Who are you really serving? How far does your reach extend? Why did you become a teacher in the first place?

On changing schools (again), moving away from Ed Tech (not completely), moving back into the classroom (why would I do that?!?), and bringing this blog to a close (perhaps) . . . 

The title poses some very good questions that I have been pondering over the last few weeks and months of this turbulent school year.  Going back to just over a year ago, having major cardiac surgery (in a foreign country none-the-less) certainly made me pause and think.  Add to that moving house/country/schools/continents brings everything into sharp focus and scrutiny.  There have been a number of ups and downs, and complete turn-arounds in the last 12 months which have culminated in a whole lot of change for me.  All of these changes were planned (in one way or another) and initiated by me and my family - we just didn't plan on doing everything at the same time.  That's just how it all worked out.  Now that we are a year down the track, I am making another big change with moving schools again, moving away from ed tech and returning to the classroom.  Why would I do that, you might ask?  The more that I think about it, the more I come back to the three questions in the title of this post . . .

What lies on the road ahead?  Are you on the right path?

Who are you really serving?
In my current role as an ed tech coach, I have really examined this question this year.  At my previous school, my role meant serving the entire student body (directly in classrooms, through technology tools and systems, and through various interactions with student leadership, clubs and the school community), the entire HS faculty (through developing teaching and learning with ed tech integration, through PD/training/support, and through building a school culture of professional sharing and collaboration), and the school as a whole (through my role as a co-director of digital learning, and through the development of school systems/procedures/organisation for school growth and innovation).  This year has been really difficult as these avenues for growth and development are in their infancy here, and out of my sphere of influence - which is just not a good fit for me.  Leadership here thinks my time is best spent acting as a technician (which we have enough of in IT Services), working as a substitute (wait, what?!?) or covering the ugly jobs of others (like planning the sub coverage for the day, very early in the morning).  My role here seems to be serving administration, as they simply do not understand what my role is, what my strengths and abilities are, or how I can help the school to grow and develop.  Am I serving the school community as a whole here - not really.  Am I doing what I thought I was brought here to do - definitely not.  Am I working in an environment which is conducive to school growth and innovation, as well as providing a platform for my continued learning and development - nope.  Which leads to the second question . . .

How far does your reach extend?
I can't help but compare my previous school to the current one when I consider this question.  The visual that pops into my mind is having my arms blown off by a grenade that has been handed to me . . . not a pretty image.  In my previous school, I contributed to school growth everyday in many different areas across the school.  Over the years, I helped to change the school timetable and master schedule, moved the entire school to become a Mac school and use Google Apps for Education, bring in external collaboration and certification programs for teachers like Google Certified Educators and GEG Poland, create flexible classroom environments, and update and evolve the courses and programs on offer.  Here, I have not been allowed to contribute to many of the bigger projects around the school such as building and outfitting the new campus, selecting school systems (LMS, SIS, SIMS), considering platform change for the laptop program, or bringing in/back Google Suite.  Everything has been relegated to "not now", "maybe next year", or "there is a team working on that already."  Disappointing, frustrating and again, not a good fit for me.  Not being able to contribute to school growth is demoralising, and does not help to build a sense of collegiality or ownership in the school.  Working in a strictly "top-down" environment where you have no voice and certainly am not heard, is not for me.  Looking back, I wish I had a better way to evaluate this aspect of a school from far away, before uprooting the family and making the jump.  In terms of evaluating where a school is at with its approach to educational technology, I think this is a very important question when considering a move that can only be answered truthfully by going there and seeing it for yourself.  What people say is so different from the realities of the environment, as everything is coloured by their own perceptions, attitudes and how they want to portray themselves, the faculty, the school or teaching and learning in general.

Why did you become a teacher in the first place?
This is the big question that I think all teachers should think about from time to time.  I first started thinking about becoming a teacher when I was halfway through my 3rd year of university.  I realised that my love for programming and computer science, and the kind of work that I was doing for my university courses, was not reflected in real-life and industry after graduation.  I had the benefit of an older brother who was already working in the software industry of the late-80's, and I could see the kind of work that he was doing was not for me.  When I started asking my friends and family what I should do, they all said that I had been a teacher all of my life - first as a school tutor, then as a lab tech in uni, and teaching assistant during the school year and over the summers.  Working with people, whether they be adults or students, is what I thrive on.  Seeing the lights go on, making connections, expanding someone's thinking and pushing their boundaries - these are the things which make going to school everyday worthwhile.  I have been doing this for 28 years now, and this is the first time that I have been in a school environment where much of this is lacking on a day-to-day basis for me in my current role.  If that is not a signal that I need a change, then I don't know what is?!  If what you are doing does not bring you some level of fulfilment and joy, then I suggest that you really think about the path you are on.  I have realised that I really need to get back into the classroom, to get back to teaching students who want to learn rather than adults who do not.  I have realised that I have been teaching CS in one way or another for my entire career, and I miss having my own classroom and students.  I need to work with the Growth Minded and problem-seekers, not try to change the very Fixed Minded and those who set in their ways.  Time for a change.  Time to look for a "better fit".

