The Mountain Peak is At The Bottom of The Pile

Education experts seem to know too much.  I know, this doesn’t seem to make much sense, but bear with me a minute and I think you will agree. 

When people have sought answers they realize how little they know.  Their first question gives an answer, but it also includes many more questions.  In the field of education we have gone from chalkboards with pencil and paper, to Smart Boards and digital tablets.  In order to get from the old way to the new way we went through a million options, questions, and ideas.  But, what do we really know about what works best and what else is possible?  How did we get here?  Was it politics?  Was it budgetary?  Was it provable science?

If we move from paper bound text books to digital text books, how does this change the homework?  What is the cost differential for the publisher?  Can they make profit by killing less trees?  Are editorial versions easier to update and distribute?  Can the text be used in course authorware?  Are tests easier to develop, distribute and grade if done through a web-based database?  Do these databases allow for interstate comparisons?  Can we compare various teachers, teaching styles, teaching experience, teaching colleges, and the impact of district training (professional development) programs? 

As soon as we improve one aspect of education we must automatically wonder – what else is possible, how do we know what’s best, and how can we prove it to others.  Science methods teach us to look for answers and to use methodologies that allow us to document and prove what we’ve learned.  When experts of science state what they have learned we know that they can prove it.  Scientifically proven results become added to the foundations of human knowledge and eventually somebody else will come along and build on it.  This is true progress.

 

In the world of education there is no science to the changes being made, and therefore there is no way to compare what is being done one way against what someone else does.  Science is a deliberate and managed way of learning.  Yet, it seems education experts would rather argue and stand on rhetorical analysis than deliberately manage a comparative study.  As a result, these education experts become easily satisfied that their latest revelation is an improvement without any real proof.  Perhaps it is simply some confidence and a whim that is required.  With these rules in place anyone can be an expert simply by saying so. 

The people who have worked their way up in the industry should be congratulated for surviving a journey of huge attrition, low morale, and a starvation of passion, but they are not really experts on what’s best or possible.  They are merely experts on how to work within the very machine they are charged with maintaining.  To change the machine they would actually be endangering their own future careers because no one would be able to predict what else might change, what will grow in importance, what will become irrelevant and disposable, and what change is worth the money of today’s competitive choices and the needs tomorrow will demand of it.  Without clear answers there is little room for certainty and too high a risk for guessing wisely.

So, education experts, without relying upon science, conjure their ideas creatively, surmise some sort of theory, and add pragmatic functions to make it work.  It seems ingenious when we compare it to yesterday’s ideas, but are we really improving education?  What proof do we have?

In the business world where everything is measured against competitive profitability, there is a constant call for proof.  Every department head must justify their decisions against the bottom line.  As a result their approach to learning – as a necessary and important function of success – is a combination of effectiveness, efficiency, and leveraged outcome.  Did their people learn it?  Was the knowledge transfer done quickly and cheaply?  Are they using it to improve the company’s competitive ability?

The driving force of profits is just an alternative measurement for comparison and whether or not success is being attained.  In sports we have scores.  In medicine we have survival rates.  In politics we have votes.  In education we have standardized tests that measure student ability, but no measure of specific methods. Is this teacher’s college bringing better results to students in life than that teacher’s college?   Who’s measuring these things?  Why aren’t specific instruction methods, theories, and forms of technology integration the object of exploration, measurement, and comparison?  Why don’t education experts dig into the pile of possible choices and perform scientific comparisons? 

We all seek the mountain top; the place supreme where we know we have scaled the cliffs of change, strained against the gravity of institutionalized bureaucracies, and arrived at a place where we can both – see the horizon better than anyone else – and be “looked up to” by others who want what we have found.  To reach the mountain top one must dig.  We must look under every stone.  We must dig into the work of establishing scientific protocols, improving those protocols over time, and sweat our way through the analysis of data.  Learning is about digging into the body of knowledge and exploring what is found.  Only when the pile of options has been thoroughly dug through and sorted can we know that we know.  Only when what we found is proven to be the top choice can we rest at the mountain top and enjoy the view for a few moments before we begin again. 

Only those who think they know enough will refuse to dig.  This is because being an expert without proof allows one to lean on his or her shovel, happily not digging anymore; happily feeling the contentment of their ignorance.  How can that person really be a leader of learning? 

Learners dig. 

Grab a shovel.

Creating Begrudgement of Learning

What a neat trick.

How could we be more clever than to take eager learners and brainwash them into believing that learning is a thing to avoid?

Is it a government conspiracy to create more docile masses?

