Tag: innovation

Old Fellas New Music Episode 54

On By paulmcguire2013In MixCloud, Old Fellas New Music, voicEd RadioLeave a comment

Episode 54 Old Fellas New Music

Forest Swords – Low

Noname – namesake (Pitchfork)

– BO2A3 ALWAN (COLOR PATCHES)

Big Thief – Vampire Empire (Pitchfork)

Barry Can’t Swim – Define Dancing

Alison Russell and the Resistance Revival Chorus – Take Me to Church (Exclaim!)

Sleaford Mods – UK Grim

The Resonance Between – The Passage (Frequencies)

Sparkle Division – Oh Yeah

This week’s episode on Mixcloud!!

Noname – namesake (heard on Pitchfork)

I didn’t know what this song was about (see below), but I kept on seeing Noname on my playlist so it was time to play one of her songs.

So, what is namesake about?

from Confidence

Noname has never been shy about calling out big names, and on her new track, “​​​​​​namesake,” the Chicago rapper disses titans of the music industry as hypocrites for working with the NFL. Spitting in a rapid-fire flow over a slinky instrumental from Slimwav, Noname specifically hits out at JAY-Z, Kendrick Lamar, Rihanna, and Beyoncé on the Sundial cut.

On the second verse, Noname makes it clear where she stands regarding Jay and his relationship with the NFL. “I ain’t fuckin’ with the NFL or JAY-Z/ Propaganda for the military complex,” she raps. “The same gun that shot Lil Terry/ Out West, the same gun that shot Senair in the West Bank/ We all think the Superbowl’s the best thing.”

From noname

Go, Rihanna, go
Watch the fighter jet fly high
War machine gets glamorized
We play the game to pass the time
Go, Beyoncé, go
Watch the fighter jet fly high
War machine gets glamorized
We play the game to pass the time
Go, Kendrick, go
Watch the fighter jet fly high
War machine gets glamorized
We play the game to pass the time

Genius

Big Thief – Vampire Empire (heard on Pitchfork)

From Wikipedia

Big Thief is an American indie folk band based in Brooklyn, New York. Its members are Adrianne Lenker (guitar, vocals), Buck Meek (guitar, backing vocals), Max Oleartchik (bass), and James Krivchenia (drums).[1]

Here is Big Thief on the amazing KEXP

Big Thief – Full Performance (Live on KEXP)

This is yet another band that I know nothing about, but they have made a lot of music and Pitchfork loves them.

There’s an imperial effortlessness to Big Thief’s music-making that’s hard not to find dazzling: five full-lengths, including a double album, three solo Adrianne Lenker albums, all in seven years, with no “minor” one, no asterisk in the catalog. Once you start grasping for comparison points, you wind up pretty quickly in superlatives territory: Elliott Smith. Bob Dylan. Prince.

what is imperial effortlessness??

This is what they have done since 2016:

5 albums

2 EPs

21 singles

4 music videos

Grammy nominations in 2020, 2021, 2023

Alison Russell and the Resistance Revival Chorus

The Take Me to Church single is part of Spotify’s Singles Series. The series asks artists to reimagine one of their own songs along with a song they love. Some more from Exclaim! Magazine on Montrealer Allison Russell, an artist we play on a regular basis on this show.

…in 2021 her track “Nightflyer” was on Barack Obama’s annual best-of-the-year playlist, and in 2022 she earned three Grammy nominations and won the JUNO Award for Contemporary Roots Album of the Year, becoming the first Black artist to do so. “The timing of it, the fact that we were at a conjunction of pandemic, of major social justice, and racial reckoning. There’s a lot of things that happened for this record to be listened to in the way that it was and continues to be,” she reflects. “I’m still pondering these things in my heart.”

The Resonance Between – The Passage

There is very little written about The Resonance Between, probably because this is a collaboration, not a band.

So, here is a bit about the project from Bandcamp

The Resonance Between (TRB) is the new collaborative album by artists Alam Khan, Arjun K. Verma, and Del Sol Quartet — an ensemble of remarkably synergistic vision and virtuosity.

Despite their many aesthetic similarities, Indian classical and European classical music have rarely been combined, and generally have been done so in mere juxtapositions rather than with fluid integration. TRB presents a groundbreaking new level of fusion between these cultural genres, crafting a contemporary instrumental sound for this unique original work that is so much more than simply the sum of its parts.

