Paradigm Shift

Prophecies in the 1980s predicted a move to a paperless office where paper files would be replaced by digital files and documents that would be easy to index and find. Two decades later those predictions are close to becoming a reality. Gone are physical paper trails of our communications (well, almost! I still occasionally come across printouts of emails). Word processors, PDF formats, HTML — all these and more have ensured that paper has become redundant. The user generated content of Web 2.0 technologies furthers the paperless dynamic. Newspapers, books, magazines — all have electronic versions. Those not available in an online format are likely to perish.

Hardware evolution has allowed information to become portable — documents, email, notes, etc can now be carried on laptops, tablets, and mobiles. The move to the “cloud” has made it easier to place documents online, searchable, and easy to manage. The most transformative move is in the area of books. Amazon reports more eBook sales than print book sales. While the eBook market is still small compared to the print publishing market, the rate of growth continues to accelerate. It will come close to reaching a tipping point in the next few years as e-readers proliferate. Other factors like wifi penetration and cross-platform availability of books across different readers, including cellphones and laptops, have the potential to disrupt our reading habits and our access to the printed word.

It’s the beginning of the end of printing. Consider the staggering cost savings – in paper, ink, and printers. Consider the space savings – the de-cluttering of space and storage for filing paper documents. Consider the time savings and increase in efficiency — frustration of finding paper documents. . . And of course the biggest benefit – the ecological impact. Did you know . . . it takes approx 325 litres of water to produce 1 kg of paper; paper production accounts for about 35 percent of all trees felled in the world; a ton of paper uses up 17 trees, 2 barrels of oil, and 4100 kilowatt-hours of electricity; 42% of the industrial wood harvest is used to make paper.

As the hardware and software shifts continue to accelerate, the final shift has to happen in our minds, especially in the minds of those of us who grew up using paper and continue to rely on it. New generations will push us to move to new tools even as we refuse to let go of the paper. That’s the nature of change, and change is inevitable. SMS, IM, and social networking are part of today’s generation’s communication toolkit; 15 years ago they didn’t exist. Email is outdated. . . The next generation will bring more changes and newer tools. Get ready for the change or prepare to become disconnected.

A few weeks back ASB‘s Parent Tech Rep, Debbie Grieve, and I made a presentation titled Passive to Active: Building Successful Home-School Partnerships in a 21st Century School at the European Laptop Institute.

Involving parents in school improvement is an ongoing challenge for schools. Research shows that successful parent involvement improves student behavior and positively impacts student achievement. However schools continue to struggle with defining meaningful parent involvement. The definition of successful parent involvement should be active and ongoing (not occasional) participation in their child’s education. At ASB we’ve built a very strong culture of parent engagement. Presenting this workshop at the European Laptop Institute gave me an opportunity to reflect on this culture, especially in our specific context of a 1-to-1 learning environment.

All our communications and school information are online. This ranges from weekly messages to homework assignments and grades to ordering lunch for primary school students to paperless board meetings . . . Our challenge is ensuring our parent community reads and responds to the online school communications and stays updated. We linked this challenge to the growing disconnect between a parent community’s digital fluency and our students’ native digital literacy. We have broadened our definition of parent involvement to include becoming digitally proficient. Both the transient nature of our international school and the digital nature of all our communications makes it critically important for parents to be digitally fluent. It is also essential for parents to learn about new technologies so they can continue to remain connected and engaged with their children. Enhancing their own digital fluency also supports their child’s learning to become responsible digital citizens.

Barriers to Parent Involvement

Often there is a perception in schools that parents don’t want to be involved. We don’t agree with this perception. Why would a parent not want to be engaged in their child’s learning? In fact they may not know HOW to be involved. The challenge for schools is to create deep meaningful opportunities and sustain them. In our 1-to-1 environment, it is essential for our parents to demonstrate a relatively high level of technological fluency. Some of the barriers to learning about technology are cultural and require a level of sensitivity in overcoming them. Others may be lack of time, language barriers, lack of opportunities that go beyond bake-sales, transient population. Often there is a lack of understanding of the importance of improving their digital literacy. Answering the ‘Why’ question (‘Why should I become proficient in the use of technology?’) is important for building the emotional link to the learning.

Ways To Engage Parents

Generally successful parent involvement takes many forms – reading with children, helping with homework, attending and participating in school events, volunteering at school. . . a range of activities to involve parents in the learning process. In a 1-to-1 learning environment this takes some new forms. We start with a belief that student success is a shared interest of both school and home. We envision parents as partners in the learning process, and identify and implement concrete ways that this partnership can be activated.

• Parent Tech Rep

This year we created a role called Parent Tech Rep. It’s a volunteer position that requires a few hours of work each week. The parent in this role needs to understand how adults learn, facilitate requests for parent tech support, plan and organize the parent tech tutorials, teach some of the tutorials, and recruit, manage and guide the volunteer cadre of parent tech tutors.

• ASB Community Network or Ning

This is an ideal way for parents to participate in a closed online parent network. It facilitates their transition and integration into the school and the city of Mumbai, and supports the building of a real network of connections with the school community. On the technology front, it demystifies social networking for everyone. It provides adults a hands-on opportunity to learn about digital etiquette and communication — i.e. How to communicate online on discussions, implications for posting messages, the permanent nature of online postings . . .

