Education Innovation

The Belief and Faith Equation For School Change

Sometimes you have a breakthrough, a moment of clarity where you see what you have been missing. I have had one about my school. It is not easy to share, but it is important.

As many of you who follow my blog, I have been working on a school improvement and change project I call the Victory Project. I have previously blogged about it here.

My school has a belief problem.

Teachers do not believe in the students and the parents.

Administrators do not believe in the teachers and the parents.

Students do not believe in themselves.

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Our belief equation does not add up to success. I shared this thought with the Twitterverse today and people were generally surprised. It is hard to imagine that there is so little faith. I struggled with it myself. I am questioning whether I believe in the staff and if I believe in myself.

This belief problem must be corrected. There must be a solution, a key, a missing piece to the puzzle. Victory depends on it.

Seth Godin writes in Tribes that all it takes is faith.

“The first thing you need to know is that individuals have far more power than ever before in history. One person can change an industry.”

I will be happy with changing just one school.

“The second thing you need to know is that the only thing holding you back from becoming the kind who changes things is this: lack of faith. Faith that you can do it. Faith that it’s worth doing. Faith that failure won’t destroy you.”

That’s it. I must have faith. I must have faith in the staff to change their belief. I must have faith in the students to change their beliefs. My faith in them is key to their belief in each other.

Seth says the secret is…
“It is merely about developing faith that it’ll work.”

“Faith is critical to all innovation.”

“Faith, as we’ve seen is the cornerstone that keeps our organizations together. Faith is the cornerstone of our humanity; we can’t live without it.”

If I want them to change their beliefs, I need to keep the faith.

Recommended Reading:

The Urgent Minority vs. The Complacent Majority

Data, Data, Everywhere

Student Behavior: Health Care vs. Criminal Justice

Defending Mediocrity and Other Thoughts of Seth Godin

Just into to Seth Godin’s new book Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us and thought I would share of few quotes that stood out to me.

“So here we are. We live in a world where we have the leverage to make things happen, the desire to do work we believe in, and marketplace that is begging us to be remarkable. And yet, in the middle of these changes, we still get stuck.”

“Stuck following archaic rules.”

“Stuck in industries that not only avoid change but actively fight it.”

According to Seth, organizations, and I include education, are going to have to adjust to what I call The Big Change and The New Rule.

The Big Change
“The big news is that this has changed. People yearn for change, they relish being part of a movement, and they talk about things that are remarkable, not boring.”

Current education system = boring, unremarkable, and change resistant.

The New Rule
“If you want to grow, you need to find customers who are willing to join you or believe in you or donate to you or support you. And guess what? The only customers willing to do that are looking for something new. The growth comes from change and light and noise.”

Education is losing the public’s belief and support because they are looking for something new. They are looking for change. Education is breaking the New Rule and losing support and belief.

“Is there a difference between average and mediocre? Not so much. Average stuff is taken for granted, not talked about, and certainly not sought out.”

Are you sought after? Are people pounding down the doors of your school, your district, or your education system?  Or, do they just take it for granted that the doors will be open, the teachers will teach, and the kids will have somewhere to go from 8:00 to 3:00?

“The end result of this is that many people (many really good people) spend all day trying to defend what they do, trying to sell what they’ve always sold, and trying to prevent their organization from being devoured by the forces of the new.”

Sounds like a job description for district, county, state, and federal education administrators, union officials, and bureaucrats.

“It must be wearing them out. Defending mediocrity is exhausting.”

Somehow, I don’t feel sorry for them. They are just doing what they are told to do right?

“On a recent trip to India, this mind-set was made crystal clear. Ask almost anyone there what the perfect job would be, and the answer is: working as a government bureaucrat. Not only do you have air-conditioning, but you aren’t even asked to take initiative. The job is steady, the pay is good, and there are no surprises.”

I think Seth would agree. Education could use a few surprises. Here are a few of mine.

Education Piracy

The 4th Model of Education

21st Century Education, Meet The 19th Century Reality

4 Ps For Innovation in Education

Crowdsourcing In Education

What surprises do you have for education? I am sure you have some.
Understanding the Big Change and correctly answering The New Question is one way to find Education Innovation.

