New friends and lifelong memories.

We have now completed our first teacher conference here in Kathmandu. The four days working with one group of Nepali teachers was pretty spectacular. We started on day one with a quiet group who did not know each other. However, over the four days of the conference, together we discussed openly and honestly the challenges that we all face as teachers. As a result, we all learnt so much from each other. While the entire conference was great, there were definitely a few highlights for me.

We had a great afternoon going over 'relaxed vigilance' strategies for behaviour management. We really got into it with some role play where the teachers pretended to be naughty students for each other so that they could practice these new strategies. Our group was so keen to learn more, that they decided not to have afternoon tea but to keep learning about restorative justice instead.

Another huge highlight was seeing one of our teachers who was super quiet on the first day, really participate, discuss, laugh and ask lots of questions by the last day. I felt humbled and honoured by the honest sharing and the risk taking from this teacher. I am sure that they will be in my memories for a long long time. I was also honoured by the kind words from one of our students who was asked to make a speech to the whole conference.

We finished the first conference with a very long closing ceremony that involved many long winded speeches (at least, this was the 'translation' from one of the Nepali teachers). However, following this our group of eight teachers borrowed some official banners (without permission), and pulled us back into our classroom to have our very own ceremony for handing over their certificates. We laughed and clapped an took many photos. After this, our students sat us down and handed us each a wrapped package. They had  printed a photo of our group and framed it in a traditional Nepali window frame. Anna, Steph and I were truly touched by their thoughtful gift. Even more exciting, this amazing group of teachers have decided that they will continue to meet after the conference to support each other in implementing the new strategies they had learnt. As far as I'm concerned, this is the best possible outcome from this conference; building a sustainable professional support network for the passionate teachers of Nepal.

Some things are universal

Today we had the third day (out of four) working with a group of Nepali teachers here in Kathmandu as part of an LRTT Fellowship. The past few days have been incredible, and I am so grateful for this opportunity. 

I am currently reading The Culture Map. The book details some of the more subtle cultural differences that can get in the way of working successfully across cultures. This has been a great read whilst being fully immersed in a culture so different from my own. While in my culture shaking your head from side to side means no, here in Nepal it means yes. If I had not known this prior to working with our Nepali teachers, I may have misinterpreted much of our communication. While I feel that we have worked really hard to communicate across cultural boundaries, I can't help but wonder how a more in depth understanding of cultural differences may have helped us be more successful. One of the activities we did today, was to ask the group to arrange themselves in order of birthdays. Everyone had to be completely silent and had to do this through gestures, facial expressions, mime, etc. This was a great reminder that while some gestures are universal, others are definitely not. Gestures that might seem obvious to one cultural group, might mean nothing to another.

Working across a language barrier can also add in additional challenges. This week has made me painfully aware just how tuned we become to certain sounds. I have been trying very hard to pronounce the names of each of the Nepali teachers, however, I just can't seem to make the right sounds! In our tiny classroom, there have been at least three different English accents in the room. Sometimes we talk too fast, sometimes we use too big words. We have skipped and sometimes stumbled our way over educational jargon.

Yet, despite these differences, we have somehow managed to come together as a group. We have laughed together and learnt together. Because luckily, some things are universal...

Yesterday, Anna, my LRTT co-teacher/fellow did a model music lesson. It was a gold standard lesson. It was carefully scaffolded, fun, and she did great progress checks along the way to establish learning. By the end of the lesson, even I could vaguely keep a rhythm and clap the different beats. Anna also taught us an Israeli wedding song and dance. That means two Australians, a New Zealander, and eight Nepali dancing an Israeli wedding dance together in Kathmandu. We laughed, and danced, and clapped. It was wonderful. It was also a critical reminder that regardless of how different our backgrounds and context, some things are universal. Music is one such thing. It can transcend time and place to bring us together. 

Music of course is not the only universal way to bring people together. I had great fun learning a game from our Nepali teachers and students today called coco (not sure about spelling). Just like music, games also have a way of transcending cultural and social boundaries. While I was reminded of this at the NZCER Games for Learning conference earlier this year, this week has really made this sink in. Games have the potential to bring people together. It helps us find a common ground, build relationships and share our cultures. The explicitness of rules help us to navigate and explore new and different social boundaries.