• Parent Tech Tutors Program

We run an extensive program of hands-on technology trainings for parents on a range of applications and tools that would be useful in their personal/professional lives. Tutorials include – Managing your Desktop, Facebook, Diigo, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Google Docs & Forms, LinkedIn, Flickr, Photoshop, building Personal Learning Networks. . . Between four to seven hands-on tutorials are offered on campus each week. What is unique about these tutorials is that they are taught by parents who have volunteered to become a Parent Tech Tutor!

• Parent Tech Skills Continuum

Our Parent Tech Rep, Debbie Grieve, created a Parent Tech Skills Continuum. This lists four phases of learning and skills that parents at our school need to acquire in order to become proficient in their use of technology, be able to communicate, and stay updated within this community. This includes building an understanding of digital citizenship and learning how to raise digital kids.

Parent involvement requires a paradigm shift in thinking about home-school relationships. It requires a shift towards viewing this important relationship as a partnership, a partnership that is crucial for the education of our children.

What are the ways in which you are building and renewing this partnership at your school?

I’ve been reflecting on the skills highlighted by Alvy and Robbins and its implications for the challenges faced by education. Our children need to understand the critical role they will play in the future as they inherit a 21st century with an interconnected set of problems. Schools play an essential role in providing them the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and wisdom necessary to deal with these tough problems, and to create solutions to responsibly and intelligently manage human evolution. We need 21st century leaders to build 21st century teaching and learning environments. I’ve started below a list of attributes of 21st century leaders. This is not a complete list; it’s the start of a long list as our complex world continues to evolve and change at rapid pace. While Lincoln’s legacy is a valuable guide for today’s education leaders, the complexities of this century add another dimension to the leadership challenge.

• Self-Learning

21st century leaders are self-learners. They have a tremendous capacity for growth through self-education. There are many qualities that define leadership in the 21st century, but as Alvy and Robbins tell us in Learning from Lincoln, all the qualities are connected to this one essential attribute for self-learning and self-education.

• Self-knowledge

21st century leaders understand themselves and know what motivates them. They know the causes they think and feel most passionately about. This is important to help develop a meaningful shared vision for an organization or institution. A shared vision goes beyond the present and defines a future reality. Without self-knowledge about one’s own values and vision, a leader will not be able to realize an organization’s mission.

• Tenacity

21st century leaders are tenacious and persistent through tough times when it is easy to waver and abandon a vision. Because they understand themselves, they are able to remain steadfast in the face of adversity.

• Effective Communication

21st century leaders are adept at communication using various forms of media. They can clearly and concisely in simple language communicate the vision of an organization to a range of stakeholders. They build structures to support information flows and continuously seek feedback for improvement. They respect others’ time and value efficiency and prompt responses to issues. They work to build professional learning communities with multiple forums for professional dialogue. They use storytelling as a tool to communicate important ideas and connect emotionally with their stakeholders.

• Risk-taking

21st century leaders are willing to make mistakes, and to advocate unconventional or unpopular positions. They are open to tackling challenging problems that don’t have an obvious solution. These problems test their personal and professional integrity and pushes them towards enhancing their own personal growth and accomplishments.

• Adaptability and Managing Complexity

In a world where change is the only constant, 21st century leaders are able to adapt to change quickly and calmly, without idealizing about the past. Our world continues to become more complex and this growing complexity requires leaders to plan, think, design, and manage in new ways. They are able to think about problems from multiple perspectives. They can stay focused under pressure bearing in mind the big picture. They can strive towards goals despite obstacles.

• Creative Thinking

Today’s fast-paced, knowledge-based society requires both divergent and convergent thinking. 21st century leaders are able to think in both these ways. They are able to think divergently and to create “what if” scenarios and ideas to consider as hypotheses.

• Teaming and Collaboration

21st century leaders are able to build highly functional teams to achieve an organization/institution’s vision and mission. They are able to recruit and develop team members with unique competencies. They use collaboration and teaming to develop the collective energy and a shared drive among team members to accomplish a shared goal.

• Interpersonal Communications

The teaming and collaboration necessitated by the complexity of today’s world has increased the importance of interpersonal skills. Teaming in today’s world likely brings together individuals from diverse backgrounds without common norms, alues, or vocabularies. 21st century leaders are able to read and manage their own and others emotions, motivations, and behaviors during social interactions. Interpersonal skills in today’s digital world are also more complex than in the past. E-mail, voice mail, social networking, microblogging, audio and videoconferencing, and other technologies require a heightened sensitivity to the nuances of interpersonal interactions. 21st century leaders are able to communicate effectively both face-to-face and virtually.

• Personal Responsibility

21st century leaders are able to manage and use technology to achieve balance, integrity, and quality of life as a citizen, a family and community member, a learner, and a worker. They understand the ethical and societal issues related to technology and its growing impact.

• Highly Productive

21st century leaders are able to organize to achieve the organization or institution’s vision and mission efficiently and effectively. They continually keep an eye on the big picture so as to guide and align all departments of an organization or institution toward the vision. They use digital tools to communicate, collaborate, solve problems, and accomplish tasks.

