Learning is Change

We wear many hats.

We depend on these hats for our perspectives. We wear learning hats, teaching hats, and even hats that help us see out into the future.

I know each hat I have ever worn, having broken each one in the best I could before trading it in. I could describe each one, but in turn I would be describing who I was at the time I wore it. And so it is with each hat I see on others’ heads. Their hats fit them and help to show us who they are and what they care about. Is the hat well worn but dignified, or is it crisp and never blemished with brow sweat? These are the questions I ask as I inspect each new hat I come across.

And it is in this inspection that intricacies arise. The stains of certain projects come into focus, and we start to see just where they have been. It is almost as if we see directly through the hats to the heads underneath, watching as the thoughts and decisions lead the hats and their owners in new directions.

One of my favorite hats, though, is the one worn by Pete Piccolo, Deputy Director of OSRI. I imagine it has plaid or argyle, stylish and set straight on his head, but perhaps pushed forward just slightly, hinting at his interest to move forward. I see this hat enabling him to, like Sherlock Holmes, know the exact problem he wants to solve. As he scrawls across a page in the meeting creating a diagram to make sense of it all, his “Holmesian” hat allows him to ask just the right questions.

Beyond his hat, I keep coming back to what makes him and his team so valuable. They focus on innovation they focus on ways of doing things that are new or different. But it isn’t in terms of demolishing or destroying things. It is much more about truly seeking and deciphering and understanding and thinking.

And, when he wears his sleuthing hat, he is able to see the root cause of the problem plaguing you, finding the solution somehow from the ether around him. He is a detective with the capacity to open an issue and dig around inside seeking to find what no one else could.

Sometimes, we did not need the things we think we need. Sometimes we don’t need to go down the road with our own hats, brushing away our sweat and tears and straining against what we believe is important. Rather, sometimes we only need a different type of hat, and someone who can wear that hat with integrity.

The whole picture to little bit hard to see sometimes.

There are those of us, though, who see it much better than others. For them, the picture is clear. They have this natural feeling of what should come next and how the pieces fit together. And best of all, they tend to describe what they see in a way we all can understand.

When we find those people we should hold onto them for dear life, as they are articulate and amazing. One such person who sees the whole picture and ensures that things come together is Kipp Bentley, The Executive Director of Interdisciplinary Learning.

I believe it is the moving parts we struggle with most.

The moving parts scare us because there are so many of them and we feel like we could slip in between the cracks of each one. There is no trust in moving parts because you can’t fully believe that something will be there when you need it. So, we make temporary schematics that last for only a few moments while are in the meeting room with other moving parts, until we disperse again and become parts of the different whole.

But, Kipp knows what all of the moving parts are, and because of this, he can navigate them fluidly. He sees them all as systems of support, pushing back and forth, rather than shifting under his feet. He can authentically use phrases like “sides of the house” to describe the way in which teaching and learning, technology and other components all fit. There is a certain art some people like Kipp have for showing the connections, and making them real for us.

Kipp doesn’t just meet, he mentors.

It is the knowledge of where you go from here that is most powerful. I have learned that the easiest way to make a next step is in knowing that you are making the right one. The only way to do that is to have an advocate, and above all Kipp is that. He’s an advocate for things he believes in, and what he believes other should too.

It is in this advocacy that Kipp’s ability to see the whole picture coalesces. It’s only someone who is can advocate, see clearly, and listen for new information that  can truly bring about change and start to think through the implications of our decisions, both the good and the bad.

So I will miss Kipp as a partner when he leaves this summer. One great regret I have is that I did not come to DPS sooner in order to see what he sees on a regular basis.

School Leadership is not a singular thing. It is not simply having lines under you on an org chart. It is not just making proclamations or laying out an agenda for others to accomplish. It is not only having more responsibilities or feeling accountable for other’s actions. No, Leadership exists as a continuum, as a range of what is possible and whom it is possible for.

And it is the “whom” of this equation that is most interesting to me. Traditionally, formalized school leadership has been held within very few hands. Sure, the informal power that exists with administrative assistants and custodial staff is well documented, but in terms of autonomy to make big decisions, the Principal and her surrogates reserved those right exclusively.

One group in DPS is changing that. They are making it so many more people have the ability to lead within a school, and they are actively working to create a culture of Leadership among teachers. In fact, when I met with Justin Darnell of the Teacher Learning and Leadership Department and he outlined what the Leadership continuum looked like, I was struck by just how much of a plurality he was reaching.

By formalizing roles like Collaborative Team Lead and New Teacher Mentor, the picture of leadership across a school becomes more clear. It was refreshing to hear that learning and community was a focus as well, creating networks of Teacher Leaders who can and are supporting one another. After hearing Justin speak, it almost seems obvious. It was like saying, “Why wouldn’t we create additional ways for teachers to think and act strategically? Why wouldn’t we ensure that teachers can level up their leadership skills and take on new challenges as their careers mature?”

It is a testament to how Justin’s team is framing the work, though. Rather than focusing on formal leadership “losing power,” the focus has become creating an Learning Organization. Creating a culture of adult learning and reflective practice is no small task, but I believe by showing the full continuum of what Leadership looks like, we are opening the possibilities for more great teachers to both stay in the classroom with additional responsibilities and freedom to find new opportunities. We also eliminate a top-heavy model and focus our efforts on flattening our schools and tearing down the walls of our classrooms.