With the last day of our conference tomorrow, I will certainly make sure there is time for at least one more game and one more song.

First day reflections - A global community!

On Sunday we had our first day working with Nepali teachers. Limited Resource Teacher Training (LRTT) and their local partner organisation VIN (Volunteer Initiatives Nepal) have organised a 4 day conference for approximately 100 Kathmandu teachers. These teachers are then split into groups of about 10. Two or three of the LRTT fellows then work with one group of ten teachers for the four days of the conference. I am really enjoying this format as it gives the opportunity to design the conference around the teacher's needs. It also provides the time to really get to know each other and have some genuinely robust conversations.

We started the first day of this conference with an opening ceremony. Various Nepal leaders spoke about the importance of this opportunity. Rachel, one of the team leaders from LRTT gave a fabulous speech too. After this the whole group of LRTT fellows, made up of mostly Australians, a handful of kiwis, and a few people from the United Kingdom got up and sang a waiata we had taught everyone the night before. Sarah, one of the kiwi fellows then explained the meaning of the waiata. It was beautiful. One of the Australians remarked later in the day that they felt proud to be a little bit kiwi today.

I am really lucky to be working with two fabulous teachers here, Stephanie and Anna. They both bring the most incredible sets of experience and expertise. Anna is an encyclopaedia of folk songs. Stephanie also dabbles in politics where she is an elected councillor. Both are deeply passionate about education.

Using the Question Race game to generate questions.

The sessions we ran with our Nepali teachers on day one was largely focussed on getting to know them personally and professionally. As a result, we had SO many great discussions! I found a kindred spirit in one gentleman who wanted to revolutionise education, and another in an enthusiastic woman who was interested in global citizenship and creativity.

We used the Question Race game to help identify the areas that the teachers in our group wanted to focus on over the course of their training.

Our group of teachers identified student motivation, behaviour management and parent engagement as issues that they would like to learn about throughout the conference. These are the same things many of the teachers in New Zealand, Australia and everywhere else struggle with. Perhaps one of my key learnings from the first day working with the awesome Nepali teachers, Australian teachers, New Zealand teachers and those form the United Kingdom, is that we really are a global community. We are never alone in our journey to do the best for our students, and if we reach out to learn from and support each other, there is so much more that we can accomplish.  

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.

Visit to Design39Campus

Over the holidays, I was fortunate enough to visit Design39Campus, an incredible school in San Diego California. On their website, Design39Campus describes itself as:

"At Design39Campus, learning experiences are designed with the individual learner in mind. As a collaborative community, we nurture creative confidence, practice design thinking, learn through inquiry, connect globally, use technology and real world tools, and promote the courage and growth mindset necessary to change the world." - source

There are many great things that happen in a great many schools and classrooms around the world. There are a great number of people who are experimenting with rethinking education and schools and who are having, or starting to have great success at doing so. However, every now and then, a school comes along that not only rethinks and experiments with new ideas of school, but who are truly revolutionary. Although I only visited for a few hours, I suspect Design39 is more than just another school rethinking education. I think there might be something truly revolutionary taking place.

I took eleven pages of notes and many photographs, I have pages of questions and have wondered aloud about much of what I saw at this school. The following are a few of the key things that really stood out for me from my visit.

Collaboration
One of the things that I genuinely believe is critical to the future success of both our education systems and of society is an increased need for collaboration. If we are unable to truly collaborate, if we are unable to learn and think together, our impact will always be limited. If we are not collaborative, we will always be limited to our own perspectives, trapped in our own eco-chambers, and we will be unable to use the diversity in our teams to solve complex problems.

Many schools make claims to being collaborative. Many schools are genuinely collaborative, where teams work together to solve problems. However, in many other schools, we often talk about how we need more collaboration. The question then becomes, why don't we see more collaboration in schools? What stops us?

One of the things that made Design39 so revolutionary in my opinion, is their attitude towards collaboration between their teachers. The school recognises that collaboration is not easy, that it takes time. However, not only do they value collaboration and recognise its challenges, but they have made significant commitments towards ensuring that it can happen. Design39 have been bold enough and committed enough to create the space and time for collaboration. Teachers at Design39 meet every morning before school for an hour to collaborate in various teams. Additionally, the teachers in the school are also relieved every few weeks for entire days to work collaboratively.

