The Innocuous and Disparate: Extending the Talk

The Innocuous and Disparate: Extending the Talk

Dr. Ryan Donlan

Assistant Professor

Department of Educational Leadership

Bayh College of Education

Indiana State University

… Continued from last week: 

Imagine John, not as a convenience store clerk, but as principal, saying and acting as such with staff, students, or parents.  How would that work out for him? 

Further, what is he really “saying”?

1.     “That I don’t enjoy work.”

2.     “That I don’t enjoy talking to you.”

3.     “That I have unhealthy biases.”

Conversely, what is Sharon “saying”?

1.     “That I enjoy what I’m doing?”

2.     “That I enjoy you.”

3.     “That I am well adjusted.”

Our best leaders continually collect opportunities for wisdom by making note of the small things that speak loudly about people … about life – things seemingly innocuous and disparate.

I’ll bet if I asked you to close your eyes and think of the great leaders you have known, you would not necessarily think of someone who did well reading textbooks, writing papers, and filling-out reports, as leaders are oftentimes graded. 

You might instead think of someone who defines life in a way that was meaningful … someone who has a handle on how things worked, both professionally and personally … someone who sees things from a 10,000-foot perspective but stays grounded.

In peak performance, leaders think more deeply and make better connections.  Yet, where does this all start?  Where do WE start as leaders, if we want to operate at this level … to see things that clearly … and to make better connections for ourselves and others … to be on someone’s short list of those making an impact?

A good first step is to promote our own wellness through balance in life, such as having an interest, hobby, or talent that we can use to begin crafting analogies to leadership (S. Gruenert, personal communication, August 6, 2012).  

This allows us to see connections that are personally relevant.  A few examples might be:

Using our knowledge of carpentry to envision building a team (foundations, finish work, quality materials, many hands making light work, etc.).

Using our understanding of ballet to help in evaluating one’s management (dedication, grace, timing, breathing, symmetry, etc.).

Fly-fishing, golf, swimming, and riding one’s tractor

are mentioned by friends and colleagues.

The next step is more difficult – Moving beyond our personally meaningful metaphors to those universally accepted by others who share “not” our interests. 

We’ve all seen the school principal (former coach) who defaults to sports analogies, much to the chagrin of all the musicians and artists -- or leaders who run schools on academic rigor alone, ill-equipped to offer the metaphor needed by those whose relevance is the basketball court.

That’s not leadership; that’s one-trick-pony-ism.  

Examples from our best leaders, rather, focus on the needs of others. To do this effectively, leaders take opportunities to stretch their minds.  They make time to think deeply.  They perform cerebral calisthenics.   They force themselves to be uncomfortable.

Through such experiences, leaders discover the innocuous; they find similarity in things disparate, capitalizing on teachable moments disguised as “life happening.” 

These connections then change lives.

As I study my own teaching of leadership, I often ask students to make meaning out of things innocuous and disparate. Do I explain “well-enough,” and “often enough,” why I’m doing so?

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Dr. Ryan Donlan teaches courses in Educational Leadership in the Doctoral, Educational Specialist, and Master’s Degree Programs in the Bayh College of Education at Indiana State University.  Please give him a push on his commentary by adding comments to this article or by contacting him at ryan.donlan@indstate.edu or (812) 237-8624.

The Innocuous and the Disparate: Critical for Leaders

The Innocuous and the Disparate

Critical for Leaders

Dr. Ryan Donlan

Assistant Professor

Department of Educational Leadership

Bayh College of Education

Indiana State University

The Challenge

What intrigues me about our leadership profession is that we are evaluated by how effectively we ensure children pass tests, yet our best leaders use this as a starting point, rather than a destination.  Our calling demands more.  It demands not simply using our power of mind to guide instructional leadership; it requires that we use turn-of-mind to uplift the human condition and give our students a fighting change, a responsibility often abrogated by other institutions. 

Critical in leading today is our ability to unearth seemingly innocuous circumstances and make meaning out of disparity to promote learning and healthy development.  This involves our ability to teach, not necessarily befriend; to guide those who follow us through analogy, metaphor, and theory; to allow for a smart balance of win’s and losses in developing resiliency; and to enlighten others on how they are being perceived.

