Education Reform- Just Get On With It

flickr CC image via Lance Sheilds

I have had the opportunity a few times within the institutions I serve to contribute towards the conception of mission, vision and values statements. As much as I agree these statements are vital to the long-term sustainablity of any organization, I must admit, the process can be taxing to say the least. An excellent Twitter conversation I had recently with Jerrid Kruse (@jerridkruse) spurred me to reflect further on my thoughts regarding purpose, and where it should originate in education.

One of the most profoundly thought-provoking books I have read recently is Viktor Frankl's (1946) Man's Search for Meaning chronicling his experiences as a concentration camp inmate, and describing his psychotherapeutic method of finding a reason to live. According to Frankl, the book intends to answer the question "How was everyday life in a concentration camp reflected in the mind of the average prisoner?" I took away from this book the notion that without purpose, there is nothing. I think I already knew this on some level, but not to the point where I was considering the concept as part of my minute-by-minute navigation of daily challenges. I have come to realize implicitly that purpose needs to be at the core of everything I do. As an educator, I believe it is critical that a sense of personal and professional purpose is reflected in the mind of every teacher.

Back to the mission, vision and values (MVV) statements issue...
During my conversation with Jerrid, we reflected on the question of where the MVV should originate. There is a two-fold context to this question; the organizational context and the individual context. As I stated above, MVV statements are vital to the long-term sustainablity of organizations... this is undeniable. A successful organization is one that knows explicitly what it does, the preferred future it is aspiring toward and how its beliefs will help them get there. Running alongside this collective, organizational principle of MVV statements are individual people who make up the organization. I believe that successful organizations are a sum total of the successes of the people who belong to them. For this reason, it becomes crucial for the people within an organization to be highly attuned to the MVV of the organization they belong to, but even more importantly if the organization is to thrive, these individuals must be dialed in to their personal MVV philosophy and how it syncs with the collective MVV of the organization.

At the core of our conversation was the issue of education reform. There are few who don't believe our western education system can be improved in multi-faceted dimensions. Virtually every bastion of traditional education appears to be under scrutiny in reaction to quantum changes in society demanding a proactive response from schools. We agreed that authentic change comes from the grassroots element, and in education, that element is teachers. Teachers have a unique vantage point relative to those dimensions of education that need to be changed... they are the people within education who know what is done well, and more importantly, what isn't and needs to change. With respect to MVV statements, I believe strongly that it's time for teachers to step out and share their perspective toward change in education, and in order to do this convincingly, they must be capable of articulating not only their personal mission, vision and values, but also how these are synthesized with the organizational mandate, or more critically, how they aren't. Consider the evolutionary possibilities inherent in a process where teachers are given a forum to share this reflective dialog with other education stakeholders; an intellectual environment where teachers' perspectives are not only heard, but respected because they have been shared sensibly, intelligently and proactively... and most vitally, with purpose.

It's time to just get on with the business of education reform, and there is no better cohort than teachers to lead the focused dialog about how it should be done; teachers willing to confidently share their personal mission, vision and values, the ones that reflect what's good about education today, but more importantly, the ones in opposition to what isn't.

Teachers... find your purpose, find your voice.

• Special thanks to Jerrid Kruse for cranking up my thoughts on this topic.

Technology in Education- How to Support a Tip in the Right Direction

flickr CC image via Hampton Roads Partnership

There are so many issues surrounding education. People all over the world are tweeting, joining personal learning networks, participating in professional development and lobbying about all of these issues... there is seemingly no end to it, and perhaps this is for good reason. One of the most current extremely hot-button issues in education is the integration of technology in teaching and learning. Considering the pace at which technology is advancing in our world, there is a very real challenge in education to keep pace. (I would argue that keeping pace isn't even good enough. I believe that educators should be leading the charge in society regarding technology integration and utilization. Can there be a better environment for this to occur?)

As correlated to so many variables influencing the tone that technology integration in schools takes place, (age, access to technology, desire to learn, socioeconomic status, school division philopsophy, personal teaching philosophy, parental support, etc.) all of us who influence children's education fall somewhere on the spectrum of attitude toward the use of technology in schools as  microcosms of society, and society in general.

By creating an us (those who endorse, support and nurture digital fluency) against them (those who don't support, for whatever reason, the advancement of social, educational and scientific technology applications) adversarial environment in schools, there is no opportunity to move from transactional forms of leadership to idea-tipping transformational leadership (what we so desperately need to effectively synthesize tech. integration in schools, and in reality, so many other change-requiring elements of N. American education institutions.)

I'm a fan of eastern philosophy. In Taoist philosophy, the word "Tao" is loosely translated as "the way." I believe that in order to find 'our way' on the technology transformation journey, education leaders need to be less provocative and more transformative.

Those of us who are keen to explore, understand, discover and utilize technology in our teaching and learning practise are duty-bound not to alienate those who, for whatever reason, are not. (I would assert that most who appear opposed to tech. integration actually aren't; they simply are anxious about something that they don't fully understand, and they're waiting for someone to just 'tell them what to do' so they can reserve the right to continue feeling, dare I say, safely dictated to by powers beyond their control.) Many teachers suffer from this default perspective, in my opinion. I also feel that the vast majority of them are intensely passionate professionals who have simply been dictated to too many times; they've lost their verve. It's up to us who's flames haven't gone out to re-ignite their desire to explore and discover the tech. integration possibilities that have yet to excite them.