Education's Sacred Cows

Is there anything wrong with Sacred Cows? Well it depends. Maybe yes and maybe no. We need to question if our Sacred Cows are useful, relevant, and correct for the needs of the educational system. If they have outlived their usefulness then those “cows” need to be questioned. According to the authors of Death To All Sacred Cows: How successful business people put the old rules out to pasture, if education only looks to the past, it is putting itself at risk because schools or districts that, “...only look to the past to guide their futures can be doomed to failure. In a rapidly changing world, anything dated tends to be dangerous.”

“If the world was a stagnant, predictable place, then steadfast rules would be okay. They would guide us and keep everyone honest. But the world in which we live changes constantly.”

Change is the new normal.

“If we don’t question why we do things the way we do, we’ll never be able to do them better. If we resist new approaches, we’ll be stuck with more of the same all the time.”

When was the last time you questioned why you were doing what you were doing? 

by TerData

So here is the Education Innovation list of Sacred Cows.

Sacred Cows Of Education
•    All students can learn at high levels of achievement
•    Teaching takes place at a school
•    Teaching takes place in the classroom
•    Students should sit at a desk
•    Students learn from teachers
•    Students need to learn what teachers are teaching
•    The government knows what students should know
•    The government knows best what teachers need to know
•    The best way to measure learning is to give a test
•    The best way to show what you know is to take a test
•    Books are necessary
•    Paper is necessary
•    Homework is necessary
•    Students should not have cell phones
•    Always do what is best for students
•    Research based instructional practices
•    Data based decision making
•    Principals should be “instructional leaders”
•    Private schools, charter schools, and home-schools are competition.
•    Schools don’t have enough money
•    Unions are good for teachers
•    Unions are good for students
•    Smaller class sizes are better
•    Howard Gardner is always right
•    Robert Marzano is always right
•    The DuFours are always right
•    There is nothing you can do about bad teachers
•    Standardized test scores matter, and they matter a lot
•    Teachers are better when they work as team or a Professional Learning Community
•    The more experience a teacher has the better they are at teaching
•    Teachers should not be compared to other teachers
•    Schools should not be compared to other schools
•    Mistakes are bad.
•    Parents are always right
•    Parents don’t understand
•    Put the most resources toward the lowest students
•    Technology is not important for learning

Some of these "cows" should stay "sacred" and some of these "cows" need to be put out to pasture.

What Sacred Cows would you add?

21st Century Education, Meet The 19th Century Reality

 

How goes the working conditions of teachers, so goes the education our students receive.

“ ‘We’re here for the kids.’ ‘We do what’s best for kids.’ Often have these words been proclaimed from atop school district offices. However, has anyone thought that by doing what’s best for teachers you are doing what’s best for kids?”  Brian Crosby, Smart Kids, Bad Schools

“Teacher working conditions are student learning conditions.”  North Carolina governor Michael F. Easley

Death to All Sacred Cows authors David Bernstein, Beau Frasier, and Bill Schwab point out that focusing exclusively on the wonderfulness of your customers can alienate and demoralize your employees. Without a happy and motivated workforce, your business will wither and die.”

And if you business is educating students, then spending all your time focusing on the needs of the students while ignoring the needs of the teachers is a recipe for poor morale, poor teaching, and eventually poor results.

Ken Futernick, writing in the Los Angeles Times said, “We have a high-school dropout problem in large part because we have a teacher dropout program.”

Teachers dropping out of the teaching profession is a serious problem. According to a 2007 California State University study, nearly one-quarter of new California teacher leave the profession in four years or less. Think of that, one out of every four teachers is leaving education after just a few years, even after all the training, education, and time they spend to get into the profession.

Teachers are expected to prepare students for success in the 21st Century, while working and teaching in 19th Century conditions. Compare how the conditions are for teachers, students, and prisoners.

