The challenge of changing how we think

Leadership is always about the conversations we have with others. The words we use, the stories we tell, the topics we discuss, the ideas we challenge - these are the ways we lead. Let's never forget that. Every conversation we have provides a leadership opportunity. Leadership is not necessarily about followers but how the listeners hear what we say. Thus each conversation we have, each story we tell, each relationship we have offers an opportunity for us to "re-think."

In class we talked about the fact that written language is constructed from symbols (letters) that were developed from images. These symbols have a long history of development that is well described in this article:

http://ilovetypography.com/2010/08/07/where-does-the-alphabet-come-from/

Let's remember that written language is a product of our need to describe a picture or thing that we already know. It only makes sense then that in learning kids need the picture before the words (comprehension before decoding). This makes the primary task of teaching more about building the pictures, images and concepts first - then teaching the letters (symbols) that describe them. Thus, we use symbols, pictures, stories, and experiences to shape language skills, not the other way around.

Behind the curtain....

Paul Thomas, writing for the UK based Guardian newspaper, has, in my opinion, "pulled back the curtain" on the smoke and mirrors of the corporate/political "wizard" of education in the U.S.
He talks about the numerous leaders in education that have no academic or educational experience - Arne Duncan, outgoing and incoming Chancellor for New York Schools Joel Klein and Cathleen Black, Michelle Rhee who recently left Washington D.C. And, clearly educational policy is not written by educators.
He goes on to assert: " The standards, testing and accountability movement is built on a claim that education can change society. The corporate support for the accountability movement and the "no excuses" charter school movement seeks to reinforce that claim because, otherwise, corporate America and the politicians supporting corporate America would have to admit that something is wrong with our economic and political structures."
We are currently struggling to "see the future" and are trying to design, define and develop concepts by which we can affect the future in education. The piece that is missing is what Thomas points out -
"The real failure, which is the message being ignored here, is that one of the wealthiest countries in the world refuses to face the inequities of its economic system, a system that permits more than 20% of its children to live in poverty and to languish in schools that America has clearly decided to abandon, along with its democratic principles."
True Leadership in education is our only hope.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/nov/15/education-schools

Reading another blog today, I found this article:

The Top 10 Leadership Qualities

By David Hakala on March 19, 2008

In the middle of the list of ten were the following two. What struck me was, after the conversation about making change might get someone fired, I came to realize another reason why now is as good a time as ever to change our thinking. In order to have a boss or supervisor be able to "OPEN" to new ideas they have to have the trait of openness. And, it is openness to creativity that , for now, is our final frontier in education. Our problem is that we don't have enough leaders with these two leadership qualities. That is what we are doing right now.... building those leaders!

"Openness means being able to listen to new ideas, even if they do not conform to the usual way of thinking. Good leaders are able to suspend judgment while listening to others’ ideas, as well as accept new ways of doing things that someone else thought of. Openness builds mutual respect and trust between leaders and followers, and it also keeps the team well supplied with new ideas that can further its vision.

Creativity is the ability to think differently, to get outside of the box that constrains solutions. Creativity gives leaders the ability to see things that others have not seen and thus lead followers in new directions. The most important question that a leader can ask is, “What if … ?”

From:

http://www.hrworld.com/features/top-10-leadership-qualities-031908/

"Moments of Greatness"

As I read I find these great little pieces to share with you.... this is another good one.

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW ARTICLE (exec summary)

Moments of Greatness: Entering the Fundamental State of Leadership

by Robert E. Quinn 
12 pages. Publication date: Jul 01, 2005. Prod. #: R0507F-PDF-ENG