How many of us are willing to really commit to collaboration? Are we really willing to accept how much time it takes and how challenging it can be? How many of our schools are willing to make this much of a commitment towards collaboration. And if more of our schools did, how would education be different?

Refusing to accept the status quo
I bet as some of you read about the extra time commitment towards collaboration, you already started thinking that it's just not possible in your context.

One of the major aspects about why I feel that Design39 is not just innovative, but revolutionary, are the barriers that they have overcome in realising their vision. For many of us, we encounter obstacles and might find ways to work around them. Sometimes, we even let obstacles stop us. As you can imagine, the enormous commitment towards collaboration from the school has encountered a number of obstacles. One of those, is the teacher union. However, after years of negotiation, the school now have a memorandum of understanding with the teacher union that allows for their collaborative vision.

I feel this memorandum of understanding is hugely significant for a number of reasons. Firstly, how many of us are willing to defy the status quo when it might involve taking on a teacher union? What about a government organisation? The Design39 story suggests that if we want to see genuine shift in education, then we will need to take on more that just our parent communities and our professional learning structures. We will need to take on the institutions and systems that might contribute towards keep our education systems stagnant and slow to adapt.

I also want to emphasise the 'understanding' part of the above. I believe this memorandum of understanding is significant because it shows not just a school that was willing to challenge the status quo, but rather, it shows a school and union who found a new way to define their relationship and conditions. If a collective agreement from the union, standardised rules and even the way stipends are paid does not allow enough flexibility to reimagine school, perhaps they need to be renegotiated? I commend both the school and union for taking on this challenge!

Elephants in the room
One of the elements that also appears to be key in what makes Design39 so special is their approach to mistakes, failures and uncertainty. On the tour, principal Joe Erpelding was unbelievable frank about what the school is still struggling with. This frankness seems to permeate the school in many of the systems and structures in the school including the use of Design Thinking to problem solve, action learning groups and even the use of elements such as the Brain Trust.


Action Research from Joe Erpelding on Vimeo.

Public acknowledgement of our mistakes and our failures is in my opinion one of the most fundamental things that we must do if we hope to redefine schools and our classrooms. Unless we are able to identify those elephants in the room, we are unable to address them. And education is full of elephants that need addressing.

Of course there is a whole host of other things I enjoyed about the school. The enormously respectful way the students and teachers spoke to each other, the clear presence of some of Jo Boaler's mathematical mindsets thinking, the students sitting in small groups have discussions and recording the video for their teachers to monitor the discussion and more. I also genuinely love (and I use the word love very deliberately here), that their school vision is not just about the individual, but also focussed on how they might enable their students to make the world a better place. Over the next few weeks as I settle in back home I will make sure to share some of what I saw at this incredible school. In the meantime, make sure you follow the great stories, thinking and people from Design39campus and also the great collection of videos about the school.

Finally, a huge thank you to principal Joe Erpelding for hosting me and Grant Lichtman for recommending the school and helping me set up the visit. A massive thank you to all the team at Design39 too, for their hospitality, but more importantly, for their bravery, hard work and collaboration in rethinking education.

Buzzword Bingo presentation

I did a presentation recently at a maths day called Buzz Word Bingo  - thought I would share the slides!

Buzzword Bingo - personalised learning, modern learning practice and environments, collaboration, student agency, BYOD, etc.

What are all the buzzwords really about? Why does there seem to be so much non-stop change in education? Why does it seem like we are constantly needing to teach more and more things? Why does it seem like often we just can't keep up anymore? This session will bring together academic arguments and take a look at the practical implications for the department and classroom. Are these all just fads, or is there more to the story?

The dirtiest word I know is ... why?

image source

*Disclaimer: this post is a somewhat lighthearted take on what is a rather serious professional challenge I am grappling with. 

How many times have situations been allowed to get worse and worse because everyone is too busy being nice to ask the hard questions? Yet, have you ever asked a colleague or parent why they have said something? Or 'what makes you say this?' Or when they give you a reason, ask them a second why? Turns out people don't like it! Or when someone in a Twitter chat is talking about how knowledge is important in teaching and then you ask them what knowledge is... Turns out people don't like that either. Or ask someone what their previous statement says about their beliefs about what it means to be a teacher... and then you are told 'that's too deep'. Why do I keep getting such negative responses to important questions?