Here is a good article on the collaborators for this project from Seattle Sacred Musi

Alam Khan, Arjun K. Verma, Del Sol Quartet: The Resonance Between

and a little more about this amazing project from World Music Central

The album highlights the Indian classical mastery of Khan and Verma, who teamed up with cross-cultural composer Jack Perla. The American string ensemble Del Sol Quartet, led by violist Charlton Lee, adds a unique touch with their multicultural approach to chamber music. The strings of the quartet beautifully complement the Indian instruments, resulting in cinematic soundscapes that are both emotionally expressive and thought-provoking.

Forest Swords – “Low” from Bolted

Forest Swords is the stage name for English record producer and  DJ, Matt Barnes.  He has released three studio albums, of which Bolted is his latest.  This Old Fella is stepping out of his usual wheelhouse and presenting a little UK electronica this week.

     Mojo magazine calls the album  “ a master class in sound design, Bolted creeps up slowly then engulfs you.”

The online Treble magazine is much better at describing this tune than me.

As a dedicated fan of science fiction, I’m a keen believer in the concept of the multiverse. One of the lesser alternate timelines I imagine for myself involves dropping my political science degree to study music theory and composition instead. I envision falling in love with jazz and postmodern classical music, pursuing an advanced degree or two, and finding experimental electronic music earlier that I did in this timeline. Eventually, I would have landed a gig teaching at either a mid-sized high school or decent community college, and made my own music on the side. And when my students ask me about the sort of art I both create and appreciate, I think it might exist in the same sphere of music as the work of Forest Swords.

Ramy Essam – “BO2A3 ALWAN (Color Patches)” from Metgharabiin (Outsiders)

Ramy Essam is an Egyptian musician who came to prominence during the Arab Spring uprisings in Egypt in 2011.  His songs of protest in Cairo were seen by millions of people.  His music was considered incendiary by the Mubarak regime and he was forced to seek exile in Sweden where he has resided ever since. Here he is captivating an enormous audience in Tahir Square in 2011. 

His new release includes this mesmerizing selection which comes with an equally captivating video.  

Barry Can’t Swim –“ Define Dancing” from When Will We Land

Barry Can’t Swim is just one guy, Josh Mainnie, a London-based producer and musician. He makes a type of laid back tuneful house music with an emphasis on piano and interesting samples.  For example, see if the repetitive piano riff in “Define Dancing” doesn’t remind you of a sound off of Pink Floyd’s 1973 Dark Side of the Moon. 

   

Do you have a question for Barry can’t Swim?  Well here’s ten answered.

10 QUESTIONS WITH BARRY CAN’T SWIM, FOLLOWING THE RELEASE OF HIS NEW EP ‘MORE CONTENT’

BY HEATHER CLEAL


1. Can you describe your sound in 3 words?

“Fairly jazzy stuff.”

2. How has your childhood in Edinburgh influenced the musician that you are today?

“It’s definitely a big influence, although I would say the people I grew up with shaped my music more than the city itself in all honesty. Edinburgh isn’t amazing at supporting the grassroots scenes, especially compared to somewhere like Glasgow. But I met a lot of incredibly talented musicians growing up there.”

3. If you wrote a screenplay about your life, what would it be called and who would play you?

“Probably Sonja from Eastenders or Steve Buscemi because we all share boggly eyes. It would be called the mindboggling life of Barry.”

4. You worked with many different artists to produce this EP, but who would be your dream collaborator?

“There are so many amazing people I’d love to collab with, but Jai Paul probably pips it, purely because of how elusive he is. I just wanna talk to him man.”

5. What is the greatest highlight of your career so far?

“I think the first-time seeing people singing along to your tunes when you’re playing live. That is such a mad thing to experience, man. Seeing people you’ve never met before in places you’ve never been to before singing along is still so surreal.”

Sleaford Mods – “UK Grim” from UK Grim

Sleaford Mods are a duo, from Nottingham, U.K.  They have been around for almost 20 years.  Prolific (a dozen albums) and popular in their native land, Sleaford Mods haven’t gained much traction on this side of the Atlantic possibly due to their spoken word rants of British class struggles and angst delivered in a thick Midland’s accent.  Check out their latest.  

Here is Pitchfork’s assessment of their latest offering.  

