The end of the lone nut?

In 2014, I opened the first #edchatNZ conference with the above talk from Derek Sivers about how to start a movement. I declared that I was a lone nut. Personally, I found the lone nut metaphor really useful, as more often than not, I found myself in schools where I was considered a bit weird, eccentric. I was an outlier, the one person dancing alone in a field. Being a bit weird and not fitting with the status quo can be isolating. However, through Twitter and #edchatNZ, I found there were others dancing with me. I was less of a lone nut, and part of a movement.

Two years down the track and there are many important lessons that I have learnt since first declaring myself a lone nut. In particular, lately, I have questioned whether it is time for a new metaphor? Perhaps the lone nut is past its used by date? Let me explain...

For many of us outliers, the lone nut metaphor is useful to make sense of our feelings as being other, of being different. We can take solace in it, when we feel like we are dancing alone in our schools, when we know our cause is worthy yet nobody seems to be listening. One of the most common themes that stand out from moderating #edchatNZ for four years now, is how often educators across the country, feel and think that they can see a better way forward for students or staff in their context, but that their thoughts and feelings are ignored. There are numerous educators in countless contexts who are eager to see improvements in everything from priority learners, student engagement, staff or student wellbeing or better preparing students for our changing world. Frequently, these same educators feel alone, that they are the only ones championing these critical causes. To return to the metaphor of the video above, many of these educators feel like they are dancing wacky in a field, but National Standards and Qualifications, senior and middle leaders, other staff and parent communities are telling them to sit down.

It seems however, that there is something we lone nuts sometimes forget, perhaps even conveniently ignore: "The first follower is what transforms a lone nut into a leader." Without the followers, you remain a nut. Being a leader is not as simple as dancing wacky. It is not enough to shout our vision at the top of our lungs, regardless of how important, ethical or critical it might be. Our ability to build a community is key. More important than our wacky dance moves, is our ability to make connections, to listen, to show empathy, to build trust, to talk with rather than at. Standing on a soap box professing your view only helps those who are already converted to your world view feel important, it does not necessarily bring anyone new to the cause. Dancing like a whack-a-doodle, does not a leader maker. If we really believe in the causes that we champion, then we must build trust, we must build a community. It is our ability to build a community, a following, a movement, that will transform us from lone nut to leader, not the dance moves alone. We must strive to become less lone nut and more mixed nuts.

There is also a further reality that some of us lone nuts need to contend with: not all dance moves are created equal. Some dance moves are just the flavour of the moment, they might be the 'juju on that beat' of the moment (here's the link if you're not up with the latest move). Just because you have read a whole bunch of blogs and a few books about something does not elevate it from the Harlem Shake (yet another wacky dance move you may have missed) to the moon walk, it does not elevate it from the Macarena to a pirouette.

Perhaps it is time to evaluate the merit of your dance moves? Are student inquiries, design thinking, personalised learning and bring your own device just the flavour of the moment? How would you know? Are they just ambulances at the bottom of the cliff and there are bigger problems to contend with and explore? Why should your moves be prioritised over that of others who are also dancing?

via GIPHY

As useful as the lone nut metaphor is, like all models and representations, it has its limits. Perhaps it is time that we invest more of our own efforts into these limitations. For those of us who are eager to see change in our education systems, perhaps it is time we start focussing on how we build our movements, and whether the new paradigms we are suggesting are powerful enough to withstand genuine critique and existing momentum.

It is high time we examine the limitations of the lone nut, and challenge ourselves to look and act beyond the metaphors we identify with the most. If we don't, we are doomed to remain lone nuts, and our students will most likely be worse off for it.

My masters: Using MOOCs and complexity thinking to disrupt current debates on educational futures.

As many of you will know, for some time now I have been dabbling in post graduate studies. Although for some time I thought that I might examine some aspect of mathematics education, a chance meeting with the legendary Jane Gilbert in February this year saw me change my mind. I ditched my previous proposals (which fortunately was still very useful in learning how to use words like ontology and epistemology). Although I have met some fascinating and knowledgeable researchers and academics over the past few years, Jane was the first that genuinely listened with intent to the story of #edchatNZ and my passion for bringing about change in the education system. I talked about my hope to develop a MOOC (massive open online course) to deepen the many wonderful discussions I had seen on #edchatNZ. So, together we have embarked on a very exciting project - designing a MOOC examining Education Futures, and then studying what happens. It was an opportunity not to be missed, and one that even early on in this project, has turned my thinking inside out and on its head, inside out and back around. Like all things #edchatNZ, you can sign up to help build and design, or participate in the discussion. Even better, would be if you chose to participate, if you invited friends parents and colleagues. The larger the community that takes part in discussions about education futures, the more likely that we will see the changes that we so desperately know our students need. You can learn more about the MOOC on the #edchatNZ website, as well as sign up for more information or to participate in its design.

