I see students every school day. Walking through the halls, visiting classrooms, seeing them congregate outside of schools. Occasionally a student asks me what do you do? Its a challenging question. Often before I answer, they respond, "are you the principal's boss?" To which I say no. Principals don't need bosses, they often need partners and coaches. I respond that I work with the principal and we try to solve challenges together. When I was an Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction, words every first grader wants to speak, I would respond to the question by saying "I am responsible for the learning program." There was the kicker, the response wasn't I created this program or started that program, but rather I am responsible for this thing.
At our earliest stages in education, we often want to cite the client for credit and limit the credit of other participating factors. We speak of the child who has grown so much in third grade and sometimes we praise the classroom teacher who worked with that child. Rarely do we acknowledge the PE teacher who setup situations for the child to feel socially successful. The instructional coach who spent hours working with that teacher encouraging instructional activities that would engage the child and supported that teacher as they tried something new. The assistant principal who worked diligently to ensure that the classes were balanced so that your child had enough time and attention during the instructional period or worked with another family to ensure home supports were available during their time of crisis. At times, we acknowledge the principal, but not for the hundreds of hours she spent coaching staff members through quiet conversations, working committees to ensure the right learning opportunities were available and that his teams supported these for implementation.
See the trick is the more we go up the ladder, the less we understand the role of the leader. Moreover, the better the leader, the less they take credit for the wins and the more they take responsibility for the failures. Good teachers often cite that they have magnificent hard working students who make a difference. The frequently diminish the value of their instructional preparation and tireless work while maximizing the value of their students resilence and work. Good principals do the same, citing the hard work of their teachers, students, and teams. The same is true with assistant superintendents and superintendents. As we go up the ladder, in healthy organizations the leadership takes less and less credit, disbursing it amongst the many stakeholders in the system. Furthermore, the leaders take responsibility when things falter. They take the daggers and arrows so that those underneath them can learn and grow. They help their constituents learn from their mistakes and move forward. This cultivates a safe risk-taking atmosphere in which people are willing to try to expand their horizons.
As a community stakeholder, this makes judging leadership tricky. In healthy organizations, we rarely hear what the leader brings but we see the price tag. We ask questions, why does this building need an assistant principal, an instructional coach, assistant superintendent, or superintendent? If the organization is healthy, we don't physically see the value they provide. However, if it is unhealthy, we are sure to notice that something is missing. That's the challenge, those additional personnel take responsibility for the failures as they are coaching and building the necessary supports for success, but they don't take the credit once it is achieved.
I'm not sure what the former superintendent of my child's elementary school district did on a day to day basis. However, I can observe the changes under his leadership from that of his predecessor's. I can see the risks teachers and principals took and the growth outcomes that have occurred. I never heard him take credit for any of it, but praise everyone from the teacher's assistant through the Board of Education. An interesting juxtaposition, one as leaders and community members we will continue to explore as we learn to value credit and responsibility.
Saturday, June 16, 2018
Saturday, June 2, 2018
Things Leaders Do
Whether you are a coach, parent, principal, teacher, or superintendent, there are certain things each of us commonly do in order to produce the best results. When we lose focus on these ideas, things begin to fall apart. At first it's subtle, but over time it can cause any organization to falter.
Leaders first inspire us to become the best version of ourselves. They recognize each of us is different and encourage us to embrace that uniqueness. Think of children, whether in your family or in your class. Each of them is different and to expect it to look the same, sound the same, and be the same is silly. I have two brothers. All of us swam, but only I swam in college. All of us did well in school, but none of us were as strong performers as our parents. Two of us earned doctorates in different things but none of us became medical doctors like our parents. We were encouraged to go out and find our path and challenged to do well on that path. None of us were required to follow their path. The same is true in my work environment. I may be a proponent of guided instruction and flipped learning. That doesn't mean that guided instruction will work for every teacher, every student, and every situation. It is a tool that will work for some but not all. If it doesn't work for a specific instructor, then we need to work with them to find ways to differentiate for our kids in a style that both meets the needs of the student and the skills of the instructor. The same is true with flipped learning. It works for a multitude of students, teachers, and situations but not all nor is it the only way to be successful. Leaders understand the underlying goal, talents of their teams, and inspire them to become the best they can be to reach success.