To facilitate relevance of learning, we must also stretch the capabilities of our minds, transcending our typical leadership texts with the perspective of sociologists and the acuity of anthropologists.  In doing so, we must:

1.  Open our minds to recognize things seemingly innocuous around us, those with the potential to connect with those we lead in teachable moments;

2.  Interpret phenomena that are seemingly disparate to the layperson, through artful analogy, metaphor, and story, to make deeper the learning.

Years ago, I played in a variety rock ‘n roll band with a man 17 years my senior, who began his response to most things asked of him, “Well it’s like anything else … “ He would respond with the most artful of analogy, far beyond what most could discern on their own.  This made sense.  I often walked away thinking in new ways beyond the conversation.  He connected things for me that were seemingly disparate.  That was leadership.

The Human Condition

I cannot tell you the number of times I have been approached by staff or students expressing concerns that all boil down to a lack of self-awareness.  Approaching this directly, I could simply tell them that at times, “You turn people off.”  However, that rarely works.  More effective would be offering an analogy that would allow them to walk away thinking about the way they come across … hopefully learning in a way that is non-threatening. 

Consider this: 

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I just stopped at the convenience store on my way to work.

The customer in front of me said to the clerk, “John, how are you doing?”  John responded with a smile, saying, “Hey buddy, I’ll be a heck-of-a-lot better when I'm outta here.”  Both chuckle, yet nothing more was said.  John then put the change on the counter for the customer.  The customer picked it up, put it in his wallet, and left silently.

The customer in an adjacent line asked the same of Karen, who said, “Great, thanks!  Glad to see you here this evening.” She handed the customer his change.  A nice conversation ensued, as the man left, stating, “You have a great day as well, Karen.”

Those exchanges are quite interesting to me, in that 95 out of 100 persons would not see anything unique.  Yet as a leader, I noticed something.

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What connections can you make? 

Anything innocuous or disparate?

I'll continue next week.

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Dr. Ryan Donlan teaches courses in Educational Leadership in the Doctoral, Educational Specialist, and Master’s Degree Programs in the Bayh College of Education at Indiana State University.  Please give him a push on his commentary by adding comments to this article or by contacting him at ryan.donlan@indstate.edu or (812) 237-8624.

The Wrong Questions?

The Wrong Questions?

Dr. Ryan Donlan

Assistant Professor

Department of Educational Leadership

Bayh College of Education

Indiana State University

I received a postcard last week, inviting me to attend a local seminar to consider sending my children to a “tuition-free, on-line, K-12 public school.”  Because I’m keenly interested in the etiquette of how educational folks from out of town introduce themselves (and admittedly, I’m a people-watcher), I wished to attend, yet the mailing arrived a day after the event. 

What I would not do, however, is consider taking my children out of their most-excellent elementary school. 

I have been asked a number of questions lately regarding choice, competition, and school quality -- in particular, “Are charter schools or traditional schools more effective?” 

Before not answering this question, I’ll begin with some working definitions, as I use them here.

Charter schools: State-funded entities that partner with charter authorizers, such as (but not limited to) higher educational institutions, school districts, or state agencies, to educate children for a fixed term renewable upon performance agreement.  Charter schools to which I refer are public schools.

Traditional schools: State-funded entities that have historically educated children within particular geographic regions. They are what most conceive of and refer to as “our public schools.”  Traditional schools have been the backbone of our country’s prosperity for 150 years.

About that question:  “Who is more effective?” in my opinion, is now the wrong question to ask, as the notion of a dichotomous, “charter thing-versus-traditional thing” has lost luster.  Further, in some cases, it doesn't make sense.

Let me expand through a particular comparison, one of many.

School district A operates a regional educational center with an alternative education program and an area career-technical education program. Each program has a local-area advisory board that helps set policy and provides oversight.  The programs have autonomy, and the local community supports its decentralized leadership structure.

School district B operates a regional educational center with alternative programs and a career-technical education program.  It is comprised of a collaborative of charter schools (one cosmetology, another career prep, another alternative education), each with its own policies and methods of oversight. The programs have autonomy, and the local community supports its decentralized leadership structure. 

Since these school models are nearly twin entities in very similar communities, wouldn’t the “right” questions pertain to why each is structured as it is, how these decisions were made, and what are the benefits and costs of these arrangements?  After all … smart folks, just like you and me, created both.

