Invisible Pain

Invisible Pain

By Dr. Ryan Donlan

Assistant Professor

Department of Educational Leadership

Bayh College of Education

Indiana State University

On September 11, 2001, I stood in a classroom with teacher Sandra Miner, officers Kasey and Mike from the local police department, and around 25 high school students, watching the unthinkable on television. 

Shortly thereafter, I had the difficult responsibility to speak to an entire school’s student body regarding the horrific events that transpired, with the hope of contextualizing the fear and apprehension that was widespread. 

I did my best.

At the conclusion of my remarks, students filed past the platform upon which I stood.  I heard one young man, “John,” say quietly to another as they exited, “Who gives a [expletive] about the people in New York, anyway!?!” 

I could have responded but did not. 

I sensed invisible pain.

In working with John for the next few years, I realized that his insensitive remarks were indicative of much deeper scars … an invisible pain from which I do not believe he has ever fully recovered. 

Over the years as a school leader, I became intuitive in recognizing the signs of invisible pain in others.  It is aptly named, innocuously influencing some to believe, “Life sucks … then we die.” 

Do you ever see this in the eyes of your students or their families? 

I have. 

Over the years, I found that invisible pain is often advertised by errant comments, counterintuitive behavior, and of course … silence.  Rarely does it present itself through healthy, authentic disclosure.  Rarely does it ask directly for relief.

As we ready ourselves for the holiday season, let us be mindful of the invisible pain that exists in some we serve – especially that borne of society’s twistedness.  Some of our children have abhorrent circumstances. Staff too.  Their invisible pain is exacerbated when others appear more joyful or superficially merry.

The difficult part in all of this is that once we identify invisible pain as educators, we really cannot make it go away.  Sure, we can write a check or offer a gift.  We can sympathize or empathize.  What we cannot do is fix lives, and that is most distressing.  I want to fix lives.  Always have.

Short of offering a fix, however, we as educators, colleagues, and friends CAN provide something …  Hope. 

We can do this through our own unconditional positive regard for those who push others away.  We can also provide functional adult behavior from which students and families can learn and emulate, amidst the cafeteria plan of dysfunction that defines many of their lives.

Above all, we can provide the intellectual and socio-emotional equivalent of the physical therapy needed to help others work through the pain and improve their lives.  We provide the equipment and regimen each day in the form of an education and fellowship.

I realize this week that I may have cast a cloud over the mirth and merriment of school holiday programs, the singing of songs, and the trading of gifts.  It’s just that during these seasonal events [even today while watching two school holiday programs], I have always peered beyond the forest to spot a sprig -- a forlorn look or a bit of quietness in someone, an indicator of something that I desperately wanted to help fix, but instead could only influence modestly through the leadership and kindness I provide.

Can you spot a sprig?

One of my Principal Interns shared a quote with me this week from a school she visited.  I’ll end with it, hoping that you will share it as well with someone deserving.

 “Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering ‘it will be happier’…”

Alfred Tennyson. 

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Dr. Ryan Donlan is deeply interesting in the human condition and strives to encourage educators to be mindful of such and to “forgive others in advance.”  Please feel free to contact him at anytime at (812) 237-8624 or at ryan.donlan@indstate.edu. 

The Skyhook: A K-12 Extraction

The Skyhook: A K-12 Extraction

Dr. Ryan Donlan

Assistant Professor

Department of Educational Leadership

Bayh College of Education

Indiana State University

You may remember it from the movie The Dark Knight or from a television episode of The Unit or The Human Target.  The Skyhook technique involves the rescue of a person who is wearing a harness and lift line attached to a self-inflating balloon, which quickly rises to an altitude where an airplane’s “hook” can grab the person from the ground, launch him or her into the air, and carry to safety beyond.

Originally used by the Central Intelligence Agency, it was entitled the Fulton Surface-to-Air Recovery System, developed by inventor Robert Edison Fulton Jr. in the mid-1950’s (Sources below: Eger, 2007; Robert Fulton, n.d.; Wayback Machine, n.d.).

