Grateful Expectations for #NAISAC 2016

       Thanks for a great NAIS Annual Conference this year! Thanks to NAIS staff, the planning committee, the on-line community folks, the presenters, the attendees, anyone I've forgotten. I'm saying this now because I might forget later.
       True, the conference hasn't actually even started yet, but you know it's going to be awesome. It always is. Granted, some sessions may not be that enthralling--they may even reek--and the wi-fi may prove incapable of handling the crush. But download the app and read through the program. The breadth and depth of offerings is staggering, and it's really your own fault if you return home without any ideas you can somehow use in your schools. Set up meals and conversations (not meetings, not chats--real conversations) with people you wish you had more time with during the whirlwind of daily life. Maybe you can meet the real person who sustains that provocative blog or has mastered the art of the Tweet. Whatever your preferred style, connect with the conference.
       An experience last week reminded me of just how crucial this is. I participated in a three-hour on-line leadership program led by Seth Godin. Along with admiring his work, I wanted to see what such an undertaking would be like. It was intense and fantastic. I was in a group with people from around the world, and they gave of each other generously. At the end we joked about gathering somewhere for dinner, and a few of us now follow each other on social media.
       Yet it also was unsatisfying in a key way. Beyond wanting to become better leaders, we had little in common. That's why, despite all the predictions about the death of big conferences, I don't see that happening. Great power exists in a group of people coming together, particularly when they pursue a mission tinged with the quixotic. For that I'm the most grateful.

Cross-posted on NAIS Annual Conference 2016 OnLine Community.

Week Out from #NAISAC 2016

       A week from today I head to San Francisco for the National Association of Independent Schools Annual Conference. While I always revel in the conference, I’m particularly excited this year because I’ve had to miss the past two years—two years ago because of a medical scare, last year because of weather. A couple of months ago I thought I might have to miss this year when the medical situation cropped up again. I’ve recovered and feel awesome, and I’m raring to go.

         I find myself curious to see how much may have changed in a few areas since I last attended. At first this may come across as snarkiness. For that I apologize, but I’ll explain why I’m asking these after and hope I seem like less of a jerk.

• ·         How many of the sessions will simply be traditional sit-and-get? Particularly with strides made in active workshops, the proliferation of makerspaces, and the emphasis on design thinking, I pray there is not too much lecture.
• ·         Similarly, how much bad PowerPoint will fill up screens and entice eyelids to drop? We’ve all see great presenters practice Presentation Zen with awesome images. Even if the slides are mainly text, please make it big and short. Please, please, please don’t read slides to us.
• ·         What is the over-under on the number of times someone will urge change by mentioning “21^st century” education? I hope it’s low. It’s 2016. Enough said.
• ·         What might trend and become the latest buzzword? I often catch on after others, perhaps because I tend to think more systematically and reject silver-bullet thinking. In education we also tend to obscure our real message with jargon. The soul of the matter becomes obscured.

       I bring these up because of who attends and presents at annual conference. We’re the leaders in independent schools. As such, we must practice what our schools need to become. I certainly feel that pressure when designing workshops or faculty meetings or board activities. I strive to be the teacher I’d like working in my school. If we’re not doing that, then I have to question how far the revolution has progressed. Based on what I’ve been reading and hearing, despite shards of skepticism, I’m hopeful.

             I have to be. We all do. Hope lies at the heart of education. It fuels possibility. Ultimately, as I’ve written before, the main goal I think most of us share for annual is a sense of affirmation through the stories we share. That, yes, we can realize our compelling visions for our schools. That setbacks are gallant attempts to do this. That our work is incredibly challenging, truly rewarding, and ultimately meaningful.

Cross-posted on NAIS Annual Conference 2016 OnLine Community.