For those of you who are interested in the more academic side of things, below is part of the more formal research proposal for this project.

Major changes in the world beyond education have led to calls for a more “future-focused” education system: however, change has so far been slow or small in scale. This project plans to investigate one possible way to bring about the required change on a larger scale. It will explore the extent to which participants in a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) talk to colleagues about ideas they are exposed to, and what these conversations are like. It will also explore the extent to which participants’ thinking (about education) changes as they experience the MOOC. 

Major world trends including the rise of technology, globalisation, networked knowledge and the increasing urgency of “wicked problems” such as climate change have led many to argue for change in education (e.g. Berry, 2011; Bolstad et al., 2012; Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2012; Claxton, 2013; Gilbert, 2005; Snyder, 2013). We also know that the way our young people interact with the world via technology is very different from any previous generation (Collins & Halverson, 2010; Gardner & Davis, 2014), and that the nature of knowledge, the traditional foundation of education, is also shifting (Biesta, 2007; Cope & Phillips, 2009; Gardner & Davis, 2014; Weinberger, 2011). However, despite this, change in education is slow, often non-existent. Many authors argue that our education system and its underpinning ideas have not co-evolved with the wider society, and, as a result, are no longer “fit for purpose” (e.g. Berry, 2011; Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2012; Collins & Halverson, 2010; Gilbert, 2005; Weinberger, 2011). Unless shift is generated across the network, our education system’s capacity to meet the needs of today’s students will continue to decline. 

While there have been many attempts at reform in education, most of these attempts have been “top down” approaches, involving new “inputs” into the system (new policies, structures, technologies, curriculum, pedagogical approaches, and/or assessment systems). While these approaches may result in superficially new forms of organisation and/or new ways of talking about what happens in the system, they have not produced the kind of system-wide change that is needed (Snyder, 2013). New approaches are needed. 

According to Forte, Humphreys, and Park (2012), educators who belong to, and regularly participate in, professional sharing and discussion in social networks are more likely to participate in reform efforts. Daly (2010) shows that specific subgroups within a network such as education can inhibit or lend support for overall strategies as they are made up of more densely connected networks. This project’s aim is to explore the possible influence of these networks and subgroups on the system as a whole. While some work has been done in this area, it has (so far) been small in scale (and therefore unlikely to affect system wide change), or unable to foster the kind of in-depth interaction and thinking required (for example, the various Twitter-based professional networks available to educators).

This project’s starting point is the idea that change will not come from adding more “inputs” - more administration, more policy, more ideas, and more processes - into the existing system. Rather, change has to come from within the system. Hence, the focus of this project is a within-system initiative designed to produce more – and deeper - interactions between the system’s elements. The idea is that this increased interaction will produce a shift in the way teachers think about education, across the system, and, following from this, new ways of working with past “inputs”. This within-system initiative is the proposed MOOC.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) became popular in 2012 (Daniel, 2013). These free or low cost university courses allow open access to knowledge traditionally only available in formal university degree programmes. MOOCs potentially allow large numbers of people, irrespective of location and/or circumstances, to participate in discussion and engagement with complex ideas.

This project involves developing a MOOC that is designed to make available some “big ideas” about education’s future, and to encourage participants to discuss these ideas with others. The research part of the project is designed to investigate the extent to which exposure to, and debate about, the ideas affects participants’ thinking about education. 

Research Questions

1. Do participants who have voluntarily enrolled in a MOOC discuss the ideas they are exposed to in the MOOC with colleagues and/or family and friends?
2. If they do, how in-depth/ extensive are these conversations?
3. Do these experiences change the way they think about education?

The broader context is to investigate the potential of MOOCs for facilitating within-system change. 

