Leading At The Edge of Chaos

My colleague, Claire Amos, wrote in a recent post about Teaching on the Edge of Chaos a concept that we both heard Sugata Mitra talk about at the recent EduTech Conference in Brisbane. It appears to have resonated with her and it certainly has with me. At the same conference, Ewan McIntosh also introduced me to the concept of agile leadership.

I have come to think of these two concepts as the two sides of a coin or weights on a balance keeping everything in synch. When I think about being on the edge of chaos the only way to survive and develop is by being agile. I reckon agility is an important trait for a leader in a future-focused school not only because it makes dealing with uncertainty and rapid change more likely to be successful but also because it puts the leader in the position of role modelling this trait, not only for all members of the teams, but more importantly for our students whose world is going to require them to be very agile.

One of my personal goals against Principal Professional Standards in the area of Community and Networks is to not only blog my personal leadership journey but also to get out of my comfort zone and present or run workshops to a wide range of audiences. While there has been a bit of a break since my last blog (largely because a lot of my time has recently been focused on the presenting aspect for the last few weeks) I reckon I'm posting more than the average bear (in this case secondary school principals).

In the last few weeks I have been ale to present/workshop at a ChallengEd day in Auckland, 2 Emerging Leaders Conferences (Christchurch and Auckland), a Restorative Practices workshop in Auckland, the Wellington Secondary Schools Principals Association, the Central North Island DP Association in Taupo and had the privilege of spending a day workshopping with staff and students from Lincoln High School in Christchurch.

Selfie with Yr 9 students from Lincoln

Looking back over the themes of these workshops the common theme seems to have been convincing others that we are on the edge of chaos and that strong, agile leadership is required to navigate in this environment.

What do we mean by the edge of chaos?
Surely this description is a huge exaggeration. Some of us don't think so.

In the 1970s our employers expected our graduates to be strong in the three R's of Reading, Riting and Rithmetic and schools concentrated on these. There was, therefore, a close alignment between employer expectations and school delivery. I was a secondary school student in the 1970s and certainly felt as if I was being prepared for the world I was about to move into.

What about now? The three key skills employers want now are team work, problem-solving and inter-personal skills. The question we have to ask is does the alignment exist. My argument that schools still concentrate their teaching, assessment and reporting on the original 3 R's and do little about the 3 21st Century skills identified above. That could lead to a bit of chaos!

As well, employment opportunities are also changing rapidly. We have already seen agriculture plummet from 40% of the employment market to less than 2% and we're fully aware of the decline in employment in the range of manufacturing and processing industries. Even the service industries which have resisted the downward trend, but even that is now starting to occur. It is the creative sector which is on the rise, currently at 35% across the developed world and likely to be at 50% by 2018. Are schools positioning themselves for this employment environment or are they, as many of us suspect, reducing concentration on the creative learning areas to maintain a firm concentration on the 3 's and STEM subjects (all of which have their place, but not to the exclusion of the creative sector). This could be chaos, especially when linked to the bit of chaos above!

Let's not forget Moore's Law. With the power of the computer chip doubling every year and the price halving every year it means that by 2022 the equivalent of today's mobile device will hold the total sum of all human knowledge retrievable in a few seconds and will only cost a few dollars.

I see this as hugely exciting for the human race. In a few short years, for the first time in our history every citizen on the earth will have full access to all knowledge. This is true liberation as we wont be held ransom to those who control knowledge and it's sharing out.

But it will contribute to the sense of chaos for schools if we don't reposition ourselves in this environment. Schools and teachers have been key players in rationing knowledge (because you are this age we're going to share this bit with you) and preventing access to knowledge (high fees, exclusions, narrow curricula). We will no longer be required if we merely dispense knowledge.

If we wish to remain on the edge of chaos (more comfortable than up to our knees in it!) we need to be the place where we assist young people to search discernibly for knowledge, critically analyse this knowledge and then use this knowledge, wisely, to solve our big problems and to improve our world. Employers, and wider society, will want people who know how to use knowledge.

The MOE 2012 Report on Future Focused Education recognises the misalignment that now exists and ERO has pointed out in it's 2012 Report on Priority Learners that schools have to be more agile......

If we think about the changing employment environment, the impact of Moore's Law and the urgings from MOE and ERO how should leaders in schools respond?

I have found comfort in Dweck's work on Mindset and have come to believe that what is required is not a skill set but more of a mind set.

To support my ability to lead at the edge of chaos I keep reflecting where I am on a continuum in relation to each of the 5 aspects identified above. I encourage others to include some aspect of growth mindset within their own teaching or learning inquiry.