What are other attributes of a 21st century leader?

Continuing from the previous post on Lincoln’s leadership qualities and skills that Alvy and Robbins highlight, these are five more qualities for effective leadership that is worth considering.

• Exercising Situational Competence and Responding Appropriately to Implement Effective Change

The authors quote Heifetz and Linsky’s (2002) explanation of technical and adaptive challenges: The technical challenges “involve the implementation of change efforts based on problems we have faced before and solutions in which we ‘have the necessary know-how and procedures’ (p. 13). Adaptive challenges ‘require experiments, new discoveries, and adjustments’ (p. 13), not just from the leader but also from a host of individuals. Thinking in new ways must occur and must include ‘changing attitudes, values, and behaviors’ (p.13). Heifetz and Linsky stress that with adaptive change, internalization of the problem must occur; that is, personal commitment to make the change is critical. Moreover, ‘the single most common source of leadership failure we’ve been able to identify. . .is that people, especially those in positions of authority, treat adaptive challenges like technical problems’ (p. 14).”

Evans’ (1996) description of first-order and second-order change: “First-order change efforts strive ‘to improve the efficiency or effectiveness of what we are already doing’ (p. 5). Second-order changes create a new world view ‘and modify the very way an organization is put together, altering its assumptions, goals, structures, roles and norms. . . [and require changing] beliefs and perceptions’ (p. 5).”

“. . . Change represents, by its very nature, a sense of loss — loss of the familiar. . . . Change is context driven. What works in one culture, for instance, may fail miserably in another because of the unique characteristics of each context. . . . Effective change agents possess specific competencies as human beings that distinguish them from their mediocre counterparts.”

“School leaders need to realize that when the ‘structure of meaning is rooted in feelings and experiences that have great emotional significance, . . .perceptions and purposes can rarely be altered by rational explanations alone’ (Evans, 1996, p. 30). Yet, swept up with the urgency of a problem and the promise of a solution, school leaders often fail to realize that those who will have to adapt to a change may reel with agony as a consequence of its implementation. Recognizing that technical changes bring emotional reactions more often than not, school leaders can proactively plan for change by inviting individuals who will be affected by it to be part of naming the problem and engaging in the process to address it. Evans succinctly and insightfully describes the duality of change when he writes, ‘The different meanings change has for its advocates and its targets mirrors a fundamental division within each of us, between our overt embrace of change and our conservative impulse to resist it’ (p. 38).”

“School leaders who pave the way for successful change often spend time talking to the informal power brokers in the workplace culture. They solicit their insights, ideas, and commitment so that the change takes root in fertile soil. Successful implementation of a change depends heavily upon whether the envisioned change has meaning for those who must implement it.”

“Schlechty (2001) reminds us that ‘compared to sustaining change, starting change is relatively easy’ (p. 39). He points out that this is why more changes are initiated in schools than are sustained. In writing about the challenge of sustaining change, Schlechty notes, ‘Two things sustain change; one is a leader or leadership group that acts as a change agent; the other is a system or group of systems that supports change’ (p. 40). This explains why, when the school culture does not have the capacity to sustain a change effort, ‘the change rarely outlasts the tenure of the change agent’ (p. 40). A key leadership task, then, is to study and then create those conditions within the culture that will support and sustain a change.”

“Jay Conger (1989) identifies four stages of charismatic leadership that can be transformational:

1. Being sensitive to constituents’ needs, seeing current problems as opportunities, and building a vision that addresses them.
2. Articulating this vision in a way that simultaneously makes the status quo unacceptable and the new vision appealing.
3. Establishing trust among followers through proof of sincere commitment to the vision.
4. Showing the means to fulfill the vision, including the setting of their own personal example, the empowerment of others, and the use of unorthodox methods. (pp. 25-34)”

• Rising Beyond Personal and Professional Trials Through Tenacity, Persistence, Resilience, and Courage

“Leaders must find out what their individual capacity is to cope when difficult times occur, when the wounds are inflicted. Questions to ask include: Will I remain resilient? Will I have the courage to take the organization to the next level? Ackerman and Maslin-Ostrowski (2004) ask, ‘How does a reasonable, well-intentioned person, who happens to be a school leader, preserve a healthy sense of self in the face of a host of factors that may challenge that self or even lead to a wounding crisis?’ (p. 28). The good news, they say, is that these challenging times offer the opportunity to learn ‘how leadership truly emerges from our inner struggles and how we consciously project that inner life onto others’ (p. 28).”

“The constructive response to disappointment or failure has been called ‘resilience.’ Resilience is a characteristic of highly effective leaders. It involves developing the capacity to persevere — to be tenacious and to bounce back when the chips are down.”

• Exercising Purposeful Visibility

“The importance of purposeful face-to-face interaction and visibly observing whether the organization is operating effectively cannot be overstated. Leaders are shaped by the organizational culture and, in turn, help shape the culture when they get out and about (Alvy & Robbins, 1998).”

