Photo Courtesy Angie Harrison

One of the nice consequences of the move to my current school has been the drive to work has been extended by a few more minutes. Before we get to agitated about my carbon footprint, my previous commute was through mostly urban and suburban areas with lots of stopping and going in traffic. My new commute has me taking  a 30 minute trek on a lovely rural road with exactly 3 stop lights between my home and school with NO traffic (other than the odd farm tractor).

Rather than listen to the biased rants of talk radio hosts, or the overwrought, cliche-ridden ramblings of our local sports radio jocks about the fate of my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs; I’ve decided to make my mom proud and go to Harvard.Not in Cambridge but in the comforts of my shiny compact SUV.

Harvard has collected a great stash of education-related podcasts from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and has made them available through iTunes U. They are all about 15 minutes in length and address a wide range of topics, both in the North American and global context.  I find listening to a podcast twice during my morning drive is a great way to flow the juices, launch the day and make the drive a reflective experience.

Two things that I’m tossing about right now spring from recent talks I’ve listened to by Richard Elmore and Wynton Marsalis on leadership, creativity and change:

1) Investing in teachers involves  more than throwing resources and training in their general direction. Investing in people means I have to give some of myself; my time, my interest, my passion. People are looking for leaders who get that and show it through their actions (not just their action plans)

2) Change is both incremental and dynamic. When we connect creative people around a purpose the change process will take time, but can leap and evolve in almost magical ways~ as long as we understand that it is the trust and the relationships that lead to the growth and not mandates or external pressures.

I’m grateful to our colleagues at Harvard for investing in my learning, and for setting an example of one way that personalized, just in time learning can work. I’m also grateful for my time I have to drive my way to becoming a better person (and leader).

Frank Zappa

For most of the past few thousand years we have used a pyramid as the metaphor for our knowledge and social systems (including networks). The hierarchical structure is well established in our culture to the point where it is hegemonic. Scholars, thinkers and  theorists ranging from T.S. Eliot, Mortimer Adler, Russell Ackoff and, yes, Frank Zappa have all made some reference to what Ackoff called the DIKW Hierarchy or Wisdom Pyramid.  Ackoff explored the dynamic relationship between systems and human behavior, pointing out that, “Individual systems are purposive, knowledge and understanding of their aims can only be gained by taking into account the mechanisms of social, cultural, and psychological systems”

Think about most educational systems, schools and classrooms and you can see this hierarchical structure still in place. Students on the bottom, followed by a diminishing quantity of individuals as we climb. Or, inversely, a large number of students chasing the more scarce amount of knowledge that exists in the teacher’s toolbox of texts and tasks. This all  makes sense, the structure of pyramids are solid, they are built to last and do.

Two things though: we don’t really build them anymore these days and when we did, it was usually to store a dead regent or ruler.

Then,we had the internet come along and all of sudden (as David Weinberger so skillfully points out in Too Big to Know) the pyramids don’t really fit as a metaphor for systems or knowledge. The connections and dynamic, networked interplay that is the modern web has released knowledge from the constraints of paper and expertise and smashed the hierarchy as knowledge is now contained within the network, not at the top of it. The irony of the role that networked media played as a catalyst to the end of the Mubarak era (in Egypt) is just to tasty to resist.

Like a balloon, the knowledge within the net surges and flows within a structure that is pliable and malleable (and accessible to anyone who wishes to pump some air in to it). And now we wait for the inevitable shift to occur in our systems as we adapt to this reality…or rather than wait, shall we set out to challenge the status quo and push this change along?

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Photo Credit: Angie Harrison

“We are inescapably facing the fact that the workd is too big to know. And as a species we are adapting. Our traditional knowledge-based institutions are taking their first hesitant steps on land, and knowledge is beginning to show its new shape.” ~David Weinberger~

What do we really know about the human brain? A lot more than we did 20 years ago; likely a lot more than we did even 10 years ago. Last night we watched an episode of the Nature of Things titled Surviving the Teenage Brain. In the doc David Suzuki guides us through an engaging and detailed hour that @techieang and I found both amusing, informative and terrifying~ a state that we know all too well as the parents of 3 teenagers.

I’m also reading David Weinberger’s book Too Big to Know and have been thinking a lot about how our systems will need to adapt to the adaptations that networked technologies are prompting among our children.

One of Suzuki’s key premises that the use of mobile devices and social networks are literally evolving the adolescent brain as it undergoes that natural neural blooming and pruning process that is the actual root of adolescence.