My own leadership inquiry, which is also central within my performance appraisal, is concentrating on getting the right balance between Warm and Demanding which is a construct many of us at HPSS are exploring when we think about teaching, learning, leading and schooling.

 I have begun to determine what makes up aspects of being Warm and Demanding, firstly as a teacher

and then as a leader......

I'm keen to develop this a lot further and also do some thinking in relation to what do we mean by Warm and Demanding Learning and what it means to be a Warm and Demanding School. I'm going to try to think how I might do this in a way which draws on the knowledge and experience that exists with you.

Disruptive Innovation and The Edge of Chaos

To be frank, I didn't have high expectations of the recent EduTECH Conference in Brisbane which I attended with the Senior Leadership Teams from both of the Hobby Point Schools. Even though I was going to be listening to gurus Sugata Mitra, Sir Ken Robinson, Ewan MacIntosh and Ian Jukes I felt that because I had viewed many of their TED Talks and/or read many of their books and/or definitley followed their thinking through Twitter connections I was expecting to hear more of the same.

I couldn't have been more wrong. Sugata certainly talked about the need to move from the industrial model of teaching and used his hole in the wall computers and granny-in-the-clouds examples but he also explored the Edge of Chaos which he suggested was where we needed to position ourselves to save education from becoming obsolete. For a great post written at the time of his presentation check out Claire's post.

Sir Ken Robinson was a special treat as he was not only a keynote on the first day but was also our dinner speaker that evening. The best accounts of his address and impact once again come from Claire's post and also from Lea's post.

Ewan McIntosh was a highlight for me and his description of agile leadership resonated with me. I have spent years reading about leadership and trying to find the right formula to follow. Rather than finding this answer I have stumbled along trying to do the right thing for the right people at that time. I think that is what is meant by agile leadership and as long as there is a healthy dose of moral purpose along with a growth mindset I am happy with the model. I also liked his interpretation of FAIL as First Attempt In Learning. Check out Claire's post.

But the highlight was the concluding keynote from Ian Jukes. He was passionate, energetic and the embodiment of urgency: "Don't say I didn't warn you!"

I have been believing for a while now that the secondary school system, in particular but not exclusively so watch out primary educators, was on the path to becoming obsolete. This statement has been a prominent slide in many of my recent presentations

I always talked as if the obsolescence was a number of years away but now I'm not so certain we have that sort of time. He talked of the impact of disruptive innovation that is the internet on many businesses. Agriculture has plummeted from being 40% of the labour market to less than 2% and of service industries that seemed to have survived were now on a decline. Creative industries now make up 38% of the job market and will pass 50% in a few short years. By 2022 we will all hold a device that is capable of holding the sum of all human knowledge and in 25 years (max) the 'devices' we own will be one billion times more powerful than those today!

Schools and educators have to get their heads around this environment as this is the world our current students will graduate into. We have to stop being the providers of knowledge as we will not have the monopoly on that anymore. Employers will not want people who have knowledge but rather those who know how to critically analyse information and then know how to use it. Already employers have moved on from the top 3 skills in the 1970s for employees as Reading, Writing and Arithmetic to them today being Team Work, Problem-Solving and Inter-Personal Skills.

His message, to me, was that schools need to choose how to respond to the disruptive innovation we are in the middle of right now. We can respond how the Swiss Watch Industry did to their own invention of a digital watch (sell the idea and die) or we can be agile and reposition ourselves as centres focusing on the dispositional curriculum, critical thinking, problem-solving and collaboration.

Ian Jukes with Maurie

At Hobsonville Point Secondary School we have made our choice and we don't want to be alone. If you're wondering how to join in get on twitter and discover #hackyrclass and @edchatNZ

I arrived home from Brisbane at 1.00am on Friday morning after having read Jukes et al book: Living on the Future Edge and my mind was buzzing.

I walked into staff Friday morning Professional Learning to watch a presentation from Danielle on how she was using a new e-tool to provide timely and relevant feedback to her about how her learners were making sense of their work. Check out her post on this topic because it is something every teacher in every classroom could use today in the move to not only personalised learning but to the all important rigour that must permeate it.

Oh yes... and ERO is coming tomorrow. I'll let you know how that goes.

Setting Your Mind To It

   

This visual was how I finished off last term with staff at our final day kitchen table. The challenge was set to identify some aspect of fixed vs growth mindset as described by Carol Dweck to have as a personal focus for each of us. I shared this visual and encouraged all to set a goal in relation to it as I feel we are at one of many key stages in our journey to truly personalise learning and to create a truly student-centred school.