References

• Berry, B. (2011). Teaching 2030: What we must do for our students and our public schools: Now and in the future. New York: Teachers College Press.
• Biesta, G. (2007). Towards the knowledge democracy? Knowledge production and the civic role of the university. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 26(5), 467-479. doi: 10.1007/s11217-007-9056-0
• Bolstad, R., Gilbert, J., McDowall, S., Bull, A., Boyd, S., & Hipkins, R. (2012). Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching - a New Zealand Perspective: New Zealand Council for Educational Research.
• Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (2012). Race Against the Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy. Massachusetts: Digital Frontier Press.
• Claxton, G. (2013). What's the point of school?: Rediscovering the heart of education. London: Oneworld Publications.
• Collins, A., & Halverson, R. (2010). The second educational revolution: rethinking education in the age of technology. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26(1), 18-27. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2729.2009.00339.x
• Cope, B., & Phillips, A. (2009). Signs of epistemic disruption: transformations in the knowledge system of the academic journal The Future of the Academic Journal: Elsevier Science.
• Daly, A. J. (2010). Social Network Theory and Educational Change: Harvard Education Press.
• Daniel, J. (2013). Making Sense of MOOCs: Musings in a Maze of Myth, Paradox and Possibility. Open Education Research, 3(006). 
• de Waard, I., Abajian, S., Gallagher, M. S., Hogue, R., Keskin, N., Koutropoulos, A., & Rodriguez, O. C. (2011). Using mLearning and MOOCs to understand chaos, emergence, and complexity in education. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 12(7). 
• Forte, A., Humphreys, M., & Park, T. (2012). Grassroots Professional Development: How Teachers Use Twitter Paper presented at the Proceedings of the Sixth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media.
• Gardner, H., & Davis, K. (2014). The App Generation: How Today's Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World. New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Gilbert, J. (2005). Catching the Knowledge Wave? The Knowledge Society and the future of education. Wellington: New Zealand Council for Educational Research.
• Snyder, S. (2013). The simple, the complicated, and the complex: educational reform through the lens of complexity theory. OECD Publishing, 96. 
• Weinberger, D. (2011). Too Big to Know. New York: Basic Books.

Today I walked with giants

Being the learning junkie that I am, this year I have spent a considerable number of hours at conferences and other education related events. Today however, I was invited to be part of the Teach for All Global Conference (Twitter stream at #TFALLGC2015) (see footnote about Teacher or All in New Zealand). And what an experience it was! I walked away from today, feeling honoured that this community included me, and fortunate to have been able to learn from the people who in my opinion, are making the world a better place, in the toughest possible places.

I was honoured to be part of a discussion panel about amplifying teacher voices with Javier the CEO of Empieza por Educar (Teach First NZ's Ecuador equivalent), as well Evan and Sydney, the founders of Educators 4 Excellence (E4E) from the United States. Evan and Sydney have an inspirational story. Whilst working in a school, Evan and Sydney increasingly identified what so many teachers across the world know; we know our students and what they need. We know when policies do not serve our communities. Educators are constantly feeling like change is something that is done to them, or for them, but not with them. However, they set out to do something about it. E4E, the organisation they founded, works closely with teachers to develop them as leaders. They empower them to take on leadership roles in their communities, schools and unions to drive towards change. Their organisations now has approximately 17 000 members. I encourage you to find out more about this truly inspirational organisation and get involved if you can.

I also had the opportunity to hear from Deray Mckesson, an educator turned social activist. Deray shared his story of how he uses social media as a form of activism. Deray has been drawing attention to racism that is still ingrained in many places across the United States. What makes Deray's story so inspirational to me is that much like Evan and Sydney who are helping teachers make the changes that they know their students need, Deray saw in injustice in the world, and is doing something about it. His story reminded me of some key things that I wish every educator takes to heart;

• "In the end we are all equal stakeholders in the community" - It is our communities, it is our cities and our countries, so we should stand up and fight for the changes we want to see in them.
• "The true story of resistance is important, one person can change things" - You can affect change, get stuck in. At the very least, you should support those people, however you can, that are working towards making the changes you wish to see.
• "Decisions in democracy are made by the people who show up" - When you choose not to engage with politics and politicians, when you choose to bow out when things get hard, when you choose not to give your support to those who are fighting for your cause, or when you choose not to challenge those in your school who are not serving the best interests of your students, what are you really choosing? 

I was blown away too by Kaya Henderson, too the Chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools. A district that has managed to turn its story around, with graduating rates and rolls increasing for the first time in many many years. Kaya's enthusiasm is infectious, and almost unexpected in a politician, but what is more incredible is her commitment to the community. Kaya spoke about how they actually collaborate with their community, showing the sessions they run with the community where everyone is sitting at tables and actually working on solutions together. Kaya's story has a common ingredient with those of Sydney, Evan and Deray's - collaboration. The power of people working together, getting into the nitty, gritty discussion, solving problems together.

Of course, there were local speakers too, including New Zealand's very own Pita Sharples sharing his journey, fighting for the place of Māori in New Zealand. Francis Valentine and Claire Amos were present too, sharing their vision too.

I am overwhelmed (in a good way), by the sheer energy and enthusiasm of the Teach for All organisation.  Interestingly, the CEOs and other members of the this network who were in attendance today, were all remarkably young, and the organisation and its members hugely diverse. The conference rooms were buzzing with individuals who were not accepting the status quo, not accepting inequality, not accepting poverty. I don't know that I have ever sat in a room surrounded by so many people who feel empowered to make a change in the world for the better, and are doing so.