It’s the irascible British duo’s most varied album to date. Just don’t expect anything to change.

Sleaford Mods don’t make music about how terrible things are in hopes that they will get better. Over the past decade, Andrew Fearn and Jason Williamson have channeled public discontent and everyday malaise in the UK, scrutinizing their country’s faults as well as their own. And though they’ve found personal growth and commercial success, the Mods’ outlook hasn’t brightened.

If this peaks your interest, Sleaford Mods have been the subject of several full length documentaries like this.  

Sparkle Division – “Oh Yeah” from Foxy

I am getting lazy here so I am going to describe Sparkle Division by lifting straight and from the All Music Guide. “Sparkle Division‘s play lounge funk and blunted instrumental hip-hop that still had a degree of poignancy to it, given that two of its guests had passed on since its creation, and another song paid tribute to the late David Bowie. The collaboration’s sequel, Foxy, fully dives into the realm of fantasy, loosely following a story line taking place in 1969, about a pair of Hollywood film interns attending a lavish party at a Beverly Hills estate owned by a pimp and drug dealer named Foxy. The music sounds much closer to an Austin Powers-like revision of the late ’60s than the era itself, retaining elements of exotica and spy soundtracks but adding ’90s-style lounge grooves and break beats.“Oh Yeah!” picks up this thread and dives head-first into late-’90s atmospheric jungle, with busy beat programming skittering beneath fluttering sax. Maybe the next Sparkle Division record will be an imaginary soundtrack to a Home Alone-style holiday caper.” — AMG  

In summation:  

Teaching new teachers in 2022

On By paulmcguire2013In Innovation, school reform, Urban Communities Cohort1 Comment

Next week we start the interesting process of looking at our teacher education program. This is the unique time in the year when staff have a chance to suggest changes for the next academic year. This year, after three years of working with new teachers, I have a few ideas on how we might be able to make things more meaningful for people starting out in the profession.

First, Canadian universities need to make a strong commitment to doing their very best to develop innovative teacher education programs. This is such an important role for the academy. We have a collective responsibility to present a program that challenges, trains and inspires people who may be involved in the education of young Canadians for the next 30 years. It should go without saying, but there are powerful competing interests in the academy that work against this notion.

Universities value scholarship and research. In many faculties across the country, teaching excellence is not a requirement they are looking for. For faculty of education programs, there has to be a shift in emphasis. While educational research is an important component, we must also model teaching excellence in all the courses we teach. We only have two years to work with new teachers and there needs to be a new consideration of the balance between the academic and the practical.

I can’t offer a systematic review of what is needed to develop innovative programming, but I would love to see examples of how this is being done well in Canada. Has this been studied? Do we know what the components of an excellent program are? Is this knowledge shared and discussed throughout the academic community?

If this information exists, why are we not reading this material before we meet to discuss changes to the program? I think we are going in unprepared for the task.

Teacher education is grounded in the academic and the practical. There are other areas that have this mix where the academy is developing professionals. Medicine and law come to mind. In all cases where professional training is involved, there is a constant need to assess how effective these programs are at preparing new professionals for the working world. While the Ontario College of Teachers regularly certifies teacher training programs in the province, what role does the OTC play in the years between reviews?

How can we best strike a balance between teaching theory and practice? At the university, the teaching staff is made up of full-time professors – experts in their fields of study, seconded teachers who teach up to three semesters in their subject areas, part-time professors and graduate students and faculty advisors. Faculty advisors act as a liaison between the university and the practicum schools. In non-Covid years, these faculty advisors visit the schools on a regular basis to connect with the associate teacher and the teacher candidate.

The key staff position is the associate teacher. This is the person who volunteers (there is a small stipend) to take on one or more student teachers for the year. They are responsible for overseeing the practice of the student teacher and they assess the success and areas of growth of their students throughout the year.

This is the essential component of training that takes place over the two years of teacher education. Associate teachers are given no time off to do this important work; it is one of the many add-ons that society depends on teachers to assume to keep education moving in the province. Associate teachers have no say in what is taught at the university and do not play any role in the program review process we are going through right now.

There is another group of volunteers that receive even less attention. A small collection of university professors coordinate the in-university practicum programs over the two-year period. They play crucial roles in developing connections and partnerships with schools, associate teachers and administrators and they play an important role in fashioning the student teacher reflective component of the practicum experience.

