You need to be in touch with the people you lead

Bob Davids stated in his talk on leadership without ego that as a leader “You need to be in touch with the people you lead, and you need to be in their shoes.”

Essentially what Davids was getting at in his talk is that good leaders will climb down down off their perch and get their hands dirty in the trenches when needed. For a leader to have the humility to work alongside those they lead is very powerful message to send when establishing expectations and setting the example for others to follow.

Getting into the trenches and not seeing oneself above the work that we expect others to do on a daily basis can be viewed positive by others in that the leader either knows the job(s) that needs to get done, or they are prepared to lend a hand to move everyone forward. Even if you are not an expert, a willingness to seek to understand is enough to get people on board in terms of where leaders want them to go. This is what leadership without ego is.

The statement from Davids at the end of the talk is, perhaps, more powerful than message given in the first 12 minutes, which is why it is worth drawing attention to it.

Leaders needing to step into the shoes of those they lead, suggests more than getting alongside workers at all levels of the organisation, it suggests trying to see things from the perspective of others. For school leaders, the ability to lead with empathy can make all the difference to improving school culture. When school leaders make decisions or requests, in most cases, time is given to considering and communicating the rationale , which often comes from the leader’s, or leadership team’s perspective. Less time, however, may be given to considering how different stakeholders will be affected by the decision, or instruction, and leader(s) are often surprised when the reaction from those on the receiving end of the decision is less than positive.

By getting in touch with people in all areas of the school, we get a better sense of how people are traveling in terms of what is on everyone’s plate not just from a professional point of view but also a personal one. Being able to sense how people are going to react to a decision, a new policy, or a new initiative, is crucial to successful leadership but it cannot be done without being in touch with the people we lead. Though, successful leadership, is more than than just a conversation with others. To really connect with the people we lead, leaders need to seek to understand them. The more leaders invest in their teachers and support staff by spending time with them, the more in tune they will be when it comes to being able to move our schools forward, knowing exactly when to push and when to hold back.

Connect with me @richard_bruford

Originally posted on the Ed Leader blog

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If schools don’t allow mistakes, where are they supposed to happen?

My first year of teaching (1999), Google had existed for a year, but it wasn’t used in most schools. Yahoo was the search engine of choice (with Ask Jeeves a close second). In the curriculum, poetry was something that I had to teach, but I wanted to change it up and focus on lyrics of Canadian musicians. I would still meet the curriculum requirements, but it would be something that would probably much more interesting to my group of students.

One of the days, I had asked students to do a Yahoo search on one of my favourite bands, “The Barenaked Ladies.”

Yup…I told kids to search that term online.

Thank goodness for the slow pace of dial-up Internet and a power switch in the computer lab that I ended up using quick to shut down every computer in the lab. There was no damage done at the time, but a wrong spelling (maybe even a correct spelling), could have led to some pretty bad results.

Adults make mistakes, as do kids.

But too often, the fear of mistakes from our students leads us to shut everything down. Schools all over the world still block access to many powerful sites, not because they are focused on what could go right, but ultimately, the smaller chance that things can go wrong. We often punish the majority of our students because the fear of what the few might do.

If you ask educators, the majority of them will tell you that relationships are crucial in education. But when we block so much from our students because of the fear of what they will do wrong, what we often say is, “I don’t trust you.” Trust is crucial to relationships, and if we don’t extend it, it is usually not returned.

A simple thing that I did as a teacher which was of great benefit, was to say, “I know there are bad things online and you might find them on purpose or by accident. Either way, let me know, and we will deal with it together. That being said, if I find out in another way, you will have broken my trust in you, and the conversation might go into a more negative direction.” That simple conversation with many of our students led to more honesty in the classroom and solved a majority of the problems.

Nothing is 100% foolproof, but students would tell me if something went wrong in both the accidental and unintentional cases. It solved a ton before it happened, but it also allowed our students to access a ton of great stuff and explore on their own.

