Month: October 2017

What can we change in education?

On By paulmcguire2013In #IMMOOC, governance and public education, Innovation, school reformLeave a comment

I am trying something new today. I have put out a prompt – you will see it below – and I am trying to write a post as the conversation evolves. I love blogs because it can be updated as new ideas come out.

Let’s see what happens.

To me, the big questions are the interesting ones, but I wonder how often these get asked. I put this question out today on Twitter:

What needs to change in how education is organized? Roles of admin? Trustees? Community? #educationforward #educationreform

I put this out on Sunday morning and tagged a number of educators to the question. Twitter is really good at provoking discussion. Will this question get responses? We will see.

The conversation started with a reference by Chris Cluff to an article, ‘10 Disruptions That Will Revolutionize Education’

Much of schooling is constructed around conformity and standardization, but digital natives will force educators to break out of that box.

This is very heartening, one of the big problems right now in education is the need for alignment – conformity is king! This really stifles creativity and innovation in education.

This is another key idea in the article that Chris Cluff and Roland Chidiac discuss in this great Youtube broadcast

7. School leaders will give up their desks.

The next generation of school leaders will be less wedded to traditional practices. Students will need autonomy and freedom to customize their own education, so top-down leadership will be replaced by student agency in a culture of mutual respect.

I am still listening to Chris and Roland as they dissect this really interesting article – much more to the discussion!

Update – as the conversation continues, Roland and Chris discuss the idea of administrators get away from their desks. The mention Derek Rhodenizer and challenge him to get away from his desk. I don’t think that is a big deal for Derek, I am sure he does that anyhow. Let’s go further – why not challenge a superintendent to get away from their desk for a week – what would that be like?

So, I put out this additional prompt

This is an interesting turn, we talked about this yesterday in a conversation while we hiked – how would education be transformed if senior administrators were cut off from the board office?

The conversation continues. Derek does weigh in through a series of tweets. No surprise, he is all over the idea of a mobile administrator. Interestingly, today it seems difficult to get others to weigh in on this topic. Too general? Too big, or as we observed a few weeks ago, it is difficult and dangerous to tackle topics like this in the world of education.

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Or, maybe the conversation needs to move on. Peter Cameron added this comment which really gets to the heart of the issue of admin in the classroom.

peter

This prompt was added by Derek Rhodenizer. It will be interesting to see if any administrators offer comments.

derek

More people have joined the conversation – Julie Bolton and Matthew Oldridge.

Important ideas added here. The need to focus on relationships and keeping them positive. The struggle to remain relevant when you are no longer in the classroom. Also, by Peter Cameron, the challenge of making sure that teachers make sure administrators are welcome in the classroom. Good point here – respect must always be a two-way street.

These are really important ideas and they are not necessarily taught as part of the Principal Qualification Program. I have talked to many educators who struggle in their schools just because they have an administrator who doesn’t seem to get these simple lessons. What can we do when a situation like this arises? Generally nothing – teachers usually leave or wait out the administrator.

This might be at the heart of this conversation. We work in a system that is so dependant on leadership from the top – is this a good thing? What do we do when leadership breaks down? Is this an essential problem in our current system?

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Should You Have Challenging Conversations?

On By paulmcguire2013In #IMMOOC, Hope, leadership1 Comment

I saw today that there was a workshop on challenging or ‘fierce’ conversations at my former district.

This always makes me smile or more accurately, grimace.

I guess the idea behind challenging conversations is that we need to have them, we need to be honest and we need to get at the root of the issue. All great ideas, but what is probably never addressed at these workshops are the consequences of having these conversations.

Yes, you can have these conversations and as an administrator, I have had my fair share. I once had one of these conversations with an irate mother who was upset because I disciplined her son for being abusive to one of our educational assistants. At one point, I had to say to her that I was surprised that while she could easily see how her son might have been upset about my actions, she couldn’t understand how his actions had affected one of our staff members.

