Building Understanding

Pick your tune…

“It’s been a while…” – Staind

“It’s been a long time, since I rock and rolled!” – Led Zepplin

“Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio…” – Simon and Garfunkel

And I’m sure there are many others.  Regardless, they all capture that at a current posting rate of once every 6 months, I can hardly expect anybody to still be at the other end of this.  I have good excuses like “it was my first year as an administrator” and “I have a young family” and “I’m so busy learning that I don’t have time to share”.  They’re all legit, but in a time when we abandon an RSS feed that hasn’t gone bold in months, it would be unreasonable to think anybody’d still be here.

And yet I write.

I write to get my thoughts out.

I write to get my thoughts together.

I write because I need to frame those thoughts – to reflect on where I am, what I’m doing, whether I’m heading in the right direction and maybe to figure out if I’m making a difference.  Maybe not accurate, but somehow it feels like sharing it (even if it’s with no one) seeks validation or at least like-mindedness.

In the end, it doesn’t matter, because the real difference we’re trying to make is with the students in our care.  This is where I look for a difference to be made.  This is where we must find out if learning is better (if kids are better!) because of what we do.

(And apparently I write to go off on tangents.)

“Back to life.  Back to reality.” – En Vogue (that’s right, I quoted En Vogue) (update: apparently I didn’t…I quoted Soul II Soul!)

So I’m getting back into writing the blog.

And I’m getting back into, with the school year underway, trying to Build Understanding at my school.  Supporting and learning from my Principal as we lead faculty and students to better learning, challenge, reflection, and global awareness.

And that’s the key to our school’s Mission – to build understanding.  Understanding of content.  Understanding of self.  Understanding of others (including the global community).

I’m in my second year now as an administrator, so I don’t get the excuse of learning the job anymore.  I’m back.  I want back into the community of learners/educators out here and I know I’m going to have to earn my way back in with contribution.

I’m getting back into it.

image by Mike Rohde, Flickr Creative Commons

I had the fun privilege of addressing the student body with the “message” to start the semester this week.  When you plan, write, and ultimately deliver these things, you worry and wonder how students (and teachers) will respond to what you have to say.  I have received some positive feedback and in an effort to document my forays into school administration and the learning I make every day, I am posting what I had to say (minus the slight improvisations and the minor word choice changes in delivery).

I hope that it set a tone for positivity and looking out for each other in our student body.  I admit I had a particular issue in mind as I considered what to say.  We have great kids here – welcoming, warm, and globally minded.  But they are also incredibly privileged teens.  Here’s hoping the students responded well to the message and it continues to build understanding for a positive school community and culture.

What I said:

Welcome back everyone.

As we head off into the second semester, I wanted to remind you that your friends, your school, your community need you. At the start of the year, Mr. Bradley, his geese and I reminded you that your success DEPENDS on the people around you. Your friends, your teachers, your counselors, your parents, even your administrators.

We are all in this together, I said. Well okay, Zach Efron said it in HS Musical, but I wasn’t quoting him at the time.

But as we head into this semester, stay together. Help each other out. Stand up for what’s right. I’ll say that one again. Stand up for what’s right.

We all know how we want to be treated. How people should be treated. And we know when we are being hurtful or teasing or just being mean. There isn’t a person in this room who doesn’t know what that looks like, sounds like, reads like on Facebook, or most importantly feels like (from either side).

So don’t let it happen. To you or anyone else. Don’t be that guy or that girl. It is possible to approach each other with optimism, friendliness, and respect. Idealistic, sure…but all it takes is choice to act positively rather than negatively. To act instead of turning a blind eye. You will never regret helping someone who needed help even if they didn’t know it. But you will always wish you had if you don’t help and something really bad happens.

It is your choice to treat others well. Your choice not to tolerate it when others don’t. It’s your choice to help keep your friends safe and ensure EVERYONE gets the respect we all deserve.

Yesterday, I asked the seniors to make sure that they got to know each other in the next 5 months. To enjoy their last semester together before everyone heads off after graduation.

Maybe the rest of you are luckier…you have even more time to get to know the amazing people that are sitting all around you… think about it…in this room are amazing people… people who sculpt or sing, or write, or run really fast, or make music or poetry or find math as easy as breathing. People who dominate on a court or field or video game … and people who somehow know exactly the right thing to say when you feel sad. You all shine somewhere, somehow. Honestly, this theater is filled with awesomeness.