Over the years, I have gotten myself in much hot water because I asked questions. In fact, it's one of those if I had a penny situations... But why is this? Why is it that when we get to the juicy and crunchy, and often the most important parts of the conversation, so many of our colleagues get uncomfortable?

We talk about developing our students as questioners. We talk about developing deep thinkers. Yet, my experiences illustrate that although we might say that questioning is good, we don't necessarily believe it - a disjoint between our espoused theory and theory-in-action. Why is it that I could keep a little black book of people who felt uncomfortable with my questions, when as educators we supposedly encourage questioning? This is something I have been trying to make sense of as over and over, why do I get in hot water for asking questions... Hence, I have been speculating about a range of possibilities.

What could be causing the negative responses to my questions? Here is my brain storm (remember this is fuzzy front end, all the ideas, good and bad should be included): 

• My tone of voice is rude, loud or otherwise obtrusive, obnoxious etc.
• I interrupt people mid sentence with my questions (yup... I know I do this one... working on it...).
• I ask my questions at inconvenient times aka. at times or places where they are not appropriate
• The questions that I ask does not allow the 'teacher/manger as knower' and as such, makes the person feel vulnerable because it challenges their 'identity in that role'
• The questions I ask challenges long held assumptions that makes the recipient uncomfortable to confront
• It's irritating if someone says 'why' all the time
• The groups in which I have worked are uncomfortable with diversity, hence questions that bring dissonance to light makes everyone uncomfortable
• People don't want to be asked questions that they might not know the answer to
• My questions are perceived to slow down progress towards quick solutions
• My questions are perceived to question the individual rather than the idea
• There are assumptions that it is not my responsibility/role/place to question
• People really aren't as comfortable with questions as they might like to think
• My questions are not seen as helpful
• My needs as a learner (to understand the purpose of things before I do them) have not been communicated to my manager/boss/team
• My questions are about beliefs (not necessarily religious beliefs) and as such, the person feels uncomfortable having to justify them
• People think I might be a conspiracy theorist and that's why I ask so many annoying questions
• Conspiracy theorists don't like being questions because they don't have facts to back up their arguments
• I am not using all the 'thinking hats' to ask questions

Yup, I am totally flattering myself with some of these assumptions. I am also serious reflecting on how I might ensure that when I ask really crunchy or juicy questions that dig at the heart of matters, how I might ask them in a more 'warm' way. To use Maurie Abraham's phrase, how might I be both warm and demanding? ... Notice how I turned even this professional challenge into a question... "how might I..." I suppose this officially makes me a question junkie right? Perhaps I should just hurry up and get business cards printed, schools could hire me as an education devil's advocate.

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.

Just how much do you respect diversity?

Dear Claire Amos...

I just had a chance to follow up on some of the reaction to your EDUCANZ and PPTA related decisions that you shared today (for background see here and here, and then for today's reactions see the comments on this post and this twitter conversation).

I just wanted to take a moment to say... I think that it is admirable that you spoke out about what you believe. You have had the courage to stand up for what you felt was right. You did not allow peer or public pressure to sway you from your values. Not only that, but you opted for optimism and hope, rather than cynicism. You are an intelligent woman, a force to be reckoned with, and I hope that you make it onto EDUCANZ because I know that once you are there, you will fight for better representation of teachers every chance you get. 

It is disheartening to see that today we had to remind teachers to be better digital citizens when someone expressed an opinion different than their own, and different from the status quo. Perhaps there is some food for thought for all of us there. Exactly how much empathy and respect do you show to those with an opinion different than your own? Do you seek to understand? To empathise? Or do you label? Perhaps even judge? Thank you to those of you who showed empathy today. 

Well done Claire for not compromising on what you believe in. 

#FOMO led me to join #28daysofwriting

If you started your teaching career at HPSS and then moved
somewhere else. (Yes I drew this terrible cartoon). 

