As part of a six member School Improvement Team at Brighton High School, we presented some ideas/tools to our faculty at an April Professional Development Day (gleaned from other successful high schools in our district at a High School Progress Team conference). We were all pretty excited about a couple of initiatives that could potentially make a very positive impact on the culture of our school and our students.
The natural 'flow' of the presentations led intuitively to me showing Karl Fisch's Shift Happens and Darren Draper's Pay Attention. My only introduction the the clips referred to the changes we were seeking, and I used a paragraph I once heard in a Leadership Conference I was enrolled in: "The learning of leadership (teaching) skills-the work of it-the changes-the growing-are possible. Ninety five percent (95%) of the atoms in our bodies are replaced in a year...a new liver every six months...a new skeletal system every three...a new brain every year...loosen up a little: change your mind. We replace our DNA, atom for atom, every six months. We have 60,000 thoughts every single day...unfortunately, for a lot, 57,000 are the same ones we had yesterday"...and then "These two presentations are food for thought...".
I followed up by saying (prophetically, it turns out...), "I going to venture those two presentations scared the hell out of a third of you, pissed off a third of you, but I'm really appealing to the third of you who are excited as hell at the possibilities...we're going to need you!"
Darren, in a recent e-mail exchange, said something that really got my creative juices percolating. In referencing his pending attendance at the NECC Conference in Atlanta, he mentioned some particular presenters to pay attention to, citing them as motivational LEADERS in Educational Technology...that rang a bell...
What we need in our building is not just not just Technology Information Specialists to 'fix' things when they break (although God knows we need them), but Technology Information Specialist LEADERS (the one third I was appealing to). We need that one third of gifted educators in every building to drag the other two thirds, kicking and screaming if necessary, into the digital age for our students sake.
This is best summarized by an emphatic statement made by one of our teachers following our presentations, and he is truly one of the best of the best, having just received a Huntsman Award and the $10,000 prize that goes with it for teaching excellence: "I dislike the idea of someone telling me how I should teach in my own classroom". Sheesh...
4 comments:
Glad to see you adding to the edublogosphere. I got some great nuggets of information out of this post. I really like the 1/3,1/3, and a 1/3 comment. I just might have to steal that one from you when school starts back up. I am moving from the classroom to the classrooms leaving my kids and leading the teachers in tech use. I am sure I will be teaching kids more about it than the students since they will be the ones pushing for the teachers to use more. Your posts will give me motivation and encouragement knowing that even the veterans are willing to step out and step up. Have a great summer.
Thanks for sharing this. It was nice to meet Darren at NECC, although I didn't get a chance to talk with him very long.
I don't want to psychoanalyze from afar too much, but I can't help but notice the focus of that teacher's emphatic statement: "I dislike the idea of someone telling me how I should teach in my own classroom." Hmm, not much about students or learning or acknowledement of whom that classroom is designed for in that sentence . . .
Thanks, Scott, and go ahead and steal anything you like...if you've read my blog, then you also read I steal as much as I can, as often as I can...I just make sure it's from great source so I sound smarter.
And thank you, Karl. It's nice (and a bit humbling) to hear from one of the 'giants' in Ed Tech...good you could meet Darren, and put a face with a name/blog...you'll be in touch with one another a ton in the future, I'm willing to venture.
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