Leaders cultivate the resources and opportunities that create pathways towards success. A good parent understands that their children may not always be the best students. At times they sit with them to help them learn to do homework. Sometimes they help them organize how to study. Other times they invite tutors and specialists in for support. At times they have their children work independently or with friends. We don't try all these things at once, We stage experiences to maximize growth. As leaders of organizations we need to do the same thing. We need to trim down as many initiatives as we can. Focus our teams on achievable next steps, while encouraging them towards the overall goal. We need to understand that growth is not always linear and that not everyone will follow the same path. As such, we need to respect the different growth rates and cheerlead our teams and individual members to make their next achievable step.
Finally, leaders help everyone understand success is neither overnight nor instantaneous. It requires patience and consistent work. One does not wake up and suddenly discover they can sing opera. It takes years of study to become a "overnight" success. Just because I start taking Spanish, I am not instantly going to be able to read a novel in Spanish. Many of us expect change and growth to be instantaneous. It can't be. If we want to implement guided instruction. We need to start with one subject matter and one unit. We need to plan, try, fail, try again, adapt, learn, and eventually build toward success. Each of us wants to be there when we begin the journey. However we need to take the journey to be there. As leaders, we need to understand the importance of the journey and support our staff, teams, and families as they take that journey.
All of us want to succeed. In order to do so, we need help from those leading us to see what we can be, help us have the opportunities to get their and support us as we move towards that goal.
Leaders first inspire us to become the best version of ourselves. They recognize each of us is different and encourage us to embrace that uniqueness. Think of children, whether in your family or in your class. Each of them is different and to expect it to look the same, sound the same, and be the same is silly. I have two brothers. All of us swam, but only I swam in college. All of us did well in school, but none of us were as strong performers as our parents. Two of us earned doctorates in different things but none of us became medical doctors like our parents. We were encouraged to go out and find our path and challenged to do well on that path. None of us were required to follow their path. The same is true in my work environment. I may be a proponent of guided instruction and flipped learning. That doesn't mean that guided instruction will work for every teacher, every student, and every situation. It is a tool that will work for some but not all. If it doesn't work for a specific instructor, then we need to work with them to find ways to differentiate for our kids in a style that both meets the needs of the student and the skills of the instructor. The same is true with flipped learning. It works for a multitude of students, teachers, and situations but not all nor is it the only way to be successful. Leaders understand the underlying goal, talents of their teams, and inspire them to become the best they can be to reach success.
Leaders cultivate the resources and opportunities that create pathways towards success. A good parent understands that their children may not always be the best students. At times they sit with them to help them learn to do homework. Sometimes they help them organize how to study. Other times they invite tutors and specialists in for support. At times they have their children work independently or with friends. We don't try all these things at once, We stage experiences to maximize growth. As leaders of organizations we need to do the same thing. We need to trim down as many initiatives as we can. Focus our teams on achievable next steps, while encouraging them towards the overall goal. We need to understand that growth is not always linear and that not everyone will follow the same path. As such, we need to respect the different growth rates and cheerlead our teams and individual members to make their next achievable step.
Finally, leaders help everyone understand success is neither overnight nor instantaneous. It requires patience and consistent work. One does not wake up and suddenly discover they can sing opera. It takes years of study to become a "overnight" success. Just because I start taking Spanish, I am not instantly going to be able to read a novel in Spanish. Many of us expect change and growth to be instantaneous. It can't be. If we want to implement guided instruction. We need to start with one subject matter and one unit. We need to plan, try, fail, try again, adapt, learn, and eventually build toward success. Each of us wants to be there when we begin the journey. However we need to take the journey to be there. As leaders, we need to understand the importance of the journey and support our staff, teams, and families as they take that journey.