Wouldn’t students and parents both benefit from a system treated teachers like professionals and put their long-term needs first ahead of the changing needs of students and parents. Students would get the education they deserve because they would be receiving instruction from teachers who are getting the treatment they deserve.

Fine dinning in New York City is not a place where you would think the customer comes second. But that is exactly the philosophy of restaurant owner and operator Danny Meyer. Death to All Sacred Cows puts it, “ Danny Meyer certainly believes in treating the customer well….He just happens to think that the customer second and that his employees are the most important part of his business.” 

Meyer once said in the in an article in Time Magazine, “If you are devoted to your staff and can promise them much more than a paycheck, something to believe in, you will get the best service for your customers.”

Give your teachers the best and they will give your students the best.

Student Behavior: Health Care vs. Criminal Justice

What does the current criminal justice system, the future health care system, school discipline, and education have in common? Blend them up in the Education Innovation blender and take a look.

Today I was thinking about the school wide behavior plan I have been working on as part my school improvement program I call the Victory Project. The past behavior system could be compared to the Criminal Justice System. I wondered if there is a better model. Then it hit me; we need to model the ideas of health care.

Yesterday I wrote about how education should model the ideas set forth for improving health care.       (4 Ps For Innovation in Education) Education should be Predictive, Preventive, Participatory, and Personalized. If you add two more Ps such as Positive and Progressive then you have the makings of a new behavior plan that better influences positive behavior and deals with negative behavior on an individual basis.

The health care model is a better comparison for what we should be seeking in school behavior plans. Which would you rather have to go through?  When you are in the Criminal Justice system, there are no relationships developed, it happens to you, releasing the student from participating and reflecting on their behavior.

The health care model is much better at being predictive, preventive, participatory, personalized, positive, and progressive. Schools, teachers, administrators, parents, and even students should be thinking about these traits.

Predictive:
What sorts of issues and behaviors are likely to occur? Think ahead and plan for a response or prevention.

Preventive:
What steps can be taken to prevent negative behavior from happening. For example, engaging students, or giving students the attention they need and crave, or moving a student's seat, reminding students of what is expected are all examples of being preventive. Be pro-active not re-active.

Participatory:
Teachers, administrators, staff, parents, and students need to participate in the system. Students, especially, need to participate in reflecting on their own behavior and even choosing the appropriate consequence or developing prevention ideas for future negative behavior.

Personalized:
Consequences should be matched to the individual student. Just as student have individual learning needs and teacher differentiate their instruction, so too do students have differing needs when it comes to influencing positive behavior and giving consequences for negative behavior. This is not always possible (ie; drugs, weapons, sexual harassment, etc.) but to the extent possible prevention and consequences should be personalized.

Positive:
Discipline with dignity. We must not make the situation personal. School staff does itself a disservice when they give up the power of their position and get personal with a student in reaction to their behavior. Students need to know we care even when they make mistakes and bad decisions.

Progressive:
Common sense needs to be a priority when it comes to dealing with negative student behavior. Jumping to most extreme consequence forces you give an even greater consequence when if the behavior occurs again. Where is one to go?  There must be a menu or continuum of consequences that allow flexibility from one end of the scale to another in dealing with negative behavior. If a student doesn't do their homework and they receive detention, what happens when they do it again? Do you suspend them? No, you need room to move and a progressive system of low to high severity provides this.

School discipline meets the health care system. That is Education Innovation.

Trust Is The Key First Step of any T.R.I.P

Trust. We all want it, but do we all give it? It is a crucial issue for teachers and administrators.

From Chapter 3 from The Collaborative Administrator is titled “Trust: The Secret Ingredient to Successful Shared Leadership.”

Trust is a key to school success.
“What then should a principal do to lay a foundation of trust in a school?”

 DWYSYWD- Do What You Say You Will Do

Further the authors believe the administrator should…

• Operate with honesty and integrity
• Make yourself available
• Demonstrate a caring attitude
• Listen
• Encourage risk-taking
• Share decision-making
• Value dissent
• Don’t allow accountability to consume teachers
• Make certain that teachers have what they need to teach
• Be prepared to confront ineffective teachers

Trust is the first step on a journey to successful schools, the first step of a TRIP.