Does everything fit together?  Are you in the right place?

So, what am I going to do?
I am almost finished this school year, and this may be my last blog post for awhile.  It has served its purpose - to record my thinking and reflections on ed tech, to help me process everything, and to share it with anyone who cares to look.  Each of my posts has averaged well over 100 clicks/reads so they have at least been seen (I just don't know how many of those clicks were from bots trolling the internet ;-).  But I really started writing this blog for myself and it has run its course for the time being.  If you are reading this post and it is well past June 2017, then perhaps I have not come back to it in my new role back in the classroom.

I have come to realise that right now, I am not reaching very many students.  Being a coach and working with the faculty means reaching the entire student body through the faculty.  But the culture of the school has to be in alignment with this path, and school leadership must support building the path and setting a course for the faculty to follow.  Without this roadmap/vision/direction and without the authority to create them, the school simply remains in stasis, frozen in place.  My thinking now is that I can affect more change and reach more students by returning to the CS classroom . . . and a lot more fun along the way.

I can't wait for next year - going back to teaching Computer Science full time is complete serendipity!  They say "timing is everything", and in this case the timing was perfect for a change.  I have never had the opportunity to go to a new school with an established CS program that is growing, and never had another teacher to work with and share classes.  Moving to one of the top few international schools in the world is a great opportunity that could not be passed up.  Returning to the classroom, going back to my roots in CS, rejoining the AP community and (hopefully) getting back to the APCS exam reading next year, leading school trips and coaching school teams . . . it's all happening next year!  I know that I am a geek at heart - returning to my true geeky self just feels right!

Big Takeaways
Despite the frustrations and "poor fit" of the school this year, there are some big takeaways (as there always are things to learn), such as:

• Taking the opportunity to return to Asia (which we missed so much), and getting out of Europe at an opportune time (it seems to devolving and becoming unsafe in many places) have been good for us as a family
• Moving the school forward with ed tech and integration (even if some of the steps have been baby-steps, the faculty are at least moving), and being able to shift some people's thinking to "we are all technology teachers" has been important for future change here
• Moving a school towards innovation and updating teacher's pedagogy is a massive job, and it cannot be done without the support/endorsement/realisation of the school leadership as a whole - leadership's understanding and acknowledgement of ed tech role in school development is key, and has to happen before any real, deep and meaningful change can occur in the school
• Chip and Dan Heath's book Switch has been very helpful for me to frame my thinking and understanding of the very Fixed Minded (it has to do with the associated identity of the person involved, and their particular environment, rather than their personality or disposition), and my reflection on the how/why some particular initiatives have failed here
• Reconnecting with the international Ed Tech community in Singapore and Asia (and I will continue to work with Apple, Google and the international schools community as I transition back to the classroom)
• Concentrating on my recovery and health (the change of environment, climate and diet have been great for me ;-) plus being in Singapore where we all "just fit in" (for a mixed race family, living in Turkey, China and Poland has been challenging at times) has been a true revelation

So, this is the plan for next year and the foreseeable future . . . and it feels like I am going home!  Wish me luck!

FeedForward instead of FeedBack for Positive Change

In this article by Joe Hirsch for Edutopia, he talks about a change in teacher evaluation from top-down assessments of effectiveness and performance, to more of a self-guided and self-assessed reflective process.  Hirsch also connects this movement to:

Marshall Goldsmith's highly acclaimed feedforward concept in which employees are asked to suggest ideas for their own improvement in the future.    . . .   Feedback, by its very definition, is focused on the past, which can't be changed. Feedforward looks ahead at future possibilities that still fall under our control. Feedback tends to reinforce personal stereotypes or negative self-fulfilling prophecies. Feedforward looks beyond what is in favor of what can be.

I think the colours of the cans are reversed . . . Recycling should be Green!  

Working in an international school, I can see elements of the feedforward idea taking shape in my school, both for me as a technology coach and for the faculty that I work with everyday.  Hirsch breaks down the feedforward idea and offers three models for achieving it in your school or for your own professional development, which are receiving Instructional Coaching, conducting Peer Observations and Instructional Rounds, and developing your own Professional Learning Communities.  My current school is still coming to grips with educational technology, integrating technology into the classroom, having a laptop program, and what that all means for teaching and learning.  Many of the teaching faculty still have a bad taste in their mouths from what has happened here in the previous years before me, and from ongoing problems with IT that never seem to get sorted.  There are struggles with leadership as well, who really do not know "what ed tech does all day" and want to use the coaches as subs, technicians or secretaries.  As with any school, there are people who get it, and who are actively looking to shape the future rather than dwell on the past.