All of us want to succeed. In order to do so, we need help from those leading us to see what we can be, help us have the opportunities to get their and support us as we move towards that goal.
Monday, May 28, 2018
Reflections on Growth Mindset
The memories are decades old but it feels like yesterday. The tight elastic strap pulling against the base of my skull. The plastic cups of the goggles pinching against my forehead. My hands rotating back and forth as loosened up behind the blocks. There was always the humid drench that came with the pool, that feeling when you are wearing only a swimsuit, it's dark outside, and yet you are still a little sweaty. All of this simply before the race. Each race I entered, I knew I wasn't going to be the best that day. Growing up those honors belonged to Fetyko, Fetzer, Khoo, Hacker, Moss, or the Johnson brothers. I would be seeing them go flying by at some point. As I went away, the names changed to Walker, Blowers, Miller, Robbins, Kemeny and others, but the result didn't. It wasn't about that anyways. It really was never about that. Hundreds of times, I stood there behind the blocks, rotating my hands back and forth focusing intensely on how was I going to be better today. A buzz or gunshot later and I would be off, the water sliding around me as I hit the pool. A minute something later I would be done with the race and hyper-analyzing what went well and what went poorly as my chest pounded and my breathing fluttered. A ritual that occurred decades ago, week after week, for years in reality and for decades in my memories.
When I took my new job this year, a wise person told me don't make changes. Wait and see what is going on. Resist the urge to change it. I went into the role and kept that mantra going through my head, whether it was on the transition days before I started the job or during those first early months. Resist the urge to change things. No one wants their cheese moved by the hyperactive kid running up and down the hallway. Well, the no changes thing didn't last until lunch the first day. Due to a mixup with a training, I had ordered the staff pizza and we were eating it in the commons. The staff was dancing and I wasn't sure why. It took a couple of explanations because I was slow on the uptake, but apparently eating in the commons was taboo. I wasn't three hours into the job and changes were already occurring. A couple of months more and a couple hundred more inadvertent changes and we were rolling.
This year we have changed a lot. We started the year with very little social media presence, now as I go across twitter and instagram many of our staff members are sharing great experiences with their students. I walk up and down the halls and technology is a canvas through which differentiated learning is occurring. Each day I see amazing new things from our staff and our students. Change is everywhere. However, I think it's more than change. As a society we have tried this evolution of practice many ways. Systematic change through organizational theory. Individual change through who moved my cheese. Shift theory encouraging organizations to make adjustments. The most recent vintage is growth mindset. The difference between growth mindset and it's predecessors is that the locus of control is a combination of internal and external as opposed to solely external.
Our work on sharing our story through social media has come as challenge by choice. I introduced it as something I was going to do. We shared how it was done and more specifically how to see what I was producing. A few staff leaders jumped on and the stories became far more interesting. Each member not joining because they were obligated but rather because they chose. Over time others join and the fabric changed even more for the better. A year out it feels as if we have done this our whole careers. The stories are good and people have grown from sharing their stories and seeing the stories of others.
Our work on technology and instructional practice has come through committees. Some of which I attend and some of which I have not. Each committee has started us on a journey. Created opportunities and choices for staff to explore rather than recipes for staff members to follow. Opposed to the short time frames of SMART goals, we have created overly long time periods for people to explore. We talk of baby steps instead of giant leaps. Recognizing how you are improving on your growth journey rather than comparing yourself to your teammates or other teachers. All of us need to be on the journey, but not at the same point and not working at the same rate. Some will take baby steps and some will take giant leaps.
