Daily 5, Hashtag Fails and Twitter Debates

Day 23 of #28daysofwriting and I am feeling a bit apprehensive about whether I am going to be able to write over the next few nights.  We have Parent / Teacher / Student goal setting meetings…  untill 8pm both nights.  So I think I will have to try and write between my appointments!  But I am still enjoying this, big thanks to Tom Barrett for starting this up.

Today was a cool day… That's the only way to describe it.  Tonight's post will be a bit all over the show but it will reflect my last 24 hours.

I woke up this morning and checked my twitter account.  Nothing, nada, zip, zero.  I put myself out there and tried to set up a hashtag for best literacy practice (#BestLitPrac) and nothing came of it.  Yea it was only 12 hours but you know what its like.  Big dreams of seeing people rally around something you have created… Oh well - I think I did a post on your great ideas not being as great as you think!

Later I was quietly having breakfast when a couple of tweets came through about boys in education.  Hmmm interesting I thought as I watched a few comments being made.  Then I thought I’d throw my two cents worth in,  play devil's advocate.  The ensuing debate went around the cognitive, social and cultural differences between boys and girls.  How personalised learning came into play, whether or not boys classes were the go… it was great.  It's open debate and discussion like this that forces you to examine your practice, reflect on what you believe, how it links to pedagogy and best practice and pushes you to a ‘where to next’ point.  So thank you to those people involved.

So by this time I'm at school and getting a much needed coffee since I missed my morning run.

Then class time.  The day runs through and I trial a few changes to my literacy programme that I talked about in my post last night.  A few things worked but overall it didn't flow like I wanted it too. I think I may have lost my mojo.  

Lunchtime comes around and I am having a discussion with my principal about literacy programmes, trying to fit in the cool stuff and the must haves.  Mentioned that I want to get the Daily 5 going too… Then it hit me.  I shot off and quickly googled Daily 5 and double checked my idea will work.  

Sure enough, for some reason the idea was there all along.  In my brain I had been seeing Daily 5 as a support tool to my programme.  How wrong I was.  The Daily 5 will provide the structure for my programme and the cool stuff, and the must dos will fit into it. I whipped up a revised Literacy Tumble.  

No more groups trudging through a group timetable.  Now students have choice and responsibility - all that good 21st Century skill stuff that you know you want in a programme. They will be responsible for providing evidence, a big mind shift for them and this will take some time to get right.

Student will be given focus areas.  Areas where I know they need a little push.  Areas that tie into their learning goals.

I am excited.  After a few weeks of feeling pretty frustrated and bored by my own programme I think I have found what I want for this year group.  Talking to some of the other teachers about it got them excited (Daily 5 is something we have played around with but never quite nailed) and they were excited to develop some ‘check up’ resources to ensure student could show and share their learning.

I hope you enjoyed my post.  The Daily 5 programme I whipped up is completely in concept stage and would love any ideas and feedback about it.  What other great activities do you use in your Daily 5’s?

This post relates to the following New Zealand Registered Teacher Criteria:

4. demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of personal professional practice

5. show leadership that contributes to effective teaching and learning

6. conceptualise, plan and implement an appropriate learning programme

8. demonstrate in practice their knowledge and understanding of how ākonga learn

9. respond effectively to the diverse language and cultural experiences, and the varied strengths, interests and needs of individuals and groups of ākonga

Losing the Crowd

I would just like to start this post with a huge thank you to everyone who has taken the time to ready my posts.  It has been very humbling to realise that people would take the time to read my opinions online.  Thank you so much and I hope you are enjoying the #28daysofwriting.

So I am sitting here watching X-Factor New Zealand.  I think that might be bad enough in itself.  But it is the early auditions where many of the contestants can’t sing either.  But many of them charge on regardless of the fact that the audience is cringing.

And that inspired this post.

How many times have we been teaching or taking a meeting or presentation and we can just tell it isn’t working?  You know the feeling.  Everything feels horrible but you have no plan B so you just keep going.  The audience, students, teachers or parents are bored, you lose them and really you are just wasting your time.  All because you have a plan and feel like you have to stick to it.  