"When we do our best work as leaders, we don't imitate others. Rather, we draw on our own values and capabilities. We enter what author Robert Quinn calls the fundamental state of leadership. This is a frame of mind we tend to adopt when facing a significant challenge: a promotion opportunity, the risk of professional failure, a serious illness, a divorce, the death of a loved one, or any other major life jolt. Crisis calls, and we rise to the occasion. But we don't need to spend time in the dark night of the soul to reach this fundamental state. We can make the shift at any time by asking ourselves--and honestly answering--four transformative questions: Am I results centered? (Am I willing to leave my comfort zone to make things happen?) Am I internally directed? (Am I behaving according to my values rather than bending to social or political pressures?) Am I other focused? (Am I putting the collective good above my own needs?) Am I externally open? (Am I receptive to outside stimuli that may signal the need for change?) When we can answer these questions in the affirmative, we're prepared to lead in the truest sense. Of course, we can't sustain the fundamental state of leadership indefinitely. Fatigue and external resistance pull us out of it. But each time we reach it, we then return to our everyday selves a bit more capable, and we usually boost the performance of the people around us. Over time, we create a high-performance culture--and one that can be sustained"

I especially appreciate the concepts of the value of being "other focused" and "Am I open?" I think Quinn is reminding us to stay aware of our patterns that may limit our abilities to be open to opportunities for change.... which, in my humble opinion, is one of the most difficult of all leadership skills.

Clearly, the issue of technology in schools is a "rascal" of a topic - what's right, what's wrong. what works, what doesn't, who can, who can't, who will, who won't. Bottom line though - almost ALL kids use technology and primarily in the world of social networking. I am attaching a URL for an example of how tough WE in education have it.......

An article from Teacher's College Record:

A Federal Court Makes a Bad Decision: School Authorities Cannot Discipline a Student For Posting a YouTube Video that Described a Classmate as a Slut

http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=16113

Not even judges always get it right.....

I just finished reading an article by Edward de Bono.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_de_Bono

Edward de Bono (born 19 May 1933, in Malta) is a physician, author, inventor, and consultant. He is known as the originator of the term lateral thinking, wrote a best selling book Six Thinking Hats and is a proponent of the deliberate teaching of thinking as a subject in schools.

Here is the quote I just read:

"Even when there is no general complacency, there is difficulty in thinking about things that are perfectly satisfactory.

There are at least three situations involved here:

Situation one: 'The good is the enemy of the best'. This means that we stop thinking when we have reached a 'good result'. Had we gone on thinking a bit more, we might have found an even better result. We do not need to stop thinking because we have an adequate answer. There are often more answers than just one. So we need to develop the habit of continuing to think about the matter even when we think we have an adequate answer.

How much time, effort and energy do we put into finding the 'better answer'? Often there is a need for choice, for decision and for action. While we may spend some time looking for a better answer, this time is limited. Yet even a little time spent looking for a better answer is not time wasted. Now and again a better answer will indeed be found.

Situation two: In this second situation we think we know that there are other possible ways. The difficulty is in persuading others to explore these ways. It is not possible to start from the deficiencies of the present approach, because none may be apparent. It is necessary to focus on the values and benefits provided by the other ways. A comparison is then made between the values offered by the other methods and the values offered by the existing approach. Big differences may now be seen.

Situation three: Here the matter being considered is excellent in itself. It is not going to be changed or replaced. It is now an issue of saying that 'it is not sufficient'. One wheel on a car is excellent – but it is not sufficient.

Traditional thinking is excellent – but it is not sufficient."

As leaders we must change how we think.....satisfactory is not sufficient. We must always look for the greatest potential. (Faverty, 2010)

Learning from Lincoln

I'm reading a book ....need to share the intro with you:

Learning from Lincoln

by Harvey Alvy and Pam Robbins

Abraham Lincoln. His life and work evoke possibility, humility, hope, and moral leadership. Frederick Douglass may have said it best. On April 14, 1876, Douglass was the keynote speaker at the dedication of the Freedmen's Monument in Washington, D.C. On this occasion, Douglass said of Lincoln:

Though high in position, the humblest could approach him and feel at home in his presence. Though deep, he was transparent; though strong, he was gentle; though decided and pronounced in his convictions, he was tolerant toward those who differed from him, and patient under reproaches... The hard condition of his early life, which would have depressed and broken down weaker men, only gave greater life, vigor, and buoyancy to the heroic spirit of Abraham Lincoln. (Oakes, 2007, pp. 270–271)

Lincoln's leadership helped a nation continue a journey toward equality—a journey that has not yet been completed.