Head and Heart: Surgical Precision and Genuine Empathy

       Last Wednesday I had my second cardiac ablation. (If you want to know about the first and details of the process, along with some reflection, here is a post written right after that: "My Cardiac Surgery and Education.") This was not totally unexpected, as the first one has between a 40-50% success rate.Two years ago, I was told the second one raises the success rate to over 80%. Now I'm told it should be over 90%. Six days after the procedure, I feel great and very optimistic.
       Just in the past year, the technology used to ablate the heart has grown immensely. The primary development has been equipping the catheter--remember, this is a miniscule tool guided to the heart through a vein, controlled via computer--with a pressure gauge. The upshot is that as the surgeon works on the heart by following a 3-D map on the screen, they now know not only where to cauterize damaged tissue, but also how much pressure to apply. Quite amazing! The technology allows the surgeon to exercise his skills as effectively as possible to cure the patient.
       You may recall the story about Ideo and their experience in examining hospital service from a patient's perspective. It wasn't pleasant, and it certainly is how I've always felt. This time I was in a different hospital, one committed to the latest technology, the best people, and patient focus. The previous paragraph captures the commitment to technology, and I know other hospitals have not purchased this catheter because of insurance restrictions. As for the people, every staff person was fantastic. They were cheerful and upbeat without being gushy, and they truly listened. They took their time explaining things; one nurse blew me away with his knowledge of electricity in the heart. Their entire demeanor oozed concern for the patient. Waiting time was minimal. The hospital was small, so travel time--whether on foot or on a gurney--was reduced. The patient rooms had giant windows for natural light, and the rooms were quiet. I suspect there was some sound-proofing, because I didn't hear all the usual noise from nurses' station. Also, there were no beeping monitors in the room. Everything was sent wirelessly to a monitoring station. The food was very good. Research had shown they could eliminate part of the procedure that was especially painful in recovery. Clearly someone had practiced some effective design thinking in creating this hospital.
       The entire experience has reminded me, once again, why the best schools educate the whole person. It's about scholarship, character, and connections. Subtract any aspect of one of those, and something essential is lost. In fact, we have to keep deepening our reserves of each. I mean not just those of our students, but our own. Then our students can learn to operate in all realms with surgical precision and genuine empathy.

The Linchpin Educator

            Recently I’ve immersed myself in some work with a group designing a new program for independent school leadership. One guiding premise stresses non-titular leadership. As part of that, I revisited some of Seth Godin’s work. While I read his blog each day, I decided to re-read three books: Tribes, Linchpin, and Stop Stealing Dreams. Tribes explores groups connected to each other, a leader, and an idea. Linchpin considers the indispensable employee. Stop Stealing Dreams is a manifesto about traditional schooling. Together, they prompted me to try identifying the key qualities of a linchpin educator.

            Three of Godin’s regular themes apply here. First, digital technology changes everything, meaning we should re-examine old models. Second, Godin contends everyone has the potential and means to lead in meaningful fashion. The question is not whether someone could lead. It is will that person lead. Then come matters of what, where, when, and how. Third, merely answering those questions affirmatively falls short. One must produce and ship their particular form of art, the way in which their work touches and changes people.

            Those who do become linchpins. As Godin explains,

What the boss really wants is an artist, someone who changes everything, who makes dreams come true. What the boss really wants is someone who can see the reality of today and describe a better tomorrow. What the boss really wants is a linchpin.

If he can’t have that, he’ll settle for a cheap drone. (Linchpin, 38)

           

That passage comes a few pages after the following:

Let me be really clear: Great teachers are wonderful. They change lives. We need them. The problem is that most schools don’t like great teachers. They’re organized to stamp them out, bore them, bureaucratize them, and make them average. (29)

In Stop Stealing Dreams Godin thoroughly derides the assembly line model of education. I’d add this is not just a school problem but a societal problem, in that cultures have created their typical school in a way that reveals beliefs and values. Consider what resonates in a politician’s platform regarding education. Ultimately, schools are human constructs.

            Of course, that means humans could change them, provided we muster the collective fortitude. That’s where linchpins come in.

So what makes for a linchpin educator? Nothing in the following is about the nuts-and-bolts of teaching, although those matter. But they can be learned and really are secondary. Much more important are certain personal qualities. We need people who can enhance, perhaps even transform education through shaping a particular type of culture.

Curriculum as Markers

            The etymology of the term curriculum refers to a set path. Through time, as more and more traverse a path, the ruts become deeper; a traveler can have a harder time deviating from the preferred route. In education this has played out in greater standardization, the curriculum becoming almost a script for the teacher. Content becomes paramount, and pedagogy takes on a degree of mechanization.

            To a linchpin educator, however, curriculum serves only as markers. It provides a general sense of direction, but the educator wants to embark on expeditions with the students, often through exploring interesting problems. The linchpin not only ignores the map, but shreds it. After all, here during the fourth industrial revolution, we have no reliable maps.

Questions Trump Answers

            As a general rule, questions can be organized into two categories. The first require factual answers, those sort of lower-order bits of recall that may win someone a Trivial Pursuit game. The second provoke higher-level analysis. Perhaps discourse of some sort may help articulate the stages of determining a possible answer. They don’t work on bubble tests or robo-graded essays.

            These questions beget even more beautiful questions in some sort of epistemological evolution. They allow us to unlock even the thorniest problems. They urge us to question everything. A linchpin educator swims in a sea brimming with “What if’s…” and “How might we’s…,” all the while yelling, “Come on in! The water’s fine!”

Appreciate Weird

            We shy away from weird. Even sometimes its less-threatening synonyms such as unusual, novel, original. It defies our created limits, and thus we cannot measure it. That rocks the stability of the average. We feel unsafe because of how it scoffs at our expectations.

            The linchpin educator embraces the specialness in that which is unique. The English teacher who sees beyond the misspellings or usage errors to see the passion, the imagery. The math and science teachers who delight in a loopy proof or wacky hypothesis and cheer, “Give it a go!” After all, they reason, a standardized education fosters standardized people…and we have plenty of those.

