Author Archives: boadams1

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About boadams1

Learner. Husband. Dad. Mountaineer. Head of School at Mackintosh Academy - Boulder, in Boulder, Colorado. Have worked in transformation design, educational innovation, and school leadership for 30+ years.

It works in architecture and urban planning. It can work in ed transformation, too. #PedagogicalMasterPlanning

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From Nancy Duarte’s Resonate, which, by the way, is one of the best books I own, especially in it’s multi-touch book format.

Dan Roam, author of Back of the Napkin, says that, ‘The person who has the ability to verbally describe a problem has a great talent – but also a great limitation. All the real problems of today are multidimensional, multifaceted, and deeply layered. There is no way to fully understand them – thus no way to effectively begin solving them – without at some point literally drawing them out.’

Thought experiment: 

Imagine contemplating a significant remodel or renovation of your home (or school). Now, imagine only dealing in words and verbal descriptions with the various sub-contractors: builders, electricians, HVAC, lighting, flooring, plumbing, casing and carpentry, technology, etc. Also, imagine only naming the remodeling specifics in general-goals terminology. Now, imagine not providing much time, space, or opportunity for these people to ask questions, engage in R&D, meet together and discuss, sketch ideas and check understanding, develop shared knowledge around the transformation, etc. No blueprints, images, infographics, design elements, or visuals. Only words. Inadequate discussion.

How do you think the remodel or renovation would turn out?

Follow-up questions…the deeper thought experiment:

How are schools – those with the greatest intentions and people; those that truly recognize and accept their need for change – how are they going about the transformations of their teaching and learning cores/corps?

Could you show me the designs, blueprints, images, and visuals for those fundamentally important modifications? (I could not have done so as a school principal, and I regret that – I consider it a major failing that I am now working to resolve and re-prototype.)

Can you show dedicated time, space, and regular opportunity for the various members of your school team – faculty, admin, parents, students, etc. – to meet to talk, compare notes, ask questions, attend “practice or rehearsals,” develop shared understanding, etc.? (We did work really hard at this during my last principalship. The Junior High faculty deserves so much credit here for the collaborative, professional-learning-community work that was accomplished.)

Wrap-up question:

How might we commit to and devote the same vigor for community engagement and transformation design in our teaching and learning core/corp that we use in our physical building and campus development?

It works in architecture and urban planning. It can work in ed transformation, too.

#PedagogicalMasterPlanning

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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Could there actually be one “C” to rule them all?!

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Some describe four “Cs” of essential skills for this 21st century – traits such as: Critical thinking, Collaboration, Communication, and Creativity.

Some list five or six “Cs.” Five: Creativity, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Communication, and Character. Six: the list above plus cultural competency.

Other people and organizations talk about seven “Cs.” Here is one version of seven “Cs”:

  1. Communication
  2. Connection
  3. Collaboration/Cooperation
  4. Creation/Contribution
  5. Community
  6. Continual Learning
  7. Culture

All of those C-words are great. Definitely essential.

And I believe there is an underlying “C” that provides the necessary foundation for student learners to develop all of the above C traits.

CONTROL

Control in the sense of ownership, investment and engagement, degree of agency and autonomy. Control to exercise choice. Control to pursue curiosity.

For student learners to develop deep degrees of communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, cross-cultural competency, computational capacity, etc., don’t we need to facilitate them having more control over their learning?

Less sitting and getting. More choosing and doing.

Don’t we know at least that much about motivation, relevancy, cognitive commitment, heartfelt conviction, grit, and perseverence?

If adults migrated their traditional varieties of control (content, curricular, lesson plans, demonstration, delivery, etc.) to reflect more coaching, then space and time and opportunity could be created for student learners to be more in control.

I am reminded of sports and arts. When student learners play a sport, they are more in control over what they do on the court, on the field, in the water, or on the course. When musicians and visual artists engage in their activities, there is also much doing – high degrees of control. Coaches and directors orchestrate and advise. But the athletes and players are much more in control than is the case with our stereotypical classrooms and curricula.