How are we going to respond to this? So far we have considered these tools as a ‘want’ for our students and have responded accordingly. Are we ready to adapt our systems to the prospect that this sense of being connected is quite likely a necessity for our learners? In other words, its a hardware issue, rather than software?

I’m working on 3 key things to help navigate this transition:

Inclusion- diversity is a strength and students and families who are quite likely connected, through networks, with hundreds of others around the globe will need to have schools that help develop the habits and dispositions of inclusiveness in order for there to be a respectful and productive climate within these networks

Inquiry- content and knowledge is no longer scarce and is no longer the property of the few, it is spread out across networks that overlap, refine and re-shape it through social processes that are almost infinite in scope. Developing the habits and dispositions to inquire; based upon rich questions and relevant, personal and meaningful interests is critical. The bucket-o-facts is too small to hold the answers, but more than useful for pouring out the questions.

Innovation- Hope is not a strategy. We can’t hope for creative and adaptive thinking to develop, we need to re-wire our systems to ensure that there is the capacity for innovation to become part of the culture of public education. Teachers and school leaders must be open to innovative practice and provide the support, structures to enable innovation to happen.

Please respond with suggestions and practices that you know of, or are wishing for, in each of these areas; I’m eager to learn along with you.

Photo Credit- Peter Harrison

“…knowledge is becoming inextricable from — literally unthinkable without — the network that enables it.”   ~David Weinberger

On a cold, snowy and windy Canadian evening, Royan Lee (@royanlee) and I braved the elements and met up for a chat in a cozy pub. Like all such chats our goal was to catch up on things, enjoy a pint and change the world. We chatted about our kids, our jobs, our short and long term goals and the challenges we face in each of these areas~great stuff.

We shared some excitement about Apple’s pending announcement and the prediction that they would be ‘entering’ the text book market in a significant way through the iPad platform. We both agreed, based upon the past evidence from Cupertino, that this could be a game changer for our profession; with a proviso, that is captured with this question:

How will our systems adapt to embrace innovation and are we open to the idea of ‘teachers as designers’? 

Networks, as David Weinberger’s quote stresses, have mashed and flattened knowledge (what we have called content) to the point where it is  fluid as it is spread out in the minds and experiences of those who dwell in networks. We put in, we take out in a manner that is alarming is it’s ease and rapidity.

Many school systems are only now understanding this fluidity, as they struggle with the transition from a fixed, block and control  mindset~where information flows out  from the center (or top) of the organization in a controlled manner and the avenues that teachers, students and parents have to put information ‘into’ the system are strictly controlled and regulated.

Controls and regulations are not bad things, they are actually essential for the operation of any network. The idea that  Royan and I wrestled with was how Apple’s foray into content would alter our work as teachers. The use of content apps and the creative tools present in the ‘cloud’ creates an opportunity for teachers (and students) to collaborate (on a huge scale) to interpret,design and create ‘content’ for learning. All of this in a well-managed and strictly regulated network. One thing we know about Apple is they have the whole hardware/software and network integration/regulation thing figured out.

You see, one of the things that educators struggle with in the area of social networking and collaboration is trust~we don’t trust the openness of these platforms and we don’t really trust, in a deep way, their professional knowledge and judgement. This why we tend rely upon centrally produced text books as the carriers of content and shy away from using blogs and SM tools, too few of us are using these tools.

In a world where content is created by the members of the network, and the capacity to connect to create content texts is available in a seamless, all be it messy, manner teachers will need to be designers. And school systems will need to adapt in ways that will allow these networks to function.

If we do, it would be a remarkable evolution and provide the impetus for a radical, necessary shift in how the teaching profession views itself and is viewed by others.

Cross posted at http://www.connectedprincipals.com/

Photo Credit: Italian Guardia di Finanza (Border Police)/Associated Press

Photo Credit- Angie Harrison

I sat at the back of the the room (as usual) with a few dear colleagues at our last monthly administrators’ meeting listening to my friend and colleague Stephen Louca give a brief talk about the role and impact of social media in the area of leadership and learning. Stephen supports our schools and teachers in the area of technology integration and is a very smart, and very engaging, presenter.

Stephen was sharing some of the ways social media platforms are used by students, teachers and school leaders to connect and extend their learning. He shared some tweets, examples of ways Moodle, Facebook and Edmodo are used in education and then took us to some administrator blogs to illustrate some of the ways principals and vice principals were using blogs. He shared two compilation sites; the excellent Connected Principals blog as well as our growing ONT CLblog and then moved on to highlight some individual administrator blogs; at which point my blog, The Smaller Office, flashed up on the screen for all to see. The heads swiveled, en masse, to the back of the room as Stephen asked if I’d mind giving a brief explanation on why I blog.