Because the coordinating role does not count as part of their academic load, these educators take this on as part of their extra duties apart from the research they are expected to do and their academic teaching load.

The two most important roles in teacher education are being conducted by volunteers. I don’t think many people think or write about this, but volunteer associate teachers and university coordinators give their own precious professional time to nurture the next generation of teachers in this province. Both groups have little say in the structure and content of the teacher education program.

Universities, like other large institutions, move very slowly. There is little incentive to make changes that would give volunteers a voice in the development of new teachers. Like many institutions, the paid permanent staff hold almost all the reins of control and power and see little need to change a situation that in their minds, works very well.

Some people – academic advisors, professional staff, full-time professors are doing very well in this current system. They are protected by seniority and tenure, structural program components that guarantee complacency. Academic advisors are kept in their jobs well beyond their best before date. Some advisors have not seen the inside of a classroom in 20 years. Student teachers, associate teachers and volunteer academic staff have no voice in program design even though they represent the essential stakeholders in teacher education.

I don’t know if this has been studied in Canada. There is a problem although it is not in the interest of the academy to do anything about this. Earlier this year we read The Equity Myth: Racialization and Indigeneity at Canadian Universities (Henry et. al., 2017). This is an excellent study of the inequities around race and indigeneity that exist in Canadian universities. While the problems in teacher education are different many of the same elements that block reform are similar. It is a stunning rebuke to the academic system here in Canada.

These are discouraging situations, all the more important to write about them. Solutions do exist, this is not hopeless, but we have to start asking the right people the important questions.

Response to George Couros’ Post: We can’t ask teachers to be innovative in their practice while administrators do the same thing they have always done.

On By paulmcguire2013In George Couros the Innovators Mindset, governance and public education, Hope, Innovation, leadership, school reform1 Comment

We can’t ask teachers to be innovative in their practice while administrators do the same thing they have always done.  I have noticed that the schools where teachers are doing incredible things have leadership that innovates inside the box. They do not just encourage different thinking and action, but they model it through their own process in supporting teachers within the constraints of the system.

I wrote this in response to a great post by George Couros today. Goerge does challenge and he asks questions that are difficult to answer. His post prompted me to respond on his blog. I have written an extended response below.

Hi George

Yes, your ideas make a great deal of sense. It seems to me that there is a creativity barrier in education. We want our teachers to be creative, we want them to empower students and we want an engaging learning environment.

However, when we pass over the Rubicon into administration, we mostly value compliance. You are now an ‘officer of the board’ whatever that means and what is most valued is your ability to do what the senior admin wants to be done, sometimes at the risk of suppressing the creativity of staff members.

Creativity can be a liability. In administrators, it is seldom valued and to remain creative is a risk that sometimes will lead to disapproval or even sanction.

This is a big problem in our education system, one that I don’t know how we will break out of.  How can a system that devalues innovation survive?

Every day I see creative work being done and shared by educators. But not from administrators. Their voice is more muted and their contributions often fall into the category of ‘cheerleading’. This is a shame because administrators can be innovative too.

Maybe they are at their best when as George Couros writes, they are supporting the innovative efforts of others. Is that the best that we can do?

There seems to be a great shift that that takes place when we become school administrators. We enter a world where compliance is the main value. To question and to innovate is not acceptable and is seen as risky.

Thanks to George Couros for writing this piece. It takes courage to question the status quo and I appreciate his efforts to do this. I really think we need more educators with the ability to call into question some of the failings of our public education system.

How can we ever have an honest public debate about the quality of public education if many of the main actors feel that they play no role in commenting and questioning how we are educating our children in 2018?

If not us, who are we leaving this to?

Response to: Are There Times When Even Adults Choose Not To Comply For The Sake Of Self-Reg?

On By paulmcguire2013In Innovation, school reform, Social emotional learning6 Comments

I read a great post today by Aviva Dunsiger on compliance and self-regulation entitled Are There Times When Even Adults Choose Not To Comply For The Sake Of Self-Reg?