This past Friday, I enjoyed lunch in Mid-Michigan with School Operations Official Christopher Shropshire from The Governor John Engler Center for Charter Schools at Central Michigan University.  Chris currently oversees Michigan Public School Academy performance and has a background in higher education.

Of the many interesting things Chris shared with me, one stuck out above the others.  It involved notions of The Skyhook, although he didn’t use that metaphor.  Our conversation had to do with student preparation for college and our K-12 responsibility to ensure that this happens.

I listened to Chris with great interest as he shared how college admissions officials factor-in considerations of whether or not to enroll certain graduating high school students.

Chris mentioned (and I paraphrase), Colleges consider students’ academic skills at the point of application and asked themselves, “Are these students positioned for academic success in higher education?”  If students’ skills upon high school graduation are such that colleges can meet their needs with the programs they have at their disposal, they will accept them.  If skills are too low, they typically will not. 

Chris is a champion of student academic readiness and “walks this talk” in his professional leadership.

As I drove back to Terre Haute thinking of my lunchtime conversation and how these decisions were made at the college level – decisions that affect lives – The Skyhook came to mind. 

I thought, “Are students upon high school graduation ready for their own Skyhooks?” 

Are they positioned properly for the “life saving ride” that a college education can provide.  I thought of students who were harnessed and ready for colleges to snatch them up.  Then, I thought of others who were not. 

Upon exit from K-12, who is geared-up at the extraction point?

With life’s Skyhooks, positioning is everything; so are one’s preparedness, readiness, and capacity for surviving this whirlwind of intensity.  Do we in K-12 embrace the incredibly arduous training regimen required of students and see as “all important,” a student’s ability to be ready for the metaphorical Skyhook grab?   Or … do we settle for the path of least resistance – simply allowing them to meet graduation requirements?

Other K-12 metaphors regarding The Skyhook experience came to mind as I drove. 

The need to hold off an enemy, just long enough to escape circumstance. 

The need to be armed with just enough firepower to gain an advantage. 

The need to reach the extraction point, no matter how far it was from the theatre of operation or place of imprisonment. 

The aforementioned might include a student’s rising above circumstance, honing skills competitively, and gaining early-on access to college and career information, so that rising above any soft bigotries of low expectations is possible.

I have been an ardent supporter of growth models of student achievement for many years, those that are calculated logically, anyway.  Thinking back to when I would enroll at-risk students into my own high school (those who had 2^nd and 3^rd grading reading levels upon admission), I would celebrate when I saw a couple of years of academic growth for each year they were enrolled in my school.

Yet something more mattered, as well … “Reaching a Standard.”  

These students were relying upon us for positioning, readiness, and capability.  They deserved preparation for The Skyhook’s extraction, so that they could ascend from where they were in their lives to a better place.   

The clock was ticking; the plane had left the base. 

“How much have they grown?” was the wrong question. 

The better one was, “Are they ready?”

References

Eger, C. (2007). Retrieved at http://suite101.com/article/the-fulton-skyhook-star-system-a27674

Robert Fulton’s Skyhook and Operation Coldfeet. (2008). Retrieved at https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/95unclass/Leary.html

Wayback Machine. (n.d.). Retrieved at http://web.archive.org/web/20080201033959/http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=1239

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Dr. Ryan Donlan is very fortunate to visit schools and study educational programs as part of his scholarship at Indiana State University, all the while meeting incredible people like Christopher Shropshire.  Great minds like Chris’s allow Dr. Donlan to think deeply as he drives home to teach and serve.  Please feel free to give him a call and share your own great ideas or write him at ryan.donlan@indstate.edu.

Mesco Tectonics K-12 School

Mesco Tectonics K-12 School

Re-imagining one future of education

Will Barratt, Ph.D.