Some of you are shy and some of you are bold. Some of you talk and some of you listen. But all of you have feelings. All of you can feel proud and all of you can feel hurt.

I can stand up here and ask you to follow rules, but instead on this first day of the semester, I remind you what looking after each other means. It means making sure EVERYONE has a chance to shine, to feel good and be true to themselves. It means not tolerating gossip or hateful comments and catching yourself when you might be making them. It means being honest and fair rather than hurtful and mean. It means understanding that obstacles can be overcome if we help each other. All it takes is for each one of you to decide, “I can do that.” “I can treat people well.”

I’m excited about the semester. Before you know it, it’ll be June. Balance your learning, your school life, your social lives, and your family. Look after yourself. Look after each other. Ask for help when you need it. Stand up for what you know is right and fair.

We ARE all in this together, and you are an awesome group to be in it together with. Learn, have fun and it’ll be a great semester for everyone.

See you tomorrow!

Just a re-blog here (is that the blog equivalent of the retweet?)…

Found this at the Educator’s PLN added by Thomas Whitby.  A Prezi on Todd Whitaker’s book “What Great Principals Do Differently:  The Fifteen Things that Matter Most”, by Jennifer Angel.

Woke up this morning, I suddenly realized, we’re all in this together. – Ben Lee

This is a post that has been ruminating in my head for 6 months now.  Wonderful lyrics in a great song and lots of ties into what learning and school culture needs to emulate.  The post is all the more fitting now as I have started the next phase of my career in education – administration.

So at the start of August, it was time for me to introduce myself to staff then later students and parents as the new HS Dean of Students.  What was I going to say?  What am I about?  What will it be like with me in this role?

And this song kept running through my head.

I’m made of atoms.  You’re made of atoms. And we’re all in this together.

What schools need to be is a place where students do more than avoid doing what’s wrong.  Instead they do what’s right.  A school should be a place more than of rules and consequences – it should be a culture of looking out for each other, protecting those being picked on and taking a stance against bullying.

And this doesn’t come from a Vice-Principal or Dean of Students who plays the “bad guy”.  It comes from a community of teachers and adults who understand that setting the boundaries up is EVERYONE’S JOB.  Not noticing or turning a blind eye to infractions, bad language, or inappropriate behavior is equivalent to endorsing it.  I (t)asked our faculty to become part of that school culture.  To help me build it so that students understood that the boundaries are consistent, not haphazard.

And long division just doesn’t matter, cuz we’re all in this together.

But even with that, we are talking about a student culture here as well.  Too often I see school cultures of Us vs Them.  In my introduction to students I reminded them that teachers, counselors, administrators, and students all want the same thing – for the student to have a successful 4 years with us that allows them to be successful beyond those 4 years.  Now right now, maybe our picture of what that success looks like, may be different than the students’ vision.  Even so, they are certainly IN THE SAME DIRECTION.  The boundaries exist to ensure success for all students.  We are all in this together.

Students need to be reminded that we are all working in the same direction, working towards similar in not identical goals.  Adults in the building need to be part of this process and students need to understand that they are.

Every twelve seconds someone remembers that were all in this together.

As I and so many have written in the edu-blogosphere, our students face an unpredictable future.  It’s all changing so fast.  For them.  For us.  Navigating this change and preparing ourselves for that uncertain future is our task.  And “building understanding” requires more than coursework comprehension, more than expertise in communication, collaboration, and creation.  It requires building community.

Building real understanding between people so that we all look out for each other and do what’s right.

The city’s changing, cuz we are changing and we’re all in this together.

This is the role of educators.  It must be the culture of schools.

This is the responsibility of school leaders.

Understanding is strangers and cultures realizing that we are all in this together.  That we need each other to be successful must be the culture of education.

“On the subway, we feel like strangers, but we’re all in this together.”

It is my task to help make this our school culture.  Wish me luck.

Ask a scientist.  It’s quantum physics.  We’re all in this together.

“Mucho Jacks” image by laszlo-photo, used under Creative Commons

Welcome.

I have been writing (on and off) online for just a couple years now at the site Thinking Allowed, but have finally made the leap into owning a domain and controlling my own stuff.  I feel like  a renter who’s bought his first home.  Exciting, but more pressure.

But it’s finally time.

