Wk 3 Comment-2 to Anne Alsup

What a great opening paragraph.  From someone with a music background, I love musical analogies and your poetic comparison is most fitting.  We do derive our success from our students and their success.  Success is then perpetuated by all of those we touch.  It is so important for us to instill the “love of learning” to our students, so moving from a teacher centered model to student based is a strong step in developing independence and self-directed learning for our students.  I know it is not easy.  Wonderful post. Thanks

Anne Alsup wrote:

The teacher, like the conductor of an orchestra is not the true power in the classroom. The teacher derives their power from the success of the student. Some teachers may see their role as enlightening their students with their vast knowledge, but I disagree.  Perhaps more can be learned from the conductor.

One of the most difficult issues that I faced during my action research project as I moved my classes from the traditional teacher-centered classroom to a student-centered model was the role of the instructor. Almost universally, students perceive the role of the teacher as supplying knowledge and answering questions, a notion that has been perpetuated by an arena of high-stakes testing. While this methodology has merit for the conveyance of basic facts and principles, it falls short of moving the student to transference of the principles at higher levels of intellectual and cognitive application.

It is not the conductor's role to play the violin, only to direct the violinist. Like the conductor, it is not the teacher's role to answer the question, but to ask the question and point the student in the direction of knowledge. My research indicated that the teacher should literally say nothing that would interfere with the students' thought process. Students should be encouraged to develop the ideas, based on their previous knowledge and define the concepts for themselves.  This approach transcends the power of the conductor and empowers learning to take place from any chair. Through this collaborative orchestra of thought, knowledge is generated beyond the scope of any individual effort.

Is it necessary that every student masters the laws of physics, understand Shakespearean literature or solve a quadratic equation? I think we know better. Our world would be a better place if each child could discover and develop their passion. Establishing graduation requirements and competency testing does little to promote passion for learning. It is time to apply Rule #6 to the educational arena.  Yes, we should have some basic requirements and children should be exposed to wide variety of educational opportunities, but the sooner we help children develop areas of interest, the better chance we have lessening the control of the calculating self and free the child to find the central self. Imagine a universe of possibility where each person is able to express their inner desires in a positive direction by contributing to their world.  A world in which each person participates in the part that they were born to play and plays it with unbridled passion. 

Wk 3 Comment-1 to Laurie Kish

Remember Rule #6 :-)

My comment to Laurie Kish:

I have to concur with J.J.’s comment--AWESOME!  You really are the “Captain of Fun” and know how to motivate your team.  You are an amazing storyteller, friend and I’m sure boss too. Loved it!  It is a “keeper” to remind us that relaxing and following Rule 6 is a way to enjoy life, move people and help the motivate a team to accomplish more.   I love that you were able to personally share a story that was a perfect example of Zander’s Rule #6

Laurie wrote:

It was the end of month 1 of a planned 6 month new medical device validation effort, the tensions were high amongst the 10 validation engineers as the product was full of bugs and was 3 months late getting to the last stage of the development process, validation.  An executive decision was made, the validation team had to reduce their timelines by 3 months in order to maintain the original launch date or heads would roll.  The Director of Validation was witnessing before her very eyes the release of 10 calculating selves lobbying for survival in a world of what might become scarce.  The anxiety of the situation was causing some unacceptable behaviors.  It was competitive, backstabbing and unproductive.  It was time to react or she would not have a team left.  The validation Director not knowing at the time pulled out the 6 ball, Rule number 6.   

The day after to decision was passed down; a chartered bus arrived outside the validation lab promptly at 11:00 a.m.  The Validation Director instructed the team to stop what they were doing and take the gift bags provided to the restrooms and change immediately.  Inside the bags were black long sleeved T-shirts and a note that read “Join me for a bug blasting good time!”  The Validation Director observed the eyes of her employees and listened to the sounds of laughter and delight as they piled into the bus not knowing what lied ahead.  Champaign, chocolate, and treats were making their rounds inside the bus as the bus came to a stop in front of LaserTag.  That’s right; the afternoon was filled with fun, laughter, and stress release as they were given permission to take out their frustrations (inner calculating self) on one another through several rounds of laser tag.   This team-building event released humor and laughter that allowed them to “get over themselves” and brought the team back together, relaxing them, empowering them to take control of their calculating self.  They lightened up and broke the hold of their competitive measurement world.  With these calculating selves revealed and humored, the good central selves were able to shine again.  As stated in Zanders’ book, when rule number 6 is followed, one lightens up and is transported into a remarkable universe, which is cooperative in nature.  The role of the facilitator, the Validation Director, was to promote human development and transformation rather than finding a solution that satisfied the demands of the ever-present calculating selves.   In the end the team was able work together to meet the aggressive 3-month schedule while zapping many bugs along the way and releasing a good product.  Not only did they have a successful validation, they established strong working relationships with teammates and their inner selves.  

