regular straight forward process to be different. At our first Rosh HaShanah meal there was Aunt Bea and Grandma Naomi who had reportedly bickered in the back of the car all the way from Arlington Heights to Aurora both of whom are no longer with us. Cousin David was the youngest child. Friends joined us who have grown apart as they have raised families of their own. The bickering in the back of the car will be our children as we return from the store. We will be thinking of Aunt Marsha as she relaxes with Uncle Steve and their dog Sooki by the pool in Arizona. The meal has grown to include brisket and assorted side dishes. Some traditional some that will wander in. My memory doesn't go back far enough to know if our friends Beth and Steve were at the first Rosh HaShanah. They lived across street at the time and have attended many but not all of the meals. As their family has grown, so too has grown our table.
When teaching specific heat the lesson at first was formulaic. We discussed the concept. We checked out the graphs. We played with our thermometers, Bunsen burners, and labs. We calculated. Overtime the learning experience changed. The children each added their though process and struggles. They helped each other providing explanations. They modified the lab experience to fit the questions they had. At one point I remember the students painting on the wall of my classroom at Lee M. Thurston High School the formula using an anvil for mass and eyes looking at the inside of the toilet to "see pee" as a cue for the calculation. Twenty times I taught specific heat. Each one different. Each child walking a way with a different level of competency and mastery. The more I worked to keep it the same the more different it was. Just like Rosh HaShanah, our learning experiences are always the same and always different. L'Dor Vador... From generation to generation.
A reporter called me the other day to ask about our 1:1 learning program. She was good at her job, or at least she new she had called the right person, because she definitely had me talking. She was exploring why so many districts were going one to one. In her world this just happened out of nowhere. As she had me in the conversation, she began to make connections between my perspective and other dialogues she already had. The reporter commented that their doesn't seem to be one boiler plate plan that districts are following. All of the sudden the cat was out of the bag for all to see. In an era of standardization through Common Core State Standards (pardon me, the New Illinois Learning Standards), PARCC Assessments, DLM's, and soon to come Value Added Measurement Evaluations, districts were not following the same plan for implementation for 1:1 and it was strikingly odd to both of us.
The answer, was simple of course, as districts we have different students, different teachers, different school structures, and sometimes even different beliefs and values. Sure each of us believes (or should believe) that all children can grow. How we get there, well that's wide open for interpretation. The State and Federal governments have pushed out initiative after initiative the past few years. There have been mandates from the top that have happened so quickly that in the classroom one doesn't know if we are going right or left. In fact, many of us have decided to follow our second grade students and just say "left" then follow whatever direction the herd goes. I can envision my teachers eyes when I tell them in two weeks that Illinois is no longer following the Common Core State Standards but the New Illinois Learning Standards. I can see the frustration on their faces as I try to explain the substantial differences (nothing) and that they will be assessed in the same way with PARCC, which will be our 4th different state assessment in 4 years. You see, somewhere in all of this change, teachers decided that it was a whole lot of craziness and that they were going to focus on the only thing that mattered which was children learning and growing. In doing so, whether it is 1:1, classroom learning opportunities, our understanding children's needs teachers, principals, and some district leaders have decided to go to their core beliefs and values and focus solely on helping children learn and grow.
Things are changing. For the past two months, like many district instructional leaders and technology directors in the Apple ecosystem I have been swallowed up by Apple's latest disruptive forces: student Apple Id's and Mobile Device Management. We've been quiet about it because our Chromebook colleagues are laughing hysterically in the corner as we have worked with countless families, students, and teachers to arduously deploy devices when those in the Google ecosystem simply blinked and the devices were employed. While it's a blog for a different time on the idea that the type of device matters, those of us in tablet ecosystems truly believe there are significant learning differences, none the less as leaders we have been trapped behind closed doors for two months trying to roll out the tools of learning. It is as Douglas Adams described:
"Yes, I passed your message on to Mr. Zarniwoop, be I'm afraid he's too cool to see you right now. He's on an intergalactic cruise..." "Yes, he's in his office, but he's on an intergalactic cruise. Thank you so much for calling." - The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
While we are off on our intergalactic cruises, things were happening in the classrooms. Teachers were teaching. Kids were learning. Devices were rolling in and decisions were being made. It is here, like so often is the case, that teachers were identifying what it was that students needed and beginning to work collaboratively to make that happen. Friday, I got off the intergalactic cruise and left the office. I went out into the classroom world, met with some principals, and noticed that the summation of two years of work was simply happening. The world had changed and I had missed it.
See, the biggest myth of the Common Core State Standards and PARCC is that children learn at the same rate and same common steps. Even the public relations videos promote children taking equal steps. That has never been the case and will only be the case if we stop certain children from learning. Moreover, teachers, principals, and district leaders will be evaluated by a growth model that requires them to push the children as far as they can go. Guess what, while teachers rightfully question the tools and process of growth model evaluation, they are absolutely willing to own the concept that it's there role to help children grow as much as possible. It's liberating as they are able to put down the grade level instructional binder and start to say what is it that our children need to know next.