Coffman Distinguished Professor

Department of Educational Leadership

Indiana State University

I was wondering about how and why charter schools, religious schools, and private schools are different than public K-12 schools.  These thoughts collided with the idea of the company town and company store which produced the question “Why not the company school?”  Why doesn’t Mesco Tectonics have its own K-12 school, MTHS, to train people to work in their corporation?  Mesco is a fictional high-tech corporation with interests in bio-engineering, pharmacology, technology control systems, and medical prostheses.  Mesco is a generic modern manufacturing company.  HR professionals at Mesco can try in frustration to find qualified employees from high schools, from community colleges, from colleges, or they can plan ahead and develop a K-12 school to prepare tomorrow’s employees.  Some MTHS students will join Mesco after high school; some will join after college, and some will work elsewhere.  Mesco has a nearly guaranteed supply of qualified workers.  Many current high school and college graduates do not have the knowledge base or skill set to work at Mesco, and the situation will get worse as the knowledge bases and skill sets get more complex and more dynamic.

What would a company school look like?

What problem does MTHS solve for Mesco Tectonics?  Knowledge and skill workers are in high demand.  Knowledge and skill workers who can adapt quickly to changing work processes and learn new things are rarer still.  Mesco needs skilled workers who are able to learn and adapt, to work in teams, to think critically, and to require little supervision.  So why not create a school to educate a pool of potential employees to meet those needs?  Who better than Mesco staff to manage the macro-curriculum?  They have a good idea of what knowledge bases and skill sets will be needed in 10 years.  Who better to respect knowledge and skill workers like teachers?  Who better to base pedagogical practice in published and replicated research than a high-tech corporation whose very existence is based on research and data-based practice? 

Mesco wants the best teachers, so starting salaries are double the going rate.  The job interview is a week-long stint in the classroom, and the measure of a teacher’s success is student learning.  Declarative and non-declarative learning are the only outcomes of interest, and student learning is measured weekly at MTHS.  High school would take at least four years of math, of science, of English, of Social Studies, of a second language, and at least two years of art, music, and culture.  That was my high school curriculum 50 years ago!  Working backward, the middle school and elementary curriculum would prepare students for high school.  Learning social skills and teamwork is as critical as learning algebra.  Learning critical thinking is as valuable as learning Spanish.  Learning history is as critical as learning to use a spread sheet.

What gets taught in the micro-curriculum depends on the changing nature of knowledge and skills and of the needs that Mesco has.  Some students will train on last year’s technology recycled to the school from Mesco and will become skill workers at Mesco after graduation and some MTHS graduates will work elsewhere.  Some MTHS high school graduates will go on to a university and become knowledge and skill workers at Mesco or go on to work elsewhere.  Those interested in art, or language, or psychology, or management will fill appropriate work roles at Mesco in marketing, communication, human resources, and management. 

With money from the state for each student, with an additional $2,000 per student per year from Mesco (a tax incentive), and an additional $2,000 per student annually from parents (but this can be 200 hours of work at the school and is a tax incentive for parents and for Mesco) the school will be well funded.

Imagine what a rational group of Mesco professionals, from all fields, will do with the school day and the school year.  Having idle equipment and staff is a bad thing in the business world.  Imagine the before and after school programs for the students whose parents who work at Mesco?  Imagine the money saved on buses and on high-cost sports that have low return on investment for learning transformed into direct support for student learning.  Imagine the enrichment programs available from Mesco’s business partners, suppliers, and customers, all with a tax incentive to those companies. 

What are the choices now?

Most charter schools are clones of public schools.  Based on the data I have seen, most students at charter schools don’t perform better on standardized tests than students in any other similar group.  Most charter schools are old ideas in a private enterprise package.

Private schools fall into several categories; high achieving students, rich students, one ethnic group students, one religion students, and so on.  I grew up in New England and we had the choice between public schools, residential prep schools for the rich and / or high achieving, or if you lived in a city, Catholic schools.  Private schools had a specific agenda; preparing students for high prestige private colleges.  Catholic schools had a specific agenda; reproducing members of the church through education.

The idea of the company school is not new; it is a recycled and timely vision based on our own history.  I can see the future now, the metropolitan championship soccer match between Mesco Tectonics High School and Initech High School. 