We do this by treating our colleagues the same way we would responsibly treat our students when they feel anxiety toward a new challenge; we lead by example as pioneers unafraid to make mistakes. Stepping out in front as teachers constructively utilizing technology in schools will provide a bit of necessary Teflon for those who are apt to hang back and not take this sort of risk. Stepping to the back when their incremental efforts produce success is a great way to support this 'tech pioneers as leaders' mentality.

Self-esteem comes to those who become good at something, and then are provided a means to share that with others when comfortable. My strategy in leading a technology integration process aims to provide opportunities for colleagues to watch and learn without anxiety (the art of protecting,) and then to illuminate their learning progress by creating opportunities for them to share new skills (the art of celebrating). The desired outcomes are a comfortable tech learning environment where success is unaffected by stress and external pressures, and an expanded set of tech skills and insights on behalf of the teachers I work with. How can this lead to anything but a transformational change?
The most effective revolutions are the ones nobody realized were happening.

Education Reform- How then shall we be led?

flickr CC image via bpende

**With the utmost respect, and in response to Aaron Eyler's "Some Things Educators Need to Stop Saying" post (Synthesizing Education Blog) 

With all due respect, (and I don't necessarily disagree with you,) there are many professionals among us who aren't as attuned to the realities of education reform that you allude to. The terminology, (rhetoric as you refer to it,) educators are using to attempt to make sense of the change going on around them is just that; terminology.

I personally appreciate your honesty, and I get the "good fun" element of your post, but in all seriousness, I think you illuminate a much larger and complicated issue in education. You refer to the transparency and lack of substance of statements such as "who wants to leave a child behind?" I agree; this is a feeble statement, however I also believe that our agreement on the feebleness of this statement would not be shared wholely by the rest of the audience who heard it. Here's the rub: teachers NEED to be led. Many, many teachers buy into this sort of 'rhetoric' because our North American education system has left them feeling powerless to think for themselves, be creative and serve their students instinctually. The focus on externally placed standards of practice and curriculum in North America has become so pervasive that teachers have literally lost the ability to think for themselves, and even worse, lost the priveledge of sharing their professional insight with the continental institution of educational planning and policy-making that assigns these controls.

So, although I agree with your tongue-in-cheek commentary on the educational version of stating the obvious, (the 'child-centered classroom' is another favorite of mine,) I really believe that teachers latch onto these statements hanging on for dear life because they have been left feeling under-valued, controlled and manipulated to the point where any statement about education perceived to be well-meaning and designed to influence thought and perspective becomes popular.

I also wholeheartedly agree that it's time to just get on with things in education. However, to do this, a revised form of leadership would suit the task. I share your fondness for integrative thinking, and honestly (perhaps simplistically) this concept is where we need to begin. There have been many reforms, statements, programs, catch-phrases and movements in education... not all of these were, or are unsound. What we need to do is combine what has been good for education in the past with the best of what forward-thinking educators can come up with today, and design our own destiny.

This is possible.

Mindfullness...

flickr CC image via Scooter the Photographer

In a deliberate attempt to lead my fifth grade class toward a deeper understanding of discovery, taking risks in learning and being unafraid to make mistakes, I initiated a discussion about mindfullness.

In my classroom, I intend for students to feel an implicit connection to our learning environment; that learning 'just is'... it's what we do, and not 'added-on' to to our lives in a way that we don't control. In order to fully immerse ourselves as a group in the mindful classroom, it's so important that each individual, including myself as the 'principle learner' leading the group, exercise the ability to be in the moment; fully attuned to what's happening as perceived by our human modalities and intuitions.

Mindfully internalizing everything that occurs as part of our minute-by minute day is a deliberate skill I teach to encourage the visceral and positive experience we all should remember about school. Learning is an attitude, a perspective... and in this context, I believe most beneficial to the individual when it evolves into an intuitive process... one that we never, never stop developing, sometimes despite ourselves.

Mastery is a myth.

Personal Learning Stories

flickr CC image via Enokson

As a former special education teacher, I have had numerous opportunities to develop individual education plans (IEP) for students. Like many things special education teachers do for their students, I was left wondering why writing IEP's wouldn't be a good idea for every student. The process of developing a learner profile that addresses learning strengths and challenges, and then the setting of goals to address both seems quite logical, doesn't it? I believe that every student has a story, and I think of that story as containing three main components: the student's past; the student's present and the student's future. In a more specific context for me as the teacher, these components translate into the story I need to learn about (past), the story I need to help write (present) and the story with the happy ending (future).

As I continued to write, and re-write IEP's every year, I realized that an effective plan wasn't just one to guide learning. For me, IEP's took on a life of their own, and I began to think of them as organic and fluid; it was necessary for the IEP's to change and evolve as the students they were written for changed and evolved. I realized that the IEP was really just a story about where the student came from, where the student is 'right now' and lastly, where the student wants to be someday as a result of the learning effort he/she makes.

To effectively support students, I believe that in the context of this personalized learning approach, we have to begin at kindergarten and, pedagogically speaking, consider education as a 13 year learning story. Every student's story would begin with the IEP renamed as the 'Personal Learning Story' in Kindergarten, and this document would be passed on with the student all the way to graduation detailing challenges, goals and most importantly, successes achieved along the way. Consider the assessment possibilities that could be aligned with this form of tangible documentation... a world of possibilities providing much more insight into the individual student than a 13 year compilation of letter grades or percentile rankings.

Above all in education, the student must feel a sense of empowerment and control over his/her learning. We all write the best stories about ourselves; our experiences, thoughts, feeling, actions and words. Let's consider allowing kids to be the authors of their own learning- let's give them the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to the process. The result will be a tangibly increased sense of authenticity in our classrooms, and a renewed sense of responsibility for learning on behalf of students.