I am more and more convinced that a single “C” – CONTROL – may prove the bedrock for the development of all those other “Cs.” For in the giving of control, I believe we provide student learners with more opportunities to practice the skills organically and authentically than if we assign them work organized into the seven “Cs.” Through the autonomy of control – motivated by the control of choice – we naturally invest ourselves in those seven “Cs.” When we feel in control, we learn to take control, and we develop our capacities to maintain good control.

What does offering more control to student learners look like? Below I provide some examples – patches to a quilt of sorts. My examples are by no means exhaustive. But I think seeing examples helps.

I could continue this list indefinitely. There are virtually countless examples. What examples would you add?

But are there many schools – whole schools – where a core tenet of the school’s purpose, operations, and daily practices allow the students to be the primary controllers of their learning?

This morning, I asked my eight-year old son, “PJ, what are you looking forward to in school today?”

His first reply: “I don’t know dad. The teachers are in control and decide what we’re going to do and learn today. I won’t know until I get there.”

Hmmm.

What if school taught students how to learn from a position of personal and interpersonal control? What if school remodeled and renovated based on this premise of student “locus of control?”

Hmmm.

What if we controlled kids less and let kids control more of their learning?

My hypothesis: those children would develop all of those “Cs” more quickly, deeply, and meaningfully.

= = =

This post was cross-posted to Connected Principals and Inquire Within on 3.22.2013.

“An overlong list of ‘really important priorities'”

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“An overlong list of ‘really important priorities'” (see quote below).

From my experience in schools, an overlong list of really important priorities names a major struggle for many school leadership teams. Not enough time and effort and concentration are spent on creating clarity and shared understanding of the school’s differentiating organizational capabilities. Too many leaders and too many teams allow the time and effort and concentration needed for such identity work to be crowded out by other things.

Perhaps it’s that overlong list of really important priorities that keeps us from focusing more purposefully on our own identity within a school. Maybe we should make that investigation of identity and purpose the #1 really important priority and recreate the list once we have that critical foundation built of knowing who we really are and what we intend to concentrate on as a learning community.

I have no intent or desire to corporatize education. However, I think that schools can learn a lot by studying other sectors, industries, and organizations that have undergone periods of monumental change and transformation, particularly corporations.

The article cited below has been a recent piece of that study for me. I hope you school leaders find it helpful, too.

Therefore, it is crucial to be clear about the capabilities your organization most needs to stand apart. Too often we see functional leaders and staff struggling because this is not well defined. Imagine trying to use the objective of being “innovative” as a criterion for the multitude of investments a company must make around product launches and R&D.

Unfortunately, when the company isn’t coherent — when its strengths are not linked explicitly to its strategic focus — most functions end up trying to keep up with an overlong list of “really important priorities.” This is an unwinnable proposition.

from “Rethinking the Function of Business Functions,” Harvard Business Review, by Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi  |  12:00 PM February 8, 2013

Agile parenting and empowering our children for accumulating small successes

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Bruce Feiler: Agile programming — for your family

And here’s the worst news of all. Our children sense we’re out of control. Ellen Galinsky of the Families and Work Institute asked 1,000 children, “If you were granted one wish about your parents, what would it be?” The parents predicted the kids would say, spending more time with them. They were wrong. The kids’ number one wish? That their parents be less tired and less stressed.

So how can we change this dynamic? Are there concrete things we can do to reduce stress, draw our family closer, and generally prepare our children to enter the world?

I spent the last few years trying to answer that question, traveling around, meeting families, talking to scholars, experts ranging from elite peace negotiators to Warren Buffett’s bankers to the Green Berets. I was trying to figure out, what do happy families do right and what can I learn from them to make my family happier?

Great advice from Feiler: (lessons for parenting and many other things)

  1. Adapt all the time.
  2. Empower your children.
  3. Tell your story.