Darn it. It’s my blog, and I’ll write if I want to!

Posted on September 25, 2012 by boadams1

It’s happened again. An acquaintance of mine told me that I was writing too much on my blog. She said that I was annoying her with how much I post. If you have been a regular reader of It’s About Learning, you may remember that I have written about this before. In fact, similar feedback from another friend played a part in me starting the “CHANGEd: What if…60-60-60” series.

Such feedback – that I write too much – puts me in an interesting space. I try to be a poster child for practices of empathy. I often fail, but I constantly and continuously try to grow as an empathic thinker and doer. I can appreciate what someone is saying when they tell me that I annoy them with how much I post some days. Often I struggle to keep up with my own reading. However, there is something much deeper and richer happening within me.

I think back to my most influential and supportive and encouraging teachers. They ALL encouraged me to write more. Now, on particular pieces of writing, they all provided me with periodic feedback about taking away and reducing my writing on a particular piece. But in total, they ALL encouraged me to write more. They said that writing is thinking. They taught me that those who write regularly develop a better sense of what they think and understand. They provided me with insight that daily writing is like daily exercise – we grow stronger from the regular routine of writing and thinking daily.

I cannot imagine telling a student of mine that they are writing too much as a total practice. I cannot imagine getting to peek into the journaling and sketching of a writer – of a thinker – and telling her that she is writing and sketching and thinking too much.

My most influential teachers wanted me to be a lifelong learner and thinker. Mrs. Webb, Mrs. Fuller, Mr. Brewbaker, Dr. Butters, Dr. Cook, and Dr. Pajares – they all encouraged me to draw, write, sketch, journal, try, fail, try again, reiterate, prototype, and construct meaning.

So, I’m going to keep writing and sharing at the pace that I feel is appropriate for my thinking. I hope that doesn’t make me stubborn or obnoxious. I pray it does not make me seem non-empathetic. But I have a lot to learn in my second half of life. I have a lot of thinking to do. I have a lot of doing to think. I have to keep writing. I desperately want to be one of the solutions finders. To contribute to that team. I’m going to keep pushing.

If you are experiencing a filter issue, then I am happy to help in other ways. I have some experience and learning to share about how to manage a vigorous reading stream. But, I’m not going to slow down my writing and thinking. I’m mostly writing for my own thinking and learning. But I do it “out loud” so that my nodes of thinking might connect with those of others. Even when I receive no comments, I find the writing incredibly helpful to my thinking and understanding. But…when I receive even one comment on my blog, something magic happens. I get stretched, encouraged, challenged, and supported. I get feedback, pushback, and reciprocal questioning.

And I grow.

I’m gonna keep growing. I’m gonna keep writing. I’m gonna keep thinking and trying to understand. And I’m here to help if I can about how people filter and control the flow at their end of the faucet. But I’m gonna keep water in the pipes for those who want to open the flow.

Fill-in-the-blank I can rally behind! Candy Chang: Before I die I want to… #TED

Posted on September 9, 2012 by boadams1

For years as a teacher, I used fill-in-the-blank. They were easy to check and grade, but they gave the illusion of more-than-multiple-choice. Over the years, I grew weary of fill-in-the-blank…as I grew to care more about what children could dream and think, instead of what they could tell me they had memorized.

This morning, I watched a number of TED talks – those that were released recently on the TED RSS feed. I’m sharing the one I found most powerful. The six minutes and twenty seconds is time well spent as I continue to contemplate how I will spend my life to make a powerful difference in this world.

Is it worth your time?

Candy Chang: Before I die I want to…

A lesson from chairs – for whom are many classrooms designed?

Posted on September 3, 2012 by boadams1

The chairs in classrooms can illustrate an interesting point…one worth considering. I can’t believe I’ve never really noticed this before. I’ve observed hundreds of classes. The actual chairs never made a note in my observations.

Compare and contrast the chairs at student desks with those at teacher desks. Which chairs are more flexible, more comfortable, more geared to ergonomic learning? What does the comparison show? For whom are many classrooms designed?

Earlier today, I was reading Jonathan Martin’s post – “Inspiring and Informative: Lessons Learned Visiting Albemarle Schools with Superintendent Pam Moran.” I was challenged and inspired by the rich details of the school visit.

I was also struck by the student and teacher seating. A small detail? Maybe. Maybe not.

Is departmental structure for the kids or for the adults?

Posted on August 31, 2012 by boadams1

Departmentalized school structure is increasingly interesting to me. During my teaching career, I have taught in a math department, a history department, and an economics sub-department. My placement in these departments was based on my own passions and “expertise” for certain subject matter.

I wonder what school would look like if we based the structure on the interests and passions of the student learners? Even for just part of the day. Oh, that might look more like clubs and athletics.