We have had a great first term. Our model of Learning Hubs, Big Projects, MyTime, and Big, Small and SPIN Modules seems to be hitting the mark in acknowledging natural links between learning areas, developing skills of collaborative planning and teaching, keeping students engaged and excited about their learning and allowing for innovative sharing of evidence of learning.

Seemed like a good idea at the time!

Making things work out so well has been hard work for staff. Our normal ways of teaching and planning have had to be closely questioned and other ways tried. Normal secondary school teacher groups and teams and leadership structures have been wanting and we have had to create those that fit our kaupapa. Because we have wanted to be responsive to student need many 'rules' and structures were not, and in some cases still not, in place. There has been a certain thrill of hanging on tight with the wind in your hair as we truly build this airplane as we fly it!

Because so much of what we considered normal is not in place we have all had wobbly moments as we question our kaupapa and our own role in it.We are so conscious of the difficulty of remaining true to an innovative vision when confronted with the many realities of schooling. In recognition of this we started this year calling upon each other to become staunch guardians of our kaupapa.

These are the reasons why I set the challenge re mindset. It would be so easy to sit back, claim that we had nailed it and then set everything in stone.

All of us have to keep embracing the many challenges in front of us, persist in the face of difficulties and obstacles, believe that effort will bring reward, be open to learning from criticism and, in my opinion most importantly, find lessons and inspiration from the successes of others.

I have decided, as a result of the respectful critique I have received, to work hard at getting the right balance between being warm AND demanding in my leadership role. I owe it to all involved in the creation of this school to maintain very high expectations of myself and our staff to stay true to our vision and ensure all of us realise the potential we brought to this school. We were all identified as possessing the dispositions necessary to turn things on their heads and establish a relevant school for our learners and we must work hard at keeping this to the fore.

Over the holidays we participated in our community's ANZAC Commemoration:

Maia and Mack representing our schools

 and we hosted a neat BYOD Conference where many of our staff featured:

Claire telling our story

Danielle supporting use of e-tools

Cindy emphasising student voice

This blog post has been a bit of a funny ramble. I started out with the intention of posting something about future-focused leadership, but I don't know what happened! Next time maybe.

Next time a post on serious leadership

Keeping it Student-centred

There were several highlights for me as we finished Week 10 of Hobsonville Point Secondary School.

At the start of the week we had visitors from an overseas school. As they toured the school they talked with our students about their learning. One of the conversations I over heard had our students explaining what stage of the Learning Design Model they were concentrating on at that time in their learning (she had returned to the Explore stage after she had found new information in the Generate stage!) and also explaining how their learning was enhanced by linking Learning Areas together.

On Wednesday afternoon as I farewelled the students at the end of the day with the news that tomorrow they would be getting their Term II Module choice booklets the highlight was seeing their genuine excitement and anticipation. Unlike for Term I modules, this time we were able to collect student voice on what contexts they would like to explore Space and Place which has helped teachers plan the different modules. As well, for the first time each Module has identified the Learning Areas it is focusing on and described the specific Learning Objectives. There was real excitement when students were given the booklets on Thursday.

I spent a lot of time this week in Learning Hubs and Modules talking with kids about their learning and observing their learning in action. This included students doing rehearsals for Sheilah Winn Shakespeare performances and our first school 'show' which had students performing music, drama and dance to the whole school.

Antonia performing her original song

Alisa performing on the piano

Guitar ensemble

Choreographing original dance

Euphoria after performing at Sheilah Winn

The witches and their concoction

So, as we near the end of our first term I feel really confident about how our learners are responding to the learning environment we are building with them.

There is no doubt that our teachers have worked very, very hard to help create this environment. Most of the staff have not only had to develop their understanding of what it takes to be a Learning Coach, most probably the most important role in our school, but also grapple with the demands of collaboratively planning and teaching within our cross-curricula modula structure, lead students through the Big Project element of our curriculum and provide a wide range of supports and programmes for students in MyTime.

Not surprisingly the hard work that is required to radically shift teaching practice as we set out to redesign secondary schooling creates doubts, uncertainty and tensions, both within ourselves and between ourselves. With this in mind Lea has taken control of Staff Kitchen Table and developed a programme that hasus reflecting on each of our Hobsonville Habits. Last week she had us concentrate on Being Adventurous which has served as a timely reminder that this is an important disposition for us.

As well, on Friday we once again had the pleasure of Mark Osborne being a true critical friend and challenging us to remain true to our vision and values.

Both of these were timely as we resist the urge to move away from being student-centred and start embracing teacher-centredness. There is no doubt we  have the intent to be truly student-centred but we all have moments when we find this a real challenge and it is because we are open to being exposed to respectful critique (also a real challenge some time) that we can be reminded if we stray from this vision.