The same question could be asked regarding Montessori models, fine arts models, back-to-basics models, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) models, and a host of others who are currently structured both as traditional schools and as charter schools (J. Goenner, personal communication, February, 2012).

In the last few years, the notion of chartering -- in some circles still an edgy conversation-starter -- has evolved into a wider-reaching option for autonomy available to all  allowed under statute, even traditional school districts. Interestingly, Albert Shanker, former United Federation of Teachers President, played a key role in charter school history when advocating that teachers should have more empowerment, free from stifling bureaucracy.

One of my graduate students shared a good book with me a few weeks ago, where inside I found the following, offered by Henig (2011):

I used to think that a critical question was, “Are charter schools better than traditional public schools?”  Now it is clear to me that the differences among schools within the charter and traditional public school sectors are greater than those between the typical schools within each sector.  In the early days of the charter school phenomenon, key organizations on both the Right and the Left decided it was politically savvy to frame the two as distinctly different sectors in a head-to-head battle to determine the future of American education … Missed at that time was the recognition of charters as descendants of a long line of efforts – outside and inside education – to decentralize public-sector decision making and loosen the shackles of bureaucratic sameness. (p. 68).

So in asking questions about charter and traditional schools, wouldn’t it now make more sense to reframe our inquiry in a way that better teaches us how we can provide more opportunities to students? 

Such as …

1.  Does X-type of program (such as those mentioned above) have better potential for success under a charter structure or traditional structure?  After all, both structures are available now to many local superintendents.

2.   To extend Question #1 -- Are local schools supportive of the idea to charter their own programs, or are they hesitant?  Why or why not? 

3.  Why does it seem that much advertisement pertaining to new educational opportunity originates from those who neither shop in our local grocery stores nor sponsor our Little League Teams? Can this tide be turned?

4.  Finally, what must communities and schools do to ensure that educational needs are addressed locally?

Given the challenges we now encounter as educators just trying to promote success amidst complexity (where achievement seems no longer defined by learning, but rather by test scores), doesn’t it make sense that when we spend our hard-earned time pondering questions that impact our children’s futures, we target our efforts to get somewhere productive?

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SPECIAL THANKS to the outstanding scholars in ISU's EDLR 710, Social Foundations of Leadership, for the direct and no-nonsense critique of this article prior to publication.  You helped me to think clearly!  Ryan Donlan

Dr. Ryan Donlan is particularly intrigued by today’s perspectives both inside and outside the charter community on how ALL are taking part in guiding our children from where they are to a better place.  He can be reached for comment at ryan.donlan@indstate.edu or at (812) 237-8624. 

References

Henig, J. R. (2011). Ideas have sharper edges than real phenomena.  In R. F. Elmore (Ed.), I used to think … and now I think … : Twenty leading educators reflect on the work of school reform (pp. 65-70). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

The Flipped "Phenom"

The Flipped “Phenom”

Dr. Ryan Donlan

Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership

Bayh College of Education

Indiana State University

I’m hearing a lot of “Flip This” and “Flip That” nowadays, and to be quite frank, the more I read, the more I believe we’re on to something extraordinarily elementary.

I’m speaking of the Flipped Classroom and the buzz it’s generating.

Whether we’re hearing success stories from those deserving of accolade, such as “Flipped” Pioneers Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Simms, Master Teachers from Woodland Park, Colorado or from Greg Green, Principal of Clintondale High School in Clinton Township, Michigan, the message is the same:  Flipping is working: Students are engaged; failure rates are down, and discipline is improving.

Hey … nothing is wrong with that!

I can’t wait until we get some solid research to see for sure.

Most all of you know what Flipped Classrooms are nowadays, but for those who would like a lay definition, here goes:  Flipped instruction has students watching lectures and other forms of direct instruction via the Internet, smart phones, or DVD’s on their own time.  They then return to class where the instructor serves as a coach, a guide, and an all-around “go-to” person to facilitate deeper learning.

It is the opposite of presenting the instruction while students are in class and then asking them to go home to apply and extend upon what they learned.

After “flipping,” Green’s Clinton Township failure rates were down overall, around 33% – down from 52% to 19% in English, from 44% to 13% in Math, from 41% to 19% in Science, and from 28% to 9% in Social Studies (Green [CNN], 2012).  Sweet stats!!

