Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary.

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Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.

Winston Churchill

We shall not fail or falter

Memorial walk at Blenheim Palace

We shall not fail or falter. We shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools and we will finish the job.

Winston Churchill

Leadership lessons from King Arthur

 

Harvard professor David Perkins uses the metaphor of the Round Table to discuss how collaborative conversations create smarter organizations. The Round Table is one of the most familiar stories of Arthurian legend since it’s meant to shift power from the king who normally sat at the head of a long table and made long pronouncements while everyone else listened.

By reducing hierarchy and making collaboration easier, Arthur discovered an important source of power––organizational intelligence–that allowed him to unite medieval England. According to Perkins, Organizational Intelligence is simply “how well people put their heads together in a group, team, organization or community.”

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way (John C. Maxwell)

Photo by Joshua Hibbert on Unsplash

 

I am still learning

 

Success celebrated

Here's to my exceptional staff!!

As Richard Branson says: Colleagues should take care of each other, have fun, celebrate success, learn by failure, look for reasons to praise not to criticize, communicate freely and respect each other.

This week is all about celebrating success and thanking those behind the scenes of success.

We'll sit and watch the clouds roll by and tall grass waves in the wind (Don Henley)

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End of the year, and that means a wrap up of staff appraisals, preparation for prizegiving (Recognition of Excellence in our case), staff functions, farewells, welcomes, final student reports and parent/teacher meetings, class excursions, final assessments, teacher only days, conclusion to NCEA external exams, junior market days, timetable decisions for next year, and a few other things I've probably forgotten about.

The academic year has to end sometime and so there's always a frenzy of activity before it. All part of the deal in schools the world over.

Huge thanks to everyone who stopped off and read a post of two during 2022. And, as always, huge kudos to the staff at the Hastings' campus in New Zealand - an extraordinary bunch of people doing exceptional work on a daily basis. They make my job a privilege and a pleasure every day. Really!

After my next post (my prizegiving speech), I'm going to take a break from Baggy Trousers until the new year. I'll aim to include some links and quotes before then, but that's probably it until we gear up again for the new school year in January.

See you then, inshallah.

Lessons from football leadership

I measure my life in four year FIFA World Cup cycles. As billions around the world know, it's currently on again in Qatar (Kuh-tar with the accent on the first syllable). I say billions because an estimated 5 billion people around Planet Earth will watch the games this month and next.

There is a lot to learn from how the teams perform. This can easily be applied to schools. BTW - I'm only concentrating on the football here, rather than the swirling controversies that the media love to exploit.

The team and individuals within the team, the role of the manager, body language, dealing with a loss and adversity, dealing with sudden success, strength of character, stamina and so on.

This applies to many sports teams and competitions, I realise that, but the biggest month in football, the world's most popular game, is particularly ripe for analysis and application.

Like many, I was predicting Argentina would win this year's version, and they still might despite the loss to Saudi Arabia - it will depend on many factors if they do ultimately succeed. Leadership will undoubtably feature.

We are currently in the group stages. This is always fascinating. Some teams immediately standout with statement wins (France, Spain and England as I write this) and some have chastening losses (Argentina and Germany so far) but who knows what may happen next. Maybe teams flatter to deceive, and it's always dodgy to read too much into England's group form.

I love watching how the managers go about their man management and support. I love watching how the referees go about their business. Everyone has a different style.

More games tomorrow. Anything can happen. Therein lies the beauty of the FIFA World Cup 2022.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day, you fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way (Pink Floyd)

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The four day working week has been the subject of an experiment in the UK with 73 companies and the results are looking promising. You can read the article here but I want to concentrate on how it might be applied to my workplace.

OneSchool Global is ideally positioned to use a four day week.

Currently we allow Year 11 to 13 students to have a day of 'Enrichment' - meaning they work from home for a set day each week (the day is up to them and they have to qualify for this privilege by meeting certain criteria - the old Ts and Cs idea). In practice all of the Year 11 to 13 students at my campus have been approved for Enrichment.

So, effectively, they already do a four day week at school and then a day off site doing study.

