I have been really enjoying the Harvard Leadership Blog, detailing the learning experiences from the perspective of a group of Scottish educators participating in a 10 day summer leadership institute at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The reflections on the blog are coming thick and fast and collectively they have given me the experience of participation in the institute albeit in a vicarious sense. A number of the postings have prompted personal reflection on my own personal practice eg Great Boss? Great Leader?

Great Boss? Great Leader?
July 14th, 2007
How do you lead your organisation? Does everyone look to you to solve the current problem? Do you jump in and use your ‘leadership position’ to solve every query no matter how small?
Are you a great boss or great leader?

The questions I ask myself are ‘Do I foster a culture of dependency where I have to have the final say on everything as the Principal/Boss?’ or ‘Do I try to build a culture of inclusivity and interdependency and involve all as a Principal/Leader?’ Also ‘How do I regularly elicit quality feedback from others on my Boss/Leader traits and behaviours?’

Another posting that interested me was the reflection on Millie Pierce’s presentation on the purpose of public schooling. The concept of the new ‘Three Rs - relevance, rigour and relationships’ in the curriculum and indeed all facets of school life resonated strongly. These three Rs are, I believe, articulated strongly in the NSW Quality Teaching Framework and also in the Sydney Catholic Schools Learning Framework. The QT framework is underpinned by three pillars or principles, Intellectual Quality, Quality Learning Environment and Significance.

Rigour, as I see it, relates to Intellectual Quality - a pedagogy focused on producing deep understanding, deep knowledge and higher order thinking.

Relatonships relates to Quality Learning Environment - classrooms where students and teachers work productively, where there is mutual respect and there are no negative personal comments or put downs.

Relevance relates to Significance - where learning activities include and value the participation of all students, where the activities are related to real-life contexts and where there are opportunities for students to share their work with audiences beyond the classroom and school.

The successful integration of learning technologies and associated web 2.0 applications into schools will be a significant factor in making the schooling experience relevant for today’s students.

Back in 1996 the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first century wrote the report, Learning: The Treasure Within to UNESCO in which it argued that in a changing, complex and interdependent world there was a need to move beyond traditional responses for education which sought to supply each child with a store of knowledge from which to draw. Accordingly the Commission proposed ‘four fundamental types of learning which, throughout a person’s life, would in a way be pillars of knowledge

• Learning to know - acquiring intellectual curiosity, understanding and a capacity to being able to continue learning throughout life.
• Learning to do - being able to put what one has learnt into practice even in uncertain times, being able to process information and communicate with others.
• Learning to live together - developing respect for others, their cultures, their values, their viewpoints; appreciating interdependence.
• Learning to be - developing the ‘all round persons’ who can understand themself and their world and solve their own problems.

There is a lot of wisdom in such a framework and there would be not too many people who would argue with the elements it outlines for successful learning. Learning dispositions like Art Costa’s 16 Habits of Mind are easily accommodated within this framework as are thinking tools such as de Bono’s Thinking Hats and it is difficult to contemplate any future-oriented learning framework in which learning technologies are not firmly embedded. Learning technologies themselves provide a wealth of opportunities for our school communities to work towards the realisation of the above learning goals for students but presently these opportunities are often only slowly taken up by teachers who find the challenges of the ever-rolling technology juggernaut, combined with increasing accountabilities and responsibilities and pressures of working in today’s schools challenging to say the least. The reality, as I see it, is that unless we harness the undoubted opportunities offered by learning technologies we run the risk of widening the digital divide between teachers and those they seek to serve, the students for whom school will become increasingly irrelevant and indeed a barrier to their learning. Recently there have been a number of videos posted on the new Teacher Tube site that advocate in compelling terms the power of technology to engage today’s learners and encourage teachers to rise to the challenge. Such a one is the ‘Pay Attention’ video which is a powerful in its advocacy for teachers to use use mobile technologies such as ipods and mobiles. This video which is becoming quite ‘viral’ in the blogosphere in terms of its number of views is conceptually similar to the Did You Know video. Both videos present a series of facts presented starkly on a black background to the accompaniment of a haunting musical background. The net effect is to stir in the viewer the fact that our world is ‘flattening’ in many ways, both in the way our children learn in the case of Pay Attention and the new world order in the case of the Did you Know video which, from a US perspective, emphasises the rise of the educated class in China. Interestingly, from an Australian perspective, this weekend’s Sydney Morning Herald features some comments from erstwhile Prime-Minister Paul Keating, currently basking in the limelight of the musical comedy, Keating, dedicated to him and presently playing to packed houses in Melbourne. Keating has this to say of the educational policies of current Australian PM, John Howard, whom he unflatteringly caricatures as a ‘dessicated coconut.’ “……..The Chinese are pushing kids through universities devoted to mathematics and the sciences. Mr Howard’s policy is to get the kids into retail, keep ‘em dumb and cut their wages.” Challenging times for us all indeed and remininiscent of the Confucian curse, “May You Live in Interesting Times.”