This Tuesday we will be holding our first student-led conferences with Coaches, students and parents where students will share their learning and evidence of learning with their parents. Having the one person (Learning Coach) assisting the students to bring their evidence of learning together has been assisted by the work Megan and her team have done in creating a template to do just that.

The big question is what we need to now concentrate on to ensure we keep firmly on our journey. I have had a little disquiet recently that we had just about created some of our own silos. Our Learning Team Leaders, Specialised Learning Leaders, Learning Partnership Leaders and Professional Learning Leaders have done ground-breaking, important work but I worry there has not been enough opportunity to have their work shared and critiqued by others, an environment which usually exists with departmental teams in more traditional schools and an environment I definitely do not want.

Our first strategy was to create an Assessment Team, led by Megan, with representatives from each of the curriculum teams. While there were some birthing pains with this strategy it is now hitting its straps.

My next plan is to form a curriculum tracking team with representatives from each of the curriculum teams. I want to prevent any barriers to our ability to acknowledge that curriculum will be covered by all of the curriculum elements we have invested in and that tracking processes need to be designed by those from each of the teams. This will not only reduce the huge workload experienced by the members of the curriculum teams but also distribute leadership much more widely. Both of these things need to happen to ensure sustainability.

It is all of these things that make this the best job in the world. Don't get me wrong; there have been plenty of challenges, disagreements and times of confusion but I think this will be how it must always be if we want to keep innovating and being responsive. Amongst all of this the students have responded positively in our environment, staff are constantly looking for ways to support each other and we keep reviewing our structures to ensure we continue to innovate, engage and inspire.

A man happy in his work!

Reflecting and Reporting

This week I was suddenly closer to 60 than 50! It only seems like the other day that I was only half way to 60. For time to have gone so fast I must be having one hell of a lot of fun!

The day itself was a true pleasure. Staff thought they would dress up as me.

The two things that alarmed me about this was that they had this stuff in their wardrobes and that they thought they were dressing up as me - they just wore a random combination of bad taste clothes!

I was really blown away when the whole school ambushed me in the cafe and sung Happy Birthday and launched balloons they had been secretly blowing up.

On the slightly more serious side birthdays are a time to be reflective - one of our important Hobsonville Habits that make up our dispositional curriculum. A lot of our staff regularly blog (check them out on the sidebar) which is a great way to model being reflective. The courageous aspect of them being reflective is that they choose a tool that is open and public. By their very actions they are further deprivatising the practice of teaching and making teaching even more visible - something all teachers need to be embracing.

Right now teachers throughout NZ are writing reports for their students. They are spending hours ticking boxes, compiling grades and writing comments for learners they may not yet really know. Hours are being spent proof-reading and correcting, compiling and printing and issuing to parents, in many cases 3-4 weeks after they are written.

How many teachers are taking the opportunity to report on their own performance, effort, progress and achievement, let alone publishing their reports for anyone to see. Recent posts from Steve, Ros and Sally have them doing that exactly. Sally makes comments about herself against each of the Hobsonville Habits while Ros asks the questions of herself that coaches are currently asking of their learners in preparation for their IEMs.

We are reporting to our parents as well. Once a fortnight Learning Coaches send a brief email to parents on their child's learning goals and how well they are going towards achieving them.

As well, last Tuesday evening we held a parent workshop, as part of our reporting to them where we had a 80% turnout. Parents met in their child's learning community and rotated through 4 kitchen table workshops on Big Projects, Specialised Learning Modules, Learning Dispositions and Learning Hubs - the key elements of our curriculum.

Parents participating in curriculum workshops

In 2 weeks time parents will be invited in by their children to have a 30 minute conference with them, supported by their Learning Coach, where they will discuss this term's learning and what their goals are for next term. Seems like effective and valuable reporting to me.

The neat thing is that we don't confine ourselves to just reporting on ourselves! Check out Claire's post on her report on the Minister.

Wandering around during the week I am still impressed with the high levels of engagement I am seeing throughout the building. Through a range of different modules and contexts students have been engaging with the big concept of Identity in ways that are linking the important Learning Areas of the NZC.

Liz ensuring students use the NZ Engineering Standards in their work!

Composing and performing music to express Identity

Visualising our pepeha - our community's identity!

I pinch myself that we have only had 8 weeks yet students are talking about their stages of learning in relation to our Learning Design Model - they know when they are Exploring, Making Sense, Focusing, Generating, Testing, Refining and Sharing. One student told me that she was involved in a process of 'Ideation' in her attempt to make sense and enable her to focus within her project!

They are also engaging actively with the Hobsonville Habits and knowing which Habit they are displaying and which ones they need to strengthen.

