A blog post that went through the Twitterverse on the weekend talked about “Eight habits of highly effective 21st century teachers”. It’s a great read and one of those that make you ponder things deeply. I started to think about how this applies further up the food chain. As the entry notes, we often talk about the 21st century learner and focus on the 21st century teacher. But, how about the administrator?
I’m a little hesitant to use the term 21st century learner or 21st century teachers – after all, all that it takes is to look at the calendar and see the year 2010 to realize that we’re all in this 21st century thingy. So, I’m not going to use the first 21st century administrator – they all are.
As I look through the skills identified in the entry, it’s difficult to challenge any of them. Who wouldn’t want to be a teacher with “Adapting”, “Being Visionary”, “Collaborating”, “Taking Risks”, “Learning”, “Communicating”, “Modelling behaviour”, and “Leading” as personal credentials? As an administrator, who wouldn’t want a staff full of these?
I would suggest that a whole school could become that way, given a change in culture and values. Just as there are no administrators who don’t want the best for their school, I’ve yet to meet a teacher who doesn’t want the best for her/his class. Here are some of the ways that I think it could be nurtured.
The over reaching idea is one of “Learning Together”. It’s a very simple one but how would it look with contemporary tools?
If we value learning, why not make it the focal point of the day. Imagine the morning announcements where the principal leads in “Good morning, Warriors. Yesterday, I learned about the website ####### and Mrs. Smith’s class summarized it in their class wiki. …. Because of the rain, today will be an indoors recess….”. Let’s get the priorities straight! So, how does the administrator learn this? It’s so simple that it’s genius. Have each class wiki on the school wiki and just click through to see what happened yesterday. Talk about publishing for an audience. Or, learning outside the school? Load Seesmic Desktop or Hootsuite or some other Twitter client and follow some good people. They’ll give you more than enough to learn and it takes seconds to find something worthwhile to explore.
If you’re all about the learning, why shouldn’t you be bragging about what you learned? Why shouldn’t teachers be bragging about what they learned? Why shouldn’t students be bragging about what they learned? It’s a completely different concept where we celebrate learning instead of simply taking up homework.
The goal is learning, right? Encourage teachers to come down and discuss a new concept before going live with it. In your first principal class, you talk about people making unfortunate choices! Talk it over; the answer shouldn’t automatically be NO. Likewise, the answer shouldn’t automatically be YES. Becoming friends with the entire Grade 7 class on Facebook is a bad idea but could the educational goal be achieved in some other fashion? You’ve got to be adapting, visionary, but there are also some practical limits. Together, come up with a plan.
This plan may require a few bucks to implement. If you had to focus school funds for something to get ahead, how about springing for a few wireless access points so that teachers can bring their personal wireless devices into the classroom to support their ongoing learning? You might have to convince a technical department of the value of this, but it’s truly a fight worth fighting on behalf of the teachers. Some schools are there already; some are planning to get there; don’t get left behind.
Consider changing the concept of a staff meeting. Take the administrivia and shell it out via a handout or, even better, a page on the staff wiki. Reading through a memo about head lice isn’t exactly riveting material. Point it out and have the reading and acknowledgement done in other fashions. Instead, turn the focus into some form of learning or constructing something better and more powerful for the classroom than what currently exists. The best PD I ever had was two hours with an entire group working with some robots, programming them to do some tasks. We went from 0-60 and enjoyed it to a person. While on the topic of staff meetings, why do YOU always have to come up with the agenda? Why not start the agenda on the staff wiki and let staff members add items that they feel need addressing?
Even communication with your parents could be different. Sure, you’ll have your own personal Twitter account for your learning. But, Twitter is much more than that. I hearken to Jeff Pulver’s thoughts that the internet is about “The State of Now”. Why not create a Twitter account for the school? It won’t be a place to debate the cafeteria menu with the public. It will be embedded in the front page of the school website via a gadget. As you’re walking around your now wireless school and you see something spectacular, hand your device to a student and have them post a quick update of what they’re doing. No names necessary, you’re just reporting live to the part of the world that cares, that the band is practicing for the assembly on Friday. If you don’t report about it “now”, it may make the monthly newsletter but the shine of the moment is gone.
Do you do all this yourself? Of course not. That doesn’t get you anywhere. Sure, ultimately, the buck stops at the administrator desk. Of that, there can be no question. But, when you surround yourself with a trusting and progressive team that meets the habits identified in the original article, you’re well on the way. Properly implemented, this will be the biggest single school makeover that you’ll ever be part of.
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