What I observed was teachers voraciously looking at the data. Not because we wanted them to, but because they wanted to see if where the children had been assessed digitally matched where they perceived the children to be and matched what they believed the children needed to learn next. No longer factory workers on the line of education, these teachers have been taking baby steps to become the instructional professionals that they signed up to be with the same diagnostic power and credentials of doctors and lawyers. They are working collaboratively to share students and create structures in which each student can grow. There are signs, not everywhere and not every moment, in which it's no longer 4th grade instruction, but students regardless of age at the 210 RIT Band are going to explore an idea.
With this change teachers and principals need tools. They are selecting 1:1 tools that help them best meet the unique needs of their students, their communities, and their instructional talents. Teachers, principals , and district leaders are identifying tools that can provide resources for instruction, engage children in the learning experience, and create products that can powerfully demonstrate learning. It is at this point, a nexus between relatively cheap personal mobile digital tools, growth modeled learning, strong state and federal requirements, and teacher professional decision making, that 1:1 has become a core path to learning success. Like the printing press or the cotton gin, we will look back at mobile learning and this brief period of time during which we debated which tools were best, and recognize this moment as key juncture that revolutionized learning. The change has come. Not simply because there were strong state and federal standards (although they will take credit for it) and not because digital tools became inexpensive enough and mobile enough that we could put them in the hands of children. Rather for the first time at the building, district, and professional levels we no longer see school as a factory producing student widgets but rather truly embraced the idea that all students can and need to grow and embraced teachers carving out the path to get there. The change has come because to teachers and principals have the power, the tools, and the training to truly make the difference. And guess what, they are changing regardless of what we mandate.
Have you ever been in that conversation when your asked a question and you know the answer you are about to give isn't what they are looking for? I frequently feel that way when I'm asked, "What is your math curriculum?" or "What is your reading curriculum?" I respond with our curriculum objectives, sharing that students progress through calculation and computation, geometry, equations and expressions, and statistics. The questioner is of course looking for the response of a publisher or the name of a textbook. Somewhere in the journey, we intermingled and then confused for ourselves, our teachers, and the public the differences between what it is we want and expect our children to know and be able to do, the curriculum and what are some of the tools we use to get there, the resources. This confusion has allowed legislative leaders and publishers to put forth the concept that the only "guaranteed and viable curriculum" is one that's "research-based" and comes from a publisher.
The reality is that curriculum is steps of experiences, knowledge and skills, derived from standards. If the national standards are "research-based" then the curriculum steps to achieve them naturally are guaranteed and viable. Through the very act of achieving these standards we are meeting the "research-base." The reality of most "research-based" publisher curricula is that these are corporations that have commissioned their own research done by their own people. The resources and product studies are not independently peer-reviewed and not independently published. Essentially a corporation commissions its people to write a study and publishes that study. One can assume that they wouldn't publish a study that didn't support their materials.
In truth, as educational leaders the resource market is caveat emptor. Only through deepening our own understanding of learning and curricula can we choose the learning tasks, resources, and assessments necessary to help our students be successful. In order to do this, we must cultivate an understanding of where the journey ends. The newest focus in education is growth. We want children to grow more. We want them to progress at their own individual rate, accelerating the pace of learning by meeting them at their instructional level. We want students to move forward. This is a wonderful concept and in terms of where growth is our curricular goal, it makes sense. Learning faster or at a greater quantity is not always the outcome goal.
There are content areas in which a growth model makes sense. One example is in math, when a child knows place value to the tens, move them on. Let them learn place value to the hundreds, thousands, and thousandths. Don't let your district's or classrooms progression of material hold them back until they no longer are interested in the concept. The same is true in Physical Education, if they get how to do a chest pass, move them on to the bounce pass. Don't wait until the children find the learning experience to be a waste of time. When the child has the knowledge or skill, we move them on.
However, lost in the focus on growth, there are concepts and skills we teach to vaccinate our populace. The concepts are timely and meant to help our children inquire and investigate. Topics in which there is no race to the finish line but meaning itself is created by delving deeper. In Social Studies, we vaccinate our children to develop deep understanding and value within the community. It's not a race to understand my town's history then my state's history. Rather we hope to encourage to inquire deeply, create connections, and meaning. Moving the Constitution to early grades because the children are growing faster doesn't make sense. Rather developing a deep understanding of the Constitution and applying it to current situations such as presidential initiatives, individual rights in Ferguson and our own town, the right to privacy and the internet are terrific conversations in which there is no race to get their first but far more meaning by investigating deeper.
As we look at learning and curriculum as leaders, teachers, and community members, we need to develop a common understanding of the difference between the curriculum and the resources. We need to articulate those concepts in which we are interested in progressive growth and those concepts in which we want deep exploration. Only then will we foster a common set of guidelines that helps our teachers and our families prepare or students to be the leaders and difference makers we hope they will become.