“Lincoln was visible to the general public; to troops in the field, camps, and hospitals; and to military leaders. His presence communicated care, accessibility, and assessment. School leaders can follow this example and practice purposeful visibility. When principals, superintendents, teacher leaders, instructional coaches, and assistant principals spend time in classrooms, for example, rather than in their respective offices, they send a strong message that the center of the schoolhouse is where student learning is taking place. Further, these visits provide observation-based data about the quality of instruction, student learning expectations, climate, and school culture that can, in turn, inform future decisions. In addition, visits such as these can build schoolwide norms of practice. What school leaders focus on during these visits sends a strong message to organizational members about what is important.”

“Leaders can also shape the culture of the school . . .by what they pay attention to, celebrate, allocate time or resources for, or reward. . . . Expanding leadership roles to include teacher leaders has had a profound effect on the culture, making it more participatory. And culture can inform action. For example, knowing who the informal power brokers in the culture are provides leaders with information about whom they should go to in order to test out ideas regarding potential changes in the organization.”

• Demonstrating Personal Growth and Enhanced Competence as a Lifelong Learner, Willing to Reflect on and Expand Ideas

“Lincoln’s life models the conceptualization of the leader as a learner and the importance of maintaining a learning community that builds capacity. . . . Lincoln’s example of lifelong learning serves as an inspiration for contemporary school leaders. Learning broadens horizons, affords additional perspectives, and provides the resources of multiple thoughts to enrich our work. Writing, in turn, allows us to put our experiences, and the connection we’ve made with formal and informal works and with individuals, into words so that we may reflect upon them and share them with others. School leaders make conscious choices about their capacity to grow by the activities in which they choose to engage.”

• Believing That Hope Can Become a Reality

“Evans suggests that school leaders can learn from President Lincoln’s example by maintaining clarity and focus (p. 222). However, Evans warns that clarity and focus are not enough to implement successful change: hope must also be present. . . .The community must recognize that for hope to be realized, both realism and reach must be embraced. Evans describes hope as a ‘balancing’ act between realism and reach: ‘It means not expanding the horizon of goals faster than dedicated people can advance’ (p. 291).”

“Reach and realism must be partners. Reach is a formidable hurdle and a primary reason why change, especially sustainable change, often is unrealized or abandoned. But reach should never be abandoned when a goal is worthwhile.”

“Engaging in work that inspires others to hope for a better world is courageous work. Effectively articulating questions and messages of hope with simplicity, and inspiring others with that message, is a skill that must be practiced.”

“Although hope includes a meaningful dream, thoughtful short-term and long-term strategies, articulation of a message, and operating as a team, other dynamics must be present. One such dynamic is the belief in the individual or individuals who lead the effort. We make judgments about taking ‘journeys of hope’ based on the character and personality of the leaders. Do we respect and trust the leadership? Do we believe in their character? Leaders are real people, not abstractions; they have personalities.”

In the next post, I will raise the question “How do these ten qualities help define leadership in the 21st Century?”

References in the quotes:
Ackerman, R. & Maslin-Ostrowski, P. (2004, April). The wounded leader. Educational Leadershi, 61 (7), 28-32.
Conger, J. (1989). The charismatic leader: Behind the mystique of exceptional leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Evans, R. (1996). The human side of school change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Heifetz, R. & Linsky, M. (2002). Leadership on the line. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Schlechty, P. (2001). Shaking up the schoolhouse: How to support and sustain educational innovation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Disruptive technologies are not tidy.  Teachers do not readily restructure lessons, classroom processes, and their roles as professionals in a seamless, painless transition.  In coaching teachers through profound shifts in thinking about technology’s role in their students’ learning and how this impacts their role as educators,  what I seek and strive for is that aha moment that signals a teacher’s empowerment and ownership in transformative learning with technology.

So how do we create the right environment, the so-called “fertile ground”,  for teachers to have this experience?

Empowerment not Entitlement

A reliable path to success is to encourage a culture of innovation and sharing in your school.  When a teacher innovates – independently or with a team – and completes an activity, assessment, or project with a unique and inspiring product to share with others,  the result is empowerment.  Even if the idea was borrowed,  the success was their own to share. This in turn builds greater incentive to reflect, refine, and repeat.

This is the type of behavior we want to see.  This is the type of behavior that will lead to real change in schools.  Teachers who innovate lead for change themselves.  They help motivate and empower other teachers as well.

One thing I’ve observed in my work is that teachers are more likely to overlook, downplay, or accept frustrating in situ technical problems when they own the change. Also,  the frustration is tempered by the teachers’ own desire to see their ideas bear fruit.

Conversely,   when teachers have little to no ownership of an activity,  the opposite reaction often occurs.  If teachers don’t own the change, they don’t own the success and have little motivation to ensure it.  Failure may breed resentment.  In order to keep the wheels of integration turning, the squeaky ones get greased.  What this breeds in the end user is a sense of entitlement (in the pejorative sense), or a feeling that one is owed more support, more time, or more software in order to remain an ally of the program. This is never a winning strategy long-term.

Reversing the Effect

It is not an overnight process. But if you find yourself in a situation where entitlement or apathy, rather than empowerment, is the rule, there a few simple things you can do to get moving in the right direction.