The video is of Michael Bay when things didn’t go well and he pretty much lost it.  In contrast watch this…

Steve Jobs comes back really well from this and it was because he was able to adapt and change on the spot.  

As educators and leaders we need to do the same thing.  Our jobs are often as much about inspiring and engaging as it is about the content and sometimes when the content isn't right because it’s too hard, too easy or too irrelevant then we need to have something as a back up.

Be safe to start with and make sure that whatever  you have planned is interactive.  Everyone always likes to feel like they are doing something.  In terms of teaching this is a given, but make sure when leading staff this happens too.

Have a plan B and be prepared to revisit ideas if your audience isn't ready for your message.  Sometimes people just aren't where you think they are.

Have examples.  So important for teaching and leadership.  Like with teaching, students need to see what you are talking about.  Do the same when leading.  It is always easier to have a start point and for people to see what you mean rather than rely on their imagination.

Lastly have a plan B.  One that connects you to your audience.  At the end of the day if your content is wrong for whatever reason, at least use the time to build your team and relationship with those in front of you, either students or colleagues.  I am not saying that you should fail like this a lot or use it as an excuse to be unprepared but if it does happen it might just be some of the best time you spend.

I hope you enjoyed tonight's post,  it was a little off education and different to what I have been writing about.

The Three Sides of Leadership & How it Applies to Team Teaching

Day 16 of #28daysofwriting and I have to say I am very happy that I attended ULEARN14 last year as it still is providing me with a wealth of ideas to start from!  

Today I was running out of things to write when I remembered something I heard at ULEARN14 about the Trinity of Leadership (that's my name for it, can’t remember what it was called).  This idea stuck with me after hearing and I found myself seeing examples of it everywhere.

The idea goes that in any leadership team, in any good team in fact, there needs to be a balance of three personality types.  

1) The Visionary:

 This is the big ideas person.  They see the dots and how they connect.  This is the person who takes best practice and usually steps it up into next practice.  They find ways to stay on the cutting edge.  The push boundaries and rarely like to play it safe.

 On their own this person will sometimes struggle with systems and find doing repetitive tasks tedious. Visionaries can bee seen as random thinkers, and can be seen as flighty as they probably like throwing ideas around to see what sticks.  They usually need someone to reign them in as they can overwhelm others who like things stable and routine. That's why the next person in the team is…

2) The Manager:

 This person excels at the small stuff.  Their world in about the details and the systems.  You need one of these people on your team.  They make the school or team run like a well oiled machine.  They are deadline orientated and paperwork will be joyfully completed.  They are busy and efficient and are often seen as leaders but can sometimes get stuck in their routines, meaning they need the support of the above mentioned Visionary.  The Manager personality can sometimes be a bit cold and calculating and so to help balance this they need…

3) The Nurturer

 The nurturer is the people person.  They a the people on you team who get along with everyone, they naturally make sure everyone is alright and dish out acts of kindness.  These are those amazingly well liked people on your team.  This person puts people first and with a nurturer on your team chances are there will be a focus in your school on community and school culture.  With a strong focus on people the need the other to personality types to help the develop some big picture ideas and systems to implement them.

So that's the breakdown.  Every person has a mix of these personalities and very few people will be clear cut on way or the other.  But I am sure you have all met people like I have described.  

At several top performing schools I have visited and a leadership team that I saw speak at ULEARN14 have all displayed these attributes. Some almost comically.  The balance of these personalities are key to the secret sauce of success.  

When I team taught last year this ideas was key in our success the other teacher and I had enough of a balance of all of these skills, plus a really good set of contrasting and complementary teaching strengths.  That it just worked.  It meant the students had exposure to varied teaching styles and the way we rotated groups through it meant that students weren't stuck with one style or personality for a whole year. When it comes to team teaching, personality REALLY matters.