As a swimmer at Kalamazoo College, I spent a lot of time looking up at others in the pool and in the rankings. Coach Bob Kent, our fearless leader, always reminded us that if we were going to win championships we needed to recruit people better than ourselves. During four years of competitive intercollegiate swimming, I knew the feeling well of earning the second place trophy. We consistently looked up at the end of League Meet standings and their stood Hope College right above us. During that time we recruited individuals far more talented than I and with the help of Brian, Brett, and many others that came after me, the team not only eventually won the League Meet but also placed 2nd and 3rd in the Nation. During that time of my life I was not a leader, not a star, but simply a contributor who watched greatness bloom around me. It was an important lesson in life that we may not be the solution but we can find and invest in others who will be.
Coach Kent's philosophy has permeated many facets of my life. As a recruiter and leader in school districts, during the hiring process more often than not I will look for the recruit with the highest ceiling. One who may not be as experienced as other candidates in the field but has potential for greatness. In order for us to grow as an organization we need talented people who can do things we simply can't. As I look at the teams I work with, I am proud of the fact that the individuals who comprise these teams are simply better than me at most things, and I consider myself to be a pretty talented individual.
The second component of Coach Kent's philosophy was one of trust. Coach trusted the individuals that once they were their that they would do the work necessary to become successful. As a leader I've worked to bring this practice into my career and my life. Once, Carolyn one of our building instructional assistance remarked that I was "hands on without micromanaging." Simply I knew and understood the details of her work and her world yet gave her space and trust to make the decisions and adjustments necessary to be successful in her work. When you invest in quality people and let them become leaders in their work, they will create better products than you can ever imagine. Annually we see that by giving staff the simple aspects of trust, space, time, and faith they create unique solutions that improve our organization and our world.
These sentiments are wonderful and positive until we reach the point when struggles arise that the individual cannot overcome independently. As leaders we often preach that we should embrace that we need to "Fail = First Attempt In Learning" in order to succeed. However, when we say that we often are believing that it's ok to hit a hurdle. It's acceptable to have moments and times when you hit a barrier and it takes 2, 3, or 4 opportunities to be successful. What we don't frequently mean is that its ok for something to entirely fall apart and not reach hundreds or thousands of students and families successfully. As leaders thats when we step in and try to create solutions for success.
At work, we often joke that I am not focused on the details. The reality is that I trust my people to figure out the specifics and develop solutions that work and are meaningful to them. In truth, when I am working on the specific minute components of an operation it usually is a red flag that I don't trust someone/something or the experienced has fallen apart to the point where I feel that I need to personally go in and fix it.
Beginning in late July, we began preparing to roll out key resources to our students and teachers. We have been excited about these resources as we see them being key to making a significant impact on how we engage children in learning, provide differentiated instructional resources, and allow them to create unique products. We were excited about how the tool would provide us with more control over the resource as it was implemented. We noted to the vendor some concerns we had about how the tool needed to roll out, but accepted the vendors plan as a necessary step to implementation of a key resource. As you may expect from the title of the column, it didn't work. Like so many previous hurdles, I chose to follow my typical pattern of solutions.
First, assign more people and resources to the task. When people are struggling I want to give them supports. This started as a three person operation, then four, then five, then six. Before I knew it, I was working on the project 14-18 hours a day. Another administrator was working equivalent hours on the same project. Our kids were in working on the project. Our kids friends were in working on the project. Staff members were showing up to work at 6:30 in the morning to work on the project and back working on it via google docs at 9pm at night. Teachers, principals, non-departmental administrators were working on the project. Good people who saw value were working to make a difference but the barrier still stood.
Second, change the parameters of the project. As leaders we look for silver linings in order to get some successes. Getting the old version of the resource out to students so that some could begin utilizing it was our first win. Getting students who weren't dependent on the new tool but would be new to the program was our second win. We celebrated both.
Third, seek outside help and don't be afraid to go as far up the chain as possible. We have been speaking with the vendor on an ongoing basis. We have expressed our disappointment and at times frustration with the process. The challenge is that we believe at our core, their product is the best resource for our learning environment. We have sought technical assistance and human assistance only becoming frustrated when their is a communicated lack of understanding regarding the resource. To paraphrase from the movie Spies Like Us:
General Sline: When we commissioned the Schmectel Corporation to research this precise event sequence scenario, it was determined that the continual stockpiling and development of our instructional resources was becoming self-defeating. An instructional resource unused is a useless instructional resource.
The reality is, I am not sure if these challenges are simply a hurdles or represent a complete and total failure. I know that each day that passes we adversely impact the tools our students and teachers have to implement learning. I am cautious about how many more resources I can ask to be thrown at the situation. I've seen each member of my team get sick over the last month. I've seen them fall, get back up, and ride forward again. I've looked at the mirror and seen a face that I am no longer comfortable with. One that's changed from the relaxed patience of Yoda to the jittery and impulsive Han Solo. I see exhaustion and frustration on the hands of our team and the teams we serve. These are not faces I'm comfortable with but they are those of reality. Yet through all of this, those within the team and those we serve, although frustrated they remain supportive. They express patience and optimism even in the face of a dour current reality.
This we we will try some different tactics. We will reach out in new ways with new pushes. We will continue to throw even more resources at the challenge, ones from far beyond my anticipated level of reach and hope that it makes a difference. The reality is, as a leader and a person my biggest struggle may be that I can't tell the difference between a hurdle that can be overcome and a failure that requires us to go back to the drawing board.