• Encourage Innovation

Are teachers encouraged to think outside the box at your school?  Are they, within reason,  provided with tools and resources that they need to experiment ?  If so,  does this innovation have a public forum to spread these ideas?    School leaders must set the expectation and then set the stage for innovation to flourish.

• Provide the right support

There is a direct relationship between empowerment and the need for educational tech support.  A good integration specialist will promote consistency across grade levels and subject areas, ensure that best practices are followed,  and strengthen ideas that empowered teachers generate.   An innovative school needs top notch support.

• Build collaborative teams

There are good and bad ways to collaborate, but either is clearly better than nothing.  Develop teams of empowered teachers that help shape the school technology and education vision.  Set an expectation for dedicated collaborative planning time with technology integrators.   This is an opportunity for teachers to bounce tech ideas off of each other and receive just-in-time PD from the integrator.  This can be done at all divisions.

Empowered teachers become allies that help promote innovation and positive change in schools.  Entitled teachers drain the energy of a system.  Which type of teacher do you want on your team?

I’m sharing something I read today which is a great follow up to my earlier post – Online Teaching: Confronting Pedagogy.

Elliott Masie was asked by the Chronicle for Higher Education for a short comment on the effectiveness of online education. His response presents a vision that requires a shift in our mindsets about the classroom and teaching and learning.

“Online education in higher education has grown in deployment and acceptance – primarily on the value proposition that it can provide scale and flexibility.   In fact, in the early stages of online education, we are seeing too much modeling after the physical classroom.  We have tried to replicate the key elements of a traditional classroom – lecture, discussion, office hours and assignments.  This is predictable – as most new technologies build on the existing and familiar (early TV was Radio with Pictures).

But, the next stage of innovation and development will come as faculty and designers ask online education to accomplish things which could never happen in the classroom:

• Hyper-scaling:  Imagine if 100,000 students were using the same curriculum in classes around the world.  How might we ask them to massively collaborate, conduct hyper surveys and leverage the impact of 100,000 learners working on the same goals.

• e-Collaboration:  Imagine models of collaborative learning that leverage the ability of learners to work with live and asynchronous peers and experts in whole new ways – including inserting disruptive and challenging avatars into the discussion at key points.

• Class of One: Imagine using more detailed assessment and learning style technology to provide each learner with a “Class of One”, where every week they get a unique set of activities – targeted to their performance gaps and accomplishments.  Their roadmap would push contact, collaboration and assessment objects based on their individual and collective needs.

• Simulation Intensity:  Imagine how we might build large scale simulation environments so that learners would have the ability to “Fail Forward” with greater frequency.  If I am taking Economics 102, the simulator would give me and my peers intense practice moments – loaded with many failures – to deepen our comprehension and knowledge accomplishment.

We have an opportunity to now really design what online learning might be to serve the needs of our learners.  Let’s be brave!”

I read a fascinating book titled Learning from Lincoln: Leadership Practices for School Success by Harvey Alvy and Pam Robbins. Harvey was my former principal and an exemplary school leader that I worked with at the American Embassy School in New Delhi. Hence my motivation to read the book. The book highlights ten leadership qualities embodied in Lincoln’s beliefs and actions that translate into leadership practices that school leaders can follow to clarify their own personal visions as well as promote and align an institution’s shared vision for the success of each student. Studying the character of a successful leader is helpful in considering qualities and skills that can improve performance, especially a leader of the stature of Lincoln. However the authors emphasize that school leaders must find their own personal paths to success, based on their own contexts. And that their goal in writing this book is to examine qualities to consider on one’s personal journey to effective leadership.

In this post, I’m shared five out of the ten leadership qualities and skills that Alvy and Robbins highlight. I share these qualities through some quotes from the book that are worth pondering.

• Implementing and Sustaining a Mission and Vision with Focused and Profound Clarity

“Despite the difficulty of coming to a consensus on how we can measure successful leadership, there is almost universal agreement that success in carrying out the mission and vision of an endeavor — a cause — should be a primary gauge of leadership success (emphasis in the book). Jim Collins (2005) in Good to Great and the Social Sectors hails the qualities of what he describes as “Level 5 leaders”. These leaders are “ambitious first and foremost for the cause, the movement, the mission, the work — not themselves — and they have the will to do (whatever it takes) to make good on that ambition” (p. 11, emphasis in original).”

“A compelling mission and vision should have personal meaning to all those who may be affected by the idea.”

“If carrying out the mission and vision of an endeavor — a cause — is a primary gauge of successful leadership (Collins, 2005), then a starting point for the school leader’s journey is self-knowledge. Leaders must know the causes they think and feel most passionately about.” And a core leadership competency — “before developing a meaningful shared vision and mission, it is essential to first understand, articulate, and write out a personal vision. Doing so helps to clarify and galvanize thoughts and feelings. Through these actions a leader discovers the following:
- What drives me and ignites my passion and commitment to pursue a shared vision?
- What are those core values that underlie my fierce resolve to do whatever it takes to advance the organization’s purpose and to ensure that every individual within the organization thrives?”

