What do we do when we don’t know what to do? This question summarizes the chronic condition that we are facing these days: VUCA, an acronym used to describe the state we are living in: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity.
If I am being honest, my head has been flooded with all the recent events happening in our world. There is no doubt in my mind that our world is not only globally experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic but also our hearts are being awakened to the paradigms of power and its embedded systems that are beginning to crumble.
For me, these last 14 months have been intense and have made me have to confront myself, questioning my personal beliefs and values. What do I believe about health and medicine? What do I believe about media and truth? What do I believe about race and equity? What do I believe about the environment and the consciousness of living things? What do I believe about structures and systems in education? What do I believe about personal choice and freedom? What do I believe about gender? What do I believe about money and financial well-being? What do I believe about friendship and connection? What do I believe about the purpose and life meaning?
I am still very much in the throes of self-reflection as I recognize the complexity of the issues that are rising to the surface. I feel very much like a chrysalis in a cocoon. Unfinished but preparing to emerge. I believe that many of us are in this state of ambiguity and transformation. I am reminded of a Native American Indian Teaching:
Message from the HOPI Elders
“There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will hold on to the shore; they will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly.
Know that the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open and our heads above the water.
And I say, see who is there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves, for the moment we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.
The way of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves. Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
WE ARE THE ONES WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR.”
For me, this captures this moment in time in which a great shift is upon us and provides a lot of useful advice. Because we are in the midst of change, a new timeline of possibility is being created. We cannot see the road ahead because we are building the road into this new future with every thought and action we take now. Despite the precariousness of the situation, nevertheless, I feel optimistic and enthralled with the changes that are yet to come. I resonate with the opportunity for celebration.
So as I think of the school years ahead, I consider the message of the Hopi Elders. What wisdom, keys and insights are contained in this message as to how to approach uncertainty:
Know that the river has its destination. The discomfort we feel right now is temporary. We should embrace the challenges and trust that they will lead us to a new place, personally and professionally.
We must let go of the shore We must accept the change. We must update and upgrade our ways of teaching and learning. Using technology to teach is no longer an option–it is a new normal in how we approach pedagogy.
Keep our eyes open and our heads above the water. There are systems that are antiquated and can even be oppressive in our schools and we must not only draw awareness to them but have the courage to challenge them.
The way of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves. Silos within our schools and communities can no longer exist. We must improve our ability to collaborate and strengthen our relationships. We NEED each other.
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.
Our trajectory is determined by our mindset. We can no longer view change as a problem, we have to reframe this crisis as an opportunity to innovate and accelerate new possibilities for humanity. Growth is a good thing.
These are some phrases that stand out to me. What ideas stand out to you? I think many cultures and civilizations have had to contemplate handling serious threats to their way of life. So, reflecting on their wisdom can help us to navigate change.
I would like to suggest that the only reason we view this moment as a “crisis” is because we feel surprised and unprepared. But what if we perhaps viewed this moment as an amazing turning point in which we started to expect the unexpected and developed strategies and solutions that make us more creative and resilient. What if we became comfortable with being uncomfortable? And what if we became more curious about challenging our fears?
Although I feel so much disequilibrium and confusion, I am choosing to embrace VACU. In my mind, that’s the only thing we can do when we don’t know what to do.
Developing learners as leaders is my joy! I am committed and passionate International Baccaluearate (IB) educator who loves cracking jokes, jumping on trampolines and reading books. When I’m not playing Minecraft with my daughter, I work on empowering others in order to create a future that works for everyone.
Lately, I’ve been reading and reflecting a lot about Darwin’s theory of Evolution. Somehow when I feel stressed, I turn to science as my security blanket. I feel comfort in the tested theories and proofs as if all of life’s unsolved mysteries can be explained with science. Surely, during these uncertain times, trying to figure out how we got here and where we go next is on everyone’s mind. Mine too.
Darwin’s theory is one that is easily misunderstood. Most people don’t know the backstory of how his theory came about and whether he actually agreed with his conjectures but we accept his ideas as a fact, by and large, and teach it in our textbooks. But his ideas are why the whole world is upside down.
The problem, whether we are aware of it or not, is that his ideas of “selection of the fittest” have paved the way for our economic principles and so much of the discrimination and atrocities in our human world–from civil wars and genocides, to acceptance of violence as a norm–justifying it as our primal urge to compete for scare resources and force “natural selection”. We’ve accepted his ideas because it was the first attempt of describing the complex behaviors that we observe in nature, but I think this COVID crisis is helping us to examine these ideas and ask ourselves if this is how we want to continue living as a species. Because the truth is, if we really make a study of nature, there’s a helluva lot more evidence for cooperation rather than competitition in the endurance of living things. Darwin actually wrote about this but it often goes unnoted.
However, to not seize this moment in Education would be a terrible blunder. Especially since we now have the world’s attention of how dang important educators are in our societies. We really can’t go back to “business as usual” when our doors reopen. We need to be looking deeply into ourselves and asking if this world paradigmn that we live in is the world we want to continue into our future.
We’ve been granted a second chance.
Will we take it?
Needless to say, this is bigger than technology. It’s not about the level of preparedness that educators had when walking into remote learning. We could focus on that but I think we should be looking at the glaring equity issues we have–survival of the fittest–if you had access to technology and wifi, you got to continue your education online. If you didn’t, schools either were temporarily canceled or teachers made packets of uninspiring worksheets that put your brain to sleep–and ultimately got burned in a trash heap since districts were too afraid to have teachers actually grade them for the fear of spreading the virus. All that “school work” went up in flames. Ironic and metaphorical at the same time.
There’s this part of Darwin’s theory of Evolution that we should focus on. Adaptation: a change in a behavior or physical feature that improves a living thing’s ability to survive. If we superimpose this concept onto culture, we call it innovation.
Innovation is often considered to be a value. But I don’t think so. It’s a necessity in my mind, a conscious decision. Natural selection is only one form of evolution but change can be also be a choice. That is where innovation comes in.
In the course, New Learning: Principles and Patterns of Pedagogy , Dr. William Cope reminds us that “there is one important thing which does distinguish human beings from other sentient creatures on the planet. And that is the fact that we can change our species via learning….what’s unusual about human beings is we change our species being all the time and we do it through culture.
I share these thoughts of Dr. Cope to demonstrate how important this time is to reflect and consider WHAT’S NEXT in our human paradigm and our role to consciously decide as educators how we can support this transition to new ways of thinking and living in our world. I believe that as we move through this pandemic, we will also have a crisis of the heart and mind as we grapple with how we might use this opportunity to innovate in Education and embrace new ways of doing “school”. We can use the power of formal education to steer humanity in a new direction.
An Einstein Approach
Just as we are awakening to the ridiculousness of “standardizing” our students with testing, let’s not make the shallow mistake to make this about apps and tech. It’s much more primal and significant than that.
Albert Einstein once said:
So, if our thinking has gotten us into our mess, then we have to revise it. Education plays a crucial role in this.
The truth is that living things are exposed to disease all the time. That’s not new.