This is what happens with ‘fierce’ conversations. If the other party doesn’t like how things are going, there is always another authority they can go to. In this case, the parent went to my superintendent with a letter asking for my removal from the school.

The superintendent’s only response was ‘what did you do to create this situation?’

Not very helpful. This all led to another conversation where I – on my own – met again with the parents who in the interim had discovered that their child actually liked me and was not at all upset about the incident. I am not sure how the staff member felt.

This is the big thing about doing a presentation on courageous conversations. The presenters seldom have to do these. Also, the question never comes up – what if people go over your head at the end of the conversation?

If they do, what happens to your ability to have further conversations?

A few years later, in a different school, I had another one of these conversations. This time it was with a member of the office staff who had put out a note to teaching staff which was inappropriate.

Again, the conversation went well over my head. The disgruntled staff member went to her union, to the head of human resources and eventually to the superintendent of human resources. The staff member developed a whole case against me.

Administrators in Ontario do not have unions. People can make baseless accusations against them and there is really no defence against these. In my case, the school board decided that they needed to investigate all these claims and I was suspended with pay for three weeks while the investigation continued.

There was never a formal end to the investigation. I was told that everything was OK and I could go back to work (right after the Christmas break). The office staff member was removed to another school. She never missed a day of work. While all the accusations remained unproven and certainly unfounded, I never received an apology for how I was treated by a school board I had worked with for over 20 years.

All to say, let’s be a little more honest or “courageous” when we pronounce about difficult, courageous or even fierce conversations. Who believes in you and has your back when your position requires that you have these conversations?

When you call for courage, first model courage.

 

The Dying of the Day

On By paulmcguire2013In Hope7 Comments

I am reflecting on what it is like to watch a dearly loved parent slowly die.It really puts things into perspective. It is interesting when it only catches the conversation of friends for a few moments. Sad to say, we are not a society that understands the passing of life very well. A good lesson for me.

I am trying to keep things together here. Conferences I should attend, meetings I should go to. It is hard to tell people, I just don’t want to do any of these things, I am waiting on my father.

No one seems to get this.

I am the first to admit I haven’t been as good, nearly as good as I should have been in the past when friends of mine have gone through the loss of a loved one. Maybe now I will be better. Maybe now I will understand things better.

Life goes on through social media and more pictures of hikes, climbs, and runs. I just want to take a minute to stop and honour someone who I have loved so dearly.

Dad, we love you.

 

How to introduce a great digital program – Discovery Education

On By paulmcguire2013In Digital Transformation, Discovery Education, Innovation, new professional developmentLeave a comment

Introducing new digital programming to schools and districts is not an easy thing to do. How do you decide what is good? How much should you be spending on these programs? Why should you spend anything when you have free resources like Google?

First, just like anywhere else, there is no such thing as a free ride. Quality programming costs money. The challenge is where do you spend your limited resources.

The other big problem is a very hard one to solve. Once you have a program ready for implementation, how do you find the time and resources to train a busy staff on how best to use this new program.

I don’t think we have solved this last problem yet.

I am very interested in Discovery Education. I have used this resource for years, I have attended their principal’s conferences and have trained our staff on how to use the program in the classroom. For a time, our school was the only one in our district that had access to Discovery’s Science Techbook.

I have also done work on the Science Techbook revision that has been taking place over the past year.

So, I know this resource and I believe it has a huge amount to offer educators. The problem remains, how do you tell busy teachers and administrators about a resource that could really enhance student learning?

This has been difficult. Sadly, in my former board, they have cut back or possibly eliminated the use of this resource. They have done this for a simple reason – people were not using it.

Again, this is understandable. People are very busy and they really need to take a pause if they are going to learn about new resources and tools for learning. There are so many out there – how are they to choose?

The answer is a simple one but it takes time. Districts need to commit human resources and time to teach people how to use complex digital tools. Putting them out there and expecting something to happen just won’t work. Teachers are simply too busy.