The results are amazing. I am learning to get comfortable with the idea that we have changed a lot. We simply have. However, these changes come as much from inside each of our team members as any district or building initiative. Growth mindset was here before I arrived, studied and explored by teachers within the school. It will be here for a long time. We may not be the best. However each of us are getting better every day and that is a cool thing to see, celebrate and be a part of. It's been a really long time since I last touched the pad at the end of the race, but that feeling of working with amazing teammates to improve each day, that is alive and well.
When I took my new job this year, a wise person told me don't make changes. Wait and see what is going on. Resist the urge to change it. I went into the role and kept that mantra going through my head, whether it was on the transition days before I started the job or during those first early months. Resist the urge to change things. No one wants their cheese moved by the hyperactive kid running up and down the hallway. Well, the no changes thing didn't last until lunch the first day. Due to a mixup with a training, I had ordered the staff pizza and we were eating it in the commons. The staff was dancing and I wasn't sure why. It took a couple of explanations because I was slow on the uptake, but apparently eating in the commons was taboo. I wasn't three hours into the job and changes were already occurring. A couple of months more and a couple hundred more inadvertent changes and we were rolling.
This year we have changed a lot. We started the year with very little social media presence, now as I go across twitter and instagram many of our staff members are sharing great experiences with their students. I walk up and down the halls and technology is a canvas through which differentiated learning is occurring. Each day I see amazing new things from our staff and our students. Change is everywhere. However, I think it's more than change. As a society we have tried this evolution of practice many ways. Systematic change through organizational theory. Individual change through who moved my cheese. Shift theory encouraging organizations to make adjustments. The most recent vintage is growth mindset. The difference between growth mindset and it's predecessors is that the locus of control is a combination of internal and external as opposed to solely external.
Our work on sharing our story through social media has come as challenge by choice. I introduced it as something I was going to do. We shared how it was done and more specifically how to see what I was producing. A few staff leaders jumped on and the stories became far more interesting. Each member not joining because they were obligated but rather because they chose. Over time others join and the fabric changed even more for the better. A year out it feels as if we have done this our whole careers. The stories are good and people have grown from sharing their stories and seeing the stories of others.
Our work on technology and instructional practice has come through committees. Some of which I attend and some of which I have not. Each committee has started us on a journey. Created opportunities and choices for staff to explore rather than recipes for staff members to follow. Opposed to the short time frames of SMART goals, we have created overly long time periods for people to explore. We talk of baby steps instead of giant leaps. Recognizing how you are improving on your growth journey rather than comparing yourself to your teammates or other teachers. All of us need to be on the journey, but not at the same point and not working at the same rate. Some will take baby steps and some will take giant leaps.
The results are amazing. I am learning to get comfortable with the idea that we have changed a lot. We simply have. However, these changes come as much from inside each of our team members as any district or building initiative. Growth mindset was here before I arrived, studied and explored by teachers within the school. It will be here for a long time. We may not be the best. However each of us are getting better every day and that is a cool thing to see, celebrate and be a part of. It's been a really long time since I last touched the pad at the end of the race, but that feeling of working with amazing teammates to improve each day, that is alive and well.
Sunday, February 11, 2018
Snow Day
The excitement was building throughout the week. On Monday we had our first glimpse, an after work commute with a couple of inches. Just enough to slow traffic to a crawl. Groundhog Day had passed and the Midwest wanted to make the point, there's a reason that little furry creature predicted six more weeks of winter. Frayed commuters skated their ways home. By Wednesday, the energy was palpable. Newscasters showered us of warnings. Here it comes. Be prepared, 8 to 14 inches to be spread over a couple of days. Believe it or not, in an extreme moment of emergency awareness, we as a community were paying attention. By Thursday, seven year-old girls were asking their superintendent, "Do you think we'll have school tomorrow?" They were ready. We were all ready.