But we deem this a crisis because it has changed our way of living. And that may not be a bad thing in the long game if we get to eradicate the wrongful premise that the only way to survive is at the expense of others.
Because what the scientific evidence is now demonstrating is that it’s our relationships that helps us to solve-problems (code word: adaptation). And doing this TOGETHER will be the only way through this situation. We can not simply survive but we can thrive if we stop doing the same things and thinking in the same ways that got us here.
And, if we don’t want to be “same-same, but different” (same content but with a splash more of technology in there for good measure), then we need to look critically at our curricular content and school structures, while asking if it is truly serving a higher purpose for living beings, big and small. We have the power to choose this.
So, it is in the spirit of Nature’s truth that begs us to rethink schools and rebuild our world.
So what if we got Darwin all wrong?
Here is some of my first thinking what should be the basis of new standards in Education.
Empathy should become a part of our content because it helps us to understand the relationship we have to our world. We don’t read and write to pass a test, we do it to connect with the world.
As a skill, explicit teaching of cooperation and collaboration should become the new “norm” in our school.
Grades are an artifact of “selection of the fittest” thinking in which we rank and value our students based upon their academic knowledge. It’s an artificial and inhumane way to evaluate students. We need to stop this practice.
No more, dog eat dog: content should include a new paradigmn in which we highlight peace and inter-relationships. How to solve conflict is an essential skill.
Moreover, social emotional learning isn’t fluff. It’s a vital for developing human competence.
Sharing is not just caring, it is an essential component to life. All life. So, the circular economy and sharing economy shouldn’t be a fringe idea, it should be a guiding principle.
Awareness and appreciation of intelligence is not just a human thing. It’s in ALL things and when we recognize it, we can transform our life experience.
So, I want to restate what I said earlier:
We really can’t go back to “business as usual” when our doors reopen. We need to be looking deeply into ourselves and asking if this world paradigmn that we live in is the world we want to continue into our future.
We’ve been granted a second chance.
Will we take it?
Let’s set the world rightside up. We have the power to do that in Education.
Developing learners as leaders is my joy! I am committed and passionate International Baccaluearate (IB) educator who loves cracking jokes, jumping on trampolines and reading books. When I’m not playing Minecraft with my daughter, I work on empowering others in order to create a future that works for everyone.
That’s the word that currently describes the state of our school’s remote learning. What began as a 2-week quarantine has transformed into a vague timeline. It’s no wonder why people have now redubbed this experience as “emergency learning” since the typical planning and preparation that might have gone into this situation was stymied by the gravity of this crisis. We jumped first before we actually knew how to swim.
But as teachers, we are resilient. We can go with the punches. Flexibility. Humor. Patience. Those rarely show up on our job descriptions but are foundational skills for anyone who makes it past their third year in the classroom.
However, we aren’t the teachers any more.
Not really. It’s the parents.
But in my mind, parents are always the first and last teacher of any child. I borrow their children for a few hours. However, parents never recognized their role as teachers, until now. They may have been educating them in their values and beliefs in a passive way, whereas, we as professionals, are intentional and precise with the skills we want them to have.
When I heard these thoughts shared, I felt it summarized the juxtaposition of this moment:
What gives us energy? Not when the work is small and menial and easy. But when the work is big and important and collaborative. It adds up to something. Everything we believe in is now being put to the test.
I, like so many educators, am looking for wisdom. A beacon light that will guide me through this experience. But not because I don’t know how to teach. Or that the teachers I lead don’t know how to teach. No, they may struggle with the online environment but they are eager to be effective. The motivation is there. But I lean in and listen because I am seeking the insight in how we might pilot families through these stressful times.
In my mind, this is the role of the teacher during this COVID-19 crisis. It’s helping parents claim their legitimate position as their child’s teacher, despite their lack of pedagogical know-how.
We may design lessons and engage with students online but, to the families, who we are and what we do is so much more valuable than that. Our relationship has shifted. They see who were are and what we do differently……
We are trainers. We instruct them in how to set up their child’s schedule and their learning environment.
We are mentors. We build a genuine connection and share stories of their child’s learning.
We are coaches. We collect data from them. They are the eyes and ears of our student’s learning. We urge them into supporting their child’s next steps.
We encourage. We remind them that what they are doing is hard but it will get better. They can do this. Keep the faith in the capacity to figure things out.
We support. We explain what is working and why it’s helpful to do what matters, as many times as it takes. We never give up. We are there for them.
We remember. We remind them that their child was born to be curious and has a strong desire to learn, even if they don’t always show it. They are growing intellectually, mentally and spiritually during this time. It is their human nature to do so.
We acknowledge. We share our gratitude. We smile. We laugh. We give grace.
Developing learners as leaders is my joy! I am committed and passionate International Baccaluearate (IB) educator who loves cracking jokes, jumping on trampolines and reading books. When I’m not playing Minecraft with my daughter, I work on empowering others in order to create a future that works for everyone.
Whenever you move to a new school, you inherit a space that once was someone else’s classroom or office. And as you begin to inhabit this space, you have to rummage through all the “old stuff” that once belonged to another. Some of the remanents of my predecessor were binders full of old Programmes of Inquiries and Unit of Inquiry planners. It was felt like the “PYP Through the Ages” as I combed through the documents.
One of the PYP planners had the title (remember when we used to have titles for our unit planners?): Let’s Do The Hokey-Pokey. I never thought the Hokey-Pokey was that deep. I just about peed my pants reading that. Oh, man, so glad we don’t do that anymore!!
But it’s not just that shift away from titles as topics that has got me thinking about the Primary Year’s Programme’s (PYP) evolution. What are the “trends” taking place in education in general, and what really needs to be “enhanced” in our schools?
Do we need flexible seating, as much as we need flexible thinking? How can we “enhance” that?
I don’t think we need Slide Staircases in our hallways and trampolines in every classroom to inspire creativity. I think kids come naturally equipped with curiosity and imagination. Let’s not forget what is behind this trend–that our learners are unique and that there are optimal conditions for them to thrive. It’s about the kids, not the cushions. Let’s enhance our relationships as much as we enhance our school design.
Do we need better technology or the more skillful use of it? How do we enhance that?
I don’t think we need to have virtual reality headsets and 3D printers to prepare our students for their tech-infused futures. Yes, we must replace outdated iPads that we can’t update anymore with new ones. We want tech that improves instruction, not impedes it. However, let’s remember what tech does for our learning–we can go further faster in our research skills and do some amazing innovative projects when tech gets involved. Nevertheless, the trend with more technology in our classrooms is about enhancing student-directed learning and represents democracy in learning. Let’s enhance the student’s voice, choice, and ownership.
What really needs a facelift? It’s educators and our approaches to learning.
I share these 2 examples because I see a lot of schools are making superficial changes in their schools. Or schools that are being built from the ground up with some fantastic designs. The enhancements are not about the fresh paint and fancy bells and whistles. It’s about a shift in our practice. I know that doesn’t look as sexy on marketing brochures but it’s the truth.