I really suggest you read it. Aviva is writing about something we don’t talk enough about – the pressure for adults to conform. Again, this is something we do in education, we are expected to do everything in our power to respect the student’s need to self-regulate and possibly opt out of difficult situations, but on the other hand, we expect nearly blind compliance from the adults in the system. She ends her post with this question:
Maybe not complying is still a good option at times, but just in a different way than our four- and five-year-olds chose to do so. Are there times when, even as an adult, you also choose “not to comply” for the sake of Self-Reg? I guess the troublemaker in me continues to exist.
At the end of Aviva’s post I added this response:
Great question. I think as adults we need to get much more comfortable with noncompliance. Especially when we work for large organizations like school boards noncompliance is healthy and necessary. I became increasingly uncomfortable with the pressure to comply especially as a school administrator in a Catholic school system. The pressure to comply was always tremendous. To not comply was seen as disloyal.
To question ideas was not encouraged and loyalty to the party line was a value that was rewarded. Cheerleading of board initiatives was seen as the best way to use Twitter and other forms of social media.
I wish this was not the case. Noncompliance should be encouraged. Noncompliance is a way to promote independent thought which is what I always thought we were supposed to be teaching our children to do.
Aviva is making an excellent point here. To opt out, to question, to take a different path is just as important for the social-emotional health of adults as it is for children. It is dangerous however because it will put you at odds with the vast majority of people who are comfortable with or unwilling to question the status quo.
When we discourage noncompliance and independent thought, what does an organization lose?
To call for strict compliance means that decision making is left in the hands of the few in the highest positions of authority. To question their ultimate authority will lead to sanction. This means that alternative positions are not encouraged by teachers, consultants and especially school administrators.
Consequently, adults in school boards are reduced to ‘cheerleading’ tweets. While there are many educators that go beyond cheerleading, it is seldom that they seriously question the status quo – something that is established by a small group of people whose authority is never questioned.
I have seen this demand for compliance with other large organizations. The Catholic Church and its agencies and large education corporations are two I have had some experience working in. It seems the larger you get the less room there is for thinking outside the box. It makes me wonder how innovative thought and action ever takes place!
When it comes to opting out there are not a lot of options. You simply cannot dissent if you work for a large school board or other big organization. This means that your social-emotional well-being is secondary to the well-being of the organization.
Adults always have the right to opt out, but that comes down to leaving the organization. In my case, speaking critically about my school board meant that I would be suspended without pay. So, I complied.
This was not a good situation, but I did have the option to opt out and I did. I left the organization and I started to write. From a social-emotional perspective, this is a good thing.
It might have been better if independent thought and initiative had been encouraged while I was a school administrator. You really lose something when you demand blind compliance. Opting out is good for adults, it would be even better if we could do this more while remaining members of the organization.

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

Response to George Couros – 3 Ideas For When You Outgrow Leadership

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

So what do you do if you feel you have outgrown your leadership to ensure that your own growth doesn’t stagnate?

George Couros – 3 Ideas For When You Outgrow Leadership

A terrific question and not an easy one to answer.

I find I get my best prompts from George Couros’ posts and this is a really good one. One pause first- it is really important when considering an answer to this question not to think that you are better than the leadership you need to get away from. I believe you have to do all three things that are mentioned in George’s post –  find mentorship outside your organization. (online and offline), disrupt your routine, and certainly, leave. I have done all three and have been very critical of my former employers since I have left working for a school board. While they have reacted poorly to my posts, I think it is important to understand their point of view.

It is extremely difficult, maybe impossible to be innovative when you represent a large district. Their role is to preserve and to protect – how can you be expected to be innovative and creative at the same time? Is this even possible? Maybe it isn’t and my criticism, therefore, has not been completely fair. So, maybe the best response is as George writes in this post – look elsewhere for your inspiration, disrupt the routine that is holding you down and most certainly leave and start over.

This can allow for an outpouring of creativity and I have found this to be the case. I believe I have continued to grow as an educator and especially as a blogger since I have left my district. I am no longer held down by institutional leadership and this has freed me up to question some of the practices we take for granted.

To allow yourself to become overly frustrated by a leadership structure that is no longer growing is not useful for anyone. The beauty of developing your own personal learning network is that you can free yourself up from institutional thinking and find inspiration from leaders and writers who are moving in a new direction.

Eventually, this may not be enough and you may leave a structure that is holding you down. This is not easy for educators to do, but it is important to consider if you are being stifled by leadership that is no longer growing.

You may also need to ask yourself – what will be the consequence for staying put?