I believe that is something we can all find ways to support within our own work as well.

It is unique experience to hear words like Differentiation and Direct Instruction from 14 year olds. There is a strange cognitive dissonance that happens when children are using your “invented” language for their own ends, advocating for themselves in ways that you hadn’t even considered. What do you do when they own the language and it is no longer a barrier between teachers and students, but rather a shared discourse?

Well, that is what I heard from Fernando, Cherry, and Niles yesterday. As 7th and 8th graders at Grant Beacon Middle School, they spoke expertly about their educational experiences. But, it wasn’t as if they were regaling us with stories or parroting something prepared. Rather, it was their actual reflection of how GBMS has changed over time. They spoke of Blended Learning and Enrichment with an authenticity that is so rarely matched by adults. When Fernando said, “My education is both more social and more private,” I heard the power in his voice. He meant that the social and collaborative pieces of his learning were easier for him because he had used Google Docs or Moodle as a structure to build off of. And, he also meant that because his instruction was tailored to his needs, he had a relationship with his grades and his work in a way that many other students do not.

This is not trivial, but it should also not be quite so special. It shouldn’t be quite such a unique experience to hear students speak about their needs for more advanced content when they are ready to move ahead. It shouldn’t seem strange to hear they students want a more personalized and differentiated experience. So, the big question is, “How do we make it less odd and make it less of a singularity for students to own the language of their learning and be given time to reflect upon what has traditionally been ‘done to them?'”

It can’t just be that we use our EduSpeak more with students. It can’t be that we talk about content and student performance in abstract terms, unrelated to what is actually happening. No, the students are living it each and every day and they are forming their own opinions about their school life. So, the conversation has to happen in that same every day manner. Reflection and time to process theway in which they are learning in addition to what they are learning is essential.

It is clear that these students have been given that opportunity. They have taken it too.

It is hard to find a story of good when the story playing over and over in your head is one of explosions and disregard for human life. It is hard to find the goodness in people falling to the ground, disrupted from their lifelong goal of crossing a Boston Marathon finish line. It is hard, yes. But, not impossible.

In yesterday’s events, I see a contrasting story of Good and Cowardice.

The Good I see is in that each of those people taking part in the Marathon affixed their names and numbers to their backs, proclaiming who they were and their noble ntensions. They even had digital markers on their bodies, so that loved ones could track their progress throughout the race. In doing this, they have claimed their own identities and taken responsibility for their choices.

I see the same Goodness coming from those who are registering for a Massively Open Online Course on Blended Learning in DPS. They have affixed their name and made promises to connect with other educators around the globe. They have agreed to write and contribute with their own voice to an ongoing conversation about change in education, and to cross a finish line in five weeks, wiser and more collaborative than before they started.

This is the Goodness of coming together and becoming a part of something bigger than yourself. It is the goodness of stating for the record, who you are and what you want.

I would like to contrast that goodness with the Cowardice of Anonymity.

It is cowardice to make something without claiming it. It is cowardice to keep your intentions secret. You become a troll for making a comment on society with indiscriminate destruction. It is far worse than the anonymous commentors who spew hate on the web, but it comes from the same place. Being anonymous when it comes to acts of terror is trying to get away with bullying thousands or millions of people.

And just like the commentors, the hate will never win. Bullying does not work, because there are far more people who are willing to run the race and place their names on their backs. There are far more people who will join a learning endeavor in an effort to better themselves and their practice. And there are far more people who are willing to sign their names on their creations.

Good beats cowardice because we put our names on things.

I remember when snow days weren’t quite so productive, when the blanket of snow didn’t mean that I was going to be able to get to inbox 0 more easily. It wasn’t my first snow day, but it was my first snow day as a part of DPS.

It wasn’t just email that made my day productive, though. That would make for a pretty solitary story and one that is not really worth telling. No, this story is one of collaboration. It is a story because of how little it mattered that the schools and office buildings were closed. It is a story worth telling because of just how different Snow Days can really be now.

The following things are possible on a snow day in 2013 that weren’t ten years ago:

1. Creating a Collaborative Rubric document in which multiple participants edit, revise, craft, comment and build expectations from multiple locations around the city at the same time.
2. Holding a Google+ hangout to video conference a meeting, complete with tiara and mustache special effects. At least one of the participants of said video conference still being in his/her pajamas.
3. Giving digital feedback directly on top of online professional development and then uploading that contextual feedback to a single project management tool for a team to reflect and act upon with conversation and questions.

These three thing are not incredible or extraordinary in and of themselves. In fact, they would hardly bear mentioning if they were done over the course of a week. But these happened over the course of 3 hours, at home, on a snow day. And I am amazed by just how easy they were.

Too often, we don’t notice just how powerful we have become. As learners, as teachers, and as parts of a large school district. We have the power to transcend time and space, cloning ourselves and shifting our conversations. We have the power to make documents that have collaboration built in rather than as an afterthought. We have the power to open up our thought process and document our feedback by literally writing it upon our digital pages.

We do not need copiers or printers to make this happen. We do not need phones or fax machines either. The possibilities are as endless as the snowflakes I saw fall from outside my bedroom window.

So, this time, it isn’t a story of Good within a single person or a department. Rather, it is a story of all of us. Of harnessing the power we have to do good or make good for one another using the tools at our disposal. A snow day can still mean sledding and hot cocoa. But it can also mean choosing a collaborative instinct and creating the future of learning.