ASCD part five: Final Session with Todd Whitaker

It has been some time since I attended the 2012 ASCD conference in Philadelphia. The final session I attended was a high energy presentation by Todd Whitaker. During his session I could hardly keep up with my notes as it was a flurry of one liners and statements that rang true with me. I tried to figure out a way to articulate my thoughts in numerous drafts of a post to flesh out my thinking about various things Whitaker said. Those drafts are honestly still in progress. For now, I have a list here of a few of his statements with some of my notes that I wanted to share for starters. I anticipate I will be writing more follow-up posts going into more depth on some of these points.

• If we don't have difficult teachers, we don't have difficult parents.
• We have a choice when someone asks us how our day is going - it doesn't do us any good to not say "great"…even if our day is not. People feed off what others say regardless of if it is true or not.
• The ability to know how we come across and are perceived by others is crucial.
• We need to be able to understand how we come across...good teachers are aware of how they come across to students and other staff. Administrators need to be aware how they come across to their staff. Failure to do this by either teacher or administration leads to ultimate failure.
• In the phrase, "Poor lecture classroom" - poor is the issue...not the lecture.
• As with most things, we focus too much on the tool or process rather than the quality. Lecturing is not necessarily bad, but rather the way it is used.
• Good teachers will "figure it out" on their own...poor teachers never will.
• We need to micromanage our good teachers far less and them do their work free of restriction.
• Some teachers sit behind their desk because they don't know what to do with the students...do we want them on the other side of the desk?
• What does this say about us as fellow teachers that we allow these teachers to remain in our schools? What does this saw about our administrators if they allow these teachers to stay in the classroom?
• Single best measure of principal effectiveness is teacher input.
• As an administrator are you seeking input from your teachers?
• Anyone can have a banner "all kids can learn" but do your actions back that up?
• Unless you have been in the room with a good/bad teacher you don't know how good/bad they are.
• This one really hit home with me. Beyond the Tommy Boy reference, we must be in a classroom to see if a teacher is effective rather than taking someone’s word for it.
• There is nothing wrong with being afraid but it is wrong to act afraid.
• Kids and staff alike can tell if a teacher is afraid and feed off of that fear. No teacher should ever show fear for a student, nor should a teacher show fear of a colleague.
• Big difference between desire and action.
• Great people act on their desires and “bad” people just talk about what they want to do.
• Why are we punishing the good kids because of a few bad?
• Why do we spend time going over the rules for the whole group when it applies to just a few? In the same way, why do we mandate things for the whole staff when it only applies to a few? We should never send an all staff email when it only applies to a few.
• If as an administrator you don't teach your teachers between right and wrong, they won't know any better.
• We know it is right to model for our students, should we be doing the same for teachers?
• When you hire a new teacher you want your school to be like the new teacher...if not you have hired the wrong teacher. You don't want the new teacher to be like the school.
• This one certainly made me think...
• Principals say, "all my teachers are great," because then they don't have to do anything.
• We need to admit our shortcomings and take steps towards improvement.
• If a principal does not step into a good teacher's class - they are insulted. If a principal does not step into a poor teacher's class - they are giddy.
• Best thing about being a teacher is what we do matters. Hard is that it matters every day

I know this is a kind of a “cheap” post in that it is essentially a bullet list of things Todd said, but I am still processing much of it. My biggest takeaway is that we all have a responsibility to do more to lift up the good teachers and not be defined by the “bad” ones. 

ASCD part four: Changing Relationships

I had the opportunity to eat lunch with author Heidi Jacobs today at ASCD. As with my previous posts this week, I have lots of takeaways that I know will inevitably rattle around in my head for days and weeks to come. In full disclosure, I have not read her books or followed her blog with any sort of regularity. However, I did pick up her book today and do plan on diving in for further reflection after my conversation with her.

The first comment that she made is something that I whole heartedly agree with, “The relationship between teacher and student has changed.” I don’t think this is something radical or new, yet many are not teaching or leading schools with a pedagogy that supports this belief. If we know that this relationship has changed, then why are our schools not changing to reflect this? It is very possible that this comes from a place of ignorance and fear. Teacher and school leaders may want to change and some may even have the knowledge to do it. Yet, they lack the follow through and plan of action to get it done. As a tweet earlier in the conference from Gawande’s talk stated, “The knowledge to change exists but is not currently being applied correctly.” Do you have the knowledge needed to change? Are you changing?