Their self-directedness has improved as a result of this, and, as that UK study indicates - 'One big finding was that people who work fewer hours in the week tend to get more sleep, which almost everyone in the scientific community agrees is key to productivity'.

A further bold OSG step would be to shorten the week for all students and staff. Say on a Wednesday.

Could happen. Self-directness could increase, and a mid week sleep catch up could help us all. 

Be here now.

 

I love this.

And, yes - everyone is doing the best they can. Especially important to keep that one in mind.

Won't you listen to what the man said (Paul McCartney)

Photo by Astrid Schaffner on Unsplash

Leadership is not easy. 

Actually, I'll rephrase: strong, effective leadership is not easy.

I guess, if it was - everyone would be doing it, right?

Dan Rockwell makes a great point about this when he says that leaders need to exude strength and be gentle enough to give in. In his words:

Fight for things you believe AND listen to others…AND change your mind when appropriate.

The trick is knowing when to fight, when to listen, when to reconsider.

A great fear for leaders is appearing weak and vulnerable - hence the urge when cornered to box on, not listen, and not rethink something.

Elon Musk is a good example, with his take over of Twitter becoming a case study in what not to do. Clearly, I am not privy to his mind and inner circle of advisors (does he even have any?) but on the surface he's made a right pig's ear of the takeover.

From outside, he looks like he acted quickly - far too quickly. I suspect he didn't listen to others and so he is needing to walk back some of his firings of  crucial Twitter staff. 

Thus, from the outside he looks weak, ineffectual, and even stupid. But clearly he's not amassed a huge fortune and gained weasel cunning over the years through being stupid.

But he sure looks like it now. Strong and effective leadership it sure isn't.

I pity the poor Twitter staff who he fired but now needs back desperately.

I am also really considering ending my Twitter account because of my low confidence in him as a leader. 

Twitter won't miss me, and I won't miss Twitter necessarily.

Camera, action, do it again (Boz Scaggs)

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"Cameras on please!"

A familiar statement by me and many other teachers on zoom. If the camera is off and students are on mute there is no way to see if they are engaged or even in the vicinity. 

It's a must do for us at OSG but it seems to be a message that needs constant reinforcement.

There are some punitive approaches to this that I've tried before (back to the waiting room, warning then a lock out) but it just annoyed people (including a fellow Campus Principal). I'm keen to adopt more positive approaches.

So, here are some ideas to encourage cameras on.

One by one I counted all those happiest of days; Yeah, That was my mistake (Split Enz)

Recently, I was doing a lesson observation of a teacher when she asked a student to do some work on the board. The student was fine to do that but said to the class, "Don't mock me if I get it wrong".

I thought that was brilliant. To their credit the students' classmates didn't mock her or even look like they were going to before of after her statement. But the worry was clearly there.

Students generally won't ask for help because, just like adults, we all care deeply about what others think of them.  

I hate asking for directions and I grew up with my father often asking me, "What are you trying to do?". So I get it. No one likes to look and feel incompetent.

The solution?

Awareness and care/compassion is a good start.

Teachers like the one I observed help address this by reassuring students and enabling a safe learning environment for making mistakes. One on one conversations in class and in Zoom's break-out rooms can also begin to turn this around.

Productivity begins when you extend trust to competent people (Dan Rockwell)

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Leadership and trust are inextricably linked. 

In my experience it's a binary thing.

People either grow to trust you as a leader, or they don't.

No half measures.

If staff give you their trust, all can weather the storms.

Micro-managers don't use trust to get things done. But leaders do.

I firmly believe that when you employ competent people you should trust them, and get out of their way. 

Luke, you’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view (Obi Wan Kenobi)

Photo by Jehyun Sung on Unsplash

Dan Rockwell, as I've said before, is prolific on his blog - The Leadership Freak.

Because he is bold and forthright, I enjoy his work. He usually makes good sense too.

Here he is on leadership and being liked - People don’t like you until you like them.

People don’t care if you’re successful. A few want you to fail.