Just Tweet or surf, and you’ll hear positive anecdotal information abound.

Again … I see all of this as elementary.  Why?

-- NOT because flipped instruction requires any less than the deep preparation accorded all other pedagogical techniques in teacher education programs. 

-- NOT because technology has provided a template to make things easier, as quality flipped instruction takes a surgeon’s eye and a therapist’s precision in its development and craft.

-- And NOT because the rest of us have been grossly “upside down” in our understanding of best practice for so many years and in need of enlightenment. 

It’s elementary, in a “foundational” sense, because the notion of the flipped classroom, “done well,” is simply a creative, re-packaging of the qualities of foundational instruction that should be happening – flipped or not – when we take into consideration how students are wired for learning. 

I’ll give it this; flipped instruction is probably on balance, a bit more efficient.

Dave Saltman (2011) in the Harvard Education Letter’s “Tech Talk” presents three necessary components that “beginners” should put into their flipped instructional cycles: (1) exploring, (2) explaining, and (3) applying.

Exploring involves initial teacher/student interaction, where prior knowledge is engaged and concepts of study are relevant and articulated in a way that students can understand.  Explaining involves the more didactic instruction that goes home with students, viewable through the Internet, DVD’s, and/or smartphones.  Finally, Applying involves students and teacher working together on what has been presented toward higher levels of engagement (Saltman, 2011).

Maybe I have flipped, but I see this simply as good-ole’-fashioned teaching, albeit with new technology and a bit more efficiency.  Let’s return to the elementary notion in all of this.

If students learn the WHY behind something (“Why” it’s important), they’ll want better to learn the WHAT.  Further, the WHAT helps them to learn the HOW.  The WHY-WHAT-HOW teaching and learning sequence is simply good teaching.

In the Flipped Classroom, the Exploring phase (“Day 1”) offers WHY instruction is relevant by making schematic connections.  The Explaining phase/evening (“Night 1”) provides the WHAT the content.  Finally, the Applying phase (“Day 2”) reinforces HOW we can extend and apply the learning (Saltman, 2011).  It’s the WHY-WHAT-HOW teaching and learning sequence, again … simply good teaching.

And … with credit to those flipping, I DO agree that of the three, the WHAT portion is learned most efficiently on one’s own.

My traditionalist colleagues, however, may push back, contending that the discourse involved in face-to-face instruction is a requisite component of a quality education.  I cannot disagree.  Having a good teacher (not just any teacher, but a good one) around during the WHAT would be the “Cadillac,” yet admittedly, this ideal of effectiveness would hamper the efficiency demanded by today’s extrinsic factors of “mandate.” 

So let us go ahead and FLIP.  Foundationally, it makes sense.

And while we’re at it (as some of my students are now suggesting), let us try flipping staff meetings, professional development outings, leadership roundtables, and school board meeting work-sessions as well. 

We must be careful, however, that when doing so, we understand the importance of EACH part of the learning equation – the WHY, WHAT, and HOW. 

Failing to bring incredible “care in production” to the WHAT in this new medium would run the risk of shortchanging those more inter/intrapersonal, tactile, or kinesthetic, as well as those who are averse to didactic instruction or “anything technology.”

If those most prone to frustration end-up as de-facto, 2^nd-class citizens in this new, delivery medium, then any notion of the benefits of flipped instruction will most certainly be “flipped-off.”

References

Green, G. (2012, January 18). My view: Flipped classrooms give every student a chance to succeed [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/18/my-view-flipped-classrooms-give-every-student-a-chance-to-succeed/

Saltman, D. (2011, November/December). Flipping for beginners: Inside the new classroom craze. Harvard Education Letter 27(6). Retrieved at http://www.hepg.org/hel/article/517.

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Dr. Ryan Donlan encouraged your thoughts, opinions, feelings, reactions, reflects, as well as any intended actions you have based on his short article in this week’s Ed. Leadershop.  Please consider contacting him if you like for any further conversation at ryan.donlan@indstate.edu or at (812) 237-8624.