Rule Number 6:  Don’t take yourself so goddamn seriously, lighten up!

This is a true story and the Validation Director was myself in 2005.

Wk 3 Reading BP: The Art of Possibilities C5-8

Davos Annual Meeting 2008

Orchestrating Collaboration 

As a fitting close to the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2008, participants explore the power of collaborative innovation in a unique exercise with conductor Benjamin Zander.

The quote from Amanda Burr (83) is one that touched me…as one that shows how kids are influenced by leadership opportunities to grow.   Given chances to help each other will help foster leadership and a passion for learning unknowingly.  

She said “today was exceptional in that I learned leadership is not a responsibility—nobody has to lead.  It’s a gift, shining silver, that reminds people huddled nearby why each shimmering moment matters.  It’s in the eyes, the choice, this swelling song that warms up from the toes and tingles with endless possibilities. Things change when you care enough to grab whatever you love, and give it everything”.  ~Amanda Burr, student at Walnut Hill School

This weeks reading again was very poignant about making change.  We are all leaders, sometimes an uncomfortable position, but we influence each other in more ways than we realize.  We are leaders every single day in our classrooms, and the discussion about engaging our students (69) was one that is so evident, anytime I go into “lecture” mode.  Many of my students’ eyes glaze over and tune out.  Learning a new approach will perhaps be something I need to look at.  The new videos I’m learning about in this weeks discussion posts, will be one way I can engage my students a little differently.  Rule #6 – “not taking ourselves so seriously”, but enjoying the ride helps us understand more about how “life is a journey”.  Like any journey we usually encounter new people and new experiences along the way, some good, some not so much.  We can learn from the bad and move ourselves forward to a higher realm of consciousness by learning from “mistakes”.  But are they really a mistake if we learn something positive from it?  The question in chapter 8 about what we are doing in our daily life, asks one to reflect about where we are at the moment.  For many of us in this program, we barley have time to breath, let alone reflect about where we are.  However, that being said continually looking forward to how we can improve ourselves is the key.  When I’m done with this school year, I have a “to do” list a mile long to look back and reflect about all the learning I have taken in this past year.  It has been an amazing journey and one I look forward to continuing as I begin to implement and practice more good teaching.  I’m at that sunset stage in my career, where I have a few more years to continue the journey with my students and I want them to be the most prepared as possible.  There is so much I have yet to learn and it is so important to help instill that passion for learning onto our students.  I share what I am learning and doing everyday with my students.

 

Wk 2 BP4: Publishing Leadership Project part 1 of 2

Possible conferences to present include: 

• California Partnership Academy-annual conference (2012 date TBD-State budget restrictions pending)

• CTE-Career Technical Consortium workshops

La Serna High School will be presenting again at the ICLE conference in Nashville this June 2011. The presentation is  about “best practices” implemented at our high school as school reforms nationwide take place.  As the academy programs grow, I may have the opportunity to present the benefits of online mentors and their role in Career Technical Education in the future, which was the focus of my ARP.

After looking ahead I decided I better get started on thinking about what and how I want to finalize my ARP.  There are so many ways to take the information.  My ARP involved working with 30 high school juniors in an online mentor program.  Our school is part of the California Partnership Academy program, funded by the State of CA as a way to bring Career Technical Education to students.  One of the requirements is to have students at the junior level work with career mentors.  I have worked with a mentor program before, which was difficult to manage face-to-face.  It not only is difficult to micro-manage who, what and where students are meeting with individual mentors; there are liability issues when working with teenagers. One of the services we had an option to contract with was an online organization called I Could Be.org. It is an online service that is based in NY City but reaches a global community.  We contracted their services this year.  Last summer when I began FSO and was faced with the idea of an ARP, I knew it would be a relevant research topic. Not only to analyze the merits of the program but also to see if using mentors makes a difference for teenagers motivation, self-efficacy and career planning.

Every year we attend the CA Partnership Academy conference, and while I’m new to the program, there may be an opportunity for me to present my findings at some date down the road.  I Could Be.org does presentations there as a way to sell their services, but I would like to promote the experience I had with my students this year.  It was an interesting one, as we both were learning how to interact in an LMS, with specific curriculum to master along the way.  The group of students I worked with this year, have received benefits of working with the program, and sharing it with a larger audience has merit. 