While I am happy to talk to anyone about Discovery Education, I am not getting lots of offers to come in and teach teachers about Discovery. Maybe the best thing for now is to simply blog about Discovery Education.

So, I have set up a new blog Discovery Education In Canada and I plan to post every day on some aspect of Discovery Education and how it can work as an excellent digital resource for teaching and learning.

This is a bit of a challenge as I have to download material from the DE site so that people who are not registered with Discovery can see the material I am referring to.

I have four posts out now and I started on Saturday. No idea if this is going to spread the good news, but if you don’t try you will never know.

So, the experiment begins. I hope you take a moment to look and maybe even share a post or two.

4 Questions for Administrators to Promote a Culture of Innovation: A Response to George Couros

On By paulmcguire2013In #IMMOOC, George Couros the Innovators Mindset, Innovation, school reformLeave a comment

1. Are your professional learning opportunities mirroring what you want to see in the classroom?

2. Are your policies and procedures inhibiting innovative practices?

3. Is there transparency in your practice and learning? 

4. Is collaboration an ongoing norm or do individuals and teams work in silos?

George Couros 4 Questions for Administrators to Promote a Culture of Innovation

Wouldn’t it be great to be in a principal’s meeting where everyone, including the superintendents, were asked these four questions? What a rich conversation this would be!

School Boards love to be seen as being innovative. Mostly this is because while they truly value innovation, it is almost impossible to achieve.

In my last school board, we all had to have a school innovation plan. It used to be a school improvement plan, but innovation sounded so much better. Basically, we were all going to be innovative and we were going to make sure we were being innovative by June 1st at the latest.

It sounds silly and it certainly was. I think large organizations really value compliance over innovation any day because innovation is messy and is hard to regulate. Large school boards are not good at messy.

Compliance, however, means that there is alignment from the top to the bottom (school) of the organization. We are all moving in the same direction and that direction is very innovative.

George’s questions are great and we should be asking our school boards and school administrators these questions. They are really hard questions. Take the first one – does our professional development mirror what we want to see in the classroom? Maybe, but then principals would have to have autonomy over what professional learning is in the schools and that seldom happens. More often, the professional development plan is directed by the school board and the plan has to align with the greater goals of that board. Not a recipe for innovative practice.

One more question – are your policies and procedures inhibiting innovative practice? To examine this, we would need to look at a school board’s policies and procedures and see who they actually serve. Do they work to develop a more compliant culture or do they truly allow educators to innovate and take chances – another tough question.

I responded briefly to George’s post below. If you are an administrator, how would you do with these questions?

My response:

Really thoughtful post thanks for this. School boards love the idea of innovation, but it is really hard for them to practice this. By their very nature, they attempt to preserve what they have. This does not lead to innovative practices, but no school board will ever say they are not innovative. They may have ‘school innovation plans’ but they are hard-pressed to actually do very much that is innovative. I don’t think this is really the fault of the school board – how can a large organization or corporation really be innovative? This is a really big challenge

Christie Lake Climb For Kids! Join the Adventure!

On By paulmcguire2013In Christie Lake Kids, Climb for Kids, Leaning in4 Comments
Our official logo for Christie Lake Climb for Kids!

 

This is a great day and the start of a new adventure.
We are very happy to announce that the Christie Lake Climb For Kids fundraising trek is now ready to sign up participants.
The August 2018 trek will be taking place in Peru, starting in Cusco and will head towards Ausangate Mountain. The trek reaches an altitude of 5200 m which is a real mental and physical challenge. Are you interested in a big challenge?

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Each participant on this expedition will be asked to raise money for Christie Lake Kids, a wonderful organization in Ottawa that provides recreation opportunities for low-income children throughout the year.
The trip is being planned and coordinated by Merit Travel here in Ottawa.
Christie Lake will provide each participant with their own fundraising page and will help each team member to raise money throughout the upcoming year. This is really a big community fundraising event that will take Christie Lake all the way to Peru.