Reflecting on this incredible experience, I am left wondering today about what I can do to help drive towards system wide change that will not only help the disadvantaged, but help us think about the huge changes happening in the world and what they mean for education. I am incredibly excited about the #edchatNZ MOOC, a project with a rather ambitious mission statement; 'increase the capacity of participants to discuss education futures more frequently, in deeper, more sophisticated ways, whilst taking on a more active, informed role in experimenting with change.' I am currently working on how we might make the critical ideas around Education Futures more accessible and relevant, bringing together academic research and expert practice. Again, I am incredibly fortunate that I get to work on this project alongside Jane Gilbert, and her network of incredible educators and thinkers.

Three years ago today, I started #edchatNZ because I wanted to learn. Again, I realised that thanks to the incredible educators around the world and here at home, every expectation I had has been surpassed. I only hope, that I can give back, that I can empower others as much as others have done for me.

*Teach for All is the network that sits behind Teach First NZ, a programme that was met with considerable resistance here in New Zealand, with comments such as "disadvantaged students deserved experienced and qualified teachers, and should not be treated like guinea pigs" surfacing in the media from prominent education bodies. In fact, you can read about the tensions in the New Zealand Herald article today. Teach First NZ teachers receive 6 week high intensity training before being deployed into a schools with low socio-economic status, disadvantaged children. Yet, there is increasing evidence that this programme is working. 

Featured on Core Education's EDtalks!

#edchatnz and professional learning from EDtalks on Vimeo.

Thanks to Core Education's unrelenting support of #edchatNZ!
Here is the latest video they put together for the EDtalks site.
And a special thank you to all those of you out there who are part of the  network!

L is for left behind

It appears that I got a little left behind with the A to Z blogging challenge, for no good reason other than needing the time to concentrate on other things.  I should be up to to the letter P by now...

However that is not the only 'left behind' I want to comment on today. Today I want to comment on those people in our schools, even whole schools, that are being left behind. Chances are that by blogging about this, I am preaching to the converted. However dear converted, if you agree with what I say here, consider printing a copy and leaving it strewn across the staff room, in someone's (or everyone's) pigeon hole or wrapped in a bow with a chocolate attached on a someone's desk. 

The last 15 years has seen the introduction of NCEA, a new curriculum and national standards in New Zealand. As well as this, there has been more schools that have introduced bring your own device and other technology related changes including email taking on a central role in teacher's lives. We have also seen the introduction of more and more modern learning environments and the arrival of MOOCs (massive open online courses, often free courses that allow anyone from any part of the world free/cheap access to courses from Stanford, Harvard, Oxford, Yale and more). There is no question about it, change is non stop (for more about this read my post about the role of 'change' in the future of education).  For some, all these changes might feel like a passing fad, and that there is no need for them to invest too much time or energy into considering the effect of these. There is however one change that I hope that fewer educators might stop ignoring, the increasing need to be connected. Let me explain.

• Being a connected educator means that you are part of learning conversations with those inside and outside of your organisation. Or as the study by Forte et al. puts it ".... through Twitter, teachers forge and maintain professional ties outside their local schools and, in doing so, become conduits for new practices and ideas to move in and out of their local communities ...  teachers are using Twitter as a place to share resources and to make and respond to others’ requests for information." Hence, if you are not part of these conversations, it is likely that you are missing out on the distribution of effort that happens through being connected. It means you are less likely to know about international trends and influences that are or should be impacting the day to day in your classroom and school.
• As well as not being part of the sharing, curating, discussion that happens when you are connected, it is likely that you are relying on those people in your office or your school to challenge and develop you as a professional. Chances are that you are stuck in an echo chamber, rarely having your views challenged by those outside of your organisation. Chances are, your whole organisation might be stuck in an echo chamber, reinforcing its own misconceptions. Chances are, that you are in a bubble, unaware of how the world outside education has fundamentally shifted, unaware that the job market, the value of a university degree, society, has changed more than any one person can possibly hope to know. Examining change in today's world is like "when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else".
• Chances are, that if you are not connected, you are likely to fall behind in both the conversations that discuss and consider new practices and ideas, but also that you are likely to constantly feel the agitation and stress from always being reactive, always being on the back foot. It is Lewis Caroll's Red Queen in education, you have to keep running just to keep up. When you stop running, you are left behind. 

"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. 

If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" - Lewis Caroll

Image Source or E-Book 

• You might argue that you read professionally and that is enough for your learning. However, as Margaret Wheatley puts it, "real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles and positions." Power and energy in our profession comes from the relationships that we build, and these need to extend beyond our organisations. Or as social network theorists have explained, "social network theory suspends or challenges assumptions about the meaningfulness of organisational boundaries ... social network theory eliminates the organisation as objects of interest." Hence, educators who are not connected, may not be contributing to the power and energy of our profession. 
   