Most people look at leaders with skepticism. They wonder about your motivation. Are you in leadership just for yourself or will you lookout for the interests of others as well? This is a question of heart. Is your heart big enough to make room for others?

We are fascinated with ourselves. The best leaders are fascinated with people.

A leader who doesn’t care about being liked is a tyrant or a fool.

It's twue, it's twue (George Harrison)

Common misconceptions are prevalent in all walks of life. The learning styles myth continues to flourish in education.

Mathematics remains a struggle for me, and many others.

Here's a maths misconception to whet your appetite (and to make me feel better about my inadequacies in this area):

If one were to flip a fair coin five times and get heads each time, it would not be any more likely for a sixth flip to come up tails. Phrased another way, after a long sequence of unlikely independently random events, the probability of the next event is not influenced by the preceding events. Humans often feel that the underrepresented outcome is more likely, as if it is due to happen. Such thinking may be attributed to the mistaken belief that gambling, or even chance itself, is a fair process that can correct itself in the event of streaks.

Well, you can't say yes and you can't say no; just be right there when the whistle blows (The Rolling Stones)

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There is no substitute for focused work when it comes to preparation for exams.

Our two week study break is coming to an end and students will have two heavily disrupted weeks to finish their preparations at school. Then they are on their own.

There are plenty of good tips out there for how to prepare for exams, like this article from Edutopia. But unless a student decides to commit to study and then use these kinds of techniques to focus on what they have learned and then be able to apply that to exam questions they won't do themselves justice.

Bottom line: commitment and focused preparation.

We all have our everyday hopes and fears and you'll find no exception in me (Todd Rundgren)

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Reports. Curious things reports.

I have written about the report conundrum before in 2015 while at Woodford House (you can check the post here). 

It's seven years later and I'm proofreading a set of the latest reports for  our seniors who are heading to external exams in a few weeks' time.

Musing again on the whole report writing thing, and how they fit with students' digital trackers, and modern technology's instant access.

The musings are set for a while yet it seems.

I did good, I kept it on track, yeah (Alex G)

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Penmanship is rapidly becoming a dying art, or even a thing.

We've started our Term  3 into 4 study break for two weeks, but the memory of students doing their recent practice exams on devices, lingers.

It seems rare now to see students using pen and paper in their normal day to day lessons, so it's inevitable that NZQA would introduce digital exams at some point.

Students still have the choice but not one of my students elected to forgo using their laptop in the two weeks of exams.

In the senior school, they are used to typing now, more than writing, so they reported positive benefits from the experience. They wrote a lot more and I would say the quality of their answers will be better, plus the marking of their 'papers' will be a lot easier - no deciphering of rubbish hand-writing any more.

Given all that, I'm not about to be a crusader for using pen and paper, but as I'm of an age, I still love writing with a fountain pen, real ink, on real paper. And I can still bemoan the lost art of penmanship, and encourage educators to persist against the odds.

Well-a, beat the drum and hold the phone, the sun came out today (John Fogerty)

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My students are about to start two weeks of study-break before they return to school for two weeks and then head off on exam leave.

If they are looking for an effective study tool for those external exams they should look at doing some successive practice.

A Mind/Shift article I have bookmarked from 5 years ago, outlines the advantages of successive practice (when students practice via techniques like doing practice essays until they can get their answers correct and then repeat that process every few days, by doing that they encode the information much better).

As the article points out: 

successive practice is the norm for many activities students are passionate about like sports or music. “Most of your students use successive relearning for almost everything they enjoy doing outside of classroom studies,” he said. For example, a student learning to play an instrument will regularly practice a piece until it sounds good and then practice again a few days later. After the first practice session some notes or phrasing are forgotten, but when they are relearned during the next practice session they are encoded even more strongly.

Don't ask. Act!

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Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you (Witold Marian Gombrowicz).

Without wanting to overthink it, here's the story about who I am and what actions delineate and define me as a teacher/ Principal in 6 steps.

Step 1 - having a fortunate birth. Given the odds it's a fluke that I ended up with parents who sustained my growth. Their example was exemplary and made me value relationships, the need for integrity, the importance of routines and good habits, loyalty, honesty, righteousness and much more.