Trust

“Trusting in a sense, means giving something away and ceding power to others, an essential step in achieving the outward focus needed in a hyperconnected world. Trust empowers others, but because it is a virtue.” 

In the classroom that means taking the first step to give away our perception of control and trust the students. As an administrator, you must give power away to others to develop trust in them and their trust in you.

Risk
If there is no trust, “We drive slower, act cautiously, shrink our circle of friends and associates, and generally default more conservative impulses. When there is trust in the room, however, all of these tendencies are reversed. We are secure and so can act boldly. We feel free to invent new process…”

We experiment and try new things. Imagine how a student would feel if he or she was secure enough to try new things, stretch themselves, and take a risk.

Teachers who feel trusted will be more likely to innovate and create and share better ideas and practices.

Innovation

“In a trusting environment, everyone feels emboldened to take more risks. They challenge the system more, they solve problems, and they don’t stay in small boxes afraid to venture into new territory for fear of criticism (by bosses or colleagues). Innovation flows from this creative spirit.” 

In a trusting environment teachers would be more open to trying a new grade or teaching a class. With trust, a teacher will be more open to sharing new ideas or insight with colleagues. Administrators, if you felt more trust, you would be more willing to experiment with bold programs.  Teacher and administrators innovating new ideas without fear of criticism could generate great benefits for students.

Progress
“What happens when you innovate? You create progress.” 

Progress is not just limited to higher test scores. Progress extends to personal progress.

“We go on TRIPs because we want to accomplish big things. We go on TRIPs because we want to solve real problems and because we want to create lasting value.”

We go on TRIPs because helping build minds and making a difference is why we got into education in the first place. We go on TRIPs to make an impact.

But there is more to TRIP

T “The T stands for transparency, which creates trust. Interpersonal transparency is a necessary power to thrive in a connected world, and not coincidentally, it creates trust."

When the teachers you work with can see that you are being open and transparent with your ideas, lessons, plans, etc. then they develop trust in you. For a department or grade level to be successful, a condition of transparency must exist. If others think you are hiding something, then they are not going to share what they know. We have all seen or know teachers who are hoarders of ideas. We have all seen and know teachers who are territorial about ideas, or committees, or duties, etc. When these teachers are not transparent, then the others they work begin to feel they need to close up and keep their ideas or territories. We become little islands or silos, each trying to keep their ideas to themselves in hope that they will be perceived as a, “great teacher.”  Meanwhile all the kids at the school suffer from this lack of transparency. We must open up and share our best practices and ideas. All of the students deserve the best, not just the ones in my class.

R The R stands for Reputation.

Do you know what your reputation is?  It may not be what you think. Perception is reality, as they say, so your reputation is largely going to be determined by the perception of those you teach and work with. It may not be what you intended it to be, but it is what others think it is.

I  The I stands for Instinct.

When there is trust, this can unleash you instinct. “When you are in a trust-filled situation, these synapses are strong. The various centers of your brain communicate seamlessly and rapidly, and you can then make split-second decisions that often pay off.” 

Wouldn’t it be easier if you worked and taught in a situation that allowed you to make quick decision without second-guessing yourself due to lack of trust in your students, your co-workers, or your principal. To work in an environment of trust will allow you to make decision in the best interest of the students each and every time without going through all the machinations that those who work where there is no trust will likely go through.

However, I took the liberty of adding another meaning to the I.

I The I can also stand for individual. We in education are being told exactly what to teach, when to teach, and how to teach. There must be room for the individual talents and ideas of each teacher or administrator. In an environment of trust, each individual teacher or administrator can offer his or her unique ideas and viewpoints.

P  The P stands for perennial prosperity.

Prosperity can mean performance. Prosperity can be translated to mean results. Trust brings results. Results from the teachers and administrators, which, in the end, translates to results from the students and the school. Performance increases steadily in the direction of great results.

Trust is key. We need to have trust. I get so tired of people who want to just talk about what has to be done without ever spending to reflect on the HOW it will be done. If we don’t figure out the HOWs then the “whats” won’t be accomplished. Is it worth our time as teachers and administrators to take some time to get our HOWs right?