I’ve changed the blog name as part of the move as a by-product of some thoughts I am sorting through myself.  In education, we are shifting our thinking to accomodate include learning in a globally connected and rapidly changing world.  But we know good learners do more than communicate, collaborate, and think.  We know learners need to understand.  They need to construct meaning and understand scientific principles, literature, art, etc.  But that’s not all.  They also need to Be Understanding.

At a conference I recently attended, Project Zero’s Ron Ritchhart asked this question:

What do we want the children we teach to be like when they are adults?

Overwhelmingly, responses to this speak to dispositions like ethics, independent learning, caring, creativity, and such.  Yet in schools we often focus on creating technical experts in history, math, science and more with little connection to how these students will live their lives.  Are we actively striving to produce these types of adults or does it happen by chance?

Do schools build learners we value by happenstance or intent?

Are we building understanding in our learners?  In our teachers?  It has become a focus for me to ensure that we are, both in their content learning and more altruistically in the way they interact with their community and their world.  Additionally, I still have so much to learn and come to understand as I try to improve school education for learners in a Flat World from my current role as a Technology and Learning Coordinator or in my future (hopefully) role as a school leader.

So “Building Understanding” it is.  For our students.  For teachers and administrators.  For content.  For the whole child.

I’m also building understanding for me.  So much to learn and so many people to learn from.  I hope you join me in this effort and the conversation to come.

images found searching Flickr Creative Commons:  Worn Old Welcome Mat by Jason-Morrison, I Understand Everything (mostly) by gak

Both administrators and teachers are busy.

(Phew, I got that out of the way.)

Many of the ideas we share in the edu-blogosphere revolve around new ideas (for education) and new practices.  Embedding technology into the classroom no longer means making sure that students word process, do spreadsheets, and “do PowerPoint”.

Thank goodness.

Instead, we now want teachers to understand that best practice technology use should be “transformational” (Alan November’s word).  The use of technology should be to do things we couldn’t do without a computer.  Kids should be collaborating, communicating, and managing information in ways that simply weren’t possible before.  Even using technology to provide efficiency to allow for greater depth of reflection and understanding is powerful.

We know this.

But teachers are busy.  How can they begin to learn and know all of these practices?  Who will “develop” their skills with technology and learning?

The tech folks?  Sure, but it’s an uphill task and let’s not forget that “busy” thing.  If teachers are expected to spend time developing their pedagogy involving technology one of two things need to happen:

1. They get it.  They see the need and they believe they need to learn it so that their students will learn.
2. It needs to be made clear that this is valued by their administrators.

I wrote before about the need to get administrators on board with the necessary shift in education.  This is important to school-wide change.

But administrators are busy too.  How can they possibly keep up with best practice?  They can’t know it all, but they can know enough to ensure that they are fostering positive professional growth in their faculty.  Using their supervisory role as an opportunity to see what teachers are using technology for and sharing what they value by asking questions, teachers are more likely to reflect upon their use of technology and make changes with the help of their tech people.

I recently presented at the EARCOS administrator’s conference on this very idea.  Titled, “Looking for Learning – How supervisors can foster best practice technology use,” I shared various best practice “things to look for” in how a teacher is using technology in their classroom. (I’d share the slides, but in doing it “presentation zen”, without the talking, they don’t read particularly well – a curse of “the zen”.  I did include a handout on my presentation wiki, but forgot to tell my audience.)

The goal: give administrators enough knowledge to do more than check off a box that indicates whether a class was “using technology” or not.

Give them enough knowledge to ask reflection-provoking questions and professionally grow their faculty.

Photo by Stephen Poff
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License

Here’s what I presented…

Physical space:

• Does desk layout foster collaboration (kids on computers are isolating enough)?
• Can a teacher move around and see all computers and all students?

Classroom Management:

• When the teachers wants attention, do they have students lower the lids (so simple, yet so under-used)?
• When students are working, is the teacher in front of the room only able to see the back of the laptops? (walking around checking on student understanding and work has ALWAYS been best practice)
• When beginning class with instructions and learning outcomes, are the teachers saving time by having their machines logging in?

After sharing these simple tips in how teachers use physical space and manage a class of students on laptops, I offered some key suggestions for what can be different with best practice use of technology.

Great pedagogy with technology can provide:

1. audience
2. voice
3. connections
4. collaboration
5. communication

All ultimately leading to important learning.