• Research has also identified that connected teachers are more likely to be part of, and driving reform efforts "Our findings portray teachers on Twitter as progressive thinkers who are in a position to build the trust and support networks necessary to strengthen leadership in educational communities and increase the effectiveness of reform efforts" (Fort et al, 2012). Guy Claxton quotes Geoff Mulgan about this in his great book, What's the point of school?, "One of the optical illusions of government is that those inside of it think of themselves as drivers of change ... Yet most far-reaching ideas and changes come from outside ... Most radical change has to start outside government, usually from the bottom [up] rather than the top [down]." If you are not a connected educator, how are you likely to be part of driving the positive changes that our learners need? This idea is further iterated in a report from the OECD when it says that "The complex nature of educational governance, involving myriad layers and actors, can be an overwhelming problem with no clear entry point for policy makers. Traditional approaches, which often focus on questions of top-down versus bottom-up initiatives or levels of decentralisation, are too narrow to effectively address the rapidly evolving and sprawling ecosystems that are modern educational systems. If educational governance is recast as the building of effective networks of strong independent schools collaborating continuously, and sharing knowledge both horizontally and vertically, there is no contradiction between the ideas of devolved power and effective national networks. It may not be that the devolution of power is increasing complexity in the system at all. In fact, increased curricular diversity, broader professional support, and the shared purpose this approach enables create a stronger and more reactive holistic system."

You see, being a connected educator is absolutely critical.

If you are not yet connected. Make sure you join your country's education Twitter chat. Join the great Google+ communities, attend the range of free EdCamps on offer across the world.  Whatever you do, get connected. If you are in New Zealand, join #edchatNZ (see www.edchatNZ.com) and the range of other great Twitter chats we have. Join the Pond.  Educate yourself dear educator about what it means living successfully in a connected society, leveraging the network for your and your colleague's benefit. 

References

Daly, A. J. (2010). Social Network Theory and Educational Change. Harvard Education Press. 8 Story Street First Floor, Cambridge, MA 02138.

Forte, A., Humphreys, M., & Park, T. H. (2012, June). Grassroots Professional Development: How Teachers Use Twitter. In ICWSM.

Snyder, S. (2013). The simple, the complicated, and the complex: educational reform through the lens of complexity theory.

Claxton, G. (2013). What's the point of school?: Rediscovering the heart of education. Oneworld Publications.

Have I built an eco chamber?

Is #edchatNZ an echo chamber? A place where we constantly pat each other on the back, encourage each other, however, not challenge and drive each other to new heights? Nat Torkington recently commented on this. Steve Mouldey and I have discussed this. However, #edchatNZ also genuinely needs the warm fluffies one gets from participating. The warm glow you get from no longer being a lone nut, but a respected professional, standing up for positive change in your school and in New Zealand education. The question then in Maurie Abraham's words, is how to be warm and demanding? And this in a limit of 140 characters in a fortnightly twitter chat. 

This year, with the inspiration of Tim Kong (a devil's advocate, aka, thought provoker on any day), and Mat Nicoll's great idea, we introduced a Devil's Advocate to #edchatNZ. Honest, respectful discussion and challenge is a key aspect of making sense of our ideas and thoughts. We need to defend our arguments to learn where they are weak. Not to tear our ideas down, but to build them better and stronger (PS. Read Ed Catmull's Creativity Inc., I love the idea of the Pixar brain trust). At the start of the chat, the moderator introduces the devil's advocate. This person also changes their Twitter avatar to our devil's advocate logo to ensure that we communicate clearly why there are such touch questions and comments being fired from the person. I'm giving it a few more weeks before I send out a survey to the #edchatNZ community to see how they are doing.

The devil's advocate avatar. 

As for me.. I have LOVED the introduction of the devil's advocate. I feel more challenged by the chats, like I have sped up my learning to a whole new level. The devil's advocate also seems to have brought about more diversity in the #edchatNZ group. There appears to be an increased number of viewpoints shared, and justified. I also love that for the 'pros' who have been part of the community for so long, I can offer them a new level of challenge in the chat. The devil's advocate has also helped me see more of the deeper knowledge that its participants have, as well as identify some areas that we might need to talk about some more. For example, what exactly is the purpose of education?

A special thank you for our three devil's advocates so far, Tim Kong, Steve Mouldey and Megan Peterson. You have all been fantastic. I hope you wear your badge with pride! And thank you for challenging me at a whole new level too! 

So the question remains now, is #edchatNZ an echo chamber? Or is it a place of challenging but welcome, discussion and debate? Warm and demanding? How might we create a warm but demanding community?

PS: If you have ideas for smashing echo chambers or your want to be our devil's advocate one night, get in touch at danielle@edchatNZ.com.

The increasing role of philosophy in my day to day life

It seems that the past year has seen an increase in the role that philosophy plays in my day to day life. This has included introductions to relativism, realism, critical realism, egalitarianism, modernism and post modernism. Thanks to Grant Lichtman and The Falconer, there has even been some ‎Sun Tzu and the Art of War mixed in. Of course don't forget Plato, John Dewey, Kant, Popper and Foucault. If you asked me ten years ago whether philosophy might play such a critical role in my day to day life (yes, I did say day to day), I would never have guessed it. Perhaps you are wondering why I might be using philosophy on such a frequent basis...