School Climate: A Non-Critical Variable

School Climate: A Non-Critical Variable

By Dr. Steve Gruenert

Associate Professor and Departmental Chairperson

Department of Educational Leadership

Bayh College of Education

Indiana State University

The mood teachers are in should be irrelevant to the quality of teaching they provide.  Any professional should be doing his/her best job every day regardless of the “type” of day he/she may be having. Imagine sitting in the dentist’s chair and overhearing him brooding about all the issues he has had to deal with lately and how he hopes this next patient doesn’t give him trouble. Or, appearing in traffic court and hearing the judge complain about the lack of support she is getting from the prosecuting attorney, stating “We’ll show him something today!” 

How many teachers feel that their personal issues are excuses for a less-than-great classroom performance? How many principals withdraw their classroom observations when they realize the teacher is having a bad day? At what point did research determine that school leaders needed to insure their teachers were of kindred spirits?

Perhaps I have taken a stance too harsh for many educators to digest. After all, people tend to do better when they are happier, right? That is one of the myths driving this (soft) approach to improving schools: worrying about teachers’ attitudes. To disconfirm intuition, The Power of Positive Thinking can destroy things (Ehrenreich, 2009); there is an overrated concern with the likeability of people as the ideal (Cain, 2012), as the search for happiness cannot be provided by others (Gilbert, 2006), and the criteria can change like the wind. In fact, many great inventions, works of art, and breakthroughs have come to people when they have been under stress (Maisel, 2007).

The real question is not what mood teachers are in or how leaders might be able to manufacture happiness, rather: What in the school system is allowing negatives moods to prevail? Further, Why is it teachers are allowed to take negative attitudes into their classrooms? We should not be concerned with the mood they are in (climate) but how being in that mood is rewarding (culture). People tend to sustain behaviors that have rewards. For some teachers, being in a bad mood feels powerful.

The difference between Mondays and Fridays in a school is evidence of school climate. Yet, it is the school’s culture that allows this difference to occur. Cultures give permission to climates to be as they are. The reason most teachers exhibit the mood they are in is because the prevailing culture rewards it. If the faculty is typically cynical toward parents, it is because the culture demands they be so, that is, if they want to maintain status in the group. If teachers stay after school and work with struggling students, it is usually because the culture makes it cool to do so.

Unwritten rules exist in any school. They can be rules that benefit the students, or they can benefit the teachers. Despite any written policies or handbooks, the unwritten rules (norms) will determine how hard the teachers work, how to dress, and what mood to be in given certain circumstances. To walk into a building and declare everyone to be happy, perhaps by bringing donuts or a motivational speaker, will need to meet the approval of the culture, or it will be energy wasted, if not detrimental.

The takeaway from this, with the primary audience being future principals, is not to sweat over the attitudes of the teachers. If you notice a trend toward negativity, then just like taking a child’s temperature, it is but one of many symptoms that reveal a bigger issue: the culture.

Don’t devote resources to make others happier; spend time researching the values and beliefs that support these attitudes.

If you act like the culture is not there, it will act as though you are not there either.

References

Cain, S. (2012). Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking. New York: Crown Publishers.

Ehrenrieich, B. (2009). Bright-sided: How positive thinking is undermining America. New York: Picador Publishers.

Gilbert, D. (2006). Stumbling on happiness. New York: Vintage Books.

Maisel, E. (2007). The Van Gogh blues: The creative person's path through depression. Novato, CA: New World Library.

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Dr. Steve Gruenert welcomes your comments, thoughts, opinions, and perspectives; he encourages you to write him if you desire further conversation or wish to debate him about the merits of school climate and its relevance to effective school leadership, at steve.gruenert@indstate.edu. 

Selective Feeding

Selective Feeding

By Dr. Ryan Donlan

Assistant Professor

Department of Educational Leadership

Bayh College of Education

Indiana State University

While reading at home last week, I saw the arrival of a UPS truck at the end of my driveway.

My package had arrived.

The product I sought was seemingly unavailable in supercenters from Terre Haute, Indiana to Mid-Michigan. I guess someone high in the food chain of the retail bird-feeding establishment has recently deemed upside-down American Goldfinch feeding at best, unfashionable, and at worst, exclusionary. 

Upside down finch-feeders require birds to hang upside down to feed on higher-priced thistle seed through little openings inside.  They’re very selective in whom they allow to dine – only those who have the innate abilities to “invert” are allowed to do so.