Step 2 - Royal Oak Primary and Mrs Alexander gave me excellent early examples of how important reading and writing were to my self-development.

Step 3 - Corporeal punishment. At Manukau Intermediate I was given the strap on my hand by Mrs Kay and the injustice of that moment seared itself into my consciousness.

Step 4 - Mt Albert Grammar School and inspirational teachers like Warwick Gibbs and Barry Gough. But also confronting my weaknesses, failures, and liabilities and the subsequent encouragement from the school to pursue my goals beyond school.

Step 5 - Dogged pursuit of a goal (wanting to be a teacher, becoming a prefect, captaining the school's first XI, going to university, gaining an MA degree, getting into teaching)

Step 6 - allowing the universe to guide my decisions (a.k.a. fluking it part 2 - such as landing the exact right job to fluke the time, 1983, and place, New Plymouth, for me to meet my wife).

Booyah! That's who I am as a teacher and a leader.

I'm changing everything, Oh, everything around me (Marmalade)

 

Photo by Fons Heijnsbroek on Unsplash

Stop. Walk away. Let go. Stop thinking. Move on...Bingo.

Sometimes Google won't do because the answer is within.

For instance it can be a fragment of a thought like 'what was the name of that Teacher Aide we had here three years ago?' Google doesn't know. Going through the alphabet sometimes works to jog the memory, but other times the answer won't come. 

Stop. Walk away. Do something else....and, Bam. The answer has floated to the surface.

I can't begin to calculate how many times I've used that technique when an answer won't come. 

It's like the brain goes into a loop and a distraction frees up the loop. And the answer comes.

This time and space strategy works for all aspects of learning too, and is a key thing to use when you get stuck in the learning pit (of despair).

Heart's Ease

 

The NZ Ensign was positioned at half-mast at school on Friday as a sign of respect and a mark of mourning for Queen Elizabeth II. 

In accordance to custom, it will remain that way up to and including the day of the funeral.

Where did this tradition come from?

By all accounts, it started in the early 1600s, when the captain of Heart’s Ease, a British ship, died during the journey to Canada. On its return to London, the ship’s crew had lowered the flag to honour their departed captain. 

That started the tradition of flying a flag at half-mast at exactly one flag’s width lower on days of mourning to make room for an invisible flag on top that represented their loss.

Respect, right there (one of our 5 core values you'll remember).

Roll up, roll up for the mystery tour. Roll up - and that's an invitation (The Beatles)

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Over the years, I've heard quite a lot of rhetoric around metacognition and the 'Learning To Learn' phrase.

Sometimes the detail is missing from that rhetoric. And sometimes metacognition is made to sound more complicated than it really is.

Basically, we are talking about a skill that considers how you know what you know.

There are some simple questions you can ask yourself:

• Do I really get this idea? 
• Could I explain it to a friend? 
• What are my goals? 
• Do I need more background knowledge? 
• Do I need more practice?

Students come unstuck when they don’t stop to ask themselves if they really get a skill or concept. 

I know I was particularly bereft of this skill as a student - particularly in mathematics and chemistry - subjects I definitely did not 'get'. Instead of asking those questions and slowing down my processes I moved on quickly to the next thing I didn't get. Teachers need to shoulder some blame here as well - rather than assist in the process, they are often keen to move on to the next piece of content, leaving some behind to flounder.

The good news? Everyone can ask those questions and change their thinking. As teachers, thinking about thinking is something we can model and teach. And move away from a content driven approach.

Try to realise it's all within yourself. No one else can make you change (The Beatles)

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According to social scientist David Livermore in his book The Cultural Intelligence Difference - “The number one predictor of your success in today’s borderless world is not your IQ, not your resume (CV), and not even your expertise. It’s your Cultural Intelligence (or CQ).”

I've lived and worked in The Middle East, China, England and New Zealand so I have a gut feel my CQ is relatively quite high.

But let's test that out with CQ's questions that assess four distinct components. 