The most obvious response is that in preparation to begin a research masters of education, one needs a bit of an introduction to these things. This is certainly the reason why I can now use big words like epistemology and ontology in a sentence and actually know what they mean. Although the serious introduction to philosophy came very much from university, I am increasingly finding uses for it outside of assignments and essays. 

Wikipedia explains philosophy as: 

"Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument." - source 

I work in one of the newest, most different secondary schools in the country. We do things significantly differently from most other schools I have ever taught in, and differently from the majority of schools in the area (with the exception of Albany Senior High School). Inevitably, this means a lot of time spent in the hypothetical. Although we firmly believe the model for schools in New Zealand needs to change, doing so, is more challenging and more uncomfortable than one might suppose from the outside. Even when you have an incredible team who all believe in the urgent need for change. However, what is it that has lead us to believe that this need for change is so important? Working in a school that is taking so many risks could potentially have a positive or a negative results on one's career. So why take the risk? I have increasingly found solace in understanding the philosophy that underpins our society, our education system, but also the philosophy that might underpin our work at Hobsonville Point Secondary School. 

#edchatNZ is also now more than two years old. As I seek to ensure that the #edchatNZ fortnightly chats remain warm and demanding, I am increasingly finding that I need to venture in unknown ground on behalf of others to ensure that we keep pushing at the boundaries of the teacher box. What better way is there to do this but through philosophy? Philosophy provides an examination of the fundamental ideas that underpin our society, the anachronisms but also the aspirations of our society. These all seem pretty relevant to education wouldn't you think? 

Aftermath: Connection. Innovation. Reality.

Hard at work with some exceptional
people at Startup Weekend. 

August was a very busy month. It kicked off of course with the #edchatNZ conference. It has taken me a good month to process my thoughts and feelings around organising an event for 300+ teachers from across the country. Also in August, I attended TEDx Auckland. Of course, this took some time to process too. TED talks have a knack for pushing your mental boundaries and helping you re-examine the perspectives that we hold. Of course, the fun doesn't end there. I also went to Startup Weekend in Wellington - a hugely intense weekend competition where you go from pitching an idea for a company to creating the company, in one weekend. 

As you might imagine, I feel like my mind has been twisted and

Facilitator, deputy principal,  teacher,
student, and politician.  We are all
partners in our education future. 

reshaped, contorted, exhausted and ignited. After much processing however, I think I may finally be able to summarise my key lessons from August in three words. Connection. Innovation. Reality.

Lesson 1: Connection 

The #edchatNZ conference highlighted for me the huge power of connection. The momentum, the energy and the change that we can make for the better when a community is connected and empowered. But also, that those connections extend beyond the obvious, to politicians, to parents and to others in the community. 

I love Twitter. I love Twitter because I am judged not for my age, my years of experience or my title, but rather, I am judged for the quality of my ideas and my contributions. And this goes for everyone else on Twitter too. The quality of your interactions, contributions and even what you curate ultimately defines the success of your connections. And these connections are so hugely powerful. It gives anyone a voice, an audience and a community within which to learn. I am sure that any educator on Twitter would agree. It means that I am connected in a far more powerful way than if my conversations were limited to my staffroom. For example, I tweeted Nikki Kay, the associate minister of education whilst at Startup Weekend. Not only did she tweet back, she called me, on a Sunday afternoon to answer my questions about our project. And then emailed me some additional resources to support our project. What if all politicians were this connected? What if all teachers were this connected? How powerful would the teaching profession be? Or the relationships with our students? Or our communities? And how powerful would it be if educators, communities and politicians were actively connecting in this way all the time? What would this mean for the future of New Zealand? 

Lesson 2: Innovation 

Is innovation just a buzz word in education? Is it a skill? Is it essential? Is it useful? Should schools be innovative? Should teachers be innovative? Innovation comes with risk, should schools be taking risks? And what about teacher training programmes, should they teach future teachers to facilitate innovation? Is it even reasonable to think that teacher training programmes should address the idea of innovation in education? Or for them to examine innovative practices. To some extent, one can even question what innovation is in an education context.  