Pre-K kids are full of wonder and curiosity.  They love to talk excitedly about the new thing they learned today. They can't wait to tell Mommy and Daddy all about the rabbit they met, or the plants they grew in a vegetable garden.  If left alone to decide for themselves, they would eagerly explore a hundred new things each day.  What they lack is a way of managing their search and building long-term search practices.

So, in the 1890's, we became a society that wrestles them under control to force them to learn what someone once thought was needed.  To be relevant today, school needs to find out what the ideal "new employee" needs to have - what skills, knowledge, and drive will serve them and their company the best.

Instead, we continue to create a begrudging, reluctant, disengaged, doubting, and deeply frustrated group of graduates who struggle to know what they are interested in.  When they were three they knew what they were interested in.  What they know now, at a mostly sub-conscious level, is that they no longer like learning, believe they should wait to be told what to learn, and have no real skills for exploring.  Sure, they will learn to get a job and keep a job, but they do so begrudgingly.  If left to their own volition, most products of our school system choose to not be seekers, explorers, or learners.

What a neat trick.

The Origins of A New Culture

Just as it takes a wise person to look within and realize their own needs to change; to look long and hard at the truth of themselves, their own shortcomings, and acknowledge their subterranean desires to improve - desires more deeply-rooted than the layers of "brick and mortar reasoning" they have been piling up since birth - it takes a wise culture to realize its flaws and take actions that shift things for the better.

The Roman Catholic Church has adapted to the changing world to remain relevant and accessible so it may serve its flock.  Australia saw the loss of life as too great a price to pay for guns and the mass murders that are part of a gun culture, so they changed.  Communist-bred generations rose up and said, "No more."  And even the narcissistic and brutal culture of the NFL is looking to improve its standards for what is acceptable behavior toward wives and children.  Cultures, like individuals, can take long, hard looks at themselves and decide to make changes.

But, it takes leadership.  It takes a single man in Algeria lighting himself on fire to create the Arab Spring.  It took Mikhail Gorbachev manifesting perestroika into a "permission to change" that allowed the Iron Curtain to fail.  It takes a Cesar Chavez speaking for the rights of those who cannot.  It took Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking the truth about what our nation's birthright was missing.  It took Mahatma Gandhi to teach a nation how to win its independence without becoming like the bully it sought to depose.

Our children "in utero" will have no say-so about what school system they inherit.  They will not go shopping for the right fit.  They will not be able to return it for defective workmanship.  They will not be able to get a refund of their time spent trying to fit into a culture that destroys the desire to learn and self-actualize.  But, they could be given a new culture.

Our national school system is crumbling and failing, and the next generation of education systems is waiting in the wings for someone on stage to bring them out from behind the curtain.  But... will those who are on stage share the spotlight?  The audience is booing.  They are screaming for a better act.  And yet the system we have doesn't know how to exit gracefully.  There will come a day and a way for the new generation to make its splash, but until then we are left wondering how it will happen, how it will look, and whether we will really like it or not.

Where do the seeds come from that germinate and grow into a whole new species of schools?  Where do they get planted, watered, fed, protected, and allowed to eventually drop their fruit for new generations of schools?  Would we know what these seeds would even look like if we saw them?  Imagine the orchard grower who brought Johnny Appleseed's "best" south with him to Florida's tropical plains only to have his apple trees not grow very well and not produce much fruit - if any.  Would he realize orange pips would be the answer to his dreams?  Would he buy a sack of them cheap and commit to them by planting an orchard?

The origins of a new school system require wisdom.  The leaders of the current culture must see the need and be willing to not only allow change, but to manage, support, advocate, and commit to "whatever needs doing" to make it happen.  This can be political suicide, and yet it will also be a legacy of historical proportions.

Lincoln's changing of the Union cost him his life.  Martin Luther King, Jr. paid with his own as well.  The Australian Parliamentarians who voted out the guns were not re-elected.  Mikhail Gorbachev is an embittered pariah in his own country.  And there are many stories throughout history where the masses who made up the culture did not understand the need for change as well as the wise ones who made it happen.  It takes guts.  It takes a willingness to serve the children of tomorrow with a better tomorrow, a legacy that gives more than would otherwise be available.