And what has started with deleting the word, Title, on our PYP Unit planners is now evolving into something much bigger, much grander than these “school makeovers”. What is truly changing is the US, as we widen this definition to increase agency.
Now put your right foot in….and shake it all about do the hokey pokey And Turn ourselves around That’s what it’s all about
Developing learners as leaders is my joy! I am committed and passionate International Baccaluearate (IB) educator who loves cracking jokes, jumping on trampolines and reading books. When I’m not playing Minecraft with my daughter, I work on empowering others in order to create a future that works for everyone.
Being held accountable for improving the standard of learning is a weighty task, one that I take very seriously. It consumes a lot of energy in my role as a PYP Coordinator. Every Wednesday morning has been carved out for me to facilitate training and engage in a PLC (Professional Learning Communities). As you can see by this graphic, ensuring that our professional development time is well-spent is an important matter to be considered.
I’ve been in the field of education for 2 decades and I have definitely seen how it has evolved. In the book, Professional Learning in Actionby Victoria J. Risko, MaryEllen Vogt, it was interesting that they noted research done by Kragler, Martin, and Sylvester that described the stages of professional learning over the years:
the in-service era (1950-1960s)
the staff-development era (1970-1980s)
the professional development era (1990-2000s)
the professional learning era (the mid-2000s to present)
Our current era, suggests that teachers must become leaders in their own learning, no longer passive receptacles but self-motivated and responsible. As educators, we are to engage in problem-solving, which is guided by our social constructivists’ principles. When we are intentionally directing our own learning, we are more purposeful in our decision-making in order to advance our knowledge and expertise.
In Zen, there is an expression: Go as a River.
Zen philosophy always likes to represent a complex idea in simple terms, but this saying suggests that we have the capacity to receive, embrace and transform concepts, emotions, and difficult situations, in order to create peace, freedom, and community. The Nobel Laureate, Thích Nhất Hạnh, reminds us that we cannot reach the ocean like a drop of water, we must surrender our isolation and learn how to come together through compassion and a willingness to accept each other unique qualities in order for us to have the energy to do the work we dedicate ourselves to, which in his world, is mindfulness.
There is strength in community.
As a Primary Years Programme Curriculum Coordinator, the heart of my work is collaboration. I not only model it through my efforts with members of the leadership team but with other stakeholders. And, moreover, I strive to cultivate greater collaboration amongst my staff.
The types of collaboration I see teachers engage in happens on multiple levels
In the classroom: with the teachers who support learners, and the learners themselves.
In grade levels: with the team of teachers for that grade level.
In the division: with the various teachers and students at the different grade levels
In the school: with other divisions’ students and/or teachers, the school leadership or the parent organization.
In the community: with groups that are affiliated with the school or other organizations that they volunteer or work with. But in a sense, they are an ambassador of the school.
In networks: with individuals or groups that share common values or interests.
So I have taken this notion, to Go As a River, as the rational and objective of our Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) this year. In my mind, coming together to learn with one another is an intimate and vulnerable act, since it requires honesty, openness, and transparency. There are so many models of PLCs, mostly data-driven, however, I wanted a different approach. I wanted to bake a process into our PLCs that did the following:
developed the skills of collaboration within our division and our teams.
allowed for teacher agency.
taught teachers how to be researchers and guided them through a process of putting educational theory into professional practice.
cultivated supportive teams that helped individual teachers through the struggle in order to build teachers’ self-efficacy, something that has a high impact on student learning, according to John Hattie.
built the capacity to debate and discuss issues without personalizing it, so that people can have the experience of having productive and meaningful conflict.
In this way, teachers are pushed out of their comfort zone in a healthy and safe way, and everyone in our program benefits from our risk-taking efforts, especially our learners, who need us to be responsive. I also felt that it would be important to incorporate the “5 energies of high-performing teams” that you can see in this graphic:
Clearly, I have high hopes for our teams. Simon Sinek, a man whose work inspires me to stretch boundaries, reminds me in this TED talk, that developing the trust and will to cooperate is not something you can simply instruct team to do, (“Get along, people!) but it is a feeling that is cultivated through the climate you create to provide a sense of safety.
As someone who gets to “set the tone” of not only how we collaborate but who we become as professional learners, it would be easy to turn to the many books written about how to construct Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), and just copy and paste those systems. But the heart of these systems was designed for standardized test scores and relied on student data in order to inform practices of school improvement. I struggled with this for several reasons, chief among them is that I don’t want our students to fit into a “standard”, I want them to be looked at as unique and special. I didn’t want them to reduce to numbers. If we only use data as the foundation of what we do, then we would miss out on opportunities for genuine teacher inquiries. Speaking of which, I examined the structure of teacher action research and thought perhaps that applying this practice into professional inquiries would be the route to go. However, I found that this was a goal-orientated structure that didn’t actually “teach” teachers how to collaborate, and may not appeal to all teachers since it typically culminates into a research paper. I felt that this put pressure on teams, and why would I want to stress out teams for the glory of publication? The last professional learning structure I examined was the Lesson Study I felt that this was a great tool to incorporate into our PLCs but wasn’t the PLC itself. Thus, I wanted to take what was great about all of these systems and create something that is unique, something that represents, perhaps even mirror, what we might expect in our Primary Years Programme (PYP) classroom.
Speak the Same Language (Intellectual Energy)
In a previous post, What Can Pedagogical Leaders Do to Grease the Wheels of Innovation in Their Schools? I’ve talked about the importance of ensuring that teams have a shared instructional language. Our principal, Matt Ihle, says it best: “Building understanding is the purpose of communication”–and thus by coming into an agreement of what PLC means to us, is the foundation for the work we will do this year.
This is our working definition of a PLC
So, the first order of business was not to come up with “norms” but to come up with a shared working definition of what it means to be “professional learners in our community”. We have to make sure that when I say we are having a PLC meeting, staff know exactly what that means because we have co-constructed a description that is full of vision and purpose.
Be over Do (Social Energy)
Often times we create these agendas and rush into the “doing” of the work before us, squandering really important time to develop teams. I can’t begin to tell you how many schools I’ve either worked at or visited that have leaders who feel that all they need to do is to throw adults into the room, give them a 1/2 hour to establish “norms” and collaboration happens. No! And No!
Conflict happens and what we do with conflict determines the capacity to do good work in our schools and creates the climate in our schools. How we move through conflict has everything to do with trust. In the book, Speed of Trust, Stephen Convey explains that “Speed happens when people truly trust each other.”--one of the reasons why teams are more productive and efficient is due to working through conflict faster. Think about this quote:
“In a high-trust relationship, you can say the wrong thing, and people will still get your meaning. In a low-trust relationship, you can be very measured, even precise, and they’ll still misinterpret you.”
― Stephen M.R. Covey, The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything
You know that is true–communication and trust go hand in hand. You can probably think back to a time when someone said something to you that triggered in you some negative emotion and it made it hard to be around that person. However, you may have a friend or colleague who can say something critical and you can reflect on it without being offended by it. Why is that? The reason is that this friend or colleague shares your values. As a result of that, you choose to see how you are connected rather than distinct. Finding common ground is easy when you share common ideals.