This quote from the Atlantic is one that I think of often:

This is not to say that you shouldn’t filter anything online from children, but we must acknowledge that there is no Internet filter going to follow our students around after they leave school, which is why we need to teach skills to keep our kids safe while opening up doors for them.  Ignoring the realities of our world is a strategy, just not one that is very effective.

• June 3, 2013 The Unfair World and the Low Bar
• January 7, 2013 Digital Leadership Defined
• September 23, 2016 Focusing on What Students Can Do
• June 23, 2015 3 Long Term Opportunities For Schools Today
• February 8, 2017 Helping Students Develop Their Online Identity

Source: George Couros

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Excellence is a Habit

We are what we repeatedly do.

Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

~Aristotle 

I think that we sometimes lose sight of what is important. We focus on individual acts, or in schools, individual assignments, and on praising final products and presentations. We often lose sight of the continual work, the tireless editing and polishing, and the consistent effort that will produce those final (shiny) products that seem to garnish all the attention.

Excellence does not come without hard work. But the hard work does not need to feel hard.

Excellence does not come without motivation. But motivation is internal and not easily developed by external forces.

Excellence does not come without failure. But failure can be a barrier that never lets a person achieve excellence, unless that person is willing to work hard and maintain motivation to succeed.

So how do we inspire excellence in schools? 

I think that we need to provide students with: (Video version)

1. More Choice
2. Greater Voice
3. Authentic Audience
4. Supportive Communities
5. Opportunities to Lead
6. Chances to Play
7. Learning Networks

Yesterday, our Superintendent Patricia Gartland, and Robert Martellacci from Mindshare Learning Technology and C21 – Canadians for 21st Century Learning and Innovation (where Patricia is a C21 CEO Academy leader), visited Inquiry Hub Secondary School.

___

Thanks to @p_gartland @sd43bc for very inspiring school visit to Inquiry Hub! #innovation #blendedlearning @C21CEO @C21Can http://pic.twitter.com/d7jJzg8gFS

— MindShareLearnTech (@MindShareLearn) October 7, 2017

___

After a student-led tour, Kassandra (Gr. 12), Laef (Gr. 11), and Jazmine (Gr. 10), gave short presentations discussing some of their work at our school. As impressive as I think their presentations were, it was not the presentations themselves that were a highlight, but rather the obvious vision, research and effort put into developing the projects they presented. I believe that these students embody the ideas that excellence takes hard work, and is driven by internal motivation and perseverance through challenges, (and sometimes failed attempts).

I recently shared parts of the C21 Canada ~ Shifting Minds 3.0 document on Scaling Out and Scaling up. And at the end of that post, I shared our work at Inquiry Hub to help other schools do just that: Creating the time and space for self-directed, personalized, inquiry learning.

I love this quote from the C21 Report:

The transformative view is that learning is a social process, with students and teachers working in partnership with each other and with experts beyond school, supported by digital technologies. In the transformative view, collaboration, creativity, innovation, entrepreneurial know-how, and ethical citizenship infuse teaching and learning. Students and teachers co-design their work. The learning environment, which extends beyond the classroom, is purposefully designed for students to think, research, analyze, develop and improve their ideas, and demonstrate deep understanding through the work they produce.

If we are going to authentically empower students, to help motivate them and provide them with opportunities to be excellent, they need to be partners in creating the learning environment. They also need to be empowered to make choices about what they want to learn and explore.

(What are Inquiries? – on YouTube – and yes, students created this video.)

While writing this, I’m in a private DM Twitter chat with one of our students about the design of our new posters for the school, (our old logo is still on the current school posters, not our new student-designed and co-approved logo). It’s the Saturday of a long weekend, and he initiated the conversation.

It was intentional that the tour to start Patricia and Robert’s visit was student led. It was intentional that our students presented before our teacher, John Sarte, spoke about our schedule. And it wasn’t John or I that organized the students meeting to coordinate slides and practice their presentations (with each other, not with us).