As I assembled the feeder, I marveled at how goldfinches were such pretty little birds, much more decorative than others.  More talented they are than the mainstream – “gifted,” in fact, as their feeding styles would indicate.

Goldfinches are eye-candy; they represent one’s home and garden well and are sure to impress neighbors and friends … even omithologists.

What I had been finding in vain while strolling “in-store” were feeders that allowed for upside down feeding for birds properly equipped, yet they provided as well, right-side-up holes for other birds to use. 

That would defeat the purpose, I thought, hanging the feeder.  

Any bird can feed on those double-action feeders: robins, sparrows, and blackbirds, even those marginally equipped little things that often fly into windows.   

     Not on this one.  Not on my deck.

Surveying my work, I proclaimed, “The American Goldfinch, it is!” With regular care and feeding, even more of the special birds would visit. 

I then spied a sparrow, quick to belly-up … pecking haplessly at plastic.

“Not for you, little thing,” I thought.  

He flew away ……  Another landed.

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With all of our challenges in today’s era of choice, competition, and heightened accountability, should anyone in education really care about bird feeding – well, aside from educational metaphors of kids’ “spreading their wings” and all that fluffy stuff?

If we looked at education through something as finely calibrated as birdwatchers’ binoculars – peering through lenses of philosophers, sociologists, and historians – what would we see? 

Would we see that our history is one of true opportunity, or would it reflect inequitable offers of academic sustenance based on a child’s outward appearance or the whims of those with resources (as does, admittedly, my bird feeding)?

Further, have ever we sorted children as I now do birds, offering more refined entrees to those with discernable flexibility to contort while consuming, yet with no better ability to digest once doing so? 

Finally, have we been exclusionary or fluid in our differentiated groupings?  My students remind me that the latter should not be “sold short,” because effective interventions necessitate an appropriately targeted delivery.

They also suggest that if I only surround myself with goldfinches, beauty will begin to wane amidst a flock of homogeneity. 

They may have a point, a smart one at that. 

They’re school leaders, after all, and are ensuring that future history books will reflect “well” today’s present.

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Dr. Ryan Donlan can’t remember if he was a bluebird, robin, or even a crow in his elementary school reading group. Now a lifelong learner working for equitable opportunities for all, he encourages you to let him know your thoughts, opinions, feelings, reactions, reflections, or even intended actions, based on what he has offered this week at ryan.donlan@indstate.edu or (812) 237-8624.

A Birthday Celebration

A Birthday Celebration

As our United States of America celebrates its 236th birthday, we in the Bayh College of Education's Department of Educational Leadership at Indiana State University would like all of you, our friends and colleagues in K-12 education, to understand how much we value all you do to make a difference in our nation’s schools. 

Thank you for the positive differences you are making in the lives of so many!

Consider the following ... realizing that these are only a small part of what you do:

That you take your time, effort, care, and consideration to educate all who walk through your doors, no matter the inequities of life circumstance or preparatory ability;

That you do so mindful of the steep challenges that exist for all in our profession and our continuing mandate to become even more effective than each next day’s, best work;

That you continually improve your skills, invest in your own professional capacity, and reach your goals through targeted professional development and graduate-school enrollment;

That you learn for the sake of learning, intrinsically motivated as are we in the Bayh College of Education, to become complete professionals as experts or mediators of learning, persons, and members of communities;

That no matter the off-putting headline or misinformed editorial, you arise with vigor each morning, knowing with assuredness that without you, no doctors, scientists, engineers, teachers, social workers, or postal clerks would exist to serve our state and nation, as you inspired and prepared them all;

That those in our nation’s military, fighting to preserve our cherished freedoms and those around the world, think often of you in the quiet of the evening or in the midst of valor;

And that those who are your own friends, family, and children, will someday in your passing, remember fondly the sacrifices you made while serving in the most humble of professions, putting others before yourself and taking everyone you knew from where they were to a better place, because that is simply the way you lived … it is what you represent.

On behalf of Indiana State University and all who love children, thank you for serving as a role model, most cherished, and for helping make our nation’s birthday, and this time for rest, relaxation, and reflection, one of joy, honor, and heartfelt anticipation of what lies ahead for all of us.

Happy 4^th of July!