So, again, we didn’t talk about “norms”, instead we talked about values. In our first meeting, we ranked and shared personal values with our co-teachers, and in the next meeting, we unpacked and discussed our professional values. It was incredible to see the shift and hear the conversations. People really got to know one another and have discussions that were meaningful, even if they weren’t directly about the PYP Enhancements and student learning. They had permission to be who they are, and what became the “norm” was acceptance and appreciation.
Tribes Vs Teams (Spiritual Energy)
Tribes represent a culture with shared interests and values. Leadership roles are distributed and dynamic. Individuals work toward a common goal, for the sake of their community. This is exactly what I wished for as the engine behind our PLC. These meetings should the development of a coalition that is dedicated to a purpose, so I wanted to turn teams into tribes.
So teachers took a Google survey to put their interests and questions around student learning. I looked for keywords and patterns in order to form the basis of the tribes, then sorted them into their inquiry groups.
Encouraging Curiosity and Inquiry
Translanguaging
Student Agency
Play-based Learning
Student Motivation
Differentiation and Universal Design for Learning
Language and Literacy
When the tribes were inaugurated, I gave them a guide for this “vision quest” and referenced the work from the Center for Courage and Renewal as the premise for our rules of engagement and the Circle of Trust Touchstones became the “norms” of our tribes.
Tribes came together to discuss why this topic matters to them and unpack their philosophies and beliefs that will guide their practice. During another meeting, they crafted a mission statement for the work they will do throughout the school year. In their meetings, they would choose their roles, which were flexible, and purely determined by the group. In this way, they could see the significance of their collaboration and develop a strong support system among them. Mid-year, we would examine and reflect on these mission statements, in order to determine the next steps. And, although some tribes were larger than others, every group has found their way to work through their challenges.
As a part of their PLCs, we had some meetings dedicated to going back to their grade level teams to share what they have been learning about and what their experience has been like doing the Lesson study and peer observations. We used the framework of the constructivist listening tool to provide for deep listening as people had time to share without interruption or judgment.
Acknowledging the Learning Pit (Psychological Energy)
I feel very strongly that if we are to take the profession of education seriously, then we will always be in a state of cognitive dissonance, as we grasp and reach for the “best practice” for the students that we teach. In my post, Why There is No Escape From the Learning Pit, , I explain this conundrum:
“It’s sort of ironic–me, the teacher, who is supposedly the expert, is often shoulder-deep with the students, trying to figure out the course and direction of the inquiry, instead of being assured and confident about the path we are going. It seems that bewilderment, frustration, and struggle have become the perks of being in a state of wonder and anticipation.”
I think there is a real danger in not acknowledging the struggles we face when we start walking the talk, putting principles into practice. I wanted our teams to be prepared for it and accept it. Remember that Go As a River means that we the capacity to receive, embrace and transform concepts, emotions, and difficult situations, in order to create peace, freedom, and community.
The Learning Pit is inevitable, in which we debate and grapple with who we are to who we wish to become as teachers. Furthermore, I explained that it was my job to get them out of their teacher’s comfort zone and that the structure of our PLCs was intended to push them into the pit, but it would also be designed to pull them out. Setting up this expectation was important because I wanted to normalize discomfort but also emphasize that it is safe to do it.
The Cycle of Professional Learning (Physical Energy)
Years ago, I read the book Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson and the one big idea that I took away from it was that mastery comes from commitment. So I wanted to ensure that staff had the opportunity to test out and practice ideas, all the while, developing “staying power” when they face challenges with implementation. Thus are PLCs would be cyclical so people could problem solve and celebrate accomplishments. So our PLC meetings would include discussions around the following:
Research:Ask questions and seeking professional literature and learning resources that shed light on the most effective practices.
Implementation: Discuss the challenges and successes of implementing new ideas and practices.
Lesson Study: Develop lessons and integrate ideas into your learning community.
Peer Observation: Watch a lesson related to the research topic. Engage in discussion and self-reflection afterward.
Data evaluation: Discuss the results of either formative, summative or anecdotal evidence of learning.
Self-reflection:Consider your practice and develop your next steps on your learning journey.
Review and Debate: Examine ideas that have arisen as a result of your reading, feedback from your peer observation and implementation of new practices.
These ingredients would the agenda items for our meetings and represent the types of things we would do within our Action Learning Cycle.
Explore and Plan
First, each teacher inquiry needs to start by sharing the personal research around our areas of interest. We set up a SeeSaw PLC group so that people could post the things that were inspiring them. There’s a proverb: “to know and not do, is to not know”; so I wanted to ensure that teachers developed the capacity to read articles or watch videos with the impetus of testing ideas out in their classroom. To take curiosity and put into action, that would be the heart of the work we would do as life-long learners. Here is an anecdote from our PLC that facilitated this practice:
Pre-planning of a lesson: Translating Research Into Action
The research article I’d like to share:
A summary of the article:
The teaching actions are reflected in this article that I don’t do, but I want to try is….
Nothing fancy here, but it’s the lubricant of change and was the prerequisite for the lesson study. Again, I didn’t design anything complicated for that either. I wanted a simple format that would have the basic ideas for the peer observations:
The Plan: Framing the Peer Observation
What questions will drive the lesson? What planned actions will take place in the lesson? (Use the chart to simplify the “looks fors” for your peer)
What the teacher(s) do(es)?
What do the students do?
As a result of applying my new professional learning into the lesson, I expect (my hypothesis about the unplanned actions) the students to…..
Act
This is the implementation phase when a teacher conducts a lesson that integrates their learning from their research and has a peer observe their attempt. The peer observation not only shares practice but it also holds teachers accountable to initiate their growth. Peers come together to share their notes and provide feedback.
And although implementation seems like an obvious action, going back into the research is also an action too. Research includes looking at student data, which can be formal or informal, and also examining more articles and videos–whatever resource they want to use to further their practice.
Bends in the River
As much planning as I put into cultivating the collaborative and trusting climate of our tribes, I have to also be willing to throw things out, as I reflect on what is happening in classrooms and in discussions. I must allow for things to happen organically. Sometimes it means allowing tribes to hold tension, giving them the opportunity to grapple with issues around what is the “best” approach. However, I think this is the kind of spirit that is imbued in the concept of “Go As A River”, as we transform conflict (whether it is trivial or substantial) and trudge out of the Learning Pit, becoming better for it, together.
Developing learners as leaders is my joy! I am committed and passionate International Baccaluearate (IB) educator who loves cracking jokes, jumping on trampolines and reading books. When I’m not playing Minecraft with my daughter, I work on empowering others in order to create a future that works for everyone.
How do you see your parents? What words would you use to describe the families in your learning community?
Are they a nuisance? Are they demanding? Or are they helpful? Supportive?
Take a moment and think about the words you have used recently to talk about a family in your learning community. Were you complaining or complimenting? And, if you had to evaluate the language you use to talk about parents, in general, would you say you use mostly positive language or negative language?
In the Ubuntu tradition of South Africa, they have this expression: “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu / motho ke motho ka batho” which translates to “A person is a person through other people.” Or also said, “I am because you are”.