Excellence may come from within, but it our job as educators to create an environment where students feel empowered to excel, and to create expectations that students can and will do amazing things.

(Student Powered Learning, from John Sarte’s Ignite – on YouTube)

___

The photo above is of Terry Fox‘ Memorial just outside of Thunder Bay, where he had to stop his run across Canada because his cancer had returned. He was running a marathon a day, in the hopes of raising $1 per Canadian for cancer research. When he stopped, he had a grapefruit-sized tumour in his lung. The day he stoped, he had run a marathon. The day before he stopped he had run a marathon…

What few people know about Terry Fox is that in his first year of high school he was the last kid off the bench for his basketball team. In his graduating year he was co-captain of the same team. For him, excellence was not a single act, it was a habit.

We need not all be as courageous as Terry. We need not all achieve great things. But we can all strive to be excellent in an area or a field that we are passionate about.

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If schools don’t allow mistakes, where are they supposed to happen?

My first year of teaching (1999), Google had existed for a year, but it wasn’t used in most schools. Yahoo was the search engine of choice (with Ask Jeeves a close second). In the curriculum, poetry was something that I had to teach, but I wanted to change it up and focus on lyrics of Canadian musicians. I would still meet the curriculum requirements, but it would be something that would probably much more interesting to my group of students.

One of the days, I had asked students to do a Yahoo search on one of my favourite bands, “The Barenaked Ladies.”

Yup…I told kids to search that term online.

Thank goodness for the slow pace of dial-up Internet and a power switch in the computer lab that I ended up using quick to shut down every computer in the lab. There was no damage done at the time, but a wrong spelling (maybe even a correct spelling), could have led to some pretty bad results.

Adults make mistakes, as do kids.

But too often, the fear of mistakes from our students leads us to shut everything down. Schools all over the world still block access to many powerful sites, not because they are focused on what could go right, but ultimately, the smaller chance that things can go wrong. We often punish the majority of our students because the fear of what the few might do.

If you ask educators, the majority of them will tell you that relationships are crucial in education. But when we block so much from our students because of the fear of what they will do wrong, what we often say is, “I don’t trust you.” Trust is crucial to relationships, and if we don’t extend it, it is usually not returned.

A simple thing that I did as a teacher which was of great benefit, was to say, “I know there are bad things online and you might find them on purpose or by accident. Either way, let me know, and we will deal with it together. That being said, if I find out in another way, you will have broken my trust in you, and the conversation might go into a more negative direction.” That simple conversation with many of our students led to more honesty in the classroom and solved a majority of the problems.

Nothing is 100% foolproof, but students would tell me if something went wrong in both the accidental and unintentional cases. It solved a ton before it happened, but it also allowed our students to access a ton of great stuff and explore on their own.

This quote from the Atlantic is one that I think of often:

This is not to say that you shouldn’t filter anything online from children, but we must acknowledge that there is no Internet filter going to follow our students around after they leave school, which is why we need to teach skills to keep our kids safe while opening up doors for them.  Ignoring the realities of our world is a strategy, just not one that is very effective.

• June 3, 2013 The Unfair World and the Low Bar
• January 7, 2013 Digital Leadership Defined
• September 23, 2016 Focusing on What Students Can Do
• June 23, 2015 3 Long Term Opportunities For Schools Today
• February 8, 2017 Helping Students Develop Their Online Identity

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If You Want To Be A Difference Maker, You Have To Be A Risk Taker

I recently learned of the story of John Berry Meachum, a figure in Missouri history I previously knew nothing about.

He was born into slavery in Virginia, but at the age of 21 earned enough money as a carpenter to purchase his own freedom and a short time later the freedom of his father.

Throughout his life he had an entrepreneurial spirit. He would purchase the freedom of slaves and most would pay him back. He eventually came to live in St. Louis, where he founded the African Church. 

There he taught religious and secular classes to free and enslaved black students. The location for the classes was known as "The Candle Tallow School."

In 1847, the state of Missouri banned education for all black people. Clearly, one would expect this oppressive law to have a devastating impact Meachum's school.