Reflections

I confess that I don’t speak K-12, and this helps me think differently as I re-imagine education in the future based on education in the past.  I am not suggesting that a company school is a good idea or a bad idea.  I am suggesting that thinking about schools is usually very restricted, and I propose company schools as a contrast to contemporary thought about charter schools.  A reality check on this plan will reveal that should company schools take hold, then marginal, low ability, and different students will be left to public education.  From a manufacturing point of view, if a supplier is not providing a quality product, get a new supplier.  If you can get the government to pay for 80% of the costs for the new employee supplier in the form of company charter schools, this becomes a viable business option.

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Dr. Will Barrett encourages your thoughts and comments on his perspectives regarding school reimagination and can be reached at will.barratt@indstate.edu. Please also visit his blog, www.socialclassoncampus.blogspot.com

Recontexting as Creativity

Recontexting as Creativity

By Dr. Steve Gruenert

Associate Professor and Department Chairperson

Department of Educational Leadership

Bayh College of Education

Indiana State University

At what point does the ability to do something well transfer to other activities, unrelated activities to that which we have expertise?

Do accomplished musicians have competencies related to playing music that could inform their abilities to play golf? Could a professional photographer bring those skills to excel at cooking? Does teaching math well or having many successful years as a coach provide support for a person interested in becoming a principal?

A conceptual leap is needed to inform unrelated activities. A level of creativity is needed to make the connection between what we may be very good at and what we aspire to become good at while envisioning our capabilities. Perhaps some people are able to make connections between disparate skills quite easily while others struggle to find the significance of the crossover.

If we were to assume that all people have something they have devoted quality time to; something they believe that puts them above average in performance, then this capacity would have the potential to provide a thread, if not a scaffold, of required mental/physical competence to move forward more quickly toward reaching above average performance in a new area.

The trick is to identify the areas of which we believe we have a high level of mastery and tease out the fundamentals of that activity, while looking for application to other activities.

How does one know if they have above average abilities?

What criteria exist to inform this awareness?

Let’s look at some examples and try to identify any obvious connections:

·      A math teacher who is seeking to become a professional poker player.

·      A construction worker who wants to become a sculptor.

·      A science teacher who wants to become a professional fisherman.

·      A policeman who wants to become a corporate lawyer.

·      An Air Force pilot who wants to race boats.

·      A person who has recently quit smoking, now going on a diet.

·      An actor who wants to become a politician.

Now for the more challenging connections:

·      A CPA who wants to learn to play the piano.

·      A crop farmer who wants to become a classroom teacher.

·      A lawyer who wants to write poetry.

·      A bank executive who wants to become an astronomer.

·      The ability to balance a quadratic formula and the ability to navigate a politically charged argument.

·      An ability to remain calm when faced with deadlines at work, and parachuting.

·      An air traffic controller who builds sailboats.

·      A New York cab driver who wants to grow vegetables in his own garden.

·      A boxer who likes to collect stamps.

·      A businessman who wants to become a principal.

If the obvious connections from the first group were actually obvious and the connections between the pairs in the second group were more difficult, is that an indication of a limitation imposed by one’s intellect or one’s cultural upbringing?

Would those who are experts in the field desired (let’s call them veterans) be better able to find the connections as opposed to those people who know little of the field?

Could the opposite be true also?

Is it possible that the expertise one builds throughout a lifetime actually debilitate one’s capacity to do well in other non-related activities: The better one becomes at leadership, the worse he or she become at driving? Some professions require quick reflexes while others demand a measured approach. Some require logic while others may require creativity. In some aspects, we may be training ourselves not to do well, or to identify with those who do well, in certain fields.

Do school leaders who have been removed from classroom duties tend not to recognize good teaching over time? Perhaps the context of leadership recalibrates our perspective of what good teachers do – and maybe it is inaccurate.

The use of analogies to inform our daily lives occurs quite often without much interruption of thought, as does the use of metaphors when we help others understand something we hope to convey using the simplest of terms. When we explain something complex to others, something we seem to understand (algebra, perspective drawing, the golf swing), we will try to use language they understand. We seek to identify what they already know (prior knowledge) and try to help them make the conceptual leap to the more complex concept.