I am currently reading Grant Lichtman's new book where he tells the story of schools that have worked on being innovative or encouraging students to be innovative. One of these stories explains innovation as "Thinking of stuff is not innovation. Tinkering with stuff is not innovation. Even inventing stuff is not innovation. Innovation instead, when it’s done right, makes us go “wow, of course, why didn’t I think of that?” It creates complete experiences that we want to engage in. It eliminates inconveniences and hassles and improves our overall experiences. At its most dramatic, it creates entire categories of offerings, so new that we find it hard to name them at first." The reality is, as a science graduate with a one year teacher diploma and a few post grad papers, how can I even begin to prepare students for a future with big data, climate change, food security issues, markets and market demands that don't yet exist? To some extent, I also worry about education in this context. I get paid fortnightly, like clock work. I can have sick days. I can pay bills. I get 12 weeks of holiday every year. I don't have to work weekends if I'm very organised during the week. I am protected by unions, contracts and a system. However, for many people in society already, they work nights and weekends. They struggle to make ends meet working shifts, but also starting a business, paying the wages, rent and so forth for their businesses. People are already working in new fields that didn't exist ten years ago. As I type this email, there are 284 social media related jobs on seek.co.nz. With educators working in a protected bubble where we are not exposed to the rate of change in the industry, or even how different sectors are working, how can we hope to prepare students for the future, or even hope to understand the urgency with which schools need to change?  

Startup Weekend involved working side by side in a high intensity environment with people who are not necessarily working in education. I got to spend the weekend working with designers, programmers, marketing and finance types (as well as two fabulous educators, Gerard McManus and Tony Cairns). The experience reaffirmed for me the intense need that educators and students need to get outside the classroom, to ensure that we are learning and living in the real world, contributing in the real world, creating the future that we want. The risk of a classroom that is too teacher centred rather than community or student centred is that we may find in a few years time, as students leave our schools, that our students are not prepared for the reality of the world. 

Lesson 3: Reality  

HPSS students on a tour of Q Theatre 

The reality of a teacher is still that of marking, NCEA examinations or national standards, floods of emails, parents, behaviour management, department and professional development budgets. Increasingly over the past two years, I have wondered about why we see our systems as barriers rather than enabling constraints or even better, challenges to overcome? More importantly, if we really examine the systems that we have created, the systems that we enforce in our schools, do they really support our students to make progress in their learning? And did we base these systems our judgement or personal opinion? Or did we base it on research? If we examine the reality, rather than paradigms and perspectives that we have constructed, are our practices and systems really preparing students for an unknown future? And, do I really examine my systems and my practices and genuinely redesigning these for student needs? Have I examined my beliefs, my perceptions compared to research? Compared to the experiences and events of those working outside of education? The anecdotes we hear and share although they contribute to the reality, are not the whole reality, and it is important that we critically examine what shapes our perceptions, and that we challenge these constantly by stepping outside our echo chambers, both in and outside education.

There are many more lessons that I have learnt over the past months that addresses the nitty gritty, the teaching tools and techniques and new questions to ask. Lessons that unpack connection, innovation and reality in more detail. I am fortunate to work at Hobsonville Point Secondary school where powerful partnerships are part of our school principles. A powerful principle that I feel that I urgently need to explore in more detail. Partnering with the community, industry and families will hopefully mean that my students and I constantly challenge what we think reality might be. We might grow with the world, change it to be the place we want, rather than arriving in the world upon graduation from school.

My wish for you however, is that you step outside your classroom, your department you school or whatever other organisation you are involved with, and examine your perceptions and what kind of future they will lead to.

#edchatNZ meme

I am still making sense of the events from the #edchatNZ conference. Hence, I really appreciate some questions to scaffold my thinking. Thanks Reid for this fantastic idea - a blogging meme about #edchatNZ!

If you get included in the blogging meme: copy/paste the questions and instructions into your own blog then fill out your own answers. Share on twitter tagging 5 friends.

1. How did you attend the #Edchatnz Conference? (Face 2 Face, followed online or didn't)
I was there. With bells and whistles on... I mean, I was wearing my fantastic new #edchatNZ hoodie thanks to the amazing educators who helped me put this thing together. Thank you Philippa, Matt, Sonya, Heather, Mel and Alyx. Your ideas, your feedback, your hard work, your encouragement and support is what made #edchatNZ happen. Thank you.

2. How many others attended from your school or organisation?
It was at my school. 125 students and 300 teachers all in the same building, learning side by side. I suspect that Hobsonville Point students will have a very different opinion about teachers when they grow up... After all, even on Saturday, we had students turn up at school. There was something beautiful about one of my students sitting next to me in a workshop learning about SOLO on a Saturday morning.

3.How many #Edchatnz challenges did you complete?
I completed ten of the challenges. However I feel a little disappointed that it slipped my mind to make the whole auditorium dance... Thank you Steve for making up the challenges!

4. Who are 3 people that you connected with and what did you learn from them?
It was absolutely amazing meeting some of steering committee for the first time! Imagine organising a whole conference with people via Twitter and Google Hangout and then meeting on the morning of the conference for the first time!! I really learnt what collaboration means through the organisation of this conference. It is the perfect example of just how powerful social media is for collaboration, not just connection. I was also super excited to have three amazing ladies from New York join us, especially since they reiterated something I really believe, there is something special happening in New Zealand education. Thank you Peggy, Bron and Marianne. Your presence and your contributions were greatly appreciated.