#28daysofwriting  - I think it was Tom Barett (my edu crush of 2014) who made this particular blogging challenge go a bit viral. It means you write for 28 minutes a day, every day, for 28 days. Of course prolific blogger Steve Mouldey signed up. And so did Ros, Kimberley and a few others people that I really admire on the education scene. So of course, what should happen but #FOMO, fear of missing out. Particularly as I know how powerful reflecting on a regular basis is. Without question, I believe that a big part of the positive shifts in grades in my university assignments has been due to my blogging and tweeting activity. And also, because I know that every day at Hobsonville Point is the equivalent of a week in any other school. Such unusual phenomena should be documented if you ask me! As I sat in the audience at our first prize giving as a school last year, I rather wanted to kick myself for not documenting my thinking to a greater extent. Being part of a foundation staff in a school that is pushing so many boundaries, in so many ways, working with so many inspirational educators has meant an enormous learning curve. I sincerely wish I had posted every day so that I could have gone back this year and worked through my thoughts. So, I might be a few days late, but better late than never. It's for this reason that Steve Mouldey and I had a serious (or as serious as Steve gets) conversation with one of our new teachers here at Hobsonville about joining the challenge.

Imagine, that as a beginning teacher, your very first job ever, was at Hobsonville Point Secondary School. How might this influence what you come to believe about how education works? What would you believe about the purpose of education in New Zealand? How might you interpret the New Zealand Curriculum? What would you believe about the role of collaboration in schools between teachers? What would you believe about pastoral care? For one thing, you would throw a serious tantrum when presented with a scheme of work. I mean seriously, how can you know that in week four of term three, your students will need to learn how to simplify and solve for x? What if some students are still struggling with fractions? Do you just ignore that and move on to decimals anyways because that is what the scheme of work says? How is that meeting the needs of our students? How does that teach students to have a growth mindset? Never mind mastery, lets just move on. Never mind practicing until you get something, or learning to apply something. We have to move on. Our curriculum explicitly highlights that we are attempting to create life long learners, yet, if we do not provide students with a chance for mastery, what messages do we really send?

Again, a beginning teacher at Hobsonville Point might be forgiven for thinking that teachers naturally collaborate. Without question, I have collaborated with many others in my past school. However, at Hobsonville Point, despite being a science and maths specialist, I have thus far worked with social sciences and health and physical education the most. This is a long cry from a faculty office, and even further removed from a past school where I used to avoid the staff room altogether for fear of conversations about how terrible colleagues in the school are. Just this week alone we have seen some exciting connections come to life between chemistry and the Treaty of Waitangi thanks to the cross school collaborations!

Wow 28 minutes goes fast. Especially if you add in the time to draw a terrible cartoon. But this challenge is about creativity. So I'm attempting not to judge my rambling thoughts or bad drawings. Instead, I am thinking of this as practice for writing every day. Since I also signed up to start my masters this year. 2015 is going to be busy.

How might we... build a nest?

During the final #edchatNZ chat of the year, one of the questions were "What has been the best/most critical question you encountered this year?" Some of the responses included "Why does the education system need to change?" or "Why do I need to change my practice if my students are getting good NCEA results?". It seemed that many of the questions that the crowd shared, were why questions. Yet in my office (possibly thanks to Steve and his question quest), and thanks to Maurie our principal at HPSS, it seems that the best and most critical questions I battled with this year were how might we questions. "How might we organise a conference that is more accessible than the existing conferences?" or "How might I teach in a timetable where I see a group of students only once a week?".  

So, if one uses the types of question being asked as an indicator of sorts, what might the questions we struggle with say about us? Within education, but also in other industries, a common question is "I went to school, got a degree, picked up a skill, gained expertise in my field, I established myself over the years. Why should  I have to change what I do?". (Question modified from A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger). What does such a question say about a person's attitude to learning? Or the obstacles they are currently facing? Or the tensions within their work and personal environment We can get more education specific too, "How do we measure innovation?" or "My students are engaged, but are they truly empowered" (thanks to Stephen Eames and Kimberly Baars for these questions during the last #edchatNZ of 2014). What do these questions say about their professional journeys, what they value or what they think is worth spending time on?