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A full itinerary is available here along with a booking form for those who are interested in signing up. We will be taking 16 people and to reserve your spot, you need to complete the form and make a $500.00 deposit. You can contact Darren Prashad at Merit Travel to secure your spot he can be reached at DPrashad@merittravel.com

We are planning an information meeting for mid-November to go over all the details and to introduce people to the personal training group we plan to use to get everyone in great shape for the trip!

You can now sign up for the information meeting here. The meeting will take place on November 20th at 6:30 PM at Great Escape Outfitters 369 Richmond Road in Ottawa.

This will be a terrific adventure and a unique way to give back to a wonderful organization. Having done one of these trips to Mt. Kilimanjaro last April, I know this is a great way to help others and yourself at the same time.

 If you can’t go but would like to help with the fundraising, I will share our fundraising page once this is up.

Looking forward to a great year and a terrific climb!

 

 

Freeing the Minds of School Administrators

On By paulmcguire2013In #IMMOOC, Doug Peterson, governance and public education, Hope, Innovation, leadership, school reform2 Comments

OK, today I admit I am entering the world of fantasy posts, but I am still going to give this a try.

We have seen lots of Twitter traffic and great blog posts in the last two weeks about how educators are stifled in what they can write on social media by school boards who do not want to read dissenting opinions from their employees.

The best posts are coming from Andrew Campbell. This post is great

So, we know what the problem is – the overarching authority of school board bureaucrats and senior admin to stifle all thoughtful opinion but their own. But is there a solution?

Only if you live in the world of fantasy!

I think this is really an issue of governance. Education in Ontario is really controlled by a small number of senior administrators who are in no way overseen by anyone else in the province. Yes, there are lots of ministry directives, but there is no oversight on the overbearing behavior of board admin.

I write board admin because I don’t mean school administrators – principals and vice-principals.

These are the people who have trained for years to become administrators and put everything on the line every day to keep things going in their schools. It is a tough job and there is little or no support for the hard work that they do. There is also little protection given to them in they run into conflict with parents and even worse, board officials.

Many believe that they are agents of their school board first and that the decisions made by the board, decisions they have no say in, must be supported without question.

This is the incredible thing. School administrators are seldom asked for their opinion about how things should be done at a district level. These decisions are made by superintendents and program coordinators who have little connection to the schools they oversee.

School administrators need to have a voice. They need to be consulted in a meaningful way and they need to know that if they speak out they will be protected by a higher authority than their own school board.

If this were to happen we might actually read some interesting and useful comments on how schools can become more effective. Right now, the best we can expect from a school administrator on Twitter is cheerleading – the useless tweets that are designed to make the school look good without conveying any useful information.

So, again firmly in fantasy land, this is my solution. Free up school administrators from the heavy drag of district officials. Let them speak on the record so we can hear from a very effective group of front-line workers who may actually have some ideas on how to bring about effective change to our schools.

This shouldn’t be a fantasy.

 

 

Social Media and Educators – When Will We Grow Up?

On By paulmcguire2013In #IMMOOC, #SAVMP, Doug Peterson, George Couros the Innovators Mindset, governance and public education, Hope, Innovation, Leaning in, OSSEMOOC, school reform1 Comment

Doug Peterson has written a number of great posts over the past few days based on a wide-ranging Twitter conversation we had on the weekend.

Doug has summarized the conversation really well in the following posts:

Yeah, it can happen – Oct 11
The right to tweet – Oct 10
The “P” in PLN – Oct 9

This is a hard conversation to summarize as it went on for three days and had participation from at least ten different participants. The conversation is collected here in case you want to see it.

I also tried to summarize things in this blog post: Twitter, Educators, and Dissent – October 8

As the conversation evolved, we got closer to talking about free speech, social media and working for an institution. I don’t think anything was resolved, but it was very interesting and more than a little sad to read what people had to say.