The first is “CQ Drive” – the motivation to learn about other cultures. I think Jacky's and my inclination to head for places as an adventure ticks that box. I have loved living in those places and experiencing things more fully, rather than as a tourist who visits for a few days.

Which leads us to “CQ Knowledge”- an understanding of some of the general cultural differences you may face. We learnt as we went and had some enlightening experiences, particularly in Al Ain (UAE) and Doha (Qatar). The Arabic world is fascinating and we have a lot to learn from it.

“CQ Strategy”, examines how you make sense of those difficult confrontations and learn from them and we were definitely up for this in China and the Middle East. When living in countries like China and the Middle East I was a guest and not a citizen so the lessons I took from my experiences were tempered by that. 

Finally, “CQ Action" involves your behavioural flexibility – whether you are able to adapt your conduct like a cultural chameleon. And that box, based on the CQ strategy comments, is ticked as well.

So - as I first thought, my CQ is looking peachy keen, if I do say so myself.

We feel things just like you (Ray Parker Jnr)

Photo by Filip Bunkens on Unsplash

James Clear has this to say about interruptions and distractions:

"Life presents an endless series of interruptions and distractions.

You will continually be pulled off course or asked to put out a fire created by someone else. People will disrespect your time and steal your attention—usually with no intention of malice, but simply because different people have different priorities.

When your day is interrupted or your progress stalls, it's easy for your mindset to collapse as well. You may feel guilty for not following through on what you intended to do. But you are not guilty, you are human.

Everyone gets distracted. In many ways, the real divide is between those who get back on track quickly and those who let interruptions expand into longer periods of inactivity.

Top performers get back on track faster than most. This is the skill to develop. You will be interrupted, but you can choose to keep it brief."

​My takeaways: 

I'm human. 

I'll be interrupted. 

Everyone...gets... gets...sorry... distracted. 

I gotta take a step back and think this through; I gotta know it's true (Black Stone Cherry)

Photo by x ) on Unsplash

The student leadership team in the OSG Hamilton Campus has asked me to address their assembly.

They have two topics that they'd like me to discuss - motivation and their value of the week responsibility. Plus some introduction to who I am.

Here goes:

I love that you've chosen motivation! 

What's the most important skill a school can pass on to its students?

You may be sitting there thinking it's creative thinker; problem solver; collaborator; effective communicator; being ethical and empathetic.

Although they are all important, I'd argue, the most important skill a school can pass down to its students is the ability to motivate themselves. So much comes down to how much self belief and zest we have for things.

So thanks for that topic!

My thinking is that I'll link the two - motivation and responsibility.

Being motivated is about making the right choices and asking the right questions.

My motivation rises hugely if I can see meaning and purpose in what is ahead of me. I suspect our students are the same and I think the closer they get to graduation day the more motivation they have because they see a finish line and a job on the other side.

The trick is to have the motivation earlier and maintain it along the way.

[Sidebar: some introductory words about me - when I was 12 I knew I was going to be a teacher. Along the way, even though I failed many times - I had to repeat my Year 11 year for instance, I wanted to get a masters degree in English - and my belief never wavered, even when I was turned down twice for a place at Teachers' Training College. My motivation levels and dedication to my goals were high. Just saying]

You probably know this, but motivation levels move along a continuum from at one end -'extremely motivated' along to 'not motivated at all' at the other end.  

OSG teachers and CAs are most likely all around the 'heavily motivated' end.  They front up, they volunteer and they stay the course.

How students match up to that continuum is their individual decision. Yes, decision. Not that motivated now? That can be changed.

The most powerful questions are the questions you speak to yourself. What drives you?

We're not all built the same way. What motivates me may not motivate my students. For instance, I am not motivated by extrinsic reward. Well okay - I am a bit, but no teacher became a teacher to make money.

Instead, purpose aligned with developing and using my skills drives me intrinsically.

It's all about choice and your ability to self-direct yourself (or in other words - take responsibility for your learning). See what I did there with responsibility?

Here are some crucial questions that only you can answer:

• What choices do I have?
• What choices have I made?
• Which choices am I glad I made?
• What choices would I like to do over?
• What choices do I have from now onwards? 