Perhaps the questions we wrestle with at any given time are also indicative of the phases or processes of life that we are going through. Two and a bit years ago I was struggling with how I might go about starting a Twitter chat. Now, I am wrestling with how I might empower a professional community of educators across the country. Of course, I have also wondered why this Twitter chat and community, #edchatNZ, has been so successful? Each of these questions reflect a different stage in my journey. The why questions have helped me to make sense of events or problems, whilst the how questions have helped to remove obstacles and focus my actions.

This all brings us to the next big question I am wrestling with. A question most definitely indicative of what I value, what I consider worth spending time one. A question that is near and dear to my heart, because I feel that the possible answers to this question will move #edchatNZ beyond the limits of my own capacity. How might we build a nest? The nest, being the team that will run the organisation that is #edchatNZ, the little hashtag that could. 

My nest question reflects so much about what I am wrestling with as a I do my summer reading. How do I ensure that all those generous and passionate people that have agreed to be part of the #edchatNZ nest feel valued? How do we go about things in such a way that we don't waste busy educator's time? What value can I add for those teachers who have contributed their time? How do we build a team that is spread across a country and might never actually all meet in person? How do we structure or organise this team so that we set no limits about what we can achieve? How do we empower these volunteers to take on challenges that matter to them and will contribute to the overall vision of #edchatNZ?

My nest question also reflects my hopes and dreams. I hope, that by building a nest, that there will be leadership and learning opportunities for those people who are willing to step up. I hope that by including more people behind the scenes, that we will be able to expand the reach and capacity of #edchatNZ to empower even more educators in 2015. I hope that by building a nest, that #edchatNZ will challenge and grow the education community in new and innovative ways. Over the two years of #edchatNZ, we have grown immensely. From a small fortnightly chat hosted by an overly eager provisionally registered teacher (yes, I was a PRT when I started #edchatNZ), we have now had a sold out conference with over 300 people. We have hosted an international author, we have combined chats creating a first international combo chat, we have spawned subject specific chats, we have hosted national education heroes as moderators and participated in connected educator events. We have trended again and again on Twitter New Zealand and we have made it into multiple publications including a mention in the New Zealand Herald. Quite the two years that we have had! I hope that by building a nest, that we might continue to defy what people believe is possible in education.

I have spent the last week reading Creativity Inc. a great book by Ed Catmull, the director of Pixar and Disney Animation. The book talks about leading in an organisation whose success is directly related to creativity. Every fortnight I see the creativity from great educators shared on #edchatNZ. If I hope to continue growing #edchatNZ, then I too need to find a way to channel this immense creativity. So if the creativity is there, how do we channel this? Of particular importance to me is an idea from the book that "in a fear based, failure averse culture, people will avoid risk. They will seek instead to repeat something safe that's been good enough in the past." How do we take risks with #edchatNZ that will allow us to move forward and innovate? How do we go about finding solutions rather than focussing on problems, that there are no barriers, only obstacles. And that we outwit obstacles together. (You can see more of my notes from the book here)

As 2014 really wraps up, I am immensely grateful to all those who have contributed, supported, questioned, mentored and gotten involved with the #edchatNZ vision already. There are phenomenal educators in New Zealand who made my dreams a reality. Thank you for being as excited about education as I am. Thank you to the #edchatNZ conference organisation team, Matt, Alyx, Heather, Sonya, Mel and Philippa. Thank you to Maurie the HPSS principal who didn't even hesitate for a second when I asked him whether our school could host a conference. Thank you to the teachers at HPSS who let visiting teachers join their classes, teachers who agreed to expose their teaching to 300+ visiting teachers. Thank you to the #edchatNZ community who turn up every fortnight to discuss education, who turn up to be challenged and to set new goals. Thank you to Mark Osbourne, Karen Melhuish Spencer, Chris Sullivan and Rachel Bolstad for being the edu-celebrity friends of #edchatNZ and giving their time and support. Thank you to the 60+ presenters at #edchatNZ. Thank you to the people in my office, who sung Iggy Azalea's  Fancy with me when I was excited about all the conference swag turning up, but who were excited and supportive every step along the way.

Building a community might happen organically in some scenarios, but I for one, do not feel like leaving this one to chance. I am sure that I will keep wrestling with my nest question for some time. However, armed with gratitude, my next holiday read (A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger), and my big question, I think I just might be ready for 2015. Bring it on.