• Communicating Ideas Effectively with Precise and Straightforward Language

The authors share five elements of communication associated with Lincoln’s leadership: “clear and concise writing; using everyday language, including metaphors, understood by everyone; requesting and receiving feedback to refine one’s work; mastering the media of telegraph and newspapers (contemporary media); and patient listening. Today’s successful leaders — principals, assistant principals, teacher leaders, central office staff, and superintendents — know that precision in communication is critical to their work (and tenure!).”

“When leaders communicate concisely, either orally and in writing, whatever the context, they are letting others know:
- They have clarify about situations or ideas (which engenders perceptions of competence among those who interact with the leader0.
- They are respectful of others’ time and will not waste it.
- They value efficiency and prompt response to problems or issues.”

“Leaders adept at communication also value — and dedicate themselves to creating — environments where information flows easily. They work diligently to create structures that facilitate two-way conversations about teaching, learning, and data. School cultures that function as professional learning communities are one example of this. These schools have institutionalized forums for professional dialogue that focuses on results. Communication in this type of context is indeed a two-way street.”

• Building a Diverse and Competent Team to Successfully Address the Mission

“Lincoln understood his strengths and weaknesses. An important strategy used by effective leaders is to build on assets, not deficits. Lincoln looked for the strengths in others and was willing to overlook their frailties to accomplish the greater good.”

“Lincoln engaged individuals with specific refined skill sets and rich expertise to become members of his cabinet, sharing a common focus: the pursuit of the national mission and vision. Similarly, school leaders need to engage individual teacher leaders on teams devoted to examining practice and its effect on results — student achievement. Their engagement to this end affects life paths of students, and ultimately the citizens of tomorrow. Lincoln had a unique ability to bring together individuals with diverse personalities, ideas, and ambitions, and he was able to separate person from practice and to choose competence over personality. These abilities required great vision and skillfulness. School leaders often find themselves in a predicament of having to harness the rich expertise of individuals with diverse personalities, motivations, and values. These characteristics can provide for a tumultuous mix unless the joint cause in which they engage is sufficiently challenging and norms are put into place proactively to focus on practice versus person and competence versus personality.”

The authors share the five critical features of “high leadership capacity” as suggested by Linda Lambert (1998):
- “Broad-based, skillful participation in the work of leadership.
- Inquiry-based use of information to inform shared decisions and practice.
- Roles and responsibilities that reflect broad involvement and collaboration.
- Reflective practice/innovation as the norm.
- High student achievement. (pp. 16-17)”

• Engendering Trust, Loyalty, and Respect through Humility, Humor, and Personal Example

“Individual, collegial, or team humility helps to build relationships and enables individuals and teams to reveal their vulnerabilities and raise issues that might otherwise be ‘nondiscussables.’ The opposite of humility, arrogance, steers individuals away from the team.

“Personal example is a powerful tool for school leaders. . . . As University of Wisconsin Professor Kent Peterson reminds us, “What you pay attention to communicates what you value.” Being self-aware about the messages conveyed by your behavior can actually be a tool for focusing the attention of organizational members. What you talk about in the hallways and on campus, for example, with students, staff, and parents, communicates volumes.”

The authors quote Bryk and Schneider’s (2003) observation after conducting a longitudinal study of Chicago school reforms involving 400 schools: “When school professionals trust one another and sense support from parents, they feel safe to experiment with new practices” (p. 41). “Bryk and Schneider conclude that when ‘relational trust’ is high, schools are more likely to make the changes that will help raise student achievement. The researchers found that four ‘vital signs’ help to create the conditions that foster relational trust: respect, personal regard, competence, and integrity.”

“Three other attributes build and sustain trust over time: predictability, reliability, and reciprocity. When a leader’s behavior is predictable, organizational members can count on a soothing consistency. . . Reliability promotes trust because organizational members know they can count on the school leader to do as she says – to follow through. Finally, reciprocity builds trust because the leader vows to work just as harad in the leader’s role as organizational members work in theirs.”

The authors quote Phillips (1992) in citing Lincoln’s behavior and what is known about successful business organizations and their leaders:

“The architecture of leadership, all the theories and guidelines, falls apart without honesty and integrity. It’s the keystone that holds organizations together. Tom Peters reported in his research that the best, most aggressive, and successful organizations were the ones that stressed integrity and trust. ‘Without doubt,’ Peters stated, ‘honesty has always been the best policy’ . . .[and] James MacGregor Burns warned: ‘Divorced from ethics, leadership is reduced to management and politics to mere technique.’ (p. 52)”

Alvy and Robbins also share Zenger and Folkman’s (2002) research conclusions about the top 10% of leaders based on data from more than 200,000 workers who rated more than 25,000 leaders. They quote Zenger and Folkman:
“The conventional wisdom is that a lack of integrity or honesty is the classic fatal flaw. Indeed, we still believe that to be true. When people talk of the qualities they most admire, the most frequently noted characteristics are honesty, integrity, being a ‘straight shooter,’ saying what you really think, and never fudging the truth to please the group you are with. (pp. 159-160)”

• Leading and Serving with Emotional Intelligence and Empathy

“Emotionally intelligent leaders understand that power has limits. ‘The irony is that the more power one accumulates, the less it should be used. Viewed another way, by exerting your power, you are taking away the powers of others’ (George, 2007, p. 195).”