Comfort with Discomfort

            Fear, confusion, lack of certainty, resentment, jealousy, anger (on all sides)—the discomfort can manifest itself in these and many other ways. It’s resistance. It comes from those comfortable with the status quo, and even those who aren’t but feel secure. Or the resistance might be internal, the lizard brain gnashing its fangs and spitting venom, fed by cynics.

            The linchpin educator, though, continues to create art, both drawing on rich traditions and experimenting with new forms. Just as an education should, the best art jars us into a new consciousness. It broadens and deepens our perspectives. It does so through taking risks mitigated by idealism and faith.

A Shrunken Head

            All of this requires a secure, under-control ego. Recall the function of a linchpin: to hold other pieces in place so that the whole can function. Ultimately, school is not about teaching. It’s about learning. Ideally, everyone’s learning. Ironically, an oversized head gets in the way of learning. Egocentricity causes someone to wrest too much control, to reject possibilities, to lessen others. It becomes about the I.

            The best educators shrink so that others may grow. It is about us and them. They challenge and affirm, reflect and imagine, prick and caress. In urging people to become better, they invoke our higher selves. Linchpin educators thus give us gifts wrapped in passion.

At the core, how a school functions depends on the relationships and interactions among all its constituents. Right now I’m imagining the utter awesomeness of working in a school full of such people. More importantly, I’m thinking about how truly joyful that school would be for kids. I see them emerging as the people who solve all our current and future problems. And some of those kids will grow up and become educators, and we’ll have more and more such schools. And then more and more flywheels will spin faster and faster, each held in place by a linchpin educator.

Olio

       Olio is a word that I'm not sure I've ever seen anywhere except a crossword puzzle. It means a mixture, a hodgepodge; a dish of many ingredients. I think it would make a great title for a blog. But rather than start a whole new blog, I'm using it as the title and structure for this post, in which I plan to just share a bunch of random musings that have been running through my mind but aren't growing into full posts. Perhaps I can't corral them well enough. Perhaps I simply need a brain dump. Anyway it will be similar to previous posts "Scattershooting," "Classic Whateverness," and "Classic Whateverness #3."
       Before I trigger the randomness, I wonder why I'm doing this on my blog. Really, each point probably could be a Tweet; maybe should be a Tweet. For some reason, however, I'm feeling drawn to blogging these days, more than I have for a while. I think it may be because of how much writing helps me to make sense of things. Maybe I finally feel as if I have some new things to share after a relatively dry spell. The medium feels more purposeful. I've also been trying to figure out if I want to keep this blog going, or if I want to move on to another type of writing project. Yes, that might mean a book. With that daunting thought...

When/how did we reach what seems an assumed agreement all young people should be budding entrepreneurs? ... Also, will everyone really need to know how to code? ... Someone recently chided school heads for being too fearful of litigation. In this day and age, you better believe it ... Probably not matter of if but when regarding some form of litigation for any school ... Perspective changes when you have ultimate responsibility for your school ... Conversation other day made me wonder what work I'd be doing if not education and in a school. Can't imagine anything else ... But I do think I would make a heck of a consultant, workshop leader, etc. ... If you won PowerBall, would you keep working? .... People love to post pictures of work done with Post-It notes. I love Post-It notes and use them all the time. But a mass of Post-It notes means nothing. It's what might be on each one that matters. That and any subsequent meaningful action ... Sometimes I'm reminded of a student who studies more or writes a longer paper, then assumes it means a higher grade ... Arm teachers? Anyone ask most of the teachers I know? .... Recently someone challenged people to define "future ready." Of course no one knows for sure. But I combined it with popular one-word challenge. Chose nimble ... I love that so much of what is held out as enabling people to be future ready calls for celebration of the unique gifts of humans ... Interesting exercise. Spend some time thinking of different ways that schools could be organized than they are now. Think about "What if?" for each of them. So why do almost all of us do it the same way? ... I love that we have easier access to more data. But one ultimately frustrating by-product is that it seems every professional organization feels compelled to put out a long, comprehensive, data-crammed report. And then we feel compelled to review each of them. You know, just in case ... I don't claim, by any means, to be an expert on design thinking. But I'm really glad to finally have a term for the way my mind has worked for as long as I can recall. And that it's actually desirable! ... Hypothetically, what if you're a head of school and one of your alums is running for a high public office but you disagree with stands and loathe the behavior? Has to be weird mix of pride and disappointment ... Bit hard to understand all the outrage about violence in football when ultimate fighting keeps growing in popularity ... Sometimes professional athletes make it really hard to teach sportsmanship. Some politicians make it really hard to help kids see meaning and value of public service ... Always an amazing feeling when a former student, sometimes from over 25 years ago, comments on a blog or follows on Twitter...