So will leave you with one final thought, and I can't remember who it was that said this… But in a world where we can find out anything and lets face it many teachers are quick learners, it is the person that matters.  When putting together your team apply the beer test.  If you wouldn't spend time having a beer with this person, why would you want to work with them???

I hope you enjoyed this post.  Please comment on some of the best leadership teams you have worked with or seen and share your thoughts on what made them so successful.

Lesson in Eduation from Hot Mix

Day 12 of #28daysofwriting and things are going well.  Im enjoying it and I am finding inspiration in some funny places.  Tonight's post is from one of these inspirations so please bear with me.

On the weekend our school had some potholes repaired with hot mix tar.  It looked good.  The carpark was smooth and looked much better than it did before.  But today something odd happened.  

It was a hot day and it must have soften the tar enough.  Then someone parked on it.  When they left it lifted the hot mix up and it even wrapped around their wheel.  Stretching out like a giant black bit of chewing gum they had to cut it away to sort the mess it caused.

When we looked at the hole we could see that the pothole had not been prepped.  The mix was just over loose gravel and dirt.  It had nothing holding it together to the rest of the driveway.  And that's when I realised that this was an analogy for schools.  

Our job is to patch together pedagogy, resources, staffing, vision, ministry directives, community aspirations and personal goals into our school life.  With all these things happening at once we have to be very careful to ensure that we have a prepared surface to bind our practice to.  

In my experience there are a few things that are important in preparing a school to add on and make ‘repairs’ (read change) to their practice.  

1. A clear and well communicated need for the change:  Andragogy(how adults learn) shows that adults learn best when there is a need.  Without this it is too easy to dismiss the change as unnecessary and as an extra.

2. Shared understanding of the direction:  People need to understand what the change looks like,  in education how often are teachers asked to implement programmes they have never seen in action?  Programmes that are top down driven.  The leaders may understand the system but if the people DOING the work don’t then they may miss the point.  I liken this to the use of language experience in the classroom.  It levels the playing field and gives everyone a shared understanding of the topic.

3. Provide connections to current practice: Teachers have a lot to do.  Another thing can sometimes be difficult to swallow.  By providing links to the other practices in your school you are not only streamlining your system but you should be strengthening the areas of your schools practice.

4. Provide leadership:  This is a given.  Things come unstuck when there is a disconnect between those who lead and those who do.  This barrier should not exist and everyone should be see as being involved.  A strong leader will provide the team with enthusiasm for the project and work through it with them.  Focusing on results alone can damage the initiative when leaders miss the pitfalls teacher are experiencing along the way and push for things to happen faster.  

5. Resource the Initiative: If results are expected then the resources need to be in place.  Just like providing teachers with a shared language and understanding is important, so to is giving them a shared set of tools.  Overlooking resources indicates that the people who are actually DOING the work are being overlooked.

So avoid a hot mix mess at your school by thinking through what needs to be in place as you make changes.  I have posted before that change can be scary and having strategies in place to manage the change stopping anyone getting their tyres caught up.

So thats my thoughts inspired by the hot mix mess at school today.  There are probably many more aspects that I have missed but I hope you enjoyed my post.  Let me know your thoughts.

This post relates the the following Registered Teacher Criteria

5. show leadership that contributes to effective teaching and learning

12. use critical inquiry and problem-solving effectively in their professional practice

Stop, Collaborate and Listen...

Day 11 of the #28daysofwriting challenge and it is hard to believe that we are almost halfway through and that I haven’t fallen off the bandwagon.  I am definitely showing the value of persistence here!  Tonight I am going to write about Team Teaching, the two teachers all the time, responsible for all of the students kind of team teaching.

Team teaching is something that excites some teachers and terrifies others.  Some teachers feel the pressure it applies and other feel the freedom and confidence of collaborative practice.

I was asked to start experimenting with team teaching a little over a year ago with the expectation that we might have a go at cross grouping for a few subjects.  What no one realised at the time was how far we would take the concept and how successful it would have been.

