Monthly Archives: November 2008

The Power of a Conference

I believe attending conferences is one of the most dynamic ways for a professional to develop.

I recently attended the IETC conference in Springfield, IL, and I left, as I typically do from such a conference, with the indelible notion that there simply aren’t many better forms of professional development in existence.  I find this of great interest, as typically, many school leaders do not seem to share my sentiment.

Perhaps one of the most oft cited criticisms of a conference by administration is the cost and potential lack of accountability for those in attendance.  As opposed to sending people to conferences, the alternative is typically to bring in an expert to address the entire staff.  Unfortunately, while in theory that allows more people access to the same information, in practice, it tends to be much less effective than planned due to a myriad of distracting issues.  Hopefully, someday soon, people will start making this part of their normal inservice routine to facilitate greater results.  Regardless, there are too many things working against the success of the mass inservice model (sitting everyone in terribly uncomfortable lunch tables or folding chairs, having speakers speak of the importance of allowing student movement and attention breaks while delivering said message in an uninterrupted 3 hour information marathon, really, really bad PowerPoints).

Seven years ago, a friend of mine won the Milken Educator Award.  A few months after he won it, he was being interviewed for a journal, and the interviewer asked her first question.  It was something to the effect of, “What has been the most instrumental factor in making you the excellent teacher you are today?”  His answer came without pause.  “Attending professional conferences.”  My friend said at that point the interviewer smacked the table, turned off the recorder and said, “You know, I’ve now interviewed a number of Milken Award winners.  Every single one had that same answer.”  She went on to elaborate that the reason this bothered her so much was that she used to be a principal, and she refused to send any of her staff members to conferences because she felt it wasn’t a judicious use of time or money.  I think that says it all.

Something significant happens when a person attends a conference.  All the daily noise of the routine gets silenced, and there comes a great sense of focus.  By being away from the classroom for a couple days, and away from the demands of everyday life, a person can truly become immersed in learning more about the profession to which they are so dedicated.  Conversations take place, connections are made, and a great deal of thought is given to what it is that’s happening in their own professional practice.  It’s incredibly refreshing, to be honest.

One interesting movement in the current conference model has taken form the past several years, and that’s the idea of a virtual conference.  The K12 Online Conference is a good example of this.  The idea is to encapsulate all the good that occurs during a conference and make that available to people anywhere at anytime.  I think it’s a noble effort, and I think some very good content has arisen from this idea, but I don’t think it will ever really be what some hope it could be.  While I know there are a great number of people who have gained excellent insight and value from the K12 Online Conference, I know there are a greater number who have never tapped into the potential learning opportunity the online conference presents.  Which is rather unfortunate, because there are some excellent thoughts and ideas coming out of the conference that are not being heard by enough people.  The problem with a conference format like this is that the attendees lack that away from the routine focus that occurs by leaving town and going to an event.  I think it’s a rather difficult sell to get teachers to really buy into the virtual conference idea.  I believe if you’re looking to try it, though, this is an excellent way to start.

I believe there’s one more element that a virtual conference misses.  The face to face human element.  There’s something so entirely unique about getting to sit down and talk with people in person, and the connection allows you to apply more accurate context to a person who you’ve only met virtually.  I know that I can’t avoid adding my own interpretation of a person’s personality while reading their communications online.  I’ve found that every time I meet someone I follow on Twitter, I end up paying closer attention to what they are saying, and I have a better context to apply when reading the words they write.  And I think this is one of the greatest parts of attending a conference.  The connections that are made.  It touches such an important part of who we are as social beings, and so often, the connections turn into the most invaluable of resources.

If you’ve never had the opportunity to attend a professional conference, remedy that as quickly as possible.  Take the time, be open to new ideas, be prepared to be somewhat to entirely overwhelmed at points, and don’t be surprised if it changes you in ways you never expected.

Thanks to supervillain for the Flickr image.

What if…

What if we stopped for just a moment, took a step back, and asked why?  Why are we engaging in education the way we are right now?  Why is it that the modern construct of education not only looks the way that it does, but why are we using it?

Maybe a better way to frame this would be, if we were to stop and start over entirely, what would that look like?

I was sitting with a group of educators recently, and I paused for a moment and looked around at who I was with.  There were teachers from different districts, different grade levels, different experience levels, and different philosophies, but they are all working toward a common goal.  At least I assume they are.  They are trying to educate our youth.  But what exactly does that mean?

I recently read a tweet by someone I can’t currently remember that said students of today are more equipped and prepared now than at any point in history to be successful in the Industrial Age.  I believe that’s both true and alarming.  And it means something.  It means we might not be getting it right.

I return to one of my original thoughts.  If we were to start over, what would it look like?  We’re currently so stuck in our paradigm that I fear we can’t remove ourselves and look objectively at this question.  We are so entrenched with our current infrastructure, our teaching structure, and even our institutional structure, that to really move away from what we’re currently doing might turn out to be too large a Goliath to fell.

