My English Teacher self squirms at blogging sometimes because I simply don't have the time to write crafted, eloquent, polished pieces that my higher mind considers suitable for public consumption. Every part of myself wants to engage in honest and open reflection to help me to develop my thoughts, promote dialogue, and document my process.
So...here goes. This blog often won't be pretty or publishable, but there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my pursuits of aesthetics and composition, right? (Allusion alert!) To ease myself in here, I'll avoid some big sweeping post about being a Rowland Fellow (for now...) and get the details of my day.
Sabbatical Day One
General reaction: being on sabbatical is awesome! (duh.) Time feels so slow and full. I began my work with coffee in hand at 7:00 am. I plugged away at emails, to-do lists, research, registering for conferences, coordinating with colleagues, planning meetings, and reading articles until I got restless at about 12:30. Rather than have to force myself in any direction or to conform to any schedule, I did some yoga (the second session of this video http://vimeo.com/6998582 is my favorite regardless of Brian Kest's 90s hilariousness) and then had lunch. I got back at it around 1:30 by continuing to read Michael Fullan's Six Secrets of Change. (Neat distilled powerpoint here: http://www.michaelfullan.ca/images/handouts/2008SixSecretsofChangeKeynoteA4.pdf)
Fullan's work first affirms a belief that I have held for a long time. This is a belief that some folks like try to divert me from having or have sincere desires (that I understand!) to push against: at the forefront of our minds must be loving and supporting teachers. As we're often told during contract negotiation time and, in my experience, seldom other times (screwed up in itself), teaching conditions for adults are the learning conditions for students. Yes, we can and should put students at the center of all we do, yet if teachers are not also at the center then we cannot dream of developing a system that in both theory and practice actually meets the needs of those students. Teachers are "on the front lines" (I hate that war analogy...) and when we take great care of our teachers, they are in turn better able to take great care of our students and their learning. No great organization becomes so by only considering the "customer." We must consider the needs of all stakeholders (including parents, the community, etc.) and seek a balance between them.
Yeah, let me just get it out there that of course I get that public education differs from private enterprise. However, Fullan is an education professor and is an educational consultant for the Ontario powers-that-be. He's grounded in the right places and this talk of "business" is just a larger context.
Quotes and ideas I'm chewing on so far:
Whole Foods: "Satisfying all of our stakeholders and achieving our standards is our goal. One of the most important responsibilities of Whole Foods' leadership is to make sure the interests, desires and needs of our various stakeholders is kept in balance. We recognize that this is a dynamic process. It requires participation and communication by all our stakeholders" (31).
"It is helping all employees find meaning, increased skill development, and personal satisfaction in making contributions that simultaneously fulfill their own goals and the goals of the organization (the needs of the customers expressed in achievement terms). If that fulfillment is not simultaneous for employees and customers, Secret One is not in place" (25).
The "halo effect": the perils of trying to identify what led to success in an organization after success has been achieved, thereby raising up the traits of the organization as those to be lauded when they are not transferable and not correlated to the actual success. (Note to self--beware doing this on site visits to other schools!)
Theory vs. strategy: "Action learning is good, but it must be accompanied by reflective insight tied to an underlying theory that guides further action. Techniques by themselves are just tools" (5).
Remember the hen analogy: "In other words, the most productive hens achieved their success by suppressing the productivity of their cage mates...By selecting whole groups, Muir had selected against aggressive traits and for cooperative traits that enabled the hens to coexist harmoniously" (44).
Purposeful peer interaction, or perhaps I should say positive purposeful peer interaction, works effectively under three conditions: (1) when the larger group values of the organization and those of the individuals and groups mesh; (2) when information and knowledge about effective practices are widely and openly shared; (3) when monitoring mechanisms are in place to detect and address ineffective actions while also identifying and consolidating effective practices. Okay, these points are too abstract and won't travel well, but we can be more specific.... (45)
"In complex, flat-world times, purposeful groups do better than a handful of experts, but you have to work the group. There has to be a sense of purpose, freedom from groupthink, consideration of diverse ideas, and retention of practices that work" (46).
Using the "wisdom of the crowd": "It has a common purpose (improving literacy in the country); there were good ideas out there (stimulated by the capacity building that occurred in the 1997-2001 period); and it used peer interaction to influence the spread of effective practices" (47).
The We-We solution: "First, all stakeholders are rallying around a higher purpose that has meaning for individuals as well as for the collectivity...Second, knowledge flows as people pursue and continuously learn what works best...Third, identifying with an entity larger than oneself expands the self, with powerful consequences" (49).
Further, you should stand for a high purpose, hire talented individuals along those lines, create mechanisms for purposeful peer interaction with a focus on results, and stay involved but avoid micromanaging. Put differently, once you establish the right conditions and set the process in motion, trust the process and the people in it. Don't chose between hierarchy and the market--integrate them. Let the secrets do the work of monitoring: when peers interact with purpose, they provide their own built-in accountability, which does not require close monitoring but does benefit from the participation of a leader. (52)
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So, it's about 4:00 and I'm about to head into another stretch of working/fun-ing/learning/relaxing/marinating/cogitating/plotting/planning/writing/reading all rolled into one because, at this newborn stage, it seems that's what sabbatical "work" feels like.
Ciao!
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