This is teaching.

Yet, how often do we do this within ourselves?

Is there a point to which we think there are no connections between activities, thus losing out on a potential head start to mastery of something new?

____________________________________________________________________

Dr. Steve Gruenert encourages you to offer your perspectives on his conceptual piece above by commenting on this blog or contacting him at steve.gruenert@indstate.edu.

Recontexting as Creativity

Recontexting as Creativity

By Dr. Steve Gruenert

Associate Professor and Department Chairperson

Department of Educational Leadership

Bayh College of Education

Indiana State University

At what point does the ability to do something well transfer to other activities, unrelated activities to that which we have expertise?

Do accomplished musicians have competencies related to playing music that could inform their abilities to play golf? Could a professional photographer bring those skills to excel at cooking? Does teaching math well or having many successful years as a coach provide support for a person interested in becoming a principal?

A conceptual leap is needed to inform unrelated activities. A level of creativity is needed to make the connection between what we may be very good at and what we aspire to become good at while envisioning our capabilities. Perhaps some people are able to make connections between disparate skills quite easily while others struggle to find the significance of the crossover.

If we were to assume that all people have something they have devoted quality time to; something they believe that puts them above average in performance, then this capacity would have the potential to provide a thread, if not a scaffold, of required mental/physical competence to move forward more quickly toward reaching above average performance in a new area.

The trick is to identify the areas of which we believe we have a high level of mastery and tease out the fundamentals of that activity, while looking for application to other activities.

How does one know if they have above average abilities?

What criteria exist to inform this awareness?

Let’s look at some examples and try to identify any obvious connections:

·      A math teacher who is seeking to become a professional poker player.

·      A construction worker who wants to become a sculptor.

·      A science teacher who wants to become a professional fisherman.

·      A policeman who wants to become a corporate lawyer.

·      An Air Force pilot who wants to race boats.

·      A person who has recently quit smoking, now going on a diet.

·      An actor who wants to become a politician.

Now for the more challenging connections:

·      A CPA who wants to learn to play the piano.

·      A crop farmer who wants to become a classroom teacher.

·      A lawyer who wants to write poetry.

·      A bank executive who wants to become an astronomer.

·      The ability to balance a quadratic formula and the ability to navigate a politically charged argument.

·      An ability to remain calm when faced with deadlines at work, and parachuting.

·      An air traffic controller who builds sailboats.

·      A New York cab driver who wants to grow vegetables in his own garden.

·      A boxer who likes to collect stamps.

·      A businessman who wants to become a principal.

If the obvious connections from the first group were actually obvious and the connections between the pairs in the second group were more difficult, is that an indication of a limitation imposed by one’s intellect or one’s cultural upbringing?

Would those who are experts in the field desired (let’s call them veterans) be better able to find the connections as opposed to those people who know little of the field?

Could the opposite be true also?

Is it possible that the expertise one builds throughout a lifetime actually debilitate one’s capacity to do well in other non-related activities: The better one becomes at leadership, the worse he or she become at driving? Some professions require quick reflexes while others demand a measured approach. Some require logic while others may require creativity. In some aspects, we may be training ourselves not to do well, or to identify with those who do well, in certain fields.

Do school leaders who have been removed from classroom duties tend not to recognize good teaching over time? Perhaps the context of leadership recalibrates our perspective of what good teachers do – and maybe it is inaccurate.

The use of analogies to inform our daily lives occurs quite often without much interruption of thought, as does the use of metaphors when we help others understand something we hope to convey using the simplest of terms. When we explain something complex to others, something we seem to understand (algebra, perspective drawing, the golf swing), we will try to use language they understand. We seek to identify what they already know (prior knowledge) and try to help them make the conceptual leap to the more complex concept.

This is teaching.

Yet, how often do we do this within ourselves?

Is there a point to which we think there are no connections between activities, thus losing out on a potential head start to mastery of something new?

____________________________________________________________________

Dr. Steve Gruenert encourages you to offer your perspectives on his conceptual piece above by commenting on this blog or contacting him at steve.gruenert@indstate.edu.