The true culture of our education system is found in the roots of what we currently have.  Before we had any education system we had only a hunger for it.  We had a nation of people wanting more, wanting better, and wanting better for the future generations.  This is our culture... the roots of our greatness.  The hunger for a better tomorrow and the freedom to make it happen is who we are at our national core

The towns that didn't have schools wanted them.  Colleges were too far and too few.  There was only a disorganized, discordant smattering of options, and yet people were happy to have something... anything.  The need for mandated testing to ensure uniformity of quality was way beyond their scope of dreams.  The use of technology to facilitate the flow of ubiquitous knowledge was not even a dream of educators thirty years ago.  And, keeping the old system because "It's what we have" and "It's what we're used to" is not good enough reasoning... it's not consistent with our heritage.  There is a hunger growing in the land and there needs to be a new species of schools.  The same hunger for "better" that was at the root of our present system's birth is here again.  And it is up to us who are here and can see it to create the new and better just as the Committee of Ten did in 1892.

The origins  of a new education culture begin in the lives of the next born as they encounter the concept of school and then follow their own curiosity and "desire to know all things".  The new culture must harken to the wisdom of following the lead of these children - creating education systems that serve (and do not hinder) their natural acceleration of wonder; their natural excitement for learning. The new culture must be compiled of current trends, current knowledge, and the future trends of technology that will carry the perpetuation of this better system, and then we must shift toward that system as gracefully and quickly as possible.

The origins of a new culture are found in two places.  First, it comes from the hunger for a better tomorrow; for a better life for those who follow us.  And, second, it comes from the willing servants who lead us now; the ones who can see the road ahead; who know how to manage the changes that are needed; and who are wise enough to make it happen - even unto their own demise.  Once we have set these two forces free from the constraints of oppressive traditionalism, we will be on our way.  Things will move.  Things will change, and new expectations will arise - and the masses will come around to appreciate their better tomorrows... without really knowing or caring how we got there.

If I Know, I "No" ... If I Don't Know, I "Yes"

I was recently given the privilege of working in a training environment where old school philosophies were being challenged by new school tactics. The old school culture won out.

It was fascinating to watch the clashes and chaos as old school could not comprehend or navigate within the new school opportunities. It was as if two languages were being spoken and no common ground could be found.

Within the ranks of the training group were many strong and capable visionaries who were invited in to transform the existing situation. Then, in mid-stream, they were pretty much "bound and gagged" as if they were enemies. Suddenly the highly capable were being fired and sent home with polite thanks, while the incompetent and the weak were herded off to be absorbed into the old school way of thinking. It was as if the powers-to-be believed they had won by converting a few newbies to their droning resistance. I guess the person in managerial power immediately above the process perceived the chaos as a threat and swept the table clean of its examinations, issues, and solutions. Isn't it interesting when ignorance overcomes curiosity and exploration?

I take a bit of pride and solace in knowing I was one of the many who were fired for being too willing to help improve things. It was amazing to watch the verve and zeal of a dozen leaders, the cream of the crop, be let go in favor of lemmings. Why does corporate America prefer the comfort of traditional thinking instead of the profitability and organizational strength of advancements beyond their comprehension? We were all so dedicated and committed to creating a huge victory for all involved, and yet, we did not fit their way of dysfunction.

Is preferred dysfunction a real force, or is it simply ignorance that wields its deceptive veil across the eyes of those with power? If given a day, any one of us could have aligned the resources, formed a plan, clarified the content, strategized the delivery, and set the process right. But, those who do not know, and will not look, are scared of being seen as incompetent, so they run head long into walls and prove it.

I chuckle at my freedom from the anxiety, but I also grieve the loss of what could have been accomplished. Why are people so afraid to learn?  Is it because they were raised in schools of “being corrected”, of being forced to memorize someone else’s ideas instead of exploring their own?  As a society we are paralyzed by the fear of being wrong, of being embarrassed for not knowing something, and of being compared to someone else.  Do we not realize that no one knows everything and as a whole we can build a greater library of knowledge between us?  We never learned how to value our own curiosity, our own ability to explore, and our own sovereign right to be different, interested in different lessons, and having something unique to offer.  If we had… we might be more comfortable with other people offering something else, believing something different, knowing something different from what we know, and we might even be comfortable with trying to explore and learn by being open to new knowledge.  Who knows?

Isn't it interesting that we learn from a motivation of knowing more, and yet many organizations support a culture that only values what you already know?  How can a culture that wants to increase its knowledge – which requires admitting it doesn't know as much as it needs to – simultaneously profess and bully based on how much it does know? 

When we get real honest, everyone would have to admit there is a lot more we don't know than what we do know.  The prosperous journey of gaining more knowledge begins with the confession, "I don't know."   To say, "I don't know," isn't the death knell of progress.  The key part is what comes right after.  Is the next statement "And... I don't want to know" or is it "I want to know more"?