On Friday morning at 5:30am I looked outside. None of the streets were plowed. The front yard covered in a white Down blanket. Tiny flurries blowing from side to side. A mere 7 inches, enough to snow blow. Not nearly as bad as we thought. As a rookie superintendent, the thought crosses my mind, should we have called it? We could have made it in this. 6:30am rolls around, and still no car tracks in the subdivision. The occasional barking is heard as neighbor dogs prance in the snow. By about 8am the boys wander down the stairs. Exhilarated to go snow blow and play outside. By mid-afternoon, Facebook and Instagram fill with pictures and videos. Families making snow forts. Children creating snow angels. Sledding pictures and shoveling pictures. Families curling up with cocoa.
Perhaps a snow day is what we all needed. An unscheduled moment where we couldn't run errands or race to the next activity. A chance to just breathe together and enjoy each other's company. A chance to play and let go of our daily routine. This snow day, while not the blizzard predicted, was a moment for families to just relax and enjoy each other. A day well worth it in my world.
On Friday morning at 5:30am I looked outside. None of the streets were plowed. The front yard covered in a white Down blanket. Tiny flurries blowing from side to side. A mere 7 inches, enough to snow blow. Not nearly as bad as we thought. As a rookie superintendent, the thought crosses my mind, should we have called it? We could have made it in this. 6:30am rolls around, and still no car tracks in the subdivision. The occasional barking is heard as neighbor dogs prance in the snow. By about 8am the boys wander down the stairs. Exhilarated to go snow blow and play outside. By mid-afternoon, Facebook and Instagram fill with pictures and videos. Families making snow forts. Children creating snow angels. Sledding pictures and shoveling pictures. Families curling up with cocoa.
Perhaps a snow day is what we all needed. An unscheduled moment where we couldn't run errands or race to the next activity. A chance to just breathe together and enjoy each other's company. A chance to play and let go of our daily routine. This snow day, while not the blizzard predicted, was a moment for families to just relax and enjoy each other. A day well worth it in my world.
Saturday, November 4, 2017
Into the Dungeon: A Formula for Success
Often it's hard to let go of the way we grew up. There is a comfort to the rhythm of the experience. School was school. Home was home. All of us like patterns and predictability. Sure we want an occasional pleasant surprise, however even in those surreal moments, we are more at home within the continuity of our comfortable predictable experience. As teachers, just like any other individual we like to set up our schedule, our units, and our experiences in a predictable comfortable way.
Often if we ask a teacher what they do, they describe themselves as a science teacher, third grade teacher, or my favorite sophomore English teacher. They talk about the age of the students or content area of focus. It's an intriguing concept. The commonality of the students or the content becomes the focus rather than the mentorship and guidance. Interestingly in reflection of the long-term age, how much of the take away the is the content. Does anyone that isn't teaching it remember the skills they developed in sophomore English? Does anyone that isn't teaching it remember the definition of electronegativity? The differences between ionic and covalent bonding?
The reality is that search engines are far faster and far better at both gathering knowledge and applying algorithmic formulas than humans will ever be. Things we valued growing up, informational knowledge, math facts, and the ability to calculate using formulas, are all easily replaced by the silicon contraptions in our pockets and before our eyes.
So where is the value? The Partnership for 21st Century Learning places it in the 4 C's, communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking. All skills intrinsically human dependent. Items that require us to break the individualistic focus and mold of learning in our schools and exhort us to challenge the comfortable learning patterns of the way we were raised. Our schooling focused on gathering knowledge and applying formulas. Our work lives need this at a much rarer rate. Our personal lives need it even less. However, the 4 C's, that we could use in both personal and professional lives.