 

 

What Does an Innovating Leader Look Like?

On By paulmcguire2013In Uncategorized3 Comments

I was really curious to read Paul McGuire’s thoughts on this.  In his retirement, he’s known for making some brutally frank observations via his blog.

I would suspect that, if you ask any leader in education, that they would self-identify themselves as innovative.

It’s got to be a challenge; all of the administrative details could conceivably keep you nailed to a desk doing paperwork all day long.

Doug Peterson – This Week in Ontario Edublogs

It is always great to get writing prompts and Doug Peterson has just provided this one for me.

This is a good question – last week I wrote a post in response to  George Couros – Is Leadership an Innovative Endeavor?  In the post, I wrote the following:

My concern is that the urge to innovate seems to dissipate the higher people reach up the leadership ladder. There is certainly more pressure to follow the company line and as this pressure increases, the ability to innovate declines.

Yes, I agree with Doug, brutally frank. However, this is not good enough. I am trying to define what innovation in leadership is by writing about what is missing in contemporary education leadership. It is easier to write about what is lacking rather than taking on the challenge to define what innovation in leadership really is.

So, what does innovative leadership look like? First, I think innovative leaders need to be willing to rewrite the book on how to manage groups of people. They need to look at every situation and reflect on how could things be done differently and hopefully, more effectively.

This means a bunch of things. It means that education leaders need to hand power back to the teachers they work with. Allow staff members to set the agenda when it comes to professional development, meetings, scheduling and in general, the running of the school. The idea behind this is that principals need to empower their staff members. These are exceptionally creative people and they need to know that they have control over areas that have an impact on the daily running of the school.

Teachers should be in control of their own learning, just as students need to be in control. Educators need to know that their voice matters and that the running of the school is a collective endeavour.

That is only one element of what I think it means to be an innovative leader. Being innovative means being open to new opportunities. One very innovative leader, Derek Rhodenizer took the opportunity to be innovative last week – for his last staff meeting of the year, he took his teachers fishing! He related later that this was a great way to encourage creative conversations amongst staff members.

To be really innovative, you have to take risks. When you think out of the box, you are trying to do things in a way that has not been tried before. What you try will not necessarily be popular with your supervisors, but you have to be willing to take this risk. This will come with a personal cost – you have to be ready to accept this.

Being an innovative leader has to become the way you think about everything you do. George Couros writes about this really well in the Innovator’s Mindset.

You can’t be stuck in the way things have been done, you, as a leader, are called upon to do better than they way things have been done.

There is one important caveat to all of this. As education leaders, we are part of a bigger system. In Ontario, we are responsible for fulfilling the curriculum as outlined by the province. Being innovative means looking for opportunities for change without calling into question the curriculum we were hired to implement.

Donna Miller Fry, someone I consider a real innovative leader in Ontario and now Newfoundland makes this point very clearly.

If there has been no learning, there has been no teaching.

As educators, we work in service of student learning.

We ask where a learner is now (assessment), where a learner is going (curriculum learning expectations), how a learner will get there (strategies to ensure students construct that learning) and how we will know (monitoring through assessment).

Donna Miller Fry – If There Has Been No Learning

This is an important cautionary note – yes, we need to be innovative, but we also must respect the fact that we are responsible for the learning that goes on in our building. Our innovative practices cannot be mindless. We need to keep aware that we have a great responsibility to the learners in our school. George Couros makes this point in the Innovator’s Mindset – we need to be able to innovate within the system we are a part of.

Innovative leadership has to be a fine balance. It has a great deal to do with the vision we have as leaders in our schools and it has to support the learning that goes on in your building every day. In my opinion, we can’t do a good job at leadership unless we challenge ourselves to question our practices every day that we are on the job. As George Couros writes,

But when you see the challenges that are facing schools and organizations, if “leaders” are not also “innovators”, there is a danger of irrelevance.  As budgets are cut in many places, how leaders rethink how they spend money, rethink timetables and learning spaces, allocate resources, is part of the  “new and better” thinking that is needed.

George Couros – Is Leadership an Innovative Endeavour?

Have I defined what innovative leadership needs to be? I doubt it, but maybe this is at least a first attempt. Thanks Doug for the prompt. I hope this generates further discussion.