Here are a few more as we head into our planning for 2023 and beyond:

• What am I learning?
• What could I learn?
• What skills do I have?
• What skills could I develop?
• Where do I want to be?
• How am I going to get there?

I can't answer those questions for you. 

But you can - if you are motivated to do so that is!!

Swim with the current

Recently, SwissMiss suggested this short film about a 90 year swimmer on her blog.

It was highlighted on Vimeo as being about the power of ritual. But I think it's about so much more.

It's about loneliness, hope, depression, meditation, mindfulness, and retaining a sense of wonder. 

It's also about application, persistence, stickability, problem solving and the never give up/never surrender school of thinking.

It's also about integrity, commitment, self-directedness, self-discipline, self-esteem and self-efficacy.

It's also about emotions, change, aging and questions and answers.

It's about life and education and learning and teaching.

It's a wonderful short film. It does a lot in less than 2 minutes.

Go look and learn!

It's amazing how the day fills up (Will in About A Boy)

Picasso painted 50,000 works of art in his lifetime.

 

This is a kind of ramshackle sequel to the previous post:

The ideas around dividing your day into meaningful segments appeals to me.

Will in About A Boy divides his day into units of time - each unit is 30 minutes.

Gretchen Rubin has this on rebounding from a mistake: “Instead of feeling that you’ve blown the day and thinking, “I'll get back on track tomorrow,” try thinking of each day as a set of four quarters: morning, midday, afternoon, evening. If you blow one quarter, you get back on track for the next quarter. Fail small, not big.” 

Ingvar Kamprad (founder of IKEA) advocates small units: “You can do so much in ten minutes’ time. Ten minutes, once gone, are gone for good. Divide your life into 10-minute units and sacrifice as few of them as possible in meaningless activity.”

What's good for Ingvar seems unworkable for Wozza's world. Ten minute slots??? Far too small. I'll stick to About A Boy I think.

Using Will's units of time as a guide, my Monday to Friday 11 hour school day is divided up into 22 units (3 units before school starts then 12 units of teaching/ learning time, plus 1 unit for morning tea and 2 units for lunch. After school there are another 4 units before heading home).

I like this concept - it allows me to use both Ingvar's no waste, and Gretchen's fail small ideas as well. Yes - 30 minute units is the way to go!

BTW: Picasso apparently worked each day from 2pm until 10pm - a solid 8 hours (16 units) hence his amazing productivity.

Incidentally, I had to get a blood test this week so I went to a local place, took a number, and waited my turn. It took 2 units (apparently I could have booked online and arrived at an appointed time, but, luckily, yes - luckily, I didn't know that). So I spent the time reading and then deleting stuff on my phone. I managed a complete catch up (and unsubscribed from The Literary Hub for good measure - mixed feelings but glad that I made a decision).

Who knows what's good or bad right?

My problem is you (Jackson Browne)

Photo by Egor Myznik on Unsplash

George Couros recently wrote about being paralysed with indecision through too much choice. He mentioned Barry Schwartz's TED talk on the paradox of choice - worth a look.

...as the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates but debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize.

Barry Schwartz

On a minor scale I sometimes have the same issue with all of the great things coming into my inbox.

Currently I appear to have too many to handle because I don't get time to access them through my day and they quickly mount up.

Weekly newsletters are one thing: James Whatley; Austin Kleon; Warren Ellis; Edutopia Weekly; James Clear; Swiss Miss; George himself - I do get to them eventually in my week. 

The daily ones are the tricky ones I find: Leadership Freak; Seth Godin; Literary Hub; Morning Brew.

Yes - too much choice can lead to issues.

Of those the one I neglect the most is the Literary Hub. It's great but it's the one I often delete without reading.

A dilly of a pickle.

I support the left though I'm leaning to the right, but I'm just not there when it's coming to a fight (Jack Bruce)

Recently, I saw a tweet from William Shatner paying tribute to Star Trek crew member Nichelle Nichols - better known as communications officer Lieutenant Uhura. He mentioned her role being trailblazer for 'redefining social issues'.