The expression …means that we are recreated anew in every encounter with another person, bringing to each other the unique gifts of our humanity. Those gifts include our differences, which are worth celebrating and preserving. You enrich my life with your unique difference….Ubuntu does not ask that we erase differences and become the same. It asks that we interpret others positively, recognizing that whatever our differences, our humanity is equal. It is an invitation to dialogue, to understanding, even without agreement, and with understanding comes compassion, tolerance, nobility, sharing.
When you consider these words, it makes you wonder how are you interpreting others around you? Needless to say, it’s important to reflect on our “normal” discourse about our families at our schools because we need to consider if we have compassionate perspectives or critical viewpoints of them. Moreover, we need to recognize that those points of view create a bias in how we interact with them.
In the book, Letters to a Young Teacher, Jonathan Kozol provides advice and insight into how we make judgments of parents:
It is even more important to reach out with special care to parents who may seem to have the least involvement, or least commitment to, the education of their children….it’s all too easy to for young teachers, even quite unconsciously, to write off the parents who are not cooperative at first, instead of trying to discover why it is that some of them will not respond to messages that we send home or seem reluctant to show up to meetings that we schedule.
The parents that are most reliable, and the most cooperative…quickly win the loyalty of teachers because they are genuinely helpful. They also tend to share more of the social styles and the value systems of the teachers, so that teachers feel a natural rapport with them and find it easy to converse with them. In the case of the less cooperative parents, on the other hand, I’ve known teachers who throw up their hands and, out of sheer impatience or a feeling of futility, give up on any serious attempts to engage their interest and end up really knowing them.
I feel that he accurately describes the tendency we have to relate better to parents who seem similar to us, and, on the other hand, judge harshly the parents who seem disconnected. However, if we can recognize this bias and reflect upon it, I think it will help us to stay open to the ways in which we can “discover why it is that some of them will not respond to messages that we send home or seem reluctant to show up to meetings that we schedule.” I wholeheartedly agree with his advice to pursue a relationship with those families who seem detached from their child’s life. Whether or not it’s written in our job description, all educators must make parents a priority if they are going to create transformative learning experiences for their students. We must engage with our families.
Finding a Sweet Spot
Although I hate to simplify complex relationships, you can think of parents on a continuum, in which there is a range of engagement practices from completely disinterested and uninvolved to over interested and obtrusive.
As I consider why it is that some parents, whether they are busy or not, make the effort to engage with schools, I think it boils down to trust. Sometimes, we have those helicopter parents who hover around the school, who are often seen as meddling. Often times, they appear intrusive and seem to lack confidence in our ability to meet their child’s needs. They are one level of the extremes and on the other side are those parents who seem to care less about their child and school. We often wonder why they drop off their kids and seem apathetic about their child’s cognitive and social development? In some painful instances, their children seem like more of an inconvenience than a blessing.
Oh and in the middle? These are the “helpful” parents, the ones that are easy to love, in which trust is freely given by the parents to the teacher and reciprocated by the teacher regarding the parents’ efforts to develop their child as a learner.
But what about other those “difficult” parents? The ones on the extremes. Well, I think we all recognize that we can’t match disinterested parents with our own disregard, nor can we get stressed out over the parents who are trying to prepare their child for the SATs in 1st grade. However, we need to “turn to wonder” and become deeply curious about the causes of this apprehension, and not only have an open mind but also have an open-heart to the struggle and conditions that create an unwillingness to partner with teachers. Likewise, the same ingredients that develop trust and get parents to “move toward the middle” work for both sides of this continuum. And this comes down to communication. Although others have identified that there are 9 traits of trustworthy people, in particular, there are 3 main messages that must be communicated to demonstrate to families that you are deserving of their confidence and time:
Competence: Trust me, I know what I’m doing.
Integrity: Trust me, I keep my word and am acting in your best interest. I wouldn’t steer you wrong.
Kindness: Trust me, I like your child and want to help.
Of course, if teachers can connect and develop a rapport with parents, it is easy to communicate these messages. The question is how do we establish these opportunities? And who’s job is it to initiate the contact? Well, in short, it’s EVERYONE’S!
The Institutional Handshake
School-wide communication
These are the newsletters, Twitter feeds, and other channels of communication that go out to the whole school community. In general, these are passive forms of communication, in which there is a one-way flow of information with very little expectation for parents to respond. In my mind, these forms of communication are the bare minimum that a school needs to do to keep families in “the know”. However, the school leadership and administration must plan school events to create occasions to celebrate learning and inform families of the progress that is underway in the learning community.
The School Calendar of Events
Creating school events that make face-to-face communication possible is really important to create a vibrant and engaged community. Sports Day, an International Fair, and concerts/performances are such events that mix fun with learning. They are low commital events though for families, but are necessary for culture building and are important opportunities for families to have exposure to staff to engage in informal conversation. Conversations are the heart of any relationship, which is why academic conferences are also sprinkled around the school year so that more directed discussions can take place around student learning. I know some schools have Celebrations of Learning after every PYP unit. That’s a tremendous amount of energy put forth into a class presentation, but Student-Led conferences are also a great way to share learning which may be less work to pull off on a frequent basis.
Listening Campaigns
In Stephen Convey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Habit #5 is to seek first to understand, then to be understood, in which the ability to listen with empathy is a key skill. When we genuinely listen to a person, it not only opens our eyes to their concerns but also validates them as a human being. This has the opportunity to build a lot of trust between the organization and the families they serve in the community. The possibility to generate an atmosphere of caring and positive problem-solving is high when schools engage in this level of communication.
Depending on the nature and size of an issue, schools can host “listening campaigns” in which they invite families and employees and students to give feedback about their experience of the system. There is an open invitation issued to participate in gathering and analyzing information.
So what is a listening campaign? In a nutshell, this is a research process, in which leaders strive to:
Examine a problem or issue in which school leadership would benefit from multiple perspectives, so as to identify and define a specific issue that needs to be addressed.
Explore possible solutions and find the necessary resources to implement the desired solution
Identify the decision-maker with the authority to resolve the issue
Gather “intelligence” on the dynamics that contribute to the problem.
More Up Close and Personal: The Classroom level
As a teacher, what words do you think parents might use to describe you? How do you make them feel?
I find it important to reflect on these questions because those answers depend on your level of communication. In general, parents are more satisfied with their child’s teacher when information about the learning is being conveyed. So what, when and where is this information being announced and shared?
Digital Communication
This is probably the most common form of communication–the emails, the SeeSaw posts, Google Classroom announcements, etc..
But how often do you communicate learning? Once a month? Once a week? Once a day?
One Harvard study shows that the frequency of communication really matters:
We find that frequent teacher-family communication immediately increased student engagement as measured by homework completion rates, on-task behavior, and class participation. On average, teacher-family communication increased the odds that students completed their homework by 40%, decreased instances in which teachers had to redirect students’ attention to the task at hand by 25%, and increased class participation rates by 15%.
When you consider this, how often you communicate really plays a significant role in your ability to create partnerships with parents. Moreover, the predictability and persistence of your communication matters.