Remove the sandals from your feet………you are standing on holy ground (Exodus 3:5)

Last Tuesday, braving the driving rain, Shereen (kinder teacher here at St Clare’s) and myself headed down the south coast to St Joseph’s at Albion Park for a workshop on ‘Becoming an Earthcare Active School’ and for the launch of the ‘On Holy Ground’ Document. Typically of late the rainfall has been plentiful on the coast and sparse to non-existent in the catchment areas inland where it is sorely needed. St Joseph’s has been something of a lighthouse school in terms of the way it has energised the whole community for many years around the principles of ecologically sustainable practices. This has been largely due to the efforts of teachers, Michael Douglas and Michael Leggett and principal, Peter McGovern. The three of them spoke to the assembled gathering of Diocesan principals and teachers and told the story of the school’s continuing journey along the path to ecological sustainability with a passion and quiet humility that was quite inspiring for all present. As the rain eased we took a tour of the school and observed, listened and learnt about the school’s ‘go organic’ philosophy that has permeated the whole school, their SEMP (School Environmental Management Plan) and the Fruitful staff development days promoting the theme of ecological conversion that have heightened the awareness of all within the school community.

The purpose of Ecological Conversion as promoted by Catholic Earthcare Australia is to increase our spiritual footprint and at the same time to lighten our ecological footprint. The Ecological Footprint (EF) is an example of how we can compare the consumption of of renewable natural resources between groups of humans, be it in a school, a country or the world. The EF for the average African or Asian consumer was less that 1.4 hectares per person in 1999, approximately 7.1 hectares for the the average Australian and 9.6 hectares for the average North American. The world average was 2.3 hectares or 20% above the earth’s biological capacity of 1.9 hectares per person for the planet’s capacity to sustain its consumption of renewable resources.

The passion and drive of the two teachers together with the committed support and leadership of a principal determined to make a difference has transformed the whole school community at St Joseph’s and it was heartening to hear stories of behaviourally-challenged students taking fierce pride in gardens they had been involved in creating - a ongoing example of transformational leadership in practice.

We left with a number of useful resources, most notably the On Holy Ground document itself which provides a wealth of support and ideas for schools seeking to embark on the journey towards ecological sustainability. Shereen and I came away humbled, inspired and on the way home threw around a few possibilities of things we could do at St Clare’s. We will make a start at our forthcoming working bee next Saturday when we get to work on the school’s gardens which could do with some tender loving care.

Within a single generation……

“It is not too late. God’s world has incredible healing powers. Within a single generation we could steer the earth toward our children’s future. Let that generation start now, with God’s help and blessing”

John Paul II and Bartholomew I

(Joint Declaration on Environment, June 2002)

Today’s gathering saw the hall at St Pius X Unanderra filled with representatives from all Diocesan primaries to consider how school leaders/teachers can effectively use the rich data generated from State Basic Skills Tests to improve the quality of learning and teaching in literacy and numeracy. Over recent years diocesan schools have been able to track trend data for our schools and chart individual diocesan school and system performance relative to the state sector. It seems a distinct possibility that this might come to an end before too long as educational debate focuses upon the development of a national curriculum and national testing in the run up to the next federal election.

Whatever the outcome the reality is that we are living in information rich times and governments worldwide are ramping up the expectations and accountabilites on schools to report to the public using data to show evidence of educational standards. Within this context teachers and school leaders are challenged to find ways to transform the data/information into knowledge and constructive action. Lorna Earle in her paper ‘From accounting to accountability: Harnessing data for school improvement’ gives some suggestions for school leaders keen to respond to this challenge. She sees school leaders as ‘data artists’ who should embed a ‘culture of inquiry’ within their school communities, fostering an ‘Inquiry habit of mind’ and a focus on ‘Data literacy’.

At the meeting we learnt that we now had access to one additional source of data - information on how our schools performed relative to ‘Like Schools’ in other state dioceses. Each school was presented with an individual report and, after the nervous opening of the envelopes, spent some time preparing in teams how we can effectively translate the information into a constructive plan of action to build school improvement in our own work environments. Everyone would be aware of the importance of teachers in influencing student performance and it was interesting to hear of research from Steve Dinham at Wollongong University which found that principals are just as important. Such principals are those who welcome change, are informed and prepared to take risks and are friendly and approachable. Such leaders foster a positive school culture where the inquiry habit of mind can be nurtured.

Greetings everyone! Being a typical ‘digital immigrant’ baby boomer I find that technology is having an increasingly powerful effect on my personal and professional life which I find both welcoming and challenging. I really welcome the fact that technology has made my life so much ‘easier’ in so many ways and at the same time I am challenged by trying to keep up to speed with the rapid fast-paced developments which the ‘digital natives’ (anyone under the age of 25 in my experience) take in their stride but which for me in my capacity as ‘digital immigrant’ find overwhelming at times. In my work as an educator, working as a principal in a Catholic Primary School located in South West Sydney I am personally driven to create an optimal learning environment for all students and staff where the technology that so many of our children use outside of school to learn is firmly embedded in their learning at school. I believe if this does not happen then we run the risk of our schools becoming irrelevant for those whom as educators we seek to serve.
The whole world of web 2 - blogs, wikis etc is fairly new to me and I am keen to explore the potential of blogging as a vehicle for my own personal and professional growth as an educator. Having said this I really don’t have any idea how this will happen. To this extent I feel a bit like a visitor to a foreign country - I have heard it’s a good place to visit but I really don’t have any idea what the experience will hold for me.