If we can't teach simply age-level content and formula application, what do we teach? The challenge is not the age-level content and formula application. Rather, the challenge is how we get there. In an information distribution model that schools often are, we model a process, share specific information, and gradually release. The learning is a result of pattern recognition and then independent repetition. Lost in this process are the 4 C's. Student communication in this model is predominantly listening, collaboration is limited both in time and product, and both creativity and critical thinking are predominantly absent. If we think back to the 70's and 80's, in the era of Dungeons and Dragons, children had to use all 4 C's. There was a gradual development of challenges in which characters had to problem solve often through ridiculous situations. Players had to communicate with each other, develop collaborative plans or face failure. School is not the dungeon and teachers are not the dungeon master. However, it's pretty close. We remember the Oregon Trail simulations. Why can't the majority of Social Studies be students problem solving through life situations as a hunter or gather in early civilizations or strategizing in the cabinet meetings with FDR to move our country out of the depression and through global warfare? In math, why is it we learn the algorithm first as opposed to being presented with a situational challenge and discovering which math concepts and strategies may work for the situation. The Next Generation Science Standards explicitly want students not to learn kinetics directly, but observe situations in which different rates of reaction are occurring and discover the relationships between the reactants and the reaction.
The reality is the formulas for instruction and learning we grew up with do not necessarily result in the development of desired skills for our current and future work force. In order to be successful, we will need to release the models which we learned from and find other models from our life experiences to move us forward. The formula for success may not be Madeline Hunter anymore or gradual release. We may discover it in the unlikely dungeons of nerds gone by.
Often if we ask a teacher what they do, they describe themselves as a science teacher, third grade teacher, or my favorite sophomore English teacher. They talk about the age of the students or content area of focus. It's an intriguing concept. The commonality of the students or the content becomes the focus rather than the mentorship and guidance. Interestingly in reflection of the long-term age, how much of the take away the is the content. Does anyone that isn't teaching it remember the skills they developed in sophomore English? Does anyone that isn't teaching it remember the definition of electronegativity? The differences between ionic and covalent bonding?
The reality is that search engines are far faster and far better at both gathering knowledge and applying algorithmic formulas than humans will ever be. Things we valued growing up, informational knowledge, math facts, and the ability to calculate using formulas, are all easily replaced by the silicon contraptions in our pockets and before our eyes.
So where is the value? The Partnership for 21st Century Learning places it in the 4 C's, communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking. All skills intrinsically human dependent. Items that require us to break the individualistic focus and mold of learning in our schools and exhort us to challenge the comfortable learning patterns of the way we were raised. Our schooling focused on gathering knowledge and applying formulas. Our work lives need this at a much rarer rate. Our personal lives need it even less. However, the 4 C's, that we could use in both personal and professional lives.
If we can't teach simply age-level content and formula application, what do we teach? The challenge is not the age-level content and formula application. Rather, the challenge is how we get there. In an information distribution model that schools often are, we model a process, share specific information, and gradually release. The learning is a result of pattern recognition and then independent repetition. Lost in this process are the 4 C's. Student communication in this model is predominantly listening, collaboration is limited both in time and product, and both creativity and critical thinking are predominantly absent. If we think back to the 70's and 80's, in the era of Dungeons and Dragons, children had to use all 4 C's. There was a gradual development of challenges in which characters had to problem solve often through ridiculous situations. Players had to communicate with each other, develop collaborative plans or face failure. School is not the dungeon and teachers are not the dungeon master. However, it's pretty close. We remember the Oregon Trail simulations. Why can't the majority of Social Studies be students problem solving through life situations as a hunter or gather in early civilizations or strategizing in the cabinet meetings with FDR to move our country out of the depression and through global warfare? In math, why is it we learn the algorithm first as opposed to being presented with a situational challenge and discovering which math concepts and strategies may work for the situation. The Next Generation Science Standards explicitly want students not to learn kinetics directly, but observe situations in which different rates of reaction are occurring and discover the relationships between the reactants and the reaction.
The reality is the formulas for instruction and learning we grew up with do not necessarily result in the development of desired skills for our current and future work force. In order to be successful, we will need to release the models which we learned from and find other models from our life experiences to move us forward. The formula for success may not be Madeline Hunter anymore or gradual release. We may discover it in the unlikely dungeons of nerds gone by.
Sunday, October 1, 2017
Don't Change, Iterate!