In my past two years of my teaching career, I considered myself inter-departmental because of the nature of the Synergy course that I co-facilitated. Depending on the project pursuits of the students, we could be considered a math department on some days, an English department on other days, a science department on many days, a sociology department on most days,…. And because we had multiple groups, we were all of those departments, and more, on every day.

Those most recent two years felt the most like school designed for the students’ interests, instead of just designed for my interests.

PROCESS POST: Thinking out loud about the systemic architecture of school pedagogy design

Posted on August 31, 2012 by boadams1

I am deeply curious about and invested in systemic learning and change in schools. Understandably, a great deal is written for and presented to teachers. Individual teachers. There are countless articles, blog posts and conference sessions about implementing different approaches and methods in class. I know that a number of teachers try and implement those suggestions, recommendations, and tested-by-others ideas. I have been one of those teachers – on the giving end, as well as on the receiving end – many times. I am all for that kind of learning and sharing.

But how does such adaptation and evolution happen on a systemic level? For an entire school, system, university, or network. Not every teacher at a given school is reading the same body of research and blog-posting. Not every teacher at a given school is attending the same conference sessions. Not every teacher at a given school is actually implementing the collectively designed enhancements that they have garnered for their pedagogical slice of the school pie.

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Today, this has really been on my mind. I began my day re-listening to a podcast of Dan Pink’s Office Hours with Gary Hamel. It was my third listen. I will need to listen a few more times before I unpack the density and richness there, but I know that it is related in powerful ways to what I am pondering here about the systemic nature of change and evolution in a school. One thing that immediately sticks out to me is Hamel’s explanation of being “prisoners of the familiar.”

So, in a single school, some teachers remain imprisoned by the familiar, while others are breaking loose to explore, discover, and innovate new practices. Doesn’t this separate a school house? Isn’t this another kind of educational achievement gap? Didn’t Abe Lincoln say that a house divided upon itself cannot stand?

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Later in the morning, I read “Five Ways to Bring Innovation Into the Classroom” by Tina Barseghian on KQED’s Mind/Shift. It is an extraordinary read! Excellent! The article contains rich links to other articles by Mind/Shift contributors, such as Shelley Wright, Kimberly Vincent, and Susie Boss. It’s the kind of post that makes me want to sprint to a classroom so that I can try that, and that, and some of that.

And then I imagined that a sub-set of teachers is reading this article and other related articles. Which I am all for! And I imagine that many of those teachers are trying what they are learning from the post and the related links. Which I am all for!

But we are developing schools within schools…and not really “on purpose” with carefully designed blueprints for what the entire, whole system could be. Is this okay? Is this sustainable? Is this why so many new start-up schools are happening? Tribes of innovators and doers are seceding from the unions to form their own countries. And in some schools, there can be real tension at the borders.

The cycle seems to continue. Schools within schools develop. The pedagogical achievement gap widens within schools. Is this what we want? Could there be a better way? Better ways?

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During another Dan Pink Office Hours, I have also heard a caller explain a related issue this way, essentially citing Jim Collins – about 35% of the people in an organization tend to really know – at a deep, core level – what exactly the organization does. Not at a 10, 000 ft. level, but at a deep and detailed level. If that were a soccer team, then only 3-4 people on the team would know what game was being played when they stepped on the field at each practice or competition.

That does not seem like the best way to operate as a team. Isn’t a school a team? Granted, like a team, a school can have a variety of specialists, but they all should at least possess a common understanding of the game that is being played. And, in my opinion, the game cannot be as loosely defined as, “We teach children.” To me, that kind of mutual understanding about purpose is akin to “We are all playing sports.” But the team must know more specifically which particular sport it is playing. If a school is focusing on service learning, should there be more unified work around the methodologies of service learning? I think so. If a school is focusing on problem-based learning, should there be more unified work around the pedagogies of PBL? I think so.

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Recently, at a breakfast with an amazing educational leader, we discussed master plans. Many schools invest large sums of money in campus master plans. Many schools invest large sums of money in technology master plans. Many schools invest large sums of money in strategic master plans. How many schools are investing comparable sums of money in pedagogical and professional learning master plans? Are we designing the blueprints in such a way that our builders and sub-contractors all possess a common, collective understanding of what the overall house is designed to be? If we don’t invest in such planning and purposeful construction, then why are we surprised that classrooms along a hallway can appear to be drastically different in architectural, foundational structure? And, no, I do not believe in standardizing classrooms. I am not interested in cookie-cutter construction. But I do believe that a school’s pedagogical purposes should be unified in their architectural foundations. Built on common plans, then the learning spaces can be differentiated by the equivalent of interior design and style.

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A school, to some degree, ought to be a systemic whole. There are myriad ways to accomplish such unification. Exploring these myriad ways will continue to be a fundamental pursuit of mine.