By no means have we perfected a practice and our school continues to refine the practice as we move out of the implementation and experimentation phase and move into the refinement stage.  A second challenge has also been set to establish similar practice within the Junior Syndicate.  We are still fleshing out how it will look,  we have a change of staffing to consider and difference in pedagogy for students at curriculum levels one and two.  

The research supporting team teaching seems positive though, which is good news for its advocates. A recent article in the New Zealand Education Gazette said:

“Team teaching allows more interaction between teachers and children. School leaders have evaluated children on the achievement of their learning goals and the teachers on their teaching proficiency.

The results show some exciting trends. In general, increased levels of achievement have occurred at a more rapid pace than in our other classes. The reason appears to be the collaboration between the two teachers and dual support of target setting, achievement and informed planning – two heads are better than one. This combination of analysis, synthesis, critical thinking, and practical applications can be done at all levels of education, from preschool through to college environments.”

One of the key pedagogical changes we had to take into account was how the teachers interact with the single space.  During our research we found that there were 4 main “modes” for the teachers to be in during this time and they all have times where they are appropriate.

1. Supportive Teaching: This is where one teachers takes the lead in the instruction while the second teacher roams and provides support for all of the students.  They may be checking for understanding or ensuring students remain on task. This is also a good strategy to use with parent helpers of teacher aides if they are available.
2. Parallel Teaching: This is when the teachers each take their own groups.  They may be teaching at different curriculum levels or maybe teaching their curriculum area of their strength.  This style is probably where most team teaching practice begins in a school.  
3. Complimentary Teaching: This is when both teachers take responsibility for teaching the lesson.  Teachers may take turns at rephrasing the lesson points, paraphrasing what the other says.  One teacher may have also pre taught a target group before the lesson so that they are more able to participate in the lesson.
4. Team Teaching: This is the whole hog… In this mode both teachers take responsibility for all of the planning and assessment and pastoral care of all students.  Both teachers do everything a teacher does in a single cell class for all students.

So we went all in and took responsibility for all students.  We used the other “modes” when they best suited and we adapted our practice.  We developed a shared understanding of best practice together and the professional discussions pushed us to improve what we did at an accelerated rate.  

So for those of you thinking about attempting team teaching… Do it.  It is one of the most rewarding and professionally challenging things you can attempt.

I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Please let me know about any experiences you have had developing team teaching in a junior setting.

This post relates the the following Registered Teacher Criteria

1. establish and maintain effective professional relationships focused on the learning and well-being of ākonga

4. demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of personal professional practice

6. conceptualise, plan and implement an appropriate learning programme

5. show leadership that contributes to effective teaching and learning

12. use critical inquiry and problem-solving effectively in their professional practice

Educational Theories and Having to Pick One

Today I am going to post about something at ULearn14.  It was very interesting and in some ways threatening as it hit at my core beliefs around teaching.  But challenge is good and I hope you enjoy it.

At ULearn14 Professor Yoram Harpaz was one of the keynote speakers and honestly his message kind of terrified me.  In some ways it made education seem so simple but the kind of transition our schools would need to undertake from mainstream to what he proposed potentially could be huge.

He explained that educational “theories” are ideologies - ideologies pretending to be scientific theories and that there were three of them.  There are three meta ideologies and each has something very important, to me they all made sense.  And then came the terrifying bit…

You have to choose.

No cherry picking the best bits.  Just all in.  In his opinion this was the only way to go.

The Three META IDEOLOGIES where:

• Socialization - Which was about equipping the child with skills and knowledge for their society.
• Acculturation - Where teachers shape the child’s values and characters to society.
• Individuation - In which we foster the autonomy and authenticity of the child. The child will fulfil   themselves.

All of these made sense.  We try and do many of these at different times in our classrooms.  But I only get to pick one??

To me Socialization makes sense because it responds to the fact that we live in a society that has a culture, it has rules and expectations.  We need to teach certain things too, reading, writing, the ability to follow instructions,  so students can participate in our world.  Yea, we see people who don’t fit the mold but don’t most of us follow those basic rules?  Or are we being too conformist?  Hmmm ok well maybe, but when we have to teach so many students we need some social conventions to keep order… right?