Judgement with a sprinkling of philosophy

Next post on the A to Z challenge:

J is for judgement

How do we judge others? How do we judge ourselves? How do we judge what is important and what is not? And how do we know if our judgement is right? 

definitions from google

The past few weeks I have spent my Saturdays at University listening to some philosophy lectures from Elizabeth Rata and Richard Nola. It seems that the two of them were very effective in getting me to really question my own judgements...

Relativism - there is no universal truth

In other words, what is true for me, is not necessarily true for you. Although it means that I can always be right, I suspect half the fun in being right often involves knowing that others were wrong. We construct our truths in many ways, and often in different ways. I might construct my truths based on empirical data while you might construct your truths on social experience.

On any given day, as a teacher I make multiple judgements. Whether a student acted appropriately or not, whether a colleague responded professionally or not, whether a teaching strategy is effective or not. Even crossing the road requires a judgement of whether it is safe or not. Functioning in society requires that I make judgements. However, what happens if everyone constructs their own truths? Just listen to the arguments in any staff room for proof that people do have different truths! Can we still make valuable, objective judgements if everyone has their own truths?

If I was a philosopher, I would probably be an empiricist. I want observable evidence. I might even be a rationalist. However, whether I am a relativist, a rationalist, an empiricist or any other theory I might subscribe to, right now I am most definitely provoked. I am provoked to reconsider my judgements that I have made about how the world works. If I can make my own truths, then so do my students and my colleagues. Thus, if this philosophy lesson has taught me anything, it is that I need to seek the truth for understanding, but not just my own truths, those of others too. I may never understand their truths completely, but certainly seeking to understand the truths of others can bring me much closer to genuine empathy and respect for diversity both in culture and opinion. 

Diversity. Your strength or you weakness?

I'm feeling a little bit like I am in counselling. It seems between getting my thinking preferences profiled by Julia Atkin (I have a good balance around my thinking preference for big ideas, data and planning however I show much less of a preference for relational thinking) and then to follow this up with Marg Thorsborne's intensive three day workshop on restorative justice, it's fair to say that I have had ample opportunities for self examination.

My Hermann's Brain profile indicating my thinking
preferences

The thing about these days that stands out so much to me, is that it highlighted how different we all are. Although I begin extreme planning under stress, others have bigger ideas under stress. This idea of how our behaviour changes certainly made me wonder about our students some more. We often only encounter the surface things when we consider diversity. We encounter the differences in interest, perhaps a few social skills. Yet there is so much more to what makes us all unique. And certainly, once you add the stress of friends, family and other commitments in a school, how does that affect the learning and thinking of our students? One of the most exciting parts of our model at Hobsonville Point is that we are aiming to address the diversity of our students as the very core of what we do. The team has attempted to design a model that is aimed to deliver diversity rather than uniformity. We are hoping to provide a highly personalised model for all our students. This week we also had orientation day where we got to spend the day with most of our new students. It was hugely rewarding to see that the group of students that I am responsible for next year proposed increased choice and opportunities as a solution for boredom at school. I just can not wait to test our school model next year!

Of course seriously addressing diversity is not just for those of us lucky enough to be at a flash new school. The team from SCIL shared a great model at the Making it Mobile conference in Auckland last week. Their model allows personalisation right down to a student's mood on any particular day whilst developing multiple intelligences and levels of thought. Yes, it sounds too good to be true. However by creating a grid with Bloom's Revised Taxonomy at the top and Howard Gardener's Multiple Intelligences on the left, they then filled in activities for a unit. The grid has short explanations of the tasks as well as points. Students need to collect a certain number of points over a period of time. Task cards are already made up for students to gain more information about each activity on the grid. You can see an example here. Yes, this requires major preparation. However, as we have discovered at Hobsonville Point, team planning is faster, easier and provides for more scope too. Ros MacEachern and I are already thinking of planning our small module in this way using SOLO and our Hobsonville Point Learning Design Model.