As school leaders, we, too, are embarked upon an unfinished journey, a journey characterized by possibility and guided by the sacred proposition that "all men are created equal."^* Lincoln's words and deeds related to equality and possibility serve as a beacon for all school leaders—principals, teachers, and superintendents—illuminating a keen focus on what is important in their work to help students realize the gift of democracy. Lincoln's beliefs and actions also have profound implications for 21st century initiatives and challenges, such as closing the achievement gap and reducing the high school dropout rate. Lincoln knew that realizing possibility for every individual could not occur without the desire and opportunity to learn. His life story portrays that reality. Rising from humble roots, Lincoln achieved his goals through hard work, dedicated and focused independent study, and perseverance. In his classic biography of Lincoln, Benjamin Thomas (1952) notes:

Education seemed to him the most important question a people could consider, for every man should have sufficient education to enable him to read the history of his own and of other countries, [then quoting Lincoln] "by which he may duly appreciate the value of our free institutions... to say nothing of the advantages and satisfaction derived from all being able to read the scriptures and other works, both of a religious and moral nature, for themselves." (p. 29)

So, is it really"change" we need to think about..... or maybe we start to think in terms of recovering what we have lost......? Just a thought.....

http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/110036.aspx

The buck stops here!

I was reading an article yesterday that David Gergen (a professor of public service at Harvard and a senior political analyst at CNN) wrote after he interviewed Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense and the former President of Texas A&M University. The two quotes from Gates that struck me are:

1. "If you see something that needs to be fixed or done better, persist -- respectfully, loyally -- but don't give up. So much of leadership training is about team-building and collaboration. I say, "That's all very important, but there will come a time when you will have to stand alone and say, 'This is wrong' or, 'This is my responsibility -- I don't agree with you, and I'm going to do what I think is right.'"

and,

2. "Look in all the parks in the whole world, and you'll never find a statue built for a committee. Whether it's in business or anyplace else, it requires one person who has a vision and then has the ability to execute that vision."

Leadership is always about when and where the buck stops. Ultimately everyone will step aside or fall away when an issue needs to be resolved. Input from others is important, but "the buck stops here," cannot be avoided. How each of us handles that fact helps to determine how others see us as leaders.

Change

"Unless you are prepared to give up something valuable you will never be able to truly change at all, because you'll be forever in the control of things you can't give up."

-- Andy Law, author of "Creative Company" (1999)

This quote hits a very interesting nerve in me. I never thought of change as requiring me to give something up, but as I read this, I think it's true. We have to "give up" our present way of doing things, our present way of thinking, or our present way of relating to others. In a way that makes it somewhat easier to look at change.... What currently may be good could always be better! This quote also explains about why we humans may be afraid to change. While things may not be all that good, at least I know what is and don't have to wonder what's next. Change doesn't automatically assume things will be better - maybe it will get worse (Oh my!).

The reasons I became a teacher were that I liked kids, I thought I could make a difference AND I wanted each day to bring something new. I think we need to remember that kids are changing and different every day, only as adults do we try to remain the same!

The Power of One

We each make a difference and have a leadership role to play ---- what will you do with yours?

As long as competition and knowing facts are the great motivators of American Education we will continue to "strangle" the curiosity out of our children. We must allow the joy, delight, and ecstasy of learning be the ONLY focus of our educational system. Let us not mistake competitive test scores as meaningful learning. Our commitment is critical to the future of our society - we must let go the "chains of compliance" in forcing our children toward the fallacy of being "competitively" capable in the business world. Stand up, cry out, let not one more child's mind be stolen by the command of compliance to the existing statutory system of education. It is time for us to say "ENOUGH", "NO MORE." keywords: JOY, CREATIVITY, CURIOSITY

How long will it take for us to get real?

Now, here's an interesting question -- how long do we let schools and districts pat themselves on the back for nice sounding mission statements that are totally out of line with the reality of what students are doing and learning, or could be learning in the 21st Century? How long do we let them turn their back on the emerging technologies that can revolutionize learning for their students simply because the potential for problems is something they prefer not to have to deal with?

Visit: http://www.cosn.org/Initiatives/tabid/4204/Default.aspx