I think too much time and energy is wasted dissecting the past, and trying to prevent all of the problems and mistakes of history from appearing again.  Aren't we supposed to learn from our mistakes, even if they belonged to someone else?  Isn't that a primary component of a Growth Mindset?  Constantly looking at the past and thinking "things will not change" and not learning from it are hallmarks of a Fixed Mindset.  So how do we move school leadership forward?  How do we flip their mindset?  How do we shift from feedback mode (dissecting the past) to feedforward (looking to the future and what could be)?

As an ed tech coach, how all of this connects to tech integration, teacher evaluation, professional development/growth/sharing is part of my daily work life.  It's all interconnected and intertwined, so much so that each piece cannot be developed without considering the impact and parallel development of the other aspects.  I think this might be the crux of the problem, the bigger picture that leadership perhaps does not realise.  They don't see how ed tech integration is enmeshed with PD, teacher evaluation/appraisal, goal setting, collaboration, creating a professional culture of sharing and growth, and changing pedagogy.  Perhaps this is why we are treated as ready-made subs to cover classes, glorified technicians who can actually communicate with teachers and students, or someone who has the "skills" to do "complex" jobs like fixing the formatting in a Word document (I kid you not).  Right now, I don't have any solutions to offer here, except to keep fighting the "good fight" and trying to get people to better understand your role through articles like the one above.

"We are all technology teachers" is something that I have been repeating a lot this year.  I just hope that it is starting to sink in, especially in the places where it really needs to be part of the thinking and culture of the school.

Coaches = Givers

Have you watched this recent TEDTalks by Adam Grant which defined Givers and Takers (and Matchers)?  As an educational technology coach, I watched this with great interest and reflected upon Grant's model as applied to my work as a coach.  If you haven't watched it yet, then here it is . . . definitely worth the 18 minutes of your time!



Here are the key moments that I picked out from his talk . . .

• 3:40 - Givers make organisations better . . . Schools need to recognise and acknowledge this.  My previous principal always said that I was a problem finder and would immediately start working on a solution without being asked - something that was greatly appreciated.  But the work of Givers is not always appreciated - please see a previous post about what I call "guilty by competence".
• 5:30 - Protect Givers from burnout . . . As a self-identified Giver, the environment and school culture that I work in has a profound effect on me.  The act of changing schools has forced me to reflect upon this a lot this year.  How school leadership values our role as coaches and change-agents within the school, makes all of the difference with how our day-to-day work progresses and how quickly (or slowly) we "feel the burn".
• 6:30 - Encourage help-seeking behaviours . . . Get more people to act as Givers by creating/building a culture of giving, providing help, and sharing.  Again, this is all about changing the culture of the school, which comes from top through leadership and from the grassroots movements which encourage collaboration, professional sharing and growth.  Without the support for such bottom-up shifts in culture, the Takers dominate the culture of the school and the Givers get burned out.
• 7:50 - Get the right people on the bus . . . To me, this speaks about hiring practices and considering people's Mindset (in my case, mindset towards educational technology).  One way school leadership can address and build a positive school culture is through effective management of hiring practices for faculty and staff.
• 8:50 - Weed out the Takers . . . This is an inherently difficult thing to do in schools, but entirely necessary and vital for school development.  As a teacher for almost 3 decades, I have seen the ineffective/disgruntled/unmotivated/coasting/bully teacher at every school that I have worked in across 3 continents.  Admit it, this is a problem at every school in the world no matter how big or small, how affluent or inner-city, how well resourced or under-funded.  School leadership needs to be able to move someone on who is detrimental to the organisation as a whole.  More easily said then done, I know . . . but just because it is difficult doesn't mean that it isn't necessary.
• 9:10 - Characteristic of Agreeableness . . . I only bring this part up because I am Canadian, eh?! ;-)  Sorry about that . . . 

My takeaways from this?  Coaches are generally Givers by nature (there are a few that I have met who I would classify more as a Matcher though) and they are not the only ones in the building.  As such, schools need to protect them and cultivate a culture of giving/helping which will benefit school growth and development through building a positive school culture.  Would you classify yourself as a Giver?  Have you ever worked in a school where the Takers stand out and dominate the school culture?  If so, how did you survive in that kind of environment?  Or did you hit burnout and move on, as changing the school culture is just too hard or too long of a process?