Some Klingon on the starboard bow tweeted back - 'since when did Star Trek become political?'

Dude! Everything is political!! Human beings often do things or act in the interests of status or power. 

Was Lieutenant Uhura/Nichelle Nichols ever challenging that idea? You betcha black boots she did!

Part of her legacy is the way she as an actor and as a character inspired people, girls in particular, to reconsider their social standing.

She was definitely a trailblazer as she redefined social roles and issues from the Star Trek bridge. We can learn a lot from her example.

 

R.I.P. Lieutenant Uhura. Beam her up, Scotty.

Whistling men in yellow vans, they came and drew us diagrams; showed us how it all worked out and wrote it down, in case of doubt (The Housemartins)

Photo by Pedro Miranda on Unsplash

Currently, we are chewing over plans for a remodeling of the senior school's Learning Centre and staff workroom.

This part - meetings about what staff want, meetings with the architect and trust members around what the budget allows, considering which ideas from the architect work best and so on, is always a slightly unnerving experience, as decisions eventually need to be made with compromises just part of the process.

At such times, I am reminded of the maxim from Velocity that no good joke survives a committee of six. Basically the  point being that, in education, schools who want to improve, who want to make a gear change from great to outstanding, can't do so via consensus.

One of the joys of working at OneSchool Global is an acceptance that we need to make the best kind of decision at the time. We also learn from the past.

A frustration in some campuses is some cost compromise on acoustics. That has made me very aware of the need in our remodeling for ceiling tiles and wall coverings (including insulation) that absorb the sound of 60 teenagers. 

The bottom line: I can confidently predict that the planning/decision making process will be a relatively short one. In the meantime - consultation!

Buenos dias good senor, I've never been down here before (John Hanlon)

Photo by Sebastian Dumitru
on Unsplash

Back to school for the start of Term 3 this week and we'll resume the quest to improve our results and engage students.

It's actually harder than you think to do both those things.

I was reading an interesting article about this and it seems 
there is often a tradeoff between "good teaching" where students learn stuff and "good teaching" that engages students.

Researchers found that teachers who were good at raising test scores tended to receive low student evaluations. Teachers with great student evaluations tended not to raise test scores all that much.

Basically: the teachers and the teaching practices that can increase test scores often are not the same as those that improve student-reported engagement. Doing both is rare!

That's a dilly of a pickle is it not?

The researchers did find a small number (6 out of 53) teachers who managed both to have high engagement ratings and improved test scores.

Here's what those 6 did differently:

• These teachers often had students working together collaboratively in pairs or groups, using tactile objects to solve problems or play games.  
• These doubly “good” teachers had another thing in common: they maintained orderly classrooms with thoughtful, efficient routines.
• They had a good sense of pacing and understood the limits of children’s attention spans.

What you do for yourself dies with you when you leave this world, what you do for others lives on forever (Sir Ken Robinson)

Second week of the term break and I'm still thinking about Sir Ken Robinson. While browsing in Annie's Bookshop at the Peregian Beach shopping centre, I noticed a book by Sir Ken and his daughter. Glancing at it, I was again reminded of his on-going influence. He left quite a legacy!

What I especially love about his thinking is the way he mentions the past, but looks to the future:

One of the essential problems for education is that most countries subject their schools to the fast-food model of quality assurance when they should be adopting the Michelin model instead. The future for education is not in standardizing but in customizing; not in promoting groupthink and “deindividuation” but in cultivating the real depth and dynamism of human abilities of every sort.

We've still got a long way to go, Sir Ken, but we're working on it! 

Homework

Photo by Compare Fibre on Unsplash

On holiday in Noosa, Queensland, Australia and leaving this post in the capable hands of Sir Ken:

"When my son, James, was doing homework for school, he would have five or six windows open on his computer, Instant Messenger was flashing continuously, his cell phone was constantly ringing, and he was downloading music and watching the TV over his shoulder. I don’t know if he was doing any homework, but he was running an empire as far as I could see, so I didn’t really care".

Sir Ken Robinson (The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything)