Learn then Lean
Okay, it is back to school time. That means PowerPoint presentations, speakers, departmental meetings, saying hello to old friends, and even some work in the classroom. But what it really means is that we get to do what we do.
And that’s to work with kids. That’s what so exciting about the new school year.
It’s also a time to start trying out those new things, new techniques and new strategies that you learned over the summer, either through professional development sessions or by learning on your own. This summer I taught sessions on digital storytelling, Blackboard, Marzano’s work (Classroom Strategies that Work), and of course, Web 2.0. I’d like to think everyone learned a lot, and that these experiences would impact what those teachers did in the fall, and that their experience would in turn impact student learning. Perhaps you taught sessions yourself or perhaps you were a participant in some similar workshop.
Fast forward to the end of October, early November.
It’s several weeks yet to Thanksgiving Break (in the States) and you’ve got a monster pile of papers to grade, after-school curriculum meetings, parents to call, emails to answer, special education staffings to attend, well, you know the story. What happens next? What happens to all those new things? Do they get filed away for later, only to be never revisited? Do you stare at longingly your file cabinet?
Will you let school get in the way of doing things different, and perhaps better?
Over the summer, I read The Dip, by Seth Godin. It’s a short book with small pages, but with big ideas. Basically, the idea is that you want to be the best in the world at something. You start out great, all energized, and you start that climb towards implementation, and then the barriers set in, which result in resistance, and then your ability to reach that goal enters into a big dip. The question that Godin poses is this: should you quit, or should you lean into the dip, push through the dip and proceed on your way to excellence?
Here’s an example. You took a really good Web 2.0 course, and you are interested in using those tools with your kids. You’ve even started to blog. You come back to school with the best of intentions, and then you get real busy, certain sites are blocked, your department chair doesn’t understand the importance in the era of AYP and NCLB, and bingo, you’ve hit the dip…
Now what?
Sometimes it’s not possible to make it through the dip because either you don’t have the skills or the resources, something gets in the way. If that’s the case, strategic quitting is the answer, according to Godin.
I’m not interested in quitting if the goal is to be the best.
So my question to all of you is this. Have you thought about the approaching dip? Because it’s coming…
To the teachers out there: What will you do to work through the dip? What can you do to anticipate the factors that will contribute to the dip? What alliances do you need to form or develop that can help to mitigate the dip? How must you alter what you do to provide the time necessary to nurture, develop and extend the things you have learned so that they become a seamless part of what you do? How will your past practice, behaviors, and methodologies contribute to the onset of the dip? How will you avoid these? How will you lean into and push your way through the dip to be the best?
To the administrators out there: What will you do to help teachers through the dip? Do you know what they learned over the summer? Have you learned the same things? What do you have in place to support teachers on those new initiatives? Have you built organizational readiness to support teachers, or will you be a contributing factor to the influence of the dip? In September, will you think of November, when the initial energy of the start of school is a distant memory? Are you planning to help teachers maintain the energy? Are you providing the dollars, the infrastructure, and the leadership to help your school become the best? Teachers can only do so much; administrators have the ability to open the door to more.
And the technology people out there: will you supply that lost or forgotten password ten times, and do so with a smile? Will you answer that email in a timely fashion because behind every email is a whole bunch of kids that need to know. Can you get that site unblocked for that teacher that wants to do more and take kids to the next level?
Look at all the questions. Look at all the potential excuses. It’s easy to see why the dip occurs, and why it’s difficult to get things changed in education.
Start leaning now.
Comments
For the Tech Educators: I vow not to be a "dip" by leaning through the dip! I love my job... Tech educators reach further across and around the school than any other faculty position. We reach as far and wide as administration (perhaps further). If we are not willing to push through the dip, our school will be stuck in a dip for sure!
Posted by: Scott Meech | August 23, 2007 10:19 PM
Thanks for the comment Scott. OK, so what will your two most important strategies be?
Posted by: David Jakes | August 23, 2007 10:22 PM
Hi David,
One of my goals this year is to support my teachers with their journey into the Moodle arena. I pledge to sit with them, get them started, share screencasts at AtomicLearning.com, lessons from www.moodle.org and 1-1 time adding content to their moodles, they will be the pilots, I will be the coach.
My other strategy is to get my technicians working as a team in order that the technology is working for staff and students, by directing them with a vision and then having them come up with the plan. See you in November!
Cheryl
Posted by: Cheryl Oakes | August 27, 2007 2:29 AM
Cheryl: good luck with those two goals, I'll be interested to hear about your Moodle pilot. Thanks for your comment.
Posted by: David Jakes | August 27, 2007 11:55 AM
From the technology perspective, we ALWAYS need to prioritize. So our priorities may not be your priorities when you come to us for help. You may be unaware of the reports or special projects we are working on for the Superintendent or others.
School site faculties become very school centric, where in the technology department we must always look at the big picture and support ALL of the school sites. Our real customers are the students/parents, and we must prioritize projects and assistance according to the number of students impacted and priorities set by those above us. Your example of resetting the password for the tenth time is interesting, since while the technology department needs to provide 'customer service' with a smile, think for a minute how much drain that puts on all of the other projects because this one person continually needs one on one service again and again.
The technology department is usually ignored and operates with a minimum or below minimum staff until something doesn't work. To give you an idea of this, think of the number of computers in your district and divide that number by the number of staff in your technology department. The private industry employs approximately 1:100 technicians per computers (Sidebar1: Interesting article on this subject of support: http://www.edtechnot.com/notarticle502.html; Sidebar2: http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showstory.cfm?ArticleID=603). I’ll bet your ratio wasn’t 1:100 or lower.
Any new ideas or technologies that educators learn about over the summer become an additional burden to the technology department to support. Having the additional support staff in the technology department is the last thing anyone thinks about.
Regarding pushing through the dip, it reminds me of hiking. There are times during a hike when you may feel you would like to give up and go home, but you must look at how far you have come and how much further you must travel. As mentioned, it really depends at that point where you make the decision, what resources do you have available. Do you have enough water, strength, or daylight? Do you have enough technical knowledge, strength or time? Educators are like the hiker, a lot of times you are out there on your own and you must depend on yourself to accomplish the goal. If you get in trouble we are there to bail you out, hopefully, but we can’t baby-sit you either. It’s up to you to start your project and make the best use of available resources to pursue the goal.
Posted by: RK Endsley | August 28, 2007 5:09 PM