Now, the whole point of blogging is to reach out to the world and make some sort of statement, to put oneself out there in a literal sense, so the fact that this attention had come my way did not provoke too much anxiety on my part. The interesting part for me came at the break a short time later, when some of my colleagues approached me to talk about blogging and ask a few questions. Usually, when I’m asked the question from this post’s title it is asked using a curious tone, or one that hints at the “how do you find the time” angle. There are those rare times when the question is asked in an accusatory tone- as in “why do you blog?”.  Of course, in the blogosphere we ask this same question of each other every  time we post, with the emphasis placed on “Why do you blog?” , or perhaps more appropriately; “Why do I  blog?”

So, why do I  blog? I started blogging as a grade 7/8 classroom teacher as we were evolving from using reading response journals towards a more collective and dynamic process for writing about what we had read. In this domain, the students and I summarized, posed questions and challenged each other as readers and writers, as soon as I set this environment in motion, there was no turning back for me. The idea that the thoughts and questions and voices, of my students and myself could be heard in such an elegant and seamless manner was powerful and empowering. As I left my classroom to become a VP, I left too, the richness of this environment and spent two years away from blogging.

As I moved into my role as an elementary vice principal I began to blog again as I was preparing for our district’s principal selection process. My Supervisory Officer had suggested that I write about my leadership experiences in a reflective manner, connecting my experiences to the Ontario Leadership Framework and capacities as a way of preparing for my Principal Dialogue. As a response to this suggestion, the Smaller Office was born.

I still blog for the same reasons I did as a classroom teacher. My posts allow me to express ideas, opinions and questions in a way that is both personal and public. I’m part of a broad community of teachers, students, parents and other school leaders who challenge me, engage me, make me think and help me in immeasurable ways. Ontario principal Shannon Smith blogs  ”to participate in the conversation about what needs to be happening in education to continue making it better.” B.C. principal Chris Wejr’s blog posts and the responses he provides to my posts challenge me to think about the harmful effects of many traditional school practices and the ways school leaders can navigate towards more engaging and collaborative schools. Ontario teacher Royan Lee’s posts and responses are rich in student and teacher voice and provocative; often prompting me to formulate a response that becomes a blog posting of my own. My York Region colleague Greg Collins’ regular posts on the Lorna Jackson PS school blog serve as a model for the transparency that I aim to achieve as a principal and a blogger. These are just a few examples of a ever expanding community.

Mike Schmoker uses a term I love to describe what an authentic learning community ought to be; argumentative literacy. You see, it’s not that  I’m connected through blogging that matters to me, it is how and why I’m connected that matters. How the tools of the web connect us and make response so efficient and seamless is critical. Equally critical is the notion that writing is a tool for thought andcan be driver of collective and individual change, sometimes the tools do matter. The give and take, the back and forth, the discourse and discuss, the visible and meaningful arguments about important ideas;  these are the reasons I  blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,800 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Photo Credit - Angie Harrison

“…when managers are disengaged, it breeds a toxic work environment. This environment festers into a workforce that is, for the most part, motionless and robotic.”         Ron Thomas

I’ve had the chance to work in lots of schools over my 20 year career in a variety of roles; teacher, literacy coach, librarian, lead teacher, consultant and vice principal. All tolled, I’ve worked in 8 schools in these capacities for varying periods of time. One of the things that I value greatly from these experiences have been leaders that I had the chance to work alongside and learn from; leaders who were involved and engaged, made me think, made me laugh and pushed me to grow. Leaders who sought to build their team, and not just their resume.

I pride myself in striving to be such a leader. In fact, one of the quotes I’ve used when I’ve left a school due to begin a new assignment  is, “It is better to be though highly of wherever you go, rather than when you go.” (to whom I may attribute this quote is lost to me).

I read with interest and ‘engagement’  a blog posting by Ron Thomas on the critical role that managers play in the creating a climate where engagement and creativity are valued. As Daniel Pink reminds us, we are driven by the our sense of mastery, autonomy and purpose. As a school vice principal, it is important for me to not only expect these things from our team, but also to model these things with our team.