Of course meeting my new students yesterday, I was reminded again of how different each student really is. Some are quiet, some are not. Some become a whole lot less quiet as time progresses. One really likes sport and another was reading a book about the periodic table. And of course, for each student their situation at home is different too.The New Zealand Registered Reacher Criteria goes out of its way to highlight that we as teachers need to be responsive to diversity, however I don't know that we necessarily give enough credit to the strength that diversity offers us. Embracing and utilising the diversity within our teams can be really powerful. Each person is different, and as such, each brings different strengths, perspectives and concerns. The key of course being able to use this diversity for increased learning and better solutions. I certainly think I have many valuable lessons to learn from our principal at Hobsonville Point, Maurie Abraham on this subject. I hope he knows that he is under careful observation as he somehow seems to effortlessly manage a group of over enthusiastic, strong willed and highly passionate teachers who make up a fairly diverse team. Although to a degree we are very like minded in our mission and values, our varied strengths and preferences were highlighted so well by Marg Thorsborne and Julia Atkin's work with us on Hermann's brain. Of course, taking the time to listen, consider and utilise those people who are different to us certainly has shown what incredible solutions a team can come up with.

I certainly recognise I have a lot to learn about turning diversity into a strength. However I also feel that great leadership, excellent professional development and even more outstanding staff with which to plan and team teach means that I have all the right tools. Of course, I will be sharing them here if you are on this journey with me.

PS: If you have read all the way through... I would love to know where you are from. So please, if you have read this far, leave a comment to say where you are from, I'd love to know if Google stats is telling the truth! 

Disney and Ken Robinson's Lesson - Find Your Tribe

I often (read almost always), think of my life as a Disney movie and as such, carefully consider the lessons to be learnt from Disney. One such important lesson is that one must overcome adversity before you can live happily ever after, think Cinderella and her evil step sisters. Sometimes one needs to take a calculated risk, think Tangled and Brave. Or, as Mator from Cars would teach us, one must often persevere in our attempts to connect with people (or with cars in Mator's case). However, it has come to my attention that I have missed an important Disney lesson. Fortunately, the infinitely wise Sir Ken Robinson pointed it out - find your tribe, because together you will be more and do more.

I started my second week at Hobsonville Point with the mission to catch up on some of the reading that happened before I started there this term. Of course being a TEDster, I began with Sir Ken Robinson's book, The Element. Although he has some fantastic insights about finding your passion, the part that really stuck with me is that of finding your tribe.  The tribe being a group of people that challenge you in a positive way, people that drive you to do more and to be more. Tribes often share a vision and as such, they can question, challenge and motivate. I realised then that I already have a tribe. And an exceptional one at that. My tribe is called #edchatNZ. They have challenged, motivated, questioned and inspired me fortnightly for more than a year now. And fortunately, I think many of the tweeting teachers have found the same.

My dinner has been sitting with me for the last hour. #edchatNZ you have been too valuable, and engaging to eat.
— Christopher Symon (@CJsymon) October 17, 2013

#edchatNZ gosh this tweet stream is moving so fast it's hard to keep up *happy birthday* to this dynamic group of contributors
— Justine Driver (@digitallearnin) October 17, 2013

I suspect that it is due to these teachers on twitter and their impact on my growth and aspirations that I may have found a second tribe to be part of. For two weeks now I have been able to go to work and be surrounded by inspirational personal and professional stories. I have been able to question my visions for education and my classroom with support rather than with the well cultivated cynicism that plagues teachers lounges all over the world. Granted that there are oodles of experience and learning to do from the individuals in any staff room, I have realised that in certain environments, my own thinking becomes limited, lower order thinking if you like. Maybe they will inspire an idea for a lesson or a better classroom management strategy. Maybe they will cause me to go back and look at the way I planned a lesson or a unit and restructure. However, I have found that the right mix of positive, passionate educators in a room, my own thinking, questioning and thirst for knowledge is extended. They keep me awake at night. Whether it is because I lost track of time reading a great book they recommended, researching a new perspective or idea they exposed me to, or simply lying awake at night with all the ideas that have been generated and are now keeping me awake.

Isaac Newton wrote "If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants." I am fascinated and curious what the future will bring for all the members of the Hobsonville Team and their students. With such passion, commitment and skill all reigned in for one vision, I think the results will be exciting indeed! 

PS: If you aren't already, I urge you to follow the Hobsonville tribe and #edchatNZ on Twitter!