So how do we get a TRIP going? You figure out where you are, where you want to go, and most importantly, you listen to each other. Our students are counting on us to get going on the TRIP.

Assembly Line Education

Education in the U.S has often been compared to an assembly line. If that is the case, which auto company assembly line would most likely compare similarly with education? In their great book The Starfish and The Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations authors Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom describe the differing approaches and philosophies of a Toyota assembly line and a General Motors assembly line.

Lets start with General Motors…
“A typical GM factory in the 1980s evoked every stereotype we have of an assembly line. Each worker was responsible for a single task, and the hierarchy was rigid and clear. If an employee made a mistake or detected a problem, he could stop the line, whereupon a loud alarm would sound. Workers would rush to solve the specific problem and get the line going again. But as many drivers could attest, the cars GM produced in the early 1980s were prone to mechanical failure. The system was producing cars that were at best okay, but definitely not great.”

So, how about Toyota…
“The Toyota assembly line was drastically different. Employees were regarded as members of a team, and each team member was considered an important contributor and given a high level of autonomy. What happened if an employee stopped the line? A pleasant ‘ding-dong’ would sound and teams would carefully study what was going on, in an effort to continually improve the process. Line workers were constantly encouraged to make suggestions.”

No take a moment and imagine which assembly line your school is like. Which is assembly line is your district like?

Teachers, what would happen if you “stopped the line” in your school or district? Would you get a GM reaction or a Toyota reaction? 

How about you principal or superintendent? Don’t think I forgot about you. The book included this description of Peter Drucker’s analysis of GM’s approach to management.

Peter Drucker explained that at General Motors, “it is the right as well as the duty of every managerial employee to criticize a central management decision which he considers mistaken or ill-advised…such criticism is not only not penalized; it is encouraged as a sign of initiative and of an active interest in the business. It is always taken seriously and given real consideration.”

 Teachers
Can you “stop the line?”
Would your ideas or opinions be heard?

Principals and Superintendents
Can you challenge upper district leadership?
How many suggestions would you implement for your “line managers?”

The Victory Project

I don’t often write about my personal experiences at my school, but this year I have decided to share with you the challenges, frustrations, and joys of working at Title 1, Program Improvement Year 4, and the lowest performing school in the district.

Urgency. Change. Influence. Focus

This is my mantra this school year. The data is coming in on last year’s results and things look a bit bleak for the school I work at. I have approached the principal and the literacy coaches at my site with the idea of a Victory Project. I don’t wont to focus on scores, focus on getting a little better, or focus on all the problems and challenges of our population. I am done approaching change and improvement as an intellectual endeavor. No, I want to win, and so do these hard working teachers and staff members. So, I invite my readers to come along as I seek to create urgency, implement change, influence behavior, and focus on what matters. I invite you to follow my Victory Project.

The Victory Project is composed of four focus areas. They are: Professional Learning Communities, Response to Intervention, Direct Instruction, and School Climate & Culture.  I am going to personally try to leverage my knowledge of technology and my love for creative thinking and problem solving techniques to myself and those I work with in this goal.

One thing about taking a trip, it helps to know where you are going. Very important, but can’t get directions to your destination unless you know where you are. So, with that in mind I have developed a road map of sorts. It points out where we are leaving from and what our destination is for each of our four focus areas.

As the Yogi Berra once said…

“If you don’t know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.”

This is the road map for our Professional Learning Community focus.

So join me on this adventure. Please share your thoughts, ideas, comments, or insights. On to Victory!

The Four Forces of Change: Compression of Time and Space

In honor of my return to work this week and the thinking about what the future school year will bring, I bring you FLIP WEEK. Today is part 1 of the 4 Forces of Change.

The forces of change are acting on us. We may not sense it or we may feel it intensely, but change is coming. The forces of change are acting everyday to influence what we do and how we do it.

Peter Sheahan has identified The Four Forces of Change in his new book Flip: How to Turn Everything You Know on Its Head—and Succeed Beyond Your Wildest Imaginings.