“Crisis management is part of the graduate curriculum in educational administration, but each crisis is different; the emotional grief present during a crisis — and the emotional intelligence needed to manage a crisis — can never be replicated in a university classroom. In fact, Daniel Goleman (1998) notes, ‘When IQ test scores are correlated with how well people perform in their careers, the highest estimate of how much difference IQ accounts for is 25 percent . . . The value of emotional intelligence for success grows more powerful the higher the intelligence barriers for entry into a field . . . ‘soft skills’ matter even more for success in ‘hard fields’!’ (pp. 19-20).”

In my next posts, I’ll share five other qualities that Alvy and Robbins highlight and raise the question “How do these ten qualities help define leadership for building 21st Century Schools?”

References in the quotes:
Bryk, A. & Schneider, B. (2003, March). Trust in schools: A core resource for school reform. Educational Leadership, 60(6), 40-44.
Burns, J. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper and Row.
Collins, J. (2005). Good to great and the social sectors. Boulder, CO: Jim Collins.
George, B. (2007). True north. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Goleman, D. (1998). Working with emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books.
Lambert, L. (1998). Building leadership capacity in schools. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Zenger, J. & Folkman, J. (2002). The extraordinary leader. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Schools need a framework and a roadmap for balancing subject content delivery with the development of essential 21st century skills. There are several models and lists of 21st Century Skills, Values, and Attributes. As you read through these lists, you will notice a lot of overlap.

NAIS’ Schools of the Future Committee identified these Essential Capacities for the 21st Century:

1. Analytical and Creative Thinking and Problem Solving
2. Complex Communication – Oral and Written
3. Leadership and Teamwork
4. Digital and Quantitative Literacy
5. Global Perspective
6. Adaptability, Initiative, and Risk-taking
7. Integrity and Ethical Decision-Making

Daniel Pink’s Six Senses from A Whole New Mind:

1. Design
2. Story
3. Symphony
4. Empathy
5. Play
6. Meaning

Howard Gardner’s Five Minds for the Future:

1. The Disciplinary Mind
2. The Synthesizing Mind
3. The Creating Mind
4. The Respectful Mind
5. The Ethical Mind

Tony Wagner’s Seven Skills from The Global Achievement Gap:

1. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
2. Collaboration across Networks and Leading by Influence
3. Agility and Adaptability
4. Initiative and Entrepreneurialism
5. Effective Oral and Written Communication
6. Accessing and Analyzing Information
7. Curiosity and Imagination

Pat Bassett’s 21st Century Skills and Values

1. Character (self-discipline, empathy, integrity, resilience, and courage)
2. Creativity and Entrepreneurial Spirit
3. Real-World Problem-Solving (filtering, analysis, and synthesis)
4. Public Speaking/Communications
5. Teaming
6. Leadership

Bob Johansen’s Leaders Make the Future

1. Maker instinct (leaders approach their leadership with commitment of a job and energy of a passionate hobby)
2. Clarity (leaders being clear about what they are making but flexible about how it gets made)
3. Dilemma Flipping (turning problems that can’t be solved into opportunities)
4. Immersive Learning (learning by doing)
5. Bio-empathy (understand, respect and learn from nature)
6. Constructive depolarization (calming tense situations and bringing people from divergent cultures towards constructive engagement)
7. Quiet transparency (ability to be open and authentic about what matters to you without self-promotion)
8. Rapid Prototyping (ability to create early versions of innovations)
9. Smart mob organizing (creating, engaging and nurturing social networks
10. Commons creating (stimulate, grow and nurture shared assets that can benefit other players)

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has a framework for 21st century learning that maps out the skills.

In this framework, a 21st century education includes knowledge of traditional core subjects. It emphasizes contemporary themes such as global awareness and financial/economic, health, and environmental literacies. Students will apply their knowledge to understanding and solving real-world problems using the following 21st century skills:

Learning and Innovation Skills

• Creativity and Innovation
• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
• Communication and Collaboration

Digital Literacy Skills

• Information Literacy
• Media Literacy
• ICT Literacy

Career and Life Skills

• Flexibility and Adaptability
• Initiative and Self-Direction
• Social and Cross-Cultural Skills
• Productivity and Accountability
• Leadership and Responsibility

In 2003, the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL) and the Metiri Group shared another research-based model of the 21st Century Skills called the enGauge model.

The model’s skill clusters were to be considered within the context of rigorous academic standards. It was intended to provide the public, business and industry, and education with a common understanding of what is needed by students, citizens, and workers in the Digital Age. The model highlighted the following:

Subject Knowledge – Knowledge and skills for the 21st century must be built on subject knowledge. Focus on subject knowledge must expand beyond basic competency to understanding of core academic content at much higher levels.

21st Century Skills – Schools have traditionally fostered these skills. Now they need to incorporate these intentionally and strategically into all instruction.

Use of 21st century tools – Students need to learn to use tools that are essential to their daily life and their future workplace productivity.

21st century context – Learning has to be relevant, engaging and meaningful to students’ lives. They need to learn academic content through real-world examples, applications and experiences both inside and outside the school. In a global world, learning has to expand beyond the four walls of a classroom.