Additional conference resources include:

Model School Conference June 2011-Nashville

• International Center for Leadership in Education

• International
  Society for Technology Education
  there are local conference
  and workshops

• CA Partnership affiliation with Career Technical Education Consortium
  (SCC-State Center Consortium)

 

Week 2 Comment-2: Reading Post of Laurie Kish

Microsoft Clipart

Laurie, Once again I love reading your posts, you have hit the nail on the head (or the bulls-eye) and remembered what Dr. Bedard said about us being “change agents”, so true.  We impact one another in ways sometimes we don’t realize.  We are all learning so many new ways to use technology to impact others as well as enhance our own learning and thus our lives.  This has been an incredible journey, one that I am glad you have been a part of.  I like that you will recommend the reading for your colleagues.  At our school we have a “book club” and read books about educational leadership (mostly), but I too will recommend this as a read for us over the summer.  Ray McNulty’s book It's Not Us Against Them Creating the Schools We Need, was the last book and he was able to visit our school and district and meet with student leaders about the change we are making.  (See Story) Next week my “free post” will be about our current read by Dan Pink-Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. As usual I enjoyed reading your post.

From Laurie:

The Art of Possibility by Rosamund and Benjamin Zander (2000) is a really good read and offers tools in the way of practices that can provide opportunities for us to make personal evolutions to enhance not only ourselves but the lives we touch as well.  I remember Dr. Bedard stating in an Action Research video that we are the “change agents" for the future of education and I see this book as another valuable resource to help me journey through this change evolution that I have already embarked upon since starting this EMDT program. As I read chapter to chapter I began to understand how the practices outlined in the book could work together to help me realize a vision that perhaps seemed unattainable at first, to improve how I reach my learners through the use of technology, which in itself is a big change from normal practices and comfort levels in my educational environment.

I will relate the principles that I am learning from this book to real application and hope that I too will be able to reorient myself in a universe of possibility.  I work in a Medical Device corporate world where we are always being measured by the ability to be innovative (number of patents) and are asked constantly to think outside of the box without any guidance on how exactly to do this.  I found the example of the nine dot square exercise explained in the chapter Its all Invented as an eye opening analogy and one that I think I will use when I train research and development teams.  I will also encourage them to read the Art of Possibility book to help open their minds and separate themselves from the self imposed boundaries or the catchphrase “Its all invented,” that is explained in the book.  We do tend to spend too much time thinking about what we can’t do versus putting our minds back into our creative childhood mentalities where we had no inhibitions and truly expressed ourselves.  I particularly liked the statement from Zander that the frames our minds create, define – and – confine – what we perceive to be possible.  This really ties well to the nine dot exercise in that if we read the instructions with the self imposed constraint, not written, that the 4 straight lines have to be connected without taking pen from paper within the square formed by the outer dots, there is no solution.  If you remove the “Its all Invented” constraint, within the square formed by the outer dots, you reach the solution as you go outside of this framework to open space on the paper.  A famous quote by Louis Binstock, confirms this analogy, “Very often we are our own worst enemy as we foolishly build stumbling blocks on the path that leads to success and happiness.”  I will share the The Art of Possibility practices with my training audience as it becomes easy to relate this to innovation.  As innovation is not usually a new product or service, it is taking an existing product or service and putting it into a different application or setting, hence thinking outside of all constraints within your mind. 

Week 2 Comment-1: Deborah Sander's Reading Post

"Water Rippling" 4freephotos.com

Deborah, 

I was struck by the comparison you made using Orson Welle's story “War of the Worlds” (1938), and how as only an invented story, so many took it as the real thing”, what a great analogy about how people can react to “perceptions” about an event. You brought in the comparisons from the reading in a very succinct and poignant way, connecting how those “identification mechanisms” work and were triggered by this seemingly real story.  You chose a great graphic "Water Rippling", to convey the idea of the ripple effect we have on each other. Very nice.

I also agree with your comment about the “quality” of the contribution we make and know you are making a huge difference in the quality of the young lives you interact with; helping students learn how to speak and see (your assistance with facilitating contacts for eye glasses) is amazing! Kudos for your compassion and kindness.  You are “molding diamonds in the rough to 50 carat wonders”!  Well stated and so true!