What does that mean?
It means that you are sending out messages on a consistent basis such as a summary of the learning in a Friday email. Also, when you are sharing information or a request for support, do it with expectant gratitude. Here’s an example of a big ask (dedicating time to help your child research), followed by an affirming message of their support.
Dear Families,
We are embarking on our first research mission for our unit and need your help! During this project, students will be responsible to research the different points of view when it comes to screen time usage for their age group. I have provided some websites for them already, but I’d like them to find 2 more so that they explore at least 5 different perspectives. In this way, they are not only learning HOW to research but also getting into the habit of discerning the information on the sites. Naturally, this complex task needs guidance and so I am so grateful for your support of your child, helping them to be independent and confident researchers. Your encouragement and assistance will make all the difference to their success, so please contact me if you need help in supporting your child with their use of the research guide I provided. I know that when we are partners in their learning, your child achieves more.
As always, I am grateful for your support and care. If you have any questions or concerns, I am happy to help.
All the best,
Ms. Judy
What do you think- Would you, as a parent engage? Why or why not? Do you feel that you could contact me with questions? As an educator, never underestimate the power and precision of your message. What you communicate and how you communicate creates the culture of your classroom–even to parents! They are a part of your learning community! And YOU train your parents to be kind and helpful when you deliver messages in the same way–it’s those mirror neurons kicking in, so develop your “teacher voice” in your digital emails to be one that is courteous and encouraging.
The Face-to-Face
At the end of the day, I used to love running out with the kids to have an opportunity to chat with parents. I know you may be tired and have a long list of things to do, but a few minutes of chit-chat is worth its weight in gold. It’s a good time to be friendly, share an anecdote about a child’s day and ask questions.
“Oh my, Mia seemed so tired today. Is she sleeping well at night?”
“Paulo really made me laugh today. He told me that he knows all about the past since his mom comes from the past. Apparently, you are an expert!”
“Ollie mentioned that his grandma is in the hospital. Is everything okay?”
It’s these little conversations, more so than the formal parent meetings, which makes for the lasting glue in a relationship and the information you mine from these conversations–PRICELESS. And when you do have to conduct a formal parent meeting, families aren’t as nervous and defensive because whatever you are going to share with them comes from a place of genuine care for their child. They know that since you’ve been nothing but considerate and approachable from Day 1 of school.
There are a lot of really great teachers who squander the opportunity to meet and greet families on a regular basis. This frequently happens in the upper grades since you may not have to escort students out at the end of the day and so stay in your classrooms. But when you avoid parent contact, families don’t actually think you’re so hot. They find you aloof and often discredit your teaching approaches. You end up being a source of complaint in the WhatsApp or WeChat group, which sometimes ends up with an email to the principal. All it takes is a smile and a bit of banter to change the tides. The time spent is absolutely worth it.
“I am because you are”
In the PYP, we are social constructivist. We grow through each other. Keep parents in that equation. They matter. A LOT. They are a part of our learning community. Lean into the challenges of your parent groups and enlist them through positive and productive conversations. It is our collective positive effort that lifts everyone–all members. So, I hope I have inspired you to reflect and consider your communication style and its impact on student learning and relationship building. Please share any unique way that you or your school cultivates parent involvement. We all do better when we do it together.
Developing learners as leaders is my joy! I am committed and passionate International Baccaluearate (IB) educator who loves cracking jokes, jumping on trampolines and reading books. When I’m not playing Minecraft with my daughter, I work on empowering others in order to create a future that works for everyone.
We are hard-wired to be curious. Have you ever been around a little baby before? When a newborn begins to realize that they have a body and becomes fascinated with their hands, they study them intensely. They put them in their mouths, they linger on different textures, wanting to squeeze them to feel them oozing through their fingers.
We are born curious, our brains pattern-making machines, trying to make sense of our environment, both outer and inner. Our schools shouldn’t be a place where student questions go to die. Schools should be a place where curiosity is nurtured and sustained.
In The Book of Beautiful Questions: The Powerful Questions That Will Help You Decide, Create, Connect, and Lead, Warren Berger pronounces “I am a questionologist.” I love that! When you look at the graphic that summarizes Berger’s book, you get a sense of possibility that deepening our inquiries can create through broad questioning techniques. The questions are not complicated, but the path they lead you on can branch into new avenues and creative opportunities. As educators, we should not only be modeling these broad-reaching questions but encouraging tangents of thought through open-ended questions.
A poem comes to mind which reminds me of the wonder and inspiration within the power of a question. Its words penetrate my soul and awaken the child within me, the one with a million “whys”.
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
-Rainer Maria Rilke
When I consider the excitement of beginning a new unit of inquiry, despite its familiarity, a fresh set of questions always come to mind. Just like the students, I am there with them, embarking upon the inquiry, seeking new understandings. I want to “live the questions” that Rilke speaks of, knowing that curiosity is a way of being in the world, experiencing awe and elegance in the search for answers. It is more than a pedagogical approach, it is a way of being.
So to develop our “questionology” is not only important for our classroom culture but it when you think of it, it generates well-being. To question is to shake hands with possibility, and possibility opens our focus, inviting new information into our awareness. So this drive to wonder is what makes us “inforvores”, and is a psychological need. In fact, science is beginning to show that if we are not organizing our classrooms in such a way that spark interest, we are literally deadening the brains of our students. I’d also like to add that our own teaching practice becomes joyless when life is all answers and no questions.
So let’s take a page from Berger’s playbook and start generating opportunities for curiosity by asking more “beautiful questions”. It’s a habit worth cultivating.
Developing learners as leaders is my joy! I am committed and passionate International Baccaluearate (IB) educator who loves cracking jokes, jumping on trampolines and reading books. When I’m not playing Minecraft with my daughter, I work on empowering others in order to create a future that works for everyone.
As I walked my daughter to her summer camp’s team table in the lunchroom, I noticed that there were signs on the walls. Since I am an educator, I love coming into schools to examine the clues about the school’s culture. (Student art is my favorite!) But I stopped and gawked at the walls, having busy parents brush past me, I was mesmerized by their PBIS (Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports) posters: large, realistic with students posed. No colorful mascot with catchy graphics. It was the kids. The character traits that the school focused on were: Safe. Trustworthy. Accountable. Respectful.
I was too stunned that I didn’t take a photograph, but now I wish I could share the poster that had transfixed me: Respectful.
The Poster: Imagine a group of students, about 5 of them, mostly white but there’s a mixed-race kid thrown in for diversity, standing complacently at the camera with fingers pressed against their lips. “Shhhh” is what I hear.
My heart feels a pang. Respect=Quiet. Really?….Really?
I think to myself, “Judy, this is the cafeteria. Maybe they just want the students to use quiet voices in the lunchroom. Calm down”. This self-talk doesn’t help much. So I take a deep breath as I exit the room.
Why does THIS bother me? Why do I feel such a strong reaction to this image?
