Life is unexpected. Just when you think you’ve crested a hill and can look long at the path stretching before you, opportunity arises and you find yourself taking a road unanticipated. I won’t say I’ve taken the one less traveled by, but I have taken another.

Today, I officially began my job as the Director of Technology and Communications in Oak Lawn-Hometown District 123. It is a role about which I am incredibly excited. Because there’s great opportunity here. And I earnestly believe I can seize it.

I’d like to say I’m beginning this position with a long list of answers sitting at the ready for implementation. But that would be a dishonesty. Because at this point, I have more questions than answers. I’m hoping, however, that the right questions can prove more powerful than me thinking I have the right answers. I’m hoping such for what it could mean for our students, our staff, and our community. And what it could mean for learning.

It seems to me as I’ve observed the advent of modern technology increasing in utilization in education, there has grown a rift between those in the Director of Technology role and many of the others in an educational institution.  Somehow the two sides seem to be at odds.  Neither understands the other. As it is most often manifested, the one side is prone to thinking in terms of restricting what takes place in the technological environment, while the other side believes those running the technological environment know very little about education. I know I’m speaking in broad generalities, but it is what I have observed in many places.

I don’t want that to be my case.

I was a classroom teacher for eight years before I left one of the most incredibly rewarding professions in the hopes of making a difference on a broader scale. However, I learned quickly that there is little more rewarding than directly investing in the lives of students in a classroom each day. It is simply an amazing endeavor. I left that not to take a position where my actions matter little to the experience of students and those who are working so hard to help them learn how to learn. I left teaching with the hope that I could make a difference in a different way.

It is now, standing once again on the edge of great new change, that I begin with questions. I’m hoping these are the right ones. Or at least the ones that will lead me to the right ones. And the right ones are those that will make a difference in the lives of the students, staff members, and community where I have the privilege to serve.

As is always the case, your input and help in crafting and molding both these questions and my potential to make a difference is extremely important to me. Here is my beginning.

1.  How is what we’re doing with technology making a difference for learning?

2.  How can we support teachers and do everything we can to help them help their students learn?

3.  How can we support teachers as they continue to learn?

3.  Does the environment we create build trust?

4.  How can we communicate more effectively and better meet the needs of our community?

5.  Are we reliable?

6.  Are we making a positive difference?

I hope these questions guide the work that I have ahead. And I hope I keep questioning the questions. And I know I will keep learning.

Justin and Sandra,

First of all, let me applaud you and your efforts to engage and inform through the use of Twitter.  There are many government entities who are not willing to do so.

Let me also encourage you to actually engage and not just inform.  You will certainly find a host of passionate, candid individuals in this space, as you’ve no doubt already encountered.  They may well offer you more than you bargained for when you created your account.  Understand these are people who believe passionately in students, their possibilities, their potential, their ability, and their education.  And many of them are frustrated with the present state of education.  As frustrated as you likely are based on your recent tweets.  You’ve now provided them an outlet to unload their frustration.

I hope you will stay around.  I hope you will respond to the questions, the challenges, and even some of the pointed criticisms.  We don’t get enough of that from our government officials.  You have an opportunity to help remedy that.  I hope you actualize this opportunity.

I would also offer this one last piece of unsolicited advice.  Be careful of your words.  I know that is your profession, and that is why you work where you do, but I still offer the advice all the same.  When you make statements like, “we need to stop lying to students” you step upon very uneven and potentially damaging ground.  Because the statement immediately begets the question, “who are the we that are doing the lying?”  Are you insinuating that you are lying to students?  Are teachers lying to students?  Are administrators lying to students?  Are parents lying to students?  Are we all lying to students?  That’s a tough way to begin a constructive dialog.  Especially given the history of honesty from our politicians.  So please, weigh your words and expect them to elicit a very real, genuine reaction from the community.  If you want that reaction to be constructive, I’d encourage you to frame the questions and statements in a more measured manner.

I honestly appreciate your presence here.  I look forward to seeing what you do with it.

Ben

You can find the official twitter page for the Department of Education Press Secretaries at http://twitter.com/EDPressSec

Thanks to Star Dust for the use of the Flickr image.

*This is a reflection post required for my JHU-ISTE Leadership program.  As always, if the topic is of no interest to you, feel free to skip on by.

This reflection asked us to answer the following three questions:

How do you define transformational leadership based on your reading?
How can transformational leadership impact the way an administrator leads a school?
How can transformational leadership impact the school administrator as he/she leads integrating technology with instruction?

There are some leaders who ascribe to a “pull” style of leadership.  They stand atop the pyramid of an institution, look forward, and try to pull the pyramid along with them as they take each step toward the vision they have cast for the institution.  This is often referred to as “command” leadership, and while it can certainly be an effective way to move an institution in increments, it is not always the most empowering method for the constituents working within the walls of the pyramid.

There are other leaders who find themselves standing at the bottom of an inverted pyramid.  It is their goal to see the needs of the constituents, as well as the needs of the institution as a whole, and push each individual in a manner that effectively moves both the person within and the institution as a whole.  This is often referenced as servant leadership, and it often dismantles the notion of “leader as manager” and instead fosters leadership with the multitude of constituents in the pyramid.

Servant leadership can also directly lead to “transformational leadership.”  Leonard Burrello speaks directly to the idea of transformational leadership in his book, Educating All Students Together.  Burrello states that transformational leaders need to be less concerned with leading for the sake of compliance and linear system stability and equilibrium, but rather, such leaders should look to increase constituent’s investment and enrollment in the institution’s vision.  Michael Fullan has also written a great deal on this subject, and he states that transformational leaders should build the whole of the institution into each individual.  All people have a voice and input in the direction and execution of the institution’s vision.

When applying this concept to education, one can readily see how an atmosphere of networked learning can occur.  The overall investment and health of the educational institution will be experienced throughout as all members of the community are involved in decision making and implementation of specified goals.  If a building administrator seeks transformational leadership, learning will likely take the lead, and opportunity will abound for all in the system to grow and learn together.

I believe a transformational leader will also allow the institution to adapt as culture and educational practices adapt to better engage the process of learning.  The leader will allow new practices to emerge, and I would postulate that utilizing Argyis’s model of double loop learning for an institution would be an excellent opportunity for organizational learning and growth.  This model would certainly be an impetus for change, and given the present resources emerging and established technologies present, the members of the institution would find themselves tapping into the potential power that technology proffers.  The leader will also focus on the pedagogical questions of implementing technology, and he or she will not seek to implement technology for any contrived mandate or false pretense of doing so solely for the sake of the implementation.

I believe this sort of transformational leadership is exactly the way I want to lead an institution I might have the honor of leading in the future.

Thanks to Bluedrakon for the use of the Flickr image.