Focusing briefly on American education, and I don’t mean to be too American-centric, but that’s the system I’m most aware of, we see how change has happened quite incrementally over the past 350 years.  In the mid-1600′s, the focus of education was almost exclusively on writing, reading, and religious education.  From there, we can see a history of slow, incremental changes from a system where students were largely taught by one schoolmaster, who focused on the aforementioned subjects, to the system in which we currently find ourselves immersed.

This time line accentuates the point nicely.  I think it’s quite telling that there were several attempts at reform throughout our history, but I’d argue none were truly successful.  Of interest is the founding of the Progressive Education Association in 1919, where a major effort was launched to create an educational environment in which students were the center of education, and by so being, should be allowed to express themselves more creatively and independently.  Sounds like we’re still working on that 90 years later.

When looking down the time line, it’s readily apparent that despite all the efforts, research, hours of labor, and investment in improving our educational model, all we’ve really accomplished is the perpetuation of all that we’ve previously done.  There hasn’t been a true reform.  There’s been no revolution.  There remains largely that which has always been.

The most difficult part of all this is determining what has value and what has been done because that’s what we’ve always done.  If we really started over, what would we keep because it’s worth keeping?  What would we cast away because it doesn’t have relevance in our emerging system?  And most importantly, what would be our goal?

I think that’s the starting point.  It all begins with a question.  What’s the goal of education?  I don’t ask that flippantly, but rather quite honestly.  If we have any hope of making true change, this is where it starts.  At the core.  At the foundation.  At the very center of all we do.

So I say we try it.  At least in conversation.  Let’s rebuild our educational system.  And let’s start with a question.

What’s the goal of education today?

Thanks to CoryMarchand for the Flickr image.

The Ability Paradigm

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a professional baseball pitcher more than anything in the world.  I’d go outside and throw a tennis ball against my front steps and play every ricochet as if it were a batted ball.  I’d write out a lineup of the Cubs vs. whomever they happened to be playing that day, and I’d play out a full nine inning game.  I even recorded the stats for every player.  If it rained out, I’d wad up a pair of socks and hit them around my front porch with a wiffle ball bat – still keeping copious stats.  Now that I think of it, this is the first time I’ve ever admitted this in public.  I imagine my wife has never been prouder of me.

When I got older, I graduated on to pickup games at the schoolyard near my house.  I played little league, high school, and eventually college baseball.  I worked as hard as I could, and I always kept the goal of becoming a professional front and center in my mind.  I worked out six days a week (wish all that work was evidenced a bit more obviously now days), and I went to pitching lessons in the offseasons.  I knew what I wanted, and I worked with every bit of who I was to get there.  There was only one problem.  I wasn’t good enough.

I always had visions of throwing a baseball 95 miles per hour, but despite all my concerted efforts, I never managed to break 82 on the radar gun.  I just didn’t have the physical ability to do so.  I could have tried harder, I guess, but I’m not sure there was much more with which to try.  I could have gone to more clinics, lifted more weights, done more drills, ran more miles, or even watched more tape, but in the end, I don’t think it would have made a difference.  My body just wasn’t made to throw as hard as I wanted it to.

I believe there’s something very significant here.  We all have obvious physical limitations.  When we look at kids today, it would be absurd to expect them all to perform the same on any given physical task.  Think of what would happen if we said that every kid in 8th grade had to run a 6 minute mile.  Or that every 5th grader had to be able to do 25 pull-ups.  Or even 5 pull-ups.  It would be absurd.  Now think of the obvious parallel to learning.

Why is it when it comes to learning that we expect every kid to be able to perform at the same level?  When will we realize that kids are just as different mentally one from another as they are physically?  Not all kids can think at 95 miles per hour.

I know some people will disagree with me.  There are those who think all kids have the capacity to pass all of our given standards on performance assessments, but think about how fundamentally wrong that is.  If all kids can pass the standard, then what kind of rigor is built into the standard?  It would be an obvious sign that our expectations were too low as there would be at least 25% of the students who wouldn’t even have to try to achieve passable marks.  Conversely, if the standard was more rigorous and required much more effort of the students, there would be a percentage of the population who couldn’t possibly achieve passable marks.  It’s an indefensible notion to think that we can build tests that are appropriately difficult for all students and that all students can potentially meet the standard.

Some would say that I’m advocating for lower expectations for our kids.  I would counter just the opposite.  I expect every student in our world has the potential to achieve and perform at the very best of his or her abilities.  That he or she can apply all of his or her skills and thinking to any problem at any time.  To me, that is the absolute highest expectation there is.

If my goal in playing baseball had really and completely been to throw 95 miles per hour, I would have been a complete failure.  I would never have measured up, and I would have grown to resent the game.  Instead, I gave every bit of what I had, and I just enjoyed playing the game.  I believe we need to be very wary of setting up expectations that all students should be expected to perform and strive for the same goals.  If we do, too many students will think themselves complete failures, and they will grow to resent learning.  Instead, I think we need to let kids give every bit of what they have and just enjoy the process of learning.

Thanks to Anne Ruthmann for the Flickr image.

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