But Meachum was not dissuaded. In response, he moved his classes to a steamboat in the middle of the Mississippi River, beyond the reach of Missouri law.

He provided the school with a library, desks, and chairs and called it the "Floating Freedom School."

John Berry Meachum showed the determination and innovation needed from all educators. We cannot let our circumstances stand in our way. We all face challenges every day. We have to be willing to think creatively and take risks to create a better future.

What if Meachum just threw up his hands and quit?

What if he felt sorry for himself because of this terrible injustice?

What if he retreated to something safe instead of taking a risk?

He had a dream to educate blacks in his community and nothing was going to stop him. I admire his passion and commitment.

One of my favorite illustrations is from best-selling author Austin Kleon. It communicates so well the risk that is required to pursue something better. 

Most people see the difference between what is and what could be, but not everyone is willing to make the leap. Not everyone takes action. But leaders do.

You can be a leader in your school when you step out and take a risk. If you want to be a difference maker, you have to be a risk taker. 

Don't be satisfied with the status quo. Be a future-driven risk taker.

Be focused on the future, not stuck in the past. Meachum would never have taken the bold risks he took if he were filtering his actions through the past. He was doing something that was largely unheard of because he wanted a brighter future for the people he served. His dream was bigger than yesterday.

Believe there is probably a better way to do just about everything. It may seem that things are just the way they are. Our circumstances are fixed. But there are so many ways to approach a problem. Even when things are bleak, think like Meachum. Find a way. Try something new.

Learn from your setbacks but don't be defined by them. When you take risks, sometimes you are going to get knocked down. But even your failures can lead to future greatness. Many of the greatest world-changers of all-time also experienced incredible hardships and disappointments.

Are you taking risks as an educator? Or, are you settling for the status quo? You are needed as a change maker.

How can we inspire educators to take more risks? How can we overcome the obstacles that stand in the way? I want to hear from you. Leave a comment below or respond on Facebook or Twitter.

        

Comments

• Comments

Related Stories

• Venting Doesn't Extinguish Anger, It Feeds It
• 17 Signs You're a Future Driven Educator
• Is Fear Holding You Back?

 

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If You Want To Be A Difference Maker, You Have To Be A Risk Taker

I recently learned of the story of John Berry Meachum, a figure in Missouri history I previously knew nothing about.

He was born into slavery in Virginia, but at the age of 21 earned enough money to purchase his own freedom and a short time later the freedom of his father.

Throughout his life he had an entrepreneurial spirit. He would purchase the freedom of slaves and most would pay him back. He eventually came to live in St. Louis, where he founded the African Church. 

There he taught religious and secular classes to free and enslaved black students. The location for the classes was known as "The Candle Tallow School."

In 1847, the state of Missouri banned education for all black people. Clearly, one would expect this oppressive law to have a devastating impact Meachum's school.

But Meachum was not dissuaded. In response, he moved his classes to a steamboat in the middle of the Mississippi River, beyond the reach of Missouri law.

He provided the school with a library, desks, and chairs and called it the "Floating Freedom School."

John Berry Meachum showed the determination and innovation needed from all educators. We cannot let our circumstances stand in our way. We all face challenges every day. We have to be willing to think creatively and take risks to create a better future.

What if Meachum just through up his hands and quit?

What if he had a pity party for himself because of this terrible injustice?

What if he retreated to something safe instead of taking a risk?

He had a dream to educate blacks in his community and nothing was going to stop him. I admire his passion and commitment.

One of my favorite illustrations is from best-selling author Austin Kleon. It communicates so well the risk that is required to pursue something better. 

Most people see the difference between what is and what could be, but not everyone is willing to make the leap. Not everyone takes action. But leaders do.

You can be a leader in your school when you step out and take a risk. If you want to be a difference maker, you have to be a risk taker. 

Don't be satisfied with the status quo. Be a future-driven risk taker.