As I buckle my seat belt in my car, I sit with this feeling for a moment: Anger?…nearly…but not quite that charged…Disappointment…yes, there’s a hint of that..but I decide on Frustrated Confusion. “Frustrated” because it combines mild anger and disappointment. “Confusion” because I feel puzzled by what this image is suggesting.
In school, every inch of its campus should be designed to promote learning. Loris Malaguzzi, an Italian early childhood psychologist and founder of the Reggio Emilia’s preschools, was the first to recognize that the environment is the “Third Teacher“. Students often are influenced by what they see, hear, smell and feel, and more and more in education, we are designing learning spaces with this in mind. So, in my mind, these posters, which we know were created to teach what “respect” looks, sounds and feels like are particularly confounding because the message they communicate. The children are co-constructing conceptual understanding that respect is the equivalent of silence: Children should be seen and not heard. Is that the message that they really want students to embrace as they grow as a learner?
Because I am in a state of “frustrated confusion”, I decided to go to the school’s website later on that evening and research if they espouse a compliance model of student behavior. However, this is what I found out about the demographics and the values that they want to instill:
The Lifelong Guidelines are: Truth, Trust, Active Listening, No Put Downs, and Personal Best
The Life Skills are: Integrity, Initiative, Flexibility, Perseverance, Organization, Sense of Humor, Effort, Common Sense, Problem-Solving, Responsibility, Patience, Friendship, Curiosity, Cooperation, and Caring.
Those “Life Long Guidelines” and “Life Skills” are really lovely, right? So how do those posters support their overall aim of character development in children? In my mind, these posters are in direct opposition to the Life Guidelines and Skills they want to develop. I mean, how can we develop Trust and Truth to create Friendship, Problem-solving, and Caring, for example, without dialogue? In a lunchroom, in which conversations and discussions are not controlled by the teacher, this is a very important place to create those attributes. It is a critical communication center and a learning environment that schools should be designing with care and deep consideration.
As we prepare to open our school doors to students, we must not take lightly the role of the 3rd teacher in creating our learning community. As administrators, we need to ensure that the messages we share with children are consistent with the values we want to instill. Also, as teachers, we need to have the courage to advocate for this alignment-first with modeling it in our own classrooms and then reminding others in our learning community of the important function of our learning environment.
Developing learners as leaders is my joy! I am committed and passionate International Baccaluearate (IB) educator who loves cracking jokes, jumping on trampolines and reading books. When I’m not playing Minecraft with my daughter, I work on empowering others in order to create a future that works for everyone.
I just turned the last page of the book, Educated by Tara Westover, an engrossing read about a girl who struggled with her “homeschooling” by her fundamentalist Mormon family and pursued a formal college education. I was deeply touched by her internal conflict to find herself in the midst of the incessant drone of her upbringing to follow a path of a “righteous” compliant woman who remains ignorant of the world and tolerant of abuse. And, although her story has a backdrop of extremism, there are many parallels that many of us can relate to. Think about this quote for a minute:
“My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.”
― Tara Westover, Educated
As I ponder this quote, not only can I see the connection between roles and power in my family dynamics but also in our educational system. Most of us have been brought up by the “Shoulds”, an unrelenting group of people who we have given our power over to. We have been socially engineered, and they influence how we design and navigate our lives. And now, as educators, we are presented with a challenge to create agency in our students, something that many of us never had a direct experience of as a child. This paradigm-shifting requires a deep examination of our beliefs about education and what it means to be “educated”.
One of the turning points for Tara Westover was when she read Isiah Berlin’s essays about Positive and Negative Liberty, in which she came to recognize that personal freedom and political freedom are interwoven. And when I say political freedom, I am not talking about Democrats vs. Republicans or Labour vs. Conservative parties, it is broader than that: the ability to choose and exercise one’s values and beliefs in society.
To coerce a man is to deprive him of freedom–freedom from what? Almost every moralist in human history has praised freedom. Like happiness and goodness, like nature and reality, the meaning of this term is so porous that there is little interpretation that it seems able to resist…… Men are largely interdependent, and no man’s activity is so completely private as never to obstruct the lives of others in anyway. `Freedom for the pike is death for the minnows’; the liberty of some must depend on the restraint of others. Two Concepts of Liberty, Isiah Berlin
As we move further away from our “totalitarian approach” of teacher-directed learning and transition into more student-led learning, it may appear that our role as a teacher is becoming irrelevant. That ‘Freedom for the pike is death to the minnows’, in which empowering students to be self-directed diminishes the need for teachers altogether, especially with the technology that is out there. But I disagree. As we provide for more opportunities for students to determine where the content takes them in their learning journey, our true power lies in the craft of empowering them to manage themselves wisely. So, on the surface, it looks like we are giving up control, but in actuality, when we are eliciting more student voice, choice, and ownership, we are amplifying our influence and consequently we need to develop more skillfulness in the practices that shape and promote agency:
Fostering aspiration. Cultivating a vision that is orientated in inspiring others to follow their interests and solve problems that seem impossible.
Reflective Conversation. Having discussions that lead students to think deeper, beyond the “what” and more about the “why”.
Feedback. Appreciating that there are levels of quality and students understand where they stand in order to feel empowered to take the next step.
Seeing Systems. Developing the classroom as a living system so that they recognize what they are teaching each other. And then what is the awareness of the larger context in which we’re operating in beyond our classroom?
Actions Matter. Reminding them that you always have a choice; even inaction is an action–a choice to do nothing is still something, so make better choices.
I think all of us can agree that in the midst of our shifting paradigm in education, our knowledge of content is less important and instead, our knowledge of our craft is more highly valued. When I think about professional development for educators, there are 3 things that we have to get particularly good at: Motivation, Feedback, and Awareness.
I think honing our ability to motivate students is a necessary component of our craft. The focus of “classroom management” is becoming less to do with bending the children to our will but more about helping them to sustain their learning through practical and organized systems in our classroom. No more “I’m done” because they appreciate that there is another step along their learning path to take.
Hence, developing real acumen with giving timely and effective feedback is another area for developing expertise. Knowing when to say less yet ask more can be a real talent. Using the ancient wisdom of Socrates to dig deep with questioning is an art of revealing understandings and misconceptions to truly coach students to their next level. Needless to say, teaching students how to engage in this process with each other is just as vital. When we recognize the relational quality of learning, it goes without saying that conversations matter and students need to learn how to communicate ideas and opinions thoughtfully.
So it goes to reason, self-awareness and social-awareness are the driving forces that make education worth pursuing. When we come into an understanding of our own beliefs and behaviors and take action on them for the betterment of our world, that is truly a life worth living. Creating self-mastery involves appreciating the recesses of our minds and the caverns of our heart, and recognizing the consequence it may have on others is another layer of complexity that is worth learning. Now the “why” can be extending into the “how”, creating a meaningful impact on our relationships and communities. To foster this is a great honor that is bestowed upon us as educators. We should not take this lightly and should endeavor to become proficient in it. Though, of all the areas of our craft, this might be the hardest one to master, since it requires an equal amount of our own personal development as it does professional development. As the saying goes, “You can’t teach what you don’t know.” So we are standing elbow to elbow, right along with our students, as we become masters of our own emotion and influence.