To build upon the changing relationship between teachers and students, those roles have and need to change as well. We all know that the teacher is the not the sole holder of information in the classroom. Though, how many classrooms are still operating under the old pedagogy of the teacher as the keeper of the knowledge? The definition of a student is changing…so too must the definition of a teacher. Going hand in hand with that, is if we want our students to be true learners, we as teachers must be models of learning ourselves.

I anticipate I will post more follow up thoughts as I dig further into my notes from lunch as well as her book. To attempt another metaphor, we need to not only know which train we need to get on…but actually get on the train. If we have the knowledge, we need to put that knowledge into action.

ASCD part three: Great Opportunity

As I have wandered in and out of sessions and chatted with various people throughout the ASCD Conference this weekend, I have come to a realization. There is more opportunity for growth and change at this conference than any other one I have attended. The perfect example of this was during the EdCamp session I attend on Saturday afternoon. Now, I went to this session largely because I know some of the people in the room and just wanted to sit in what I knew would be a solid session. I sat in there with some of my friends and we chatted on the side a bit and even contributed to the presentation. While sitting there and listening to some of the questions from the audience, I was a bit taken back. Had these people really never heard of the EdCamp movement? That question started me thinking as I continued down the hall and on to other sessions.

I have been to ISTE, ICE, IETC, METC and a host of other conferences that have lovely acronyms. At most of those, I have presented to rooms full of nodding heads and looks of affirmation. My conversations in the hallways, happy hours and lounges are largely the same. “Hey, we need to get more people on board…” or “Yeah, I agree, that is what I am doing too.” Bottom line, most of those conferences are efforts in choir preaching and not real change. With that being said, there are certainly people at some of our smaller state-level conferences that do walk away “changed” or inspired. Yet, most of us are all saying the same thing and agreeing with each other. Back patting is always nice, but does it lead to positive change?

Back to ASCD…many of the sessions I sat in were full of what I would consider uninformed and unconnected educators. I mean no offense by that comment but it is true. By uninformed, I mean they are not plugged into the world of educational trends that are pushing our profession. I am not claiming to be an expert but I was shocked when people did not know about people like Alfie Kohn or Sir Ken Robinson or even things like the Khan Academy. Or as I explained earlier, how have these people not heard of the EdCamp movement, especially those in the Philadelphia where it was essentially born. On top of that, many of the attendees of ASCD are not connected with other educators outside of their schools or districts. To think of the potential learning that can happen through connections, it is sad to think of the many that are not connected. Obviously, I am a bit biased and think Twitter is the best route to take, but bottom line is, we need to be connected. I did see a handful of people signing up for Twitter as the ASCD Tweetup at night, but I bet some were just doing it for the free water bottle. I hope I am wrong.

In reflecting on all of that, many of “us” connected and informed educators need to step out and present, work and get involved in conferences like ASCD. There is a tremendous opportunity to truly improve teaching and learning through events like these. It has been abundantly clear to me that many of the things I take for granted and assume everyone knows, is not actually true. I want to challenge myself to step out of the role of preaching to the choir and start bringing these ideas and opportunities to those less informed and less connected. On a positive note, I think the educators coming to ASCD want to improve and be informed...which is a good sign. 

For those that have not attended an event at the Convention Center in Philadelphia, there is a super long and awesome escalator. In a lame attempt to include a picture I took on my phone...let's use the metaphor of the escalator and do our individual and collective best to get more people up that escalator of metaphorical educational growth... :) 

ASCD part two: "Super"intendent

I spent my lunch time speaking with ASCD Young Educatorof the Year Matt McClure, a Superintendent from Cross Country Schools in Arkansas. He is clearly a passionate educator who loves what he is doing and without a doubt has his head in the right place in terms of what is best for kids. Through the conversation with McClure, I jotted several thinking points that created some questions in my mind. Some of these things were direct/indirect quotes or ideas that McClure shared with me.

“It is not about technology, it is about how you use technology.”

Lots of people are jumping on the technology bandwagon without any real plan of how it is helping learning. How do we ensure technology is being used to improve student learning and not just being used for the sake of use?

“Superintendents (or principals) come in and get things going well...as soon as they leave it falls apart.”