Be focused on the future, not stuck in the past. Meachum would never have taken the bold risks he took if he were filtering his actions through the past. He was doing something that was largely unheard of because he wanted a brighter future for the people he served. His dream was bigger than yesterday.

Believe there is probably a better way to do just about everything. It may seem that things are just the way they are. Our circumstances are fixed. But there are so many ways to approach a problem. Even when things are bleak, think like Meachum. Find a way. Try something new.

Learn from your setbacks but don't be defined by them. When you take risks, sometimes you are going to get knocked down. But even your failures can lead to future greatness. Many of the greatest world-changers of all-time also experienced incredible hardships and disappointments.

Are you taking risks as an educator? Or, are you settling for the status quo? You are needed as a change maker.

How can we inspire educators to take more risks? How can we overcome the obstacles that stand in the way? I want to hear from you. Leave a comment below or respond on Facebook or Twitter.

        

Comments

• Comments

Related Stories

• Venting Doesn't Extinguish Anger, It Feeds It
• 17 Signs You're a Future Driven Educator
• Is Fear Holding You Back?

 

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Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore

This book.  Seriously loved it.  It came at the right time. It's been sitting in a stack of books for a month or so, I can't believe I managed to hold off as long as I did before I grabbed it and settled in for a good read.  

Equal parts humor, sentiment, reflection, and whimsy, Michael Poore's novel about one man's 10,000 lifetimes was such an enjoyable reading experience. Milo is a character that will stay with you long after you've finished the book.

So Milo has lived 9,995 lives; in the life he has just recently departed, he's eaten by a shark, after having an otherwise pretty good day.  He's back on the other side, meeting Death--a woman named Suzie (she prefers that to "Death") and falling back into their love affair.  Yes, Milo and Suzie have been lovers for centuries.  Suzie isn't all that happy being Death, and tempts fate by quitting.  

Meanwhile, Milo has only 5 lives left to reach perfection/get it right/know all the answers in order to become one with the cosmic soul.  It's what every soul aims to do.  Milo has become well known on the other side because it's taken him so very, very long to reach this state--and if he doesn't get it right very quickly, he'll be shoved off the cosmic sidewalk into nothingness.  Every other soul has managed to figure it out long before their allotted 10,000 lives, but Milo just can't seem to get it right.  He's come close, but then blows it.  

Whether you believe in reincarnation or not, this is a refreshing and humorous look at just how hard it is to get life right.  Getting it right means many things to many people, but when we boil it down, it's all about being a good, kind, unselfish person, and putting others before ourselves.  Milo's adventures aren't just linear; he looks into a river, picks a life that will help him achieve perfection, and dives into that new life.  It can be in India thousands of years ago, or 1920's America.  It can be in the future, on another planet after Earth has been ruined by the human race. All lifetimes are happening at the same time. His lives are sometimes short, sometimes long; uneventful, or full of pain.  All his other previous lives, however, are a voice in his head, helping and nudging him to make the right choices.  Yes, he is wiser in the process, but his human qualities can take over, and ruin what was a pretty good life. Milo is funny, wise, curious, rueful, determined, and a bit of a lazy ass.  He reincarnates as men, women, animals, insects; black, white, red, yellow, other worldly.  Sometimes with wealth,sometimes very poor.  Sometimes healthy and strong, other times with physical limitations.  The universe is throwing everything at him and giving him every chance to get it right, but dang it all Milo!  He keeps ruining his chance.  

I absolutely loved this book.  Thinking about it, I realize it leaves me with hope. Hope that there is something bigger than all of us, and we are all working towards perfection--not in our physical world, but in our souls.  I don't plan on spending 10,000 lifetimes to find it!  

6/6 for a fantastic look at life, death, the great cosmic wheel, and how we can get it right.  Laugh out loud, poignant, and thoughtful.  Fans of Neil Gaiman, Christopher Moore, and Terry Pratchett will enjoy this novel. I hope Michael Poore keeps writing!

Available in hardcover and ebook.

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