Ok, well Acculturation then… Sounds good.  Teaching students through our values system. Teachers become model citizens for students to look up to.  Letting them be themselves in ways that will contribute to our world.  We guide from the side, help the students work through their learning while developing kindness and empathy.  The skills aren't as important here as the values of being a lifelong learner, creative and collaborative, I’m sure we can find ways to teach and assess these values to show how well our students are going.  This sounded good to me.  Values help students become a positive force in the world.  But it is still us picking what is important…

So the last theory; Individuation.  This is where the student makes choices about their learning.  Taking it to the point where they choose what, where and how they learn.  This sounds crazy to me!  Yes in a perfect world we would do this but we have a whole class!  How does it work?

And so apparently now you have to choose.  I know which one I would like to get to.  Individuation sounds perfect.  It would allow us to be culturally and academically responsive.  Imagine our Maori and Pasifika students from the start of their education learning in their preferred style.  

But how do you train for this?  How do you prepare?  If you are expecting answers then I apologise, I simply do not know. But Professor Yoram Harpaz said something that gave me hope that one day this kind of responsive practice is possible.  It was his break down of what an idealogy was.

He broke it down into the structure of an ideology.

• First there was the Utopia:  An imagined picture of an idea society.  It helps to to make sense of our world and forms our system of beliefs
• Then the Diagnosis: What does the current world or situation look like?
• Next came the Strategy: This  is how we change the actual world into the utopian world.  What do we to reduce the gap? This is where the exciting part happens, where we use a blend of research, best practice and next practice to work out what we want and need to do to develop our vision.
• Finally there is the Collective: A social group who will carry out the change.  This means us… Educators.

So we have a choice.  We must pick one sysytem.  Good schools stick to one ideology - one ethos.  All parents, teachers and students ‘talk in one language’.  The result is an well-educated adult.

Yoram Harpaz said “Education is sick because we are wanting to be Individuation, we mostly do Acculturation and really our system is based on Socialisation.”  Maybe he is right.  Maybe that's why we feel we sometimes go around in circles with what we do.

Thank you for reading this post.  It was a controversial topic when I heard it and I am interested to see what other people think.  The main message was there was no right answer, just so long as you pick ONE answer.

This post relates the the following Registered Teacher Criteria

5. show leadership that contributes to effective teaching and learning

9. respond effectively to the diverse language and cultural experiences, and the varied strengths, interests and needs of individuals and groups of ākonga

12. use critical inquiry and problem-solving effectively in their professional practice

Waitangi Day - Sharing and Respect

It’s Waitangi Day here in New Zealand today and the discussion I had with my Year 3 class is helping form the basis of my post today.  I Hope you enjoy the 6th post in my #28daysofwriting.

So we  get a day off today, it’s Waitangi day, a day we celebrate, or protest, what it means to be a New Zealander.  I talked to my class about it yesterday.  We used the analogy of a group sitting at a table using the iPads.  Then I let the rest of the class just go over and try and get a turn.  No rules, no guidelines.  It was carnage.  

When we came back to discuss the students said they felt confused, angry, they didn't know what was happening.  The group with the iPad at the start was happy, the group left behind felt like they were missing out and wanted a piece of the action.  When I let the group go and try and use the iPads the group at the table felt put out, attacked, one students had even tried to snatch the iPad.  The group who were sent wanted to try and push their way in for a turn.  

Maybe this was how it was for our forefathers, maybe not.  But it got the students thinking.  And then we talked about the conflict caused when two groups come together.  We talked about the how the Treaty of Waitangi was a way to try and fix some of these disputes.  It was probably the best solution at the time.  

So the students came up with the idea of sharing being key to the Treaty.  

We have also been looking at respect as our school value this week.  And something must have stuck because a few students talked about the Treaty being there to show respect for others, one bright spark also worked out that the disputes were over land so maybe it was respect for the environment.  Then I added in that maybe it was also about not letting people push you around so it might have also been about respect for yourself.