Visualising the examples of when habits being displayed

And right in the mix is the fantastic Big Project element of our curriculum. Check out Sarah's post on this part of our curriculum and view the YouTube clip which puts the Big Project element right in the Big Picture.

As a said in my last post the Professional Learning we do as a staff each Friday morning is a highlight. This week was no exception. Di, in a brief but powerful workshop, linked our Learning Design Model to the writing of Learning Objectives which made me embarrassed when I realised the poor quality of my Learning Objectives in the past. This was an epiphany for me. ut wait! There was more! Lisa lept to her feet and with a very messy drawing clearly explained the way in which higher order thinking is scaffolded both with a lesson and across a whole module.

Fridays are such a buzz after these sessions.

I was rapt with my cycling shoes and gloves for my birthday but this note that was encased in a balloon and delivered to me by a student took my breath away.

This will do as my report card for the meantime.

Visible Footprints

Until very recently we had spent a lot of time whistling in the dark - researching, theorising, planning, imagining what a redesigned secondary school would actually look like. I have to pinch myself that after only 7 weeks of operating as a secondary school with students with only the last 3 actually in our building we are seeing our imaginings becoming a workable reality and we are beginning to leave a footprint.

Yesterday, Saturday 22 March, was a special day for establishing our footprint. Lea, along with Sally, Megan and Ros, was at the Big Picture Conference in Wellington and Saturday was her day for the presentation on how Big Picture Kaupapa has influenced the thinking behind our school.

Twitter was going crazy with ravings about her presentation.

The storify collection on the conference can be viewed here

As well, Claire was going hammer and tongs at the Festival of Education in Auckland.

She put out a challenge to educators to accept the need for change in our schooling system and then later in the day chaired a panel of innovative thinkers. The following day she arranged for a group of our students to be part of the Youth Summit at the Festival.

I think I got the short straw but did enjoy the opportunity to be a provacateur while making a keynote at the Auckland Technology Teachers Conference at Auckland University. After hearing a hell of a lot of deficit thinking from them as they responded to a previous speaker I challenged them not to be that group of technology teachers who sit in the corner of the staffroom grizzling about change and compliance, claiming 'we tried that in 1972 and it didn't work then' and blaming primary schools for low achieving students etc, etc. I managed to get out alive and have been invited to speak to Rangitoto College's Emerging Leaders Group. Not quite as exciting as Lea's offer of employment in Sydney!

While at the Festival of Education Dinner that evening I was prompted to reflect on several matters. Minister Parata gave a stirring speech which was well-received, but the introduction and thanks was over the top with its crawlingness and the mismatch between her rhetoric and her shameful focus on testing and grading is a hard rat to swallow.

It was the three young people who took the stage to talk about their schooling experiences that was the most heart-warming and affirming, They were each asked to suggest what should happen in schools to make them more relevant for young people. Arizona pleaded to have out-of-class learning included in evidence of learning and used her experiences as Head Girl at EGGS as an example. Tristan Pang (12 years old and off to full-time university study next year) asked that schools have passion days when students could concentrate on things they were passionate about to keep them engaged with learning rather than concentrating on timetabled academic classes for the whole week.

Thanks for describing our school!

More schools are going to have to follow our lead. Secondary schools still largely look like what they did when I first attended in 1971! There's no way I would go into a hospital or dentist that was operating the same as it did 43 years ago.

Despite the tinkering around the edges secondary schools are still based on the model of one group of kids, in one class, for one hour, with one teacher, being taught one subject, by doing the one set of learning activities, at the one pace and completing the one same piece of assessment at the one time with none of the learning in that one class linked to the learning in their other classes down the corridor and having very little say in the learning activities they are all doing and in what the assessment will be.

Schools must move to the paradigm of many: many ways to group learners, many contexts for learning, many teachers to support the learning, many ways of teaching, many different activities to engage in, many ways to show evidence of learning and many paces for learning.

The following photos show the range of programmes students have been experiencing in our very important MyTime aspect of our curriculum when students determine where they need to be, with whom and doing what to support their learning. They can choose individual or group learning support, numeracy or literacy support or extension or they can pursue a passion.

The very important Friday morning staff Professional Learning is quickly becoming a highlight of our week.

And while this is all going on staff are tracking their journey. Check out the blogs on th right hand side which are being updated continually. I reckon you should check out Claire's post on blended learning which is the best succinct outline of the importance of blended learning that I have seen. And Megan's post is a great champion for conferencing as an important tool for tracking and reporting on learning. And you should check out Steve's honest reflections in his mid-term report card. And finally check out Georgi's description of our emerging library.