To me, it shows that our ideas on social media are still evolving. It indicates that institutions have an incredible fear of social media and see it still as a threat. It also reminds me of the incredible power of institutions to suppress the actions of its members even if these actions are not clearly critical of the institution.

To be honest, it is amazing that we had any sort of conversation as some of the participants are still working for districts and these individuals clearly took a risk by getting involved. I totally understand why others decided to stay clear.

I wrote one comment on Doug’s post and I think this would be a good conversation to have openly on voicED Radio.

In preparing to write the comment, I took a look at an old disciplinary letter that I received. It had a chilling effect. It brought back all the old, bad emotions that swirled around during the last year and a half of employment for that district. Truly, writing about this stuff is more difficult than what I have written in the past about my mental health journey.

Still, this needs to be written about. Institutions should not be allowed to operate with impunity, nor should they be motivated by fear or the desire to sanction employees who challenge their way of thinking.

I hope these posts, discussions, and comments can open this conversation a little bit. It is way past time that we matured in our views regarding social media.

Here is my comment:

Hi Doug. Thanks for your posts over the past few days. Very interesting discussion. Reading the comments and your post again I think it is important to point out that disciplinary action is not a black and white thing. I think we are all looking for the smoking gun – the obvious tweet that is clearly over the line. It is not as simple as that and not everything can be resolved through a face to face conversation either.
When it comes to a violation of board policy leading to disciplinary action, it is the school board that defines what is appropriate and what is not. They are the ones holding all the cards and they determine what is appropriate. They issue the letter and add in that any further ‘violation’ will lead to further action including suspension without pay.
These are extremely effective actions because they do not need to define what a violation really is.
When you don’t have to clearly define the policy or the violation almost anything can be considered a violation. This effectively shuts down the person who receives the letter.
School Boards are well within their rights to do this and in Ontario at least, nothing can be done about this, especially if you are an administrator.
You do not have to say or tweet something critical of the board, you just have to do something they disagree with. None of this is obvious and none of this falls within the easily defined lines you mention above.
What is the result of all this? Basically, silence.

Twitter, Educators and Dissent

On By paulmcguire2013In #IMMOOC, #SAVMP, Hope, Innovation, new professional development, school reform, teaching as resisting2 Comments

So, this is my third rewrite of this post. You wouldn’t think this would be so difficult, but this is a complex subject with many points of view.

There is no question that Twitter is a vital tool for personalized PD amongst teachers. How they see Twitter is varied and nuanced.

 

 

In my first draft, I was pretty cynical about the apparent lack of critical commentary on our current education system on Twitter. When I turned to members of my own PLN, I found that the conversation turned towards the real difficulty educators face when attempting to adopt a critical stance regarding the system.

To me, this is a really interesting point. Social media has given educators a wonderful platform for sharing ideas and for expressing opinion. Unfortunately, supervisors have also learned that social media is a great way to monitor dissenting opinion. Those who criticise the system can be sanctioned. All you have to do is monitor their Twitter feed.

This is not where I expected to go with this post, but I have to pause and take note of what people wrote today. Many of the writers mentioned that they had been called into their administrator’s office because of something they had written on social media. I certainly have.

I think this shows a fundamental abuse of social media. Professionals should be allowed to express themselves without fear of punishment. We are losing out on a critical debate by shutting down the very people we need to hear from.

This is a shame because the education system needs critics. While teaching is a very creative endeavor, education administration is not. Senior administrators are valued best when they are successful at protecting a narrow set of beliefs that never really challenges their own positions of privilege and authority.

 

There is no question that the education system needs to be excellent. It needs positive supporters and intelligent critics to achieve real excellence. We are missing out.

Without constructive criticism, Twitter devolves into a senseless cheerleading platform, a thoughtless flag waving standard for the politically correct.