The steering committee 

5. What session are you gutted that you missed?
All of them! I would have loved to be in every session, to be able to support every presenter. Putting the programme together it just blew my mind that we could offer such a high calibre event with such an all star crew of presenters.

6. Who is one person that you would like to have taken to Edchatnz and what key thing would they have learned? 
I would have loved to have every one who has every participated in #edchatNZ there. Meeting face to face is completely awesome. However, in particular, I would also have loved to have Pascal Dresse there as he was one of the first people to really get onboard with #edchatNZ. New Zealand misses you!

7. Is there a person you didn't get to meet/chat with (F2F/online) that you wished you had?
Yes! But I tried my best. I guess we will just have to have another conference?

8. What is the next book you are going to read and why? 
The Key Competencies for the future book that Steve is hogging! Really looking forward to reading it as I am a big fan of the key competencies. You can see more of my reading plans for the near future on Goodreads though!

9. What is one thing you plan to do to continue the Education Revolution you learnt about at #EdchatNZ?
Where do I begin?? Blogging challenge, mentor groups, supporting all the new chats, planning another conference, emailing delegates to check on their progress... and a whole lot more!

10. Will you take a risk and hand your students a blank canvas?
Yes! But we will spend a great amount of time learning about painting techniques, inspiration, masters and muses. We will practice together and prototype so that eventually they can create a master piece for their future.

Thank you to all those who were there. You are all legends.

Have you registered yet?

Starting the little hashtag that could - #edchatNZ

I joined Twitter in 2011 because I couldn't find a job. A very wise man suggested that I make a website to show off my e-learning skills. Apparently e-learning know how was a bit of a commodity. I did make a website, but I didn't have very much to put on the website. So I created a Twitter account to embed on the website. I tweeted a few educational tweets and then went looking for a few other education tweets to retweet. I found so much more than I bargained for. I started participating in Twitter chats #edchatUK, #byotchat, #flipclass and #pblchat. Inspirational stuff and right on trend!

But New Zealand is little when compared with the world wide web. I had found a few New Zealand tweetchers but knew there had to be more out there. And it was hard finding them. So in October of 2012, I took a leap of faith. I started a hashtag, #edchatNZ, so that I could find New Zealand educators on Twitter better. I realised that the most used hashtags were the ones that had regular chats associated with them. When in doubt, I always google things... I googled, how to host a Twitter chat. I set a date, and then started promoting. I used the PPTA Twitter account to track down New Zealand teachers with a lot of followers and asked them to retweet my 'add' for a New Zealand Twitter chat and hashtag (thanks Claire Amos and Michael Fawcett for their early support to get us off the ground). The night of the first #edchatNZ Twitter chat finally arrived. It was like having a party and being worried that nobody will show up. But the New Zealand teachers showed up. And they have been showing up every fortnight since. We have even trended on Twitter New Zealand, out tweeting the royals and the Twilight movie Eclipse.

The hashtag is now more than a year old and still going strong. In fact, due to #edchatNZ, I was able to recommend pioneer educators for the Network 4 Learning's POND, an online portal that will make nation wide collaboration much easier. And this year, we are taking things to the next level. Since #edchatNZ has built a network of teachers across sectors and curriculum areas who regularly collaborate, support and inspire each other, it was time to provide a face to face opportunity for the learning too. Since so much of the success of #edchatNZ is related to the the ability to give everyone a voice through voting for topics that are current, relevant and needed, the conference will need to do the same. Mark Osborne puts it well in his video below when he explains that there are different leaders in every chat, simply because the set up of #edchatNZ allows who ever has the skills, to take the lead.

 

Ten Trend 2 - Living in the Digital Now from EDtalks on Vimeo.

So in an effort to plan the first #edchatNZ conference, we are asking the conference attendees what they would like at their conference. And we are even getting their input on the dates. Of course we will invite the #edchatNZ teachers to participate as well through hosting workshops or even giving key notes. 

But this conference isn't just for the educators who are already regular users of the #edchatNZ hashtag. The goal has always been to unite New Zealand educators. So as well as aiming to provide a high quality, on trend conference, we are also hoping to do it for under $20. Preferably under $10. This means that student teachers, provisionally registered teachers and long term relief teachers whose schools often don't want to fund PD, might still attend. #edchatNZ is about building a community of connected, supportive, inspirational educators who are willing to share. And everyone is welcome.

Will you be attending our conference? You can vote for your preferred dates, topics and keynotes here. Or will you start a hashtag? What could you do to build a community that inspires yourself and others every day?