We all have challenges. For my youngest Son, it's that he eats about five things for dinner and for my oldest son, it's that he has several hours of homework each night. It seems easy enough to say do your homework or eat this. It seems like it would be as simple as Yoda says, "Do or do not, there is no try." For those who have parented before, you recognize, that those things which seem easy rarely are. Change is difficult. Abrupt change is even more so.
As leaders of a household, classroom, building, or school district we are always looking for ways to improve. Whether it's a way to save a few dollars, such as cutting the cord on cable or no longer paying for a certain work book, adding a new practice to our routine like walking a puppy or guided math, we always looking for our next step towards improvement. The challenge is even with a desire from leadership, change doesn't simply happen. Furthermore, even if I wish it were so, effective change can rarely be mandated.
There is hope, if you think you have problems with change, that's just peanuts compared to Apple. Each year they sell around 200,000,000 iPhones. Each year, they update their operating system and have around 500,000,000 people using new software tools that they didn't ask for. And each year, the press come out and say that this update isn't that much. Approximately 90% of Apple users choose to update their software each year. Android isn't even close. Part of this is control of the cellular service and device. However, part of this is also helping people feel comfortable in the idea that the change process is helpful and worthwhile.
Supporting growth and change is hard. Effective change only come from internal motivation. Individuals need to believe they have something to gain from changing and they need to believe that the change is both achievable and manageable. Rene Ritchie from iMore maintains a comprehensive change list of how iOS, the iPhone operating system, has evolved. In it, one can see that Apple has taken an iterative process. Each year adding only a couple of new features. Even though other phone makers may have a process quicker such as cut and paste or facial recognition, Apple baby steps the journey in order to bring their products, software, and users along with each iteration. For example, the first iPhone didn't have an app store. Cut and paste came in version 3. Drag and drop copying came in version 11. FaceTime over WiFi came in version 4. FaceTime over cellular came in version 6. FaceTime audio came in version 7. Small enhancements year over year lead to longterm changes for the user and the product. iOS 11 is dramatically different than iOS 7, iOS 3, and the original iPhone. However, the small annual jumps do not feel drastic to the reviewer or the user.
This iterative approach to change highlights a way for successful development both at home and in the workplace. My youngest son isn't going to magically start eating every food. However, we have gotten him to try 3 new meals over the past 4 months, of which, he will consistently eat one. My eldest didn't go from zero to multiple hours of homework each night. It started by adding one subject than the next over the past couple of years so now, while tired, he does feel that he can get it done. The same thing in schools. We are exploring two change initiatives. One with technology and one with pedagogy. In doing so, we are not taking away teachers' old tools, but adding new ones in an exploratory phase. Slowly, over time we hope to have the new ones accentuate positive practices and eliminate less effective practices as our instructional leaders see the impact of their work. We may want to totally transform our workplace and home life. We may dream about the moonshot. However, in reality, the more we iterate, the more substantial growth we may accomplish over time.
As leaders of a household, classroom, building, or school district we are always looking for ways to improve. Whether it's a way to save a few dollars, such as cutting the cord on cable or no longer paying for a certain work book, adding a new practice to our routine like walking a puppy or guided math, we always looking for our next step towards improvement. The challenge is even with a desire from leadership, change doesn't simply happen. Furthermore, even if I wish it were so, effective change can rarely be mandated.
There is hope, if you think you have problems with change, that's just peanuts compared to Apple. Each year they sell around 200,000,000 iPhones. Each year, they update their operating system and have around 500,000,000 people using new software tools that they didn't ask for. And each year, the press come out and say that this update isn't that much. Approximately 90% of Apple users choose to update their software each year. Android isn't even close. Part of this is control of the cellular service and device. However, part of this is also helping people feel comfortable in the idea that the change process is helpful and worthwhile.