If I say "I know" and mean "I know enough" I am really saying, "No" to the next bits of knowledge that may pass my way.  I am saying "No" to the very process of receiving, let alone seeking, new knowledge.  This is a closed mind.  The bosses of the training group I was fired from were closed-minded.  They were afraid to learn.  Think of that.  People who were in charge of a learning process were opposed to learning themselves.  There is no cure for an internal source of such poison.  A learning culture must disrupt the closed mind foundations that prevent it from moving forward.  The frozen river must be thawed so it may flow and churn.

When I say "I don't know" I follow it up - not with embarrassment - but with intrigue.  I am intrigued with what I may have missed, what may have kept me from knowing, and most important, "How can I now gain what I did not have?"  I follow my "I don't know" with a "Yes" to the filling of my void, the erasing of my ignorance, the progression of my mind.  Is that not my responsibility?  What more responsible choice could I make?

Leaders in education need to be the most interested learners we have on the planet.

They need to seek training in heavy mining machinery to move this mountain forward faster and faster.

Becoming a Leader for Learning

The advancement of learning is not about teaching and technology. The advancement of learning is about leadership. The advancement of learning happens when someone learns in a better way than they did before.  Creating the initiative to make such a change occur falls to the leader.  If a leader who is charged with creating quality learning fails to maximize the advancement of learning, new students will fall behind other opportunities they could have chosen.  More so, their lesser progress and lower levels of knowledge will put them at a disadvantage when they graduate and enter the highly competitive global economy.

We get caught up in the teaching and delivery process, and the in-system behaviors instead of seeking ways to increase the student's willingness and their ability to access useful knowledge. With many involved in education, the mark of greatness isn't so much about actual learning by students, as it seems to be about owning the credit for a superior instruction process. "My way" of teaching becomes the source of pride for experts instead of "My, how very well they learn."

The shift from traditional perspectives on what a teacher should deem a mark of success requires an initiative from a leader.  It requires inspiring, defining, and sustaining new priorities, new teacher roles, and new expectations for all involved.  These are the achievements of a leader.

Everyone in education has a different opinion on what is "good teaching" with no real and unbiased  way to measure and validate one claim over another.  Every nation, state, county, district, school, teacher, student, and parent have differing opinions about what constitutes "good teaching".  However, when learning is used as the yardstick, it is easy and very clear to see what is effective, leaving opinion and rhetoric to be irrelevant topics.

All people learn, but each person learns differently.  The advancement of learning has to include the adaptation of learner-centric principles, strategies, metrics, and instructional practices.  Leadership directly accelerates or hinders the advancement of learning, so, any discussions about teaching and technology are pointless until the influence of the leadership is known.

Many who become leaders of school systems arose from the system itself and as such are frequently products of its culture, advocates for its traditionalism, and blind to what else is possible.  Good leaders have vision that pierces through walls and across vast distances.  They can see how databases for employee records could be converted to a student registry, how librarians need to become experts on managing digital content, and teachers need to allow e-learning to do the heavy lifting in the lower levels of Bloom's Taxonomy so they can take on the upper levels.  Good leaders must be able to share their insights and ideas in such a way as to inspire and alter people's thinking.

Good leaders are not "found".  They "become".  People who care enough to pay attention to what works, to what people care about, to what needs to be changed, and to what moves ideas into reality.  If they don't know these things... they can learn them.  And, it is often seen that a person who has been entrusted with a leadership role finds in their heart the motivation to care and learn beyond what they may have believed possible themselves.  Their own transformation is as relevant and representative of what changes they will bring about as any other model one might find, but they BECAME that new version of themselves.

True leaders learn how to express their caring in effective ways of initiating, inspiring, explaining, and including.  The best leaders learn how to translate their caring into servitude for the sake of the many.  With students as their cause to champion, leaders of education must become learners of what is possible, useful, economic, acceptable, and eventual.  The ones who actually excel at learning will be the more effective ones at bringing about useful and strategic changes... for the sake of the students.

In a landscape of decorated administrators, principals and superintendents who are the epitome of what the existing system and culture proliferate, new leaders can grow out of the ranks of parents, teachers, volunteers, community members, and even students.  Anyone who cares enough to learn about what else is possible, casts their eyes upon alternative applications for technology tools, and seeks to make a difference will become an influence and will initiate changes in the way others think.

Will learning actually advance?  Will we be able to measure our progress and see how students are competing internationally?  I hope so.  In the mean time... let's encourage our leaders to become learners so they can become leaders for learning.