Andrew Campbell has written an excellent article on this whole topic. Here is a quote:

A teacher explained to me that they’d been called into a meeting with supervisory staff and asked to defend a tweet they’d made about a board policy, which was taken out of context. Teachers have taken down tweets after meetings with supervisory officers who didn’t like what they were posting, and they’re strongly encouraged to ensure that their tweets reflect favourably on the school or the school board.
How School Leaders Are Changing EduTwitter - Andrew Campbell

I had lots to write about educator’s ability to write thoughtful content on Twitter. It’s not all about dissent.

I started with this:

This to me content creation is where the best contributions on Twitter reside. Stephen Hurley had a good thought on this:

I like Twitter (more than other social media) because it helps me “test” ideas. And tested ideas become stronger, or altered.
Stephen Hurley

 

Most of my active PLN is made up of content creators – Stephen Hurley, Donna Miller Fry, Derek Rhodenizer, Julie Boulton, Carol Salva, Sarah Ann Lalonde and a great many more fall into this category – I learn from this group constantly as they put out questions and share ideas on a daily basis.

Now at this point, I was drying up, so I put a question out to my PLN. The response was astounding and I have created a Storify of the two-day conversation. I really suggest you take a look at this – pretty amazing stuff!

What does Twitter do for educators? Content creation? Constructive feedback? Displaying work? Ideas?

Thanks so much to my PLN, you wrote the bulk of this article. There is a whole lot more to write about educator and Twitter, but for today let’s focus on the current state of debate on the state of education and maybe how we can free educators up to express their really important opinions.

Response to George Couros: 4 Ways To Not Let Others Dim Your Light

On By paulmcguire2013In #IMMOOC, George Couros the Innovators Mindset, Hope, Innovation, leadership, Leaning in, OSSEMOOC, school reform, slow travel, Social emotional learning, teaching as resisting1 Comment

One of the great things about walking all day is that you have lots of time to think. This latest post has been on my mind and I think after walking such a great distance, it is a good idea to put this out there.

Again, George Couros is an inspiration, but this is something that was on my mind throughout our West Highland Way trek. I would encourage you to read his entire post. He makes a great deal of sense and I just wish more people in senior administration would do more than just retweet his work and ponder what he is saying.

I hope that what George writes and what I am writing here will help people who are going through similar experiences. If this is you, read carefully what George writes and don’t let anyone ever dim your light!

The reality of our world is that people get threatened when other people shine their light on the world.  This bothers me even more so when it is educators doing it to educators, as our jobs are to empower those we serve, not try to bring them down.  If you are doing this to a colleague or peer, would you do it to a student? Would you do it to my daughter if she was in your classroom?  In education, this is unacceptable.

Here is my response to the post.

Thanks George, a very good post and excellent advice. There does come a time however when you need to consider leaving the system when those in positions of higher authority have made the decision to block you any way they can. I guess this come under #3 ‘move on and ignore’.

You are right to point out that it is strange that educators can treat other educators poorly, but my experience tells me that with a few notable exceptions, educators forget who they are (or were) the higher up the corporate eduladder they climb.

They can be very cruel and unforgiving to the point where on my case, they suspended me for three weeks without cause. While I was later vindicated and invited back into the professional fold, they never apologized which to me is inexcusable.

A year after my suspension, I retired from my board and I am much more at peace. I still have a great community of positive fellow educators that I work and correspond with, but I no longer have to suffer the negative soul destroying authoritarians who made my life so difficult.

Coming on to two years now after the suspension, it still rankles and this is something that could still be solved with a simple ‘sorry’.

How can we expect to make real progress in our education systems when the people at the top expect blind compliance. To forge a different path means that you could be punished with impunity.

That was the end of my comment today.

I don’t expect ever to hear from my former employers. It would be good if they took responsibility for their actions. It was shameful, but I have certainly moved on.

I have climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, I have had the privilege of assisting my partner through major surgery and I have trekked more than 100 km through the Western Highlands with my daughter.

I have left the past behind and I love the exciting challenges that the future presents.

Thanks George and the West Highland Way for getting this post written – finally! Now on to more great positive adventures in the future.