I then shared several questions for that post-observation conference:

1. In what ways did the technology enhance the learning?
2. Who were the students’ audience?  What feedback will they get?
3. What other audiences, could enhance the learning?
4. What technology skills did you expect students to have in order to be successful?  Did they have them?
5. What technology skills did you expect students to acquire if successful?  Did they get them?

Equipped with these questions, administrators share the thinking that goes into best practice technology use.  They encourage reflective pedagogy and consideration of what matters when selecting technology to enhance a lesson.

I hope it struck a chord.  I hope it leads to better instruction and more importantly better learning.

I hope we all continue to professionally grow.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

I am at the EARCOS Admin Conference in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia.

I have just come out of the room after presenting the I.T. Curriculum 2.0 presentation that Justin and I developed a year ago and its newest iteration.  Was a great turn out and a wonderful conversation.  People offered terrific insight and questions and it is an awesome reminder how smart the people running schools are.  And it’s an honor to start a conversation with them about rethinking how students learn and what they need to learn.

(Click on the Presentations tab to get to my wiki to see notes and resources from the presentation.)

What’s additionally cooler though, is having a colleague like Jeff who live blogged my whole session to his audience and created a back channel conversation on all of those thoughts.  Thanks Jeff.  Check out the unbelievable conversation that happened online, live as I was presenting.  Talk about shared learning!

Next presentation on Tuesday, 13:45 my time which I believe is GMT +8.  Looking for Learning – How supervsiors can foster best practice technology use.  The more I’ve been talking with administrators, the more I see that this is something a lot of schools want to know more about.  I’m excited.

In returning from the Learning 2.008 Conference, I have had a lot on my mind.  The conference brought together educators new to all of this “shift happens” talk and those that were on board – our “converted” that echo in the blogosphere, sometimes too much.  And the conference continues to succeed in bringing an enthusiasm and energy to those new to these ideas – getting more people “on the bus”.  If that’s happening, then the conference is doing its job.

But I wonder where the rest of us are going.

Sifting through my RSS reader, reading through the blog posts of my Personal Learning Network, commenting and being commented upon, I find myself questionning where we stand.

How much change are we affecting?

How much “shift” is happening in our schools?

In isoloated projects or classrooms, some incredible stuff is happening.  Kids are collaborating.  They’re networked, wired, savvy, and being prepared to succeed.

But in those same schools and throughout education, we still that the majority are not on the bus – they didn’t even know that there was somewhere to go.

What is going to be the tipping point of this shift?

Will schools resist changing and render themselves obsolete? And at what stage does this become unethical to allow?

Real widespread change is going to have to come from administration.

In schools, we find ourselves clinging to proven pedagogy and content curriculum, because they have worked in the past and it’s what we know.

Now however, we also recognize that students need more different learning.  They’ve always needed the skills of communication, collaboration, and meta-cognition.  We’ve always valued Gardner’s disciplined and ethical minds (and other Five Minds).  But the context for which they need these skills and minds has changed, sped up, and arguably gained in importance.  As a result, students need different learning experiences to ensure their participation and success in a rapidly changing world.

So, here I go again, joining the echo chamber, preaching to the converted.  Where am I going with this?

Educators who get this idea, are on one side of a chasm from the rest of education still rooted in old practice (with best intentions).

In trying to lead change, educators are trying to manage this gap between what we’ve done and what we need to do.  It needs to be school administrators who lead this shift, by bridging the gap between the tried-and-true and the bold-and-new.

The edublogosphere made up of consultants and librarians, technology facilitators and teachers are doing their best and making headway, but the fog is still thick and they are navigating through it with a flashlight.

It will take school administrators who see the need for educational change (reform is too intimidating a word) to take isolated innovation and make it practice.

Truly make it the way we do business.

So, get to work on your administrators and get them on board.  Or better yet, become administrators yourselves.

Keep in mind that you lead a staff who are generally good teachers.  They have great intentions.  They care about student learning.  And all the good that they have done and can do is not yet obsolete (no matter how often we tell ourselves it is).

We find ourselves at a pivotal time, I believe, where a new wave of administrators could be coming through, grounded in traditional schooling, but also thriving in a wired world.  Educators who understand both sides of the gap.

It is these administrators who can bridge this gap.

You won’t find these educators satisfied getting on the bus – they’re ready to drive it.

Maybe one of these people is you.

Or me.

Photo by tread
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License