At the American School of Bombay we have adapted the enGauge model to create our own version of 21st century learning within the context of a Culture of Learning that has Respect for the Whole Child, and delivers Quality Curriculum and Instruction through Meaningful Learning Experiences. The skill clusters are Skills and Habits that we will begin to define and weave through our work as a school.

What framework is your school using for providing a 21st century education?

Continuing the series of posts on changes in schools during this century, this post is a summary of forecasted changes in education in the next decade. It’s a thought-provoking list compiled from reports published by Institute for the Future, KnowledgeWorks Foundation, and New Media Consortium.

1. Development of Adaptive Learning Tools and Resources – for ALL learners, not just special needs learners. Adaptive learning implies individualized, personalized learning. When considering instructional technology, focus will be on how it can support connected, continuous, relevant, and adaptive learning
2. Increase in Service Learnin projects focused on health, environment, education – with a deeper and more engaged role for students in leading these projects, aimed at instilling in them a sense of stewardship for self and environment
3. Innovation is valued in the world of business and will be embraced in schools. Schools will become important hubs of design knowledge, rapid prototyping, and problem-solving skills.
4. With the amount of data continuing to increase, data visualization will become the norm to make sense of this information. This will require new skills in recognizing and understanding meaningful patterns. Students, teachers, and parents will need to become sophisticated at pattern recognition in order to create effective and differentiated learning experiences.
5. Social media and collaborative tools will leave “data trails” of online interactions. Visible data picture of our lives as citizens, workers, and learners will be available anytime and online. School administrators and teachers will need to learn how to communicate and interact in this new world.
6. Technology will become a means for empowerment, a method for communication and socializing, and a ubiquitous, transparent part of our lives. Educational discourse will take place in online public forums and spaces as “educitizens” share the status of schools and educational decision-making, resources, and activities in their communities.
7. Digital natives and empowered educators and students will challenge traditional ways of organizing learning. There will be changes in the architecture of schools. We will witness growth in alternate forms of learning.
8. With the need to be prepared for disasters and uncertainties, schools will work on building resilience into school systems and for creating lightweight, modular infrastructures to support the health and wellbeing of students, staff, and families.
9. There will be increased interdependence between the school and the local community and businesses. Partnerships and networks will be essential and critical for building resilient school communities. Educator-business partnerships will grow to develop learning content.

There are many important and challenging questions to answer. . . What will the “school of the future” look like? How will learning be organized in this school? How will stakeholder roles evolve? . . . Would be exciting to paint a picture of this school! And then build it!

I’ve been following the work of two organizations — The Institute for the Future, a think tank that specializes in long-term forecasting, and KnowledgeWorks Foundation that specializes in high school transformation.

One of their forecasts was about the new education roles that will shape the future of the profession and its relationship and role in the community. These educators would be called ‘Learning Agents’ – the Learning Agents of 2020 are:

“Learning Partner
Students who test for compatible personalities but who have different cognitive strengths will be matched to support each other throughout the year, maintaining a constant thread amid shifting peer relationships.

Personal Education Advisor
Assigned by certified local education agencies (such as schools, resource centers, and libraries) or selected and contracted by families, personal education advisors will help families create, nurture, and maintain personal learning ecologies.

Learning Fitness Instructor
Learning fitness instructors will help learners build and strengthen the basic cognitive, emotional, and social abilities essential to learning by using simulations, biofeedback, and hands-on activities to reduce stress, hone mental capabilities, and learn brainfriendly nutrition.

Edu-vator
Edu-vators will build platform prototypes, experiment with new tools, evaluate new practices, and generally explore innovations in the learning sphere. They will team with learners, who will get credit for being in “edu-vation workshops.”

Community Intelligence Cartographer
Community intelligence cartographers will tap the collective intelligence of their local communities. They will leverage social networking strategies to develop swarms and smart mobs in order to identify emerging learning opportunities in the community, organize community members, and locate community resources.

Assessment Designer
Using social networks and insights into cognitive functioning, assessment designers will create appropriate methods for evaluating media literacy, learning discovery journeys, and other innovative forms of instruction.

Social Capital Platform Developer
Social capital platform developers will link the social capital infrastructure to teaching and learning practices and outcomes. They will use tracking programs to provide an accounting of people’s contributions to open education resources and collaborative processes.

Learning Journey Mentor
Learning journey mentors will work with personal education advisors, learning fitness instructors, community intelligence cartographers, and assessment designers to co-create and navigate learning itineraries with small groups of students.

Education Sousveyor
Education sousveyors will keep the learning process transparent and will stimulate public discussion around it. Through mechanisms such as blog posts, pictures, podcasts, and videos, they will keep learning on the forefront of stakeholders’ minds.”

Makes me wonder about school leadership – Director/Superintendent, Principal, Curriculum Coordinator, etc. What roles could these evolve into? What would be the titles and responsibilities of the ‘Governing Agents of 2020′?

Someone shared with me this news item about the Teacher Cooperatives. Hmmm. . . If empowered teachers can self-organize, what then is the role of a leadership team of a school?