The Four Forces of Change, according to Peter Sheahan, are:
1.    Increasing compression of time and space
2.    Increasing complexity
3.    Increasing transparency and complexity
4.    Increasing expectations on the part of everyone for everything.

Let’s take a look at the first of the four forces, Increasing compression of time and space.

Sheahan writes, “Human beings have always been impatient. Today we expect things to happen faster than ever before. And not just a little bit faster, but over the last few years a lot faster. The quicker something can be something can be done, the quicker we expect it to happen…”

Education is certainly not immune. Think about the compression of time. How many emails do you get a day? People who expect a response the same day sent most of those messages. Data can be pulled up in an instant with databases such as Edusoft or Data Director. New education programs are created yearly and teachers are expected to learn them and put them into place quickly. Requests for information are made frequently and the expectation is that they be returned quickly.

“In summary, increased affluence and rapidly developing  communications technology are compressing  our expectation around time. If the late twentieth century was about doing more with less, then the twenty-first century will be about doing more with less, faster!”

No teacher would argue that the increasing demands of high stakes testing and legislation such as NCLB is driving them to get more teaching squeezed into the same amount of days. Education is going to have to adapt to the compression of time as we asked to do more in the same space of time.

Technology in education is subject to the forces of compressing time. Technology is being developed faster than ever, being adopted by society quicker than ever, which means educators will be expected to integrate new technologies into their classrooms and curriculum sooner than ever.

The compression of space will impact education as well. As the world gets “smaller” we are going to have more opportunities to interact with people from all over the world, whether in person or through technology. This may create more opportunities for our students to learn from those who are live in or have direct knowledge about the subjects our students are learning. Imagine learning about the pyramids of Egypt from the scholars who there everyday or learning about life in Egypt from the people who live there. Virtual field trips and collaboration across the world via technology are a result of compressed space and distance.

As we get “closer” to those we share the planet with, we may view our educational standards in comparison to other countries. Eventually, we will be in competition with many more people for the knowledge work that is so highly sought after. The compression of distance may require that we examine our educational standards in light of what others around the world are doing and what a world where distance and time are compressed. Tom Peters summed it up best when he said, “Distance is dead.”

Three Signs of a Miserable Job: Part 3

The Three Sings of a Miserable Job by Patrick Lencioni

Part 3

Immeasurable

“People ought to think about measuring those things that make difference to the person or people they serve. If you exist to help students, measure something related to that. If your purpose is to help your manager, find a way to measure that.”

Principals should be in the business of finding ways to help teachers discover how they are serving the students, parents, and co-workers each day. When you can show them what to measure you will enable teachers to decide for themselves how they are doing at their jobs each day.

Your support staff will need the same ability to their jobs for themselves as well. How are your office manager, custodian, food service worker, and instructional aide measuring his or her work each day? Your role should be to help them find things related to their work to measure each day.

“The key to establishing effective measures for a job lies in identifying those areas that an employee can directly influence, and then ensuring that the specific measurements are connected to the person or people they are meant to serve.”

We have all seen a goal that has come down from the district and thought to our selves, “Hmm, what does that have to do with me?”  Telling a custodian, or teacher that one of their goals should be the fiscal solvency for the district doesn’t exactly inspire them. How could they, each day, answer the question about how much the contributed to the fiscal solvency of the district?

Raise the test scores. Raise the test scores. What if you work in food services, maintenance and operations, or the business office? How would you judge your work each day based on these measurements? How could you measure each day based on the measurement of test scores?  Seems a bit disconnected.

“Too often, an executive will try to rally employees by giving them some macro objective.” 

Each of us should find those measurables the directly relate to their job and then measure our work each day. Only then, can you feel satisfied and fulfilled at what you do.

“People want measurables so that they can get an intrinsic sense of accomplishment.”

Imagine a school or district where every employee is fulfilled and satisfied with their work and can measure for themselves how well they are doing each and every day. That school or district would have a lot of happy, fulfilled, and empowered employees who love their jobs.