To that end, we now must consider what it means to be a teacher, a true leader of learning, a role model of curiosity and open-mindedness. As our roles change, we gain insight and clarity into the value and purpose of education. We no longer need to stand with clenched fists but instead open palms in order to evolve our notions of learning and expand our reach of the classroom. In giving power to the voice of children, may we find our own in the process.
Developing learners as leaders is my joy! I am committed and passionate International Baccaluearate (IB) educator who loves cracking jokes, jumping on trampolines and reading books. When I’m not playing Minecraft with my daughter, I work on empowering others in order to create a future that works for everyone.
Michael Fullan describes in his book, The Six Secrets of Change: What the Best Leaders Do to Help Their Organizations Survive and Thrive, the attributes that are akin to what good leadership looks like in schools which I think are elements that are embedded into a Happiness-Based approach. In general, a “good leader”, always has hope, is selfless and ready to serve, and they exemplify life-long learning. Moreover, they have 6 practices within their school culture that are the 6 “secrets” for creating a safe environment for change and innovation:
Love your employees/staff as much as you love your students (and parents)
Connect peers with purpose
Build capacity rather than judgementalism
Know that Learning IS the work!
Transparency rules
Systems “learn” rather than being fixed
What can we take away from these “secrets”?
With Big Responsibility, Comes Big Heart
As I see it, the only difference between a teacher and a school leader is the level and scale of your ability to see the good and find reasons to love the people in your care. Leadership not only has to care about its students but see its staff as allies in the pursuit of excellence, and with that, care about their well-being.
Heart trumps the head, especially as the extent of your responsibility and influence expands in the learning community. That’s the choice we make every day–who and how am I going to bring about awesomeness in others?
Love of …
Who you serve
Everyone has a desire to create. In fact, I strongly believe that educators are some of the most creative humans on the planet because of the level of attention and intention we bring to the learning process. So, I believe it is the ability to care and have empathy for our teachers that help them along on their professional path. And teachers who strive for excellence and innovation, I believe, do the same for their students.
How do you show your teachers that you care about them? Do you go out of your way to talk to them, ask about their family or weekend, or do something thoughtful like give them a birthday card? How many of your staff members do you connect with during the day? And of those interactions, how many of them would drum up a feeling of goodwill and appreciation? Not sure?–then track it. You can’t improve what you don’t measure.
By the way, increased social interaction is a known antidote for the “blahs” when it comes to work, in general. In fact these social connections fuel innovation, in which one study showed how the importance of interpersonal relationships are to the professional atmosphere and learning behaviors of members in an organization.
What you do
Do I really have to tell you this? Being in education isn’t a J-O-B, it’s a choice.
And it’s a choice to have relationships. We call this “culture”-the micro and macro choices that are made by every individual in that learning community to engage and connect. Educators who make a difference are the ones who understand the power of their relationships. Research shows that it eclipses raw intelligence in order to go beyond 1-2-3s and A-B-Cs because it’s this commitment to bringing out the best in others that creates impact and cultivates talent.
So what do you do to bring out the best in teachers and colleagues? How do you instill trust and confidence in them? And how do you connect with them when you have something difficult to share? Do others solicit your advice for improvement or turn to others for help? Or do you have closed doors and closed minds?
You have to love what you do so you can do what you love. Think about how you inspire that in others and write down evidence of such impact.
How you do things
Everyone has a work ethic. Repetition creates discipline and culture within our four walls. Are teachers rushing out the door, seeing their work as a JOB and not a calling? And who’s responsible for that?
Ahem…..Hey Leader–YOU ARE! When you take responsibility for that, shift happens. You want to go back to step 1–Love of Who you Serve–so you can move from coordinating staff to co-producing with staff.
Just as when a child comes along and tugs on our sleeve, are we saying “yes” to our teachers’ ideas or listening to them challenge our decisions? We must cultivate the “voice” of our staff so that they feel heard and appreciated. In fact, I don’t think listening is enough. I think actively soliciting their ideas would open communication and provide the opportunity to ask them: “Now that you shared this with me, what action do you think should be taken as a result of it? Is there some way that you can lead this initiative?” This should not be seen as trying to manipulate them, but out of the observation that they deeply care around an issue and you VALUE their concern and perspective.
But it takes more than ears, it takes eyes–not only do leaders need a vision that is clearly articulated, but more importantly, school leaders need to take more responsibility for establishing a professional learning culture within the school. What do you see happening in classrooms? Have you ever read this paper by Peter Cole- Entitled “PD A great way to avoid change? Do you have a system of classroom observation, feedback, and lesson study? How do you create professionalism at your school?
I hope this post gives you a pause for reflection, making you wonder if the people around you see you as an encouraging person who inspires them or an obstacle to their personal happiness. Also, I hope you consider the habits and systems you use that cultivate the professional atmosphere and culture of your school–enthusiasm is the driver for the work and when people feel supported and cared for, they will go all-in.
Developing learners as leaders is my joy! I am committed and passionate International Baccaluearate (IB) educator who loves cracking jokes, jumping on trampolines and reading books. When I’m not playing Minecraft with my daughter, I work on empowering others in order to create a future that works for everyone.
I think this COVID crisis is helping us to examine these ideas and ask ourselves if this is how we want to continue living as a species. Because the truth is, if we really make a study of nature, there’s a helluva lot more evidence for cooperation rather than competitition in the endurance of living things. Darwin actually wrote about this but it often goes unnoted.
But the heart of these systems was designed for standardized test scores and relied on student data in order to inform practices of school improvement. I struggled with this for several reasons, chief among them is that I don’t want our students to fit into a “standard”, I want them to be looked at as unique and special. I didn’t want them to reduce to numbers. If we only use data as the foundation of what we do, then we would miss out on opportunities for genuine teacher inquiries. Speaking of which, I examined the structure of 
as the premise for our rules of 
to understand, then to be understood, 
When a newborn begins to realize that they have a body and becomes fascinated with their hands, they study them intensely. They put them in their mouths, they linger on different textures, wanting to squeeze them to feel them oozing through their fingers.
In 
But I stopped and gawked at the walls, having busy parents brush past me, I was mesmerized by their 
As we move further away from our “totalitarian approach” of teacher-directed learning and transition into more student-led learning, it may appear that our role as a teacher is becoming irrelevant. That ‘Freedom for the pike is death to the minnows’, in which empowering students to be self-directed diminishes the need for teachers altogether, especially with the technology that is out there. But I disagree. As we provide for more opportunities for students to determine where the content takes them in their learning journey, our true power lies in the craft of empowering them to manage themselves wisely. So, on the surface, it looks like we are giving up control, but in actuality, when we are eliciting more student voice, choice, and ownership, we are amplifying our influence and consequently we need to develop more skillfulness in the practices that shape and promote agency:
So what do you do to bring out the best in teachers and colleagues? How do you instill trust and confidence in them? And how do you connect with them when you have something difficult to share? Do others solicit your advice for improvement or turn to others for help? Or do you have closed doors and closed minds?