Thomas offers up 10 questions for reflection:

1. Does your team feel inspired and motivated by your leadership?
2. Are you aware of your team members’ career goals?
3. Do you know your team members’ significant others, kids names, family situation, etc?
4. Is your team seen as a fun team and collaborative?
5. Are other employees looking at your team longingly, wanting to be a member of it?
6. Do people that you have managed over the years still keep in touch with you?
7. Would your team look forward to a meeting, lunch or dinner with you?
8. Do you communicate frequent feedback, both good and bad?
9. Are you seen as a coach, or do you constantly micromanage?
10. Do your employees feel that you are their maestro?

It’s been a long run from the start of school back in late August and it would be really easy to go all ‘tired, tense & terse’ right now but if we want the students we are responsible for to feel engaged and valued, we will need to make sure that we are doing all we can to sustain this with each of the adults on staff with whom our students spend their days.

That’s a big part of a strong team and is the work of the leader; the Chief Engagement Officer

Photo by Peter Harrison

” My dilemma is that I don’t know how should I grade/evaluate them? Actually, no, that’s not the issue. The real problem I’m having is that I just don’t know why I should.” ~@royanlee~

My son Ben and his two classmates discovered the reality of film work this week, realizing that a HUGE number of stills need to be taken to make the 30 second stop animation PSA they are creating in their grade 8 class (all @techieang and I could do was smile, well perhaps there was some smirking and cackling in there as well). But, the kid who ‘hates homework’ spent over an hour working away (with 2 or 3 more hours to come this weekend) and all we could hear was the sound of purposeful chatter, laughter and lots of meaningful productive talk ‘flowing’ from the dining room.

Later that evening I read @royanlee’s post on the struggle he was having with assigning a grade to the wonderful film work that his students had completed and the powerful, reflective writing they had created in response to their works. It reminded me of the short tribute film to Holocaust survivors that a group of grade 8 students created when I was still in the classroom. After viewing it I told them my tears, and the tears of their classmates, were worth more than any mark I could possibly give; they made us notice, they made us care and that is the point of creating something. Whether it is a film, a poster, a piece of writing, all I ever asked of my students was to create something that would make an impact. These were the ‘success criteria’ that were shared in my classroom (and the ones I now share with the teachers I’m leading).

I’m more interested in having our students make a mark than get a mark, and so are they. So, lets be genuine with them. Push them to create great stuff about important ideas and students will not only rise to the challenge, they will be able to articulate what they have learned and why it matters. Do this, and don’t cheapen it with a mark. Share your descriptive feedback, offer a genuine response. Let them know that when it comes time to write the report card you’ll turn the great things they have created into a grade and all they have to do is keep creating things~the wonderful thing about people is we actually do great things when we are given the chance, a purpose, feedback and an audience. After all, look at all of us bloggers.

This entry has been cross posted at connectedprincipals

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hauntedpalace/254294223/sizes/m/in/photostream/

“In a world of near-constant flux, play becomes a strategy for embracing change, rather than a way of growing out of it.”     Douglas Thomas & John Seely Brown

I believe we are hard-wired to learn and to create through, and in, the social. We make sense of our world and our experiences through a multitude if ways that, when broken, down look an awful lot like, well, play.  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the conversations we have in education about the different metaphors or terms we use to describe learning. For most educators and other stakeholders, we use a factory model to describe learning, students work at school and they have homework they bring from school. Like Snow White’s happy hosts, off to work they go!

Smart people like Daniel Pink and Sir Ken Robinson are challenging us to think about learning as something more than just ‘work’ and there is a whole lot of chitter and chatter about this topic coming from all corners. Some think that learning should be based on a traditional model of ‘hard work’ and ‘rigor’ are essential for student learning, others think that play and free exploration are critical. I think that most of us fall somewhere along this spectrum. I think that we have always used play, creativity and social connections to help us make sense of our environment and  face the challenges of life. I also think that many of the tenets we cling to in education are not necessarily long standing or have, as their basis, any connection to what science, or evolution, tells us actually works. Which brings me back to the hard wired part.

Around the world, we have discovered cave art and paintings that were created by those who came before us, eons ago. We know that life in these times was difficult, ruthless and short. It strikes me that, even in those conditions, people felt the need to create, to socialize using text and to play. And, they used the walls of the caves they occupied as the context for this communication. I wonder if their desire was only to enrich their immediate environment (aesthetics) or to communicate their experiences in a more lasting way to those who would follow, or both?

It’s not lost on me that those who use Facebook are following a pattern that can be observed in our earliest history, posting images and text on a wall; to share what they have learned, to create and to be social. So, if we really want to get ‘back to the basics’ and do things the way ‘they have always been done’…

This entry has been cross-posted on Connected Principals