Good Leadership for Schools

Strong leaderS, according to Jim Collins in his heralded book "Good to Great" are those who serve the growth and strength of their organization, employees, and innovative culture by allowing change and development to happen without rigid control.

Organizations, such as large corporations and school systems are living, breathing organisms that are constantly changing, growing, failing, trying, and moving.  Change is a constant given and new directions for change must be chosen wisely.

Innovators see new possibilities and want to move things in that direction.  Maintainers are managers who try to keep the lights on, "Did everyone show up?  Does everyone have their name badge?  Are we all doing things the way I told them to?  Can we please minimize the changes?  I can't keep things steady and within established expectations if things are going to keep changing!"

Leadership is about moving the organization forward, and good leadership requires two important things - vision and servanthood.  First, the leader must have a great ability to see what is ahead, what will be "needed and best" tomorrow, and what can be done today to get everyone there.  Second, and most important, the good leader seeks to serve the organization's progress, its healthy desires, its needs, and its permitted processes of change.

The good leader serves the organization's progress by advocating for change, by wanting things to change - wanting things to be new and fresh - by looking for people who want to do new things in new ways and then releasing them to the task.

The good leader serves the organization's direction of change and forward progress by enabling the healthy desires to strengthen, and alternately, by deliberately starving the unhealthy desires.  New markets, new processes that work, and new cultural norms are all needed, but each can be unhealthy.  New markets can be disastrous, processes that work can become too dominant or expensive, and new cultural norms can include bullying, an erosion of ethics, sexual harassment, oppressive managers, and many more issues that can actually destroy morale, retention, and performance.  The good leader's job is to see where these changes are headed and where they are taking the organization.  Then they must prune off the bad and feed the good.

The good leader serves the greater needs of the organization.  These are things like - the excitement, the improvement, the wise permissions, and the pursuit of potential at the risk of failure.  One of the most important areas of need in any organization's growth and improvement is its learning.  Each individual chooses to learn, retain, and use vital information on a daily basis.  The good leaders serves this area of need by facilitating accurate and accelerated learning practices making their people the "best and most informed decision makers" in the industry.  The good leader serves his organization by making his people smarter.

The good leader serves the organization by paying attention to the "permitted processes of change" which are chosen by the people of the organization.  Smart and inspired people select dynamic ways to improve things and the good leader is not afraid to let them make important decisions.  The good leader allows them to tear off in new directions, venturing out into unknown territories like technology advancements, new behavioral practices, new engineering ideas, as well as hiring new talent, allowing new perspectives, and trying new motivational practices.  The good leader knows his people, the history of the organization, its needs, and its hopes.   When the people are wanting to move forward, giving them the "permissions of what is allowed" makes all the difference.

While each of these areas needs at least five thousand more words to properly unpack their meaning and specific aspects, the point here is that good leaders expect change, see how to inspire it, determine which changes are best, and allow the people to move toward it. Bad leaders don't.
Bad leaders worry about change and minimize it.  These people are managers and administrators, not leaders.  Most often, bad leaders try to force change upon people who don't want it.  This requires forced and coerced pushing - which is from behind, not from in front.

A wise old man once explained that the shepherd guides his flock from in front and the butcher from behind.  Seems a fitting way to describe the different ways people in power try to get things done.

The good leader may take the wheel of the bus, but then asks the passengers where they want to go.

Find People With Big Shovels

There are people out there who want to help build better school systems.

I am not talking about bigger, or more beautiful schools.  I am talking about the process of matriculation.  The process of teaching, inspiring, feeding, and assessing the progress of minds.  Each and every parent who cares will be on this side of the issue - actually working to create a more functional, effective, and cognitively efficient learning culture.  They may only have shovels and wheelbarrows, but they have heart and drive - the grist by which things change and move forward - but they will make things better.

But, one of the more significant things schools can do to move their mountain forward would be to seek and find people with bigger shovels.  There are researchers, philanthropists, non-profits, armies of volunteers, companies, government grants, authors, and learning experts from the business world - all wanting to pitch in, but not invited.  Instead of shovels and wheelbarrows, these people bring mining equipment!

The problem, to be honest, is not a shortage of help.  The problem is weak leadership.

Most school leaders don't know where the system needs to go, which direction of change is best, or how to facilitate changes without losing control.  So, instead, change is a begrudgingly slow and unwanted process.

Good leaders invite the people with big shovels (mining equipment) to help and put them to work solving the issues that need fixing.