So in short my Year 3 class and I worked out that Waitangi day was about Respect and Sharing.

And that got me thinking.  Because our school has had some pretty big changes in staff recently and i'm sure being the start of the year, many other schools have too.  And maybe sometimes the settlement of New Zealand is a good analogy for new staff.

They come in, nervous, excited, on a new adventure.  The people already here see the new people… maybe they are a potential friend, maybe threat… they watch carefully seeing how they act.  Of course the newcomers bring new tools and ideas that  threaten the status quo.  Sometimes all this goes smoothly, sometimes it doesn’t.  

I think these transitions times can be managed with the ideals that my Year 3 students identified; Respect and Sharing.

Those coming into a new school need to respect the current systems, values and ideals.  They have been developed over time.  They might be different, you may even view them as wrong, but they are there. Respect them.

For those at the  school respect for those coming in is important too.  their experiences are very different.  They have walked a different path and come from a different ‘world’.  Their ideas will be different and remember it will be hard for them to feel like they are values if you try and make them forget about where they came from and make them fit into your way of doing things.  So please respect the differences people bring, respect the culture of a school.  History is a powerful thing and should never be forgotten.

Sharing is a way to ease the transition.  When educators sit down and share their experiences, their understanding and their beliefs then we start to understand each other.  We start to see the benefit in the way each of us do things.  

How can an incoming staff member understand the importance of why you school works a certain way if you have never shared your journey?  How can you understand that new staff member if you never let them share who they are and what they do well?  

So please if you have new staff within your school; respect and share.  Respect where people are coming from by taking the time to share who you really are.  Then when you are one the same page, you can make truly great things happen in your school.

Thank you for reading post 6 of #28daysofwriting.  What ways does your school ease the transition of new staff?  What experiences have you had - good and bad, with a change like this?  

Have a great Waitangi day everybody, I’m out and off for a drink with friends!

Time, Teaching and Inspiration

Day 5 of the #28daysofwriting challenge and I am going to write about something that feels rather pertinent right now… Time.  Or rather the lack of it.  

So week one of term one for the 2015 school year is over.  Thank goodness it was a short one.  I am tried, But I have achieved a lot.  Had a crack at junior phonics assessment, grouped students for reading,  swimming assessment and grouping is done, trialed some maths games and problem solving activities that worked really well and the students have almost all decorated their placemats and name tags.  Awesome right?  

It might feel like a brag list but I still feel behind,  I'm still struggling to get enough time for friends, I squeeze in a solid chunk of family time before my two ratbags go to bed and I'm managing to run first thing in the morning.  The run is only happening because I saw a internet meme that said “Right now someone busier than you is running”... yea, I tend to accept challenges.  

And this is pretty normal in my school,  in every school,  in every country,  probably in every solar system and every galaxy of the universe.  E.T’s teacher probably needs more time too.

My point is that time is a very important resource for us teachers… so stop wasting it.  We need to be smarter… squeeze every bit of learning time out of our school day and develop systems that help us to get by and work smarter.  We don’t need another admin staff meeting, just email us or put it on a shared Google Doc.  We need time to teach and look after our students.  Our core business.  How many time have we attending meetings that we didn't need to...  Where a flier or letters behind a plane would have done just fine because we were just being told something.  

Time is important to everyone!! It the one thing we can never get back, never get more of.  It is our most valuable resource in life!

What we really want and need as educators is meaningful professional learning and discussion time around the practice of teaching.  Every staff room should have a admin time stopwatch… just see how much time you spend on it!  

We want our meeting to be engaging,  driven by excitement over change.  We want to discuss topic that expand and challenge our teaching, pitched at the Goldilocks level - not too easy, not too hard.  We want to have modeling occur so we see best practice in action,  stuff we can take and use in our own part of the world.  We want tools, because we want to be successful so please help us and please don’t waste our time…

Wait a second… doesn't that sound familiar.  Isn't that the same for our students?  For anyone?  Nobody wants their time wasted, because we all have something we would rather be doing.  Don’t get me wrong I love my job, but the beach, spending time with my kids?  