Supporting growth and change is hard. Effective change only come from internal motivation. Individuals need to believe they have something to gain from changing and they need to believe that the change is both achievable and manageable. Rene Ritchie from iMore maintains a comprehensive change list of how iOS, the iPhone operating system, has evolved. In it, one can see that Apple has taken an iterative process. Each year adding only a couple of new features. Even though other phone makers may have a process quicker such as cut and paste or facial recognition, Apple baby steps the journey in order to bring their products, software, and users along with each iteration. For example, the first iPhone didn't have an app store. Cut and paste came in version 3. Drag and drop copying came in version 11. FaceTime over WiFi came in version 4. FaceTime over cellular came in version 6. FaceTime audio came in version 7. Small enhancements year over year lead to longterm changes for the user and the product. iOS 11 is dramatically different than iOS 7, iOS 3, and the original iPhone. However, the small annual jumps do not feel drastic to the reviewer or the user.
This iterative approach to change highlights a way for successful development both at home and in the workplace. My youngest son isn't going to magically start eating every food. However, we have gotten him to try 3 new meals over the past 4 months, of which, he will consistently eat one. My eldest didn't go from zero to multiple hours of homework each night. It started by adding one subject than the next over the past couple of years so now, while tired, he does feel that he can get it done. The same thing in schools. We are exploring two change initiatives. One with technology and one with pedagogy. In doing so, we are not taking away teachers' old tools, but adding new ones in an exploratory phase. Slowly, over time we hope to have the new ones accentuate positive practices and eliminate less effective practices as our instructional leaders see the impact of their work. We may want to totally transform our workplace and home life. We may dream about the moonshot. However, in reality, the more we iterate, the more substantial growth we may accomplish over time.
Sunday, September 17, 2017
What's Our Product?
I remember in the 90's the common refrain, schools should be run more like a business. There are clear efficiencies that you need in a business in order to survive. No business could be managed like public education, there is too much waste, the work year is too short, and schools don't use data. As a result, the government and the private sector pushed business-like features onto schools. The amazing impact from public educators was go ahead, measure me, and try to do what we do. However, there was only one question that came forth, what exactly is our product?
Over the past two decades, public school students have been assessed in more ways than students in any other country in the world. Annually children in 3rd through 8th take tests for the State/Federal government in Reading and Math. They take assessments in Science for two of those grades. Additionally children take standardized assessments multiple times a year for their schools in Reading and Math, plus local common assessments, plus classroom assessments. Students, teachers, and administrators are asked to create SMART goals. So they can progress monitor their steps and develop actions to improve. are measured in every which way. We know more data points than we have ever known before.
Furthermore, States and localities at private business like runs at operating schools like a business. If you'd like the comedic analysis of charter schools, one could try John Oliver's take as he cherry picks the worst of the worst. Or one could look at reports from more traditional media like the New York Times and the Detroit Free Press. The reality is as schools operate pretty efficiently. The cost of schools is related almost exclusively to the cost and benefits of employee salaries. One can increase the length of the school year by increasing labor costs. Michigan tried this, forcing schools to add additional days, but found they couldn't fund it. One can drive down the employee cost by reducing benefits and salaries. Many States and localities have done this. The result is the number of highly qualified college graduates entering the field has reduced significantly. The field is simply seen as less desirable, resulting in states and local offices of education gathering data regarding employee shortages.
However, the biggest challenge to trying to run a school as a business is defining what our product is. As a parent, I want my children to communicate well to peers, teachers, and employers. I want them to be able to read things for pleasure and to be able to solve problems. I want my children to understand the world. Furthermore, to steal a quote from one of my parents as she drops her children off to school each day, she says "choose kindness." I want my children to be kind to others. In reality, schools have very complex jobs. Teachers are working to mentor students with the DNA of communities. Developing creative communicators who can problem solve a wide variety of situations and invest children in challenges of the future. We need good people to develop good people. We need challenge creators to cultivate students into being leaders and difference makers. Our product, as much as some may wish, can not be simply measured by the nine-month growth in reading and math scores. Our students, and their classroom leaders, are so much more than that.
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