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Is leadership an innovative endeavour? – Response to George Couros

On By paulmcguire2013In George Couros the Innovators Mindset, governance and public education, Innovation, OSSEMOOC, school reform, teaching as resisting4 Comments

In January, George Couros asked this question and answered it with a definite “yes”.

I totally agree with his answer and his caveat that it should be an innovative endeavor.

My concern is that the urge to innovate seems to dissipate the higher people reach up the leadership ladder. There is certainly more pressure to follow the company line and as this pressure increases, the ability to innovate declines.

But when you see the challenges that are facing schools and organizations, if “leaders” are not also “innovators”, there is a danger of irrelevance.

George Couros

As George Couros writes, the inability to think outside the conventional ‘box’ can lead torganizations like school boards to become irrelevant.

Almost as a response to this challenge, Larry Ferlazzo has written a good series on leadership –  Response: Support Curriculum Innovations by ‘Failing Forward’

This three-part series offers a whole variety of ideas and suggestions from some of the top education leaders in the United Staes on how to support innovation in schools. One suggestion from Mark Estrada, principal of Lockhart Junior High School in Lockhart, Texas is very interesting.

School leaders and teachers must develop a growth mindset as Keith Heggart describes in a recent article.

  • Teachers and administrators must model a growth mindset

  • Create space and time for new idea development

  • Build time for self-reflection

  • Administrators must provide positive formative feedback

We are all familiar with the concept of ‘growth mindset’, and we want our students and teachers to embrace this idea. We don’t, however, insist that a growth mindset be adopted by school and district leadership. In my opinion, after working for years as an administrator in a large Ontario school board, a growth mindset amongst our leadership is sorely lacking.

I would argue that what we experience in many schools and certainly at the district level is a preservation mindset. Keep everything moving, nudge forward a little, pick up the newest fad in education, but basically keep things the way they are and celebrate compliance as the gold standard.

Those who do not accept this as the standard operating procedure are not welcome at the table.

So, while I applaud writers like George Couros, Larry Ferlazzo, and Mark Estrada who work hard to extend the reach of new ideas on leadership, I have to ask – who is reading these articles, and who is simply paying mouth service to ideas about innovation, change, and bold leadership?

If our education leaders are not overly concerned with real innovation, do they risk becoming irrelevant?

Innovation – the New Overused Word in Education

On By paulmcguire2013In #IMMOOC, George Couros the Innovators Mindset, Innovation, MADPD, OSSEMOOC3 Comments

Last week I read a Twitter post from a  colleague who works for my former school board it read, ‘Education is the key to making innovation the new standard.’

First, how can innovation be the standard? Innovation should be on the outside edge – innovation should be challenging the norm and innovators by their very nature are critical of the status quo.

Yesterday, I took part in a good conversation on innovation during one of the #MADPD sessions – a really different way to deliver PD unfettered by the typical school board staff who usually are the deliverers of PD to our educators. We were all very good at congratulating each other on being ‘innovative’, but I think we were all missing the point.

Innovation within a system is almost impossible. What we call innovation is usually just cheerleading, especially what we see summarized in the 140 characters of Twitter. It’s a lot of ‘look at me’ and it’s really not very helpful.

I say this because true innovation unsettles the system. The primary goal of the system, or any large institution –  is to protect itself. Protection means maintaining the status quo. Innovation cannot be the ‘new standard’ because true innovation might very well call for the elimination of large education corporations like the one I worked for.

Let me be very clear. Being innovative in a system can cause a great deal of pain. The organization will do almost anything to protect itself. In my case, this resulted in a fair amount of what I call ‘institutionalized bullying’. I was seen as a pariah for some of the things I said and did and I actually retired early to avoid any further disciplinary action from my employers.

Without going into the grimy details of what happened to me, I was seen as a trouble maker because I refused to just be a cheerleader for the latest system-wide ‘innovation’.

Last year during a study on George Couros’ book, ‘The Innovator’s Mindset’ I took part in a great Voxer chat on topics connected to the book. At one point we got into a conversation on the consequences of being an innovator. I was really surprised by the number of educators who were able to admit that they too had been scapegoated by their board for working outside the norm. You could feel the hurt in their voices as they talked about what had happened to them and I realized my story was in no way unique.

So, when we have conversations about ‘jumping into the unknown’, we should really take a step back. It’s not fun to be an outrider when you work for an education corporation. You shouldn’t be congratulating yourself for being an innovator because no one really likes someone who truly thinks outside the box. If you do, you threaten the box.