My point is that we need to make sure what we do as leaders to teachers, and what as teachers we do to students is relevant, powerful and inspiring - at least most of the time. That's the challenge to all of us I guess.  

“Right now someone busier that you is being more inspiring” - are you going to accept the challenge?

Thank you for reading my fifth post for #28daysofwriting.  It went of on a tangent a few times but i hope it still made sense.  And I hope that we all try to be a little more inspiring to others and considerate of their time.

Coping with Change

My post today is based on notes taken from Mark Osborne's (@mosborne01) breakout at ULearn14 on Managing Change.  His presentation really hit home and if you ever get the chance to see him speak, do it, he is a brilliant presenter.

Change is everywhere.  We experience it in every part of our life yet so often it can be a traumatic experience for people.  I think that this stems from the saying people don’t fight change, they fight being changed.  And if we flip that statement to the leader… people are fighting the change you are forcing on them.  The change that fails to take into account the current set of values and practices.  So this blog post today is going to about managing change and how to help people through what can tough times when change pulls the carpet out from under their comfortable world.

To understand why people fight change you need to know that here are two types:

1st order of change - The simple stuff that is within the current framework of what is happening at the moment e.g. going from teacher interviews to student-led conferences..

2nd order of change - this is the big stuff thats is  outside the current framework - eg throwing out year groups, BYOD.

Most changes fall into both categories depending on the person’s perspectives.  But as people lean towards 2nd order change then you will probaly meet more resistance.  These people are the ones who are feeling like they have something to lose.  They will be the ones who feel that the change has the potential to put them in a position to lose something.  As a leader you need to work out what order of change people will experience, then you can understand people when things start getty bumpy on the road to change.

Ron Heifetz says that  adaptive change disrupts the norm and the comfortable.  When this happens people feel loss of control and a loss of skill and expertise if the change falls outside their experience.  We need to remember that  people will have stuff to lose when change happens and there is no bloody way that people cope with this easily.

Marty Linsky said “Leading adaptive change is difficult because it is about the distribution of loss”.  For those on your team that are seeing a loss with the proposed change then you need to reframe the change for them.  You need to show them that the change can provide a personal gain for them.  As the leader of change that is your challenge, your responsibility.  

This also applies as much to the staffroom as it does the classroom.  As the leaders of our classrooms how often do we change programmes and try new things without thinking about the impact on our students.  So do the same as a good leader in a school would do.  Show the students the benefits of what you are doing, explain how it will affect their learning in a positive way.  If might take a little longer but the improved engagement will be worth it.

Change is inevitable… so what can we really do to support our colleagues? Well that depends on what they need.

If they are dealing with First Order Change then they only need:

Procedures

Manuals,

Cheatsheets

How-tos

Role models

You get the idea,  this change is fairly easy to cope with.  It can be MANAGED.

For people going through Second Order Change the needs are a little higher and emotionally based:

Emotional support

listening

space to talk

reassurance

opportunities to contribute

tolerable levels of stress.

This needs trust and relationship building and it require true LEADERSHIP and people skills.

So give colleagues dealing with Second Order Change support, build the relationship so they trust you.  If someone is really upset about a change it means it is a  Second Order Change for them and they need reassurance and support rather than manuals and procedures.

So if you are leading change in your school and people are resistant, upset and struggling.  If they ridicule, boycott, sabotage, show token engagement, reducing output and withhold information the they are probably experience some pretty tumultuous Second Order Change.  Ask yourself if you have a strong enough relationship with these people to help them with change?

It will take longer to effect the change, or at least feel like you are making headway but if you take the time at the start of your change to develop trust and understand the emotional needs to your team the the change you effect will be much more effective and embedding more deeply within your staff culture.

Thank you for reading today’s post.  Thank you again to Mark Osborne for the inspiration and a fair bit of the ideas and information for this post.  - Stand on the shoulders of those who came before you!