Deborah’s Post:

In the book “The Art of Possibility” (in the chapter entitled “It’s All Invented”) as soon as I began to read the words: “We perceive only the sensations we are programmed to receive, and our awareness is further restricted by the fact that we recognize only those for which we have mental maps or categories” I thought of an actual event in history that gives clear evidence of the impact and results of “perception.”  On Sunday, October 30, 1938, Orson Welles’ "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast, implanted a vivid and horrifying "script" into minds of radio listeners throughout the United States.  The actions of the listeners, the army, and the scientists were all based on their “perception of fear and danger.”  Their eyes could not see the actual creatures or the spaceship, however the audio images projected to the brain triggered fear.   Perception triggers mental images in our brain.  As a result of the “identification mechanisms” that were triggered  -- they were set in motion to react.  In this historical instance, the identification mechanism perceived this broadcast as a warning of actual, imminent DANGER.   Newspapers recount the mass hysteria that resulted from a finely sculpted, radio script designed for Halloween entertainment.  This event begs the question:  “Had the listeners been informed from the very beginning -- or even intermittently during the broadcast -- that this was only a scripted story, would there been the same reaction?  The manner, the timeframe and the context of data deposited as well as when, how and the amount of data is digested -- are all parts of the “perception” equation.  The War of the Worlds -- it was all invented.

How will I be a contribution today?

Life presents us with challenges that we must all face in our own ways.  Yes, some seem to have it easier than others -- causing comparison of people.   A contribution that enhances the life of one person has a “ripple effect” in that more than one person is ultimately changed.  What is more important to me though, is the quality of the contribution.  In that regard, my contribution consisted of the bits of data that I was able to disseminate into the wide eyes and receptive brains of my students.  Further, these students have a multitude of circumstances in their young lives, which inhibit the process of learning. Today, a child who came to me without speaking English could now speak in a complete coherent sentence.  Today, another student whose parent was not able to provide necessary medical needs such as eyeglasses since September was able to obtain a free pair through my conversation with the appropriate resource agency.  By expanding the educational process, I mold  “diamonds in the rough” into finely chiseled 50 Carat wonders!  This is done not only with a contribution of education -- my contribution also consists of loving, sharing, and caring  -- “By any means necessary!”

Week 2 Reading: The Art of Possibility

The Art of Possibility

by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander

Lighthouse Keeper’s Zen Garden-from Creative Commons

After reading this week, I immediately thought of a Zen Garden and how everything in life is interconnected. Their book, gave us much to think about, reflect upon, change and influence as leaders. 

 “It’s all invented anyway, so we might as well invent a story or framework of meaning that enhances our quality of life and the life of those around us.” Loved the beginning and as I read through more I love Benjamin’s style. Of course after viewing his TED video for the week, I was brought back to my musical upbringing and it was a refreshing reminder.  The authors Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander have a compassionate approach to showing one how to transform their personal and professional life. One most definitely affects the other in so many ways.

Their words are of such a spiritual nature, our spirit is interconnected with the way we live in the moment. They spoke of it in another phrase about how relationships are transformed when they stated “The relationship between people and environments is highlighted, not the people and things themselves.  Emotions that are often relegated to the special category of spirituality are abundant here: joy, grace, awe, wholeness, passion and compassion.” (20) While working with teenagers it is important to build a relationship with them that fosters respect, kindness and compassion, which is something I try to do on a daily basis.  

In “Giving an A”, they viewed it as a way to transform the relationship, as a shift in attitude. My own grading practice has always been one of  “continuous improvement”,  there is an intrinsic drive to excel, even though the question I often get from students is “did I get all the points”, too much worry on the points and earning the grade and sometimes not on the joy of the learning.  So much of my grading is observational, based on how enthusiastic and driven a student is to learn.  Ben’s example of the letters from his students about his approach to A’s and the Asian boy who was #68 and his realization and confusion of an A, (68/70) and what it meant demonstrated how inventive it all is.   I like his approach of giving everyone an A to begin with and see what happens would it really “..line up with their students in their efforts to produce the outcome, rather than lining up with the standard against these students.”  We should work as a team, rather than on an individual basis.  The example of punitive approach of the teacher disappointed with the high score of one boy who changed the subject of his paper, hoping the student would work on his organizational approach, was an example that unfortunately happens with many teachers today. 

It's a little ironic that my post is later than usual this weekend, because grades for my students were due, so from my end there is also that game to be played.

In Being a Contributor—your surroundings growing up influence the determination about whether you are expected to become something or not.  Becoming a contributor is not an either or, but a position of making a difference with others around you. You are a gift to others (58), rings true when you know how you influence others by just being yourself, showing kindness and compassion. While reading this week an old quote came to mind, which helps me be mindful of the moment; “Yesterday is past, tomorrow not yet here, today is a present, a gift to treasure and enjoy.”

The Practice—1) declare yourself to be a contribution. 2) throw yourself into life as someone who makes a difference, accepting that you may not understand how or why. We all influence those around us in ways we may never know. This was an enjoyable read, reaffirming much of how I live already.

Zander, R. & Zander, B. (2000). The Art of Possibility. Ch. 1-4. Penguin Books. New York, NY.

Graphic-Lighthouse Keeper’s Zen Garden; Creative Commons-attribution, share-alike