Leadership void is a real issue that many schools and districts face. An administrator comes into a situation and changes the environment and culture to be positive and forward moving. Then they leave and everything falls apart. As McClure said, he wants to build capacity so that things work when he leaves. If you are a district level administrator, will the good work you have done continue when you leave?

“Finding information is no longer important, what we do with it is.”

This one kind of speaks for itself…we need to make sure we are teaching kids and teachers to use information rather than just find it. Questions that can be answered on Google should not be the only ones we ask.

“Intense PD for teachers is needed for changing pedagogy.”

Changing pedagogy as something that needs to be addressed certainly hit home with me as I see a huge deficit in this area in our schools. Much of what we know about teaching and learning is changing, but our schools and instructional methods are not. This is largely due to poor modeling and not enough professional development in changing teaching pedagogy. How many PD days are structured around the “sage on the stage” mentality that every teacher knows is worthless? Why are we going outside and paying large sums of money to bring in “professionals” rather than develop and utilize the experts among our own ranks? Our PD should model what teaching pedagogy we believe in.

“I've got to be in classrooms.”

For me, this was my favorite thing he said. He explained that he, as superintendent, needed to be in the classrooms in order to adequately support needs of students and staff. Furthermore, he explained that school leaders need to be in classrooms regularly if they hope to have a finger on the pulse of their schools. Regardless of what level of administrator you are, you need to be in classrooms. I often think about this as I reflect on the number of times I have seen administrators at building and district level step into classrooms in my school. Are building level administrators the only ones sitting in classrooms? Are they only coming in on the 2-4 scheduled observations required as part of evaluation?

I truly enjoyed my time talking with Mark and plan on sharing many of his ideas back within my own school district. How do you see these ideas playing out in your schools? How can we get these ideas to be the “norm” in our schools and districts? We need more people like Mark running our schools and more people like Mark sharing their stories with others. 

ASCD part one: Global Competency

I am attending my first ASCD Conference this weekend as part of the "Press Corps". As a result, I will be doing my best to keep up with blogging and tweeting from the sessions I attend as well as the numerous conversations that will inevitably take place.

The first session I attended was one guided toward developing 21st Century Curriculum. There was a heavy emphasis on preparing our students for living in the 21st century but also on creating globally aware and competent students.

Much of the early part of the session was referencing the work of Tony Wagner and Heidi Jacobs. Both Jacobs and Wagner write and speak a great deal about creating globally competent students. Wagner even outlines the Seven Survival Skills that schools should be teaching. They are:

• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
• Are we as educators asking the right questions, or are we just concerned with the right answer?
• Collaboration Across Networks and Leading by Influence
• Are we providing opportunities for students to create and interact across various networks and groups of people?
• Agility and Adaptability
• When we strive to force kids to find the right answers are we stunting their ability to be adaptive and agile? Student naturally have these skills but lose them in the haze of bubble sheets and testing for the "right" answer.
• Initiative and Entrepreneuralism
• Do we allow students to drive their own learning and be innovative and creative? 
• Effective Oral and Written Communication
• When students write are we focusing on communication or the "rules" of writing? 
• Accessing and Analyzing Information
• Can our student gather information and make meaning of it? As the very definition of information changes are schools keeping up and preparing students adequately? 
• Curiosity and Imagination
• Will students be allowed to be curious and use their imagination in our schools? Many argue that schools aim to kill or crush these two valuable life skills. 

Some additional resources include:

• Educating for Global Competency (PDF)
• A great resource for information about global competency. 
• Wombat Video
• A little video about global perspective with a dancing rodent.
• Clean Water Challenge
• A neat little video about a water challenge that a middle school class took on.
• Global Rich List
• Helping students understand the global economy
• Facing the Future
• The speaker was actually from this company and spent a good amount of time referencing their site. One area that I found particularly interesting was the searchable area for aligning with Common Core Standards. 

My takeaways from this session:

The biggest takeaway I have is in reference to Wagner's Seven Survival Skills. I think there is a great deal of merit in the basic ideas within them as well as the potential hazards of not adhering to them. If we want to prepare better citizens and not just better test takers, we need to address many things. One of those things is the idea of global perspective and competency. Our students can not afford to be taught and live in a "bubble" with out an idea of global awareness.