So maybe we need more truth-telling on Twitter. Maybe less cheerleading and less ‘8 things you can do today to be an innovator’. Maybe we need more clear and honest criticism of a massive system that eats and spits out those who think differently.

 

School Boards in Ontario – Rethinking Governance in Education

On By paulmcguire2013In governance and public education, InnovationLeave a comment

Egerton Ryerson, education reformer from Ontario’s past

I think there is lots to write about on the topic of governance in education in Ontario. Recently, the Globe and Mail has tackled this topic, questioning the need for elected boards. It is a really good read and asks important questions on how we organize education in Canada.

The topic has been covered several times by Sheila Stewart in her blog. Her posts are very thought provoking and are important to read if we are interested in this topic. She rightly notes that this is a complex issue with no easy solutions:

There has been a fair bit of discussion about the role and relevancy of education trustees in Ontario lately.  There are many questions, if not confusion, about their role and purpose.  The topic can get quite complex and it is not an easy discussion.  I suspect there is something unique about the culture of every single board of trustees that is in place at each of Ontario’s 72 school boards.  I don’t know the answers regarding what they should be doing, or if they should exist or not.  How can an unbiased discussion about alternatives occur? How can the discussion be kept to be about the role, and not personalities and politics?

The trustee – parent connection in #onted

 

I think we all should be interested in how our education system is organized. We have a system that has been in place going back to the 19th century. Local control of education was established as far back as 1816. Much of our current governance structure hails from this time. The 1816 legislation was, at the time a boon to a growing community. It provided for local control and the appointment of trustees:

The law provided that the people of any village, town, or township might meet together and arrange to establish one or more schools, at each of which the attendance must be not less than twenty. Three suitable trustees were to be chosen to conduct the school, appoint teachers, and select textbooks from a list prescribed by a District Board of Education.

Egerton Ryerson and Education in Upper Canada, Putman, John Harold (1866-1940)

If you follow the story of education in Ontario the name Egerton Ryerson will come up. In 1846, he reorganized the system of education in Ontario, establishing District Superintendents, Normal Schools (later teacher colleges), property taxes for the support of schools, standards for texts and a whole host of regulations establishing a system of education in the new province.

The last review of education governance took place in 2009. It’s a little shocking when you look at the people who were responsible for this review. All were trustees, former school board directors or university professors. From what I can see, this was a group very interested in maintaining the status quo in Ontario. The recommendations from the review do not upset the apple cart, but strongly support the structure first envisioned back in 1846.

Calls for education reform in Ontario and other jurisdictions rarely call for an overall review of governance. Instead, we focus on adjusting teaching methods, exhorting educators to become more ‘connected’ or more innovative within the current box that exists and improving our EQAO scores.

It seems like the greatest call for education reform, especially in Ontario comes in the form of opposition to EQAO. Peter Cameron writes in his post Test Time…stress time?

Perhaps it’s not that teachers need to change; in fact I’d argue that we are always innovating and evolving for the good of our students. Perhaps it’s EQAO that needs to be innovative in how they assess our kids . WHAT IF students could submit ePortfolios, podcasts, videos and screencasts to demonstrate their learning? Better yet, WHAT IF EQAO could send PEOPLE to our schools, to spend time, sitting and listening to our students?

Writing like this is so important – we need educators to challenge a system that seems to have lost its ability to be self critical. I agree with Peter, what would happen, for example, if superintendents became primarily responsible for the success of a small collection of schools and their current ‘busy’ portfolios like ‘student success’ and ‘safe schools’ be turned over to education officials actually trained to deal with these portfolios?

We do not write about what trustees do in the current system apart from vague declarations that education must remain ‘in public hands’. What does that actually mean? Education is highly technical these days. It is unlikely that most trustees even understand what is going on in education. This means they are totally at the mercy of board officials – superintendents and directors that really are not accountable to anyone. These officials have the real power in the system, they can be very good and use their authority responsibly, but there are others who abuse this power and do little to improve the system for our students.

One observation – we have an excellent medical system here in Ontario and no equivalent of local elected boards. How does a system, rooted in reforms over 150 years old actually serve the children in our province? Governance is a topic long overdue for discussion in Ontario.