Collaborations - A Weird Beginning

It is true that two heads are better than one.  Because each person has an enormous repository of knowledge that no one else has.  They also have a point of view, a perspective that no one else has.  These things are important to remember when entering into a collaborative relationship.  Too often the effectiveness is difficult to find at first because there are different styles of learning, different leadership styles, and each person has different reasons for participating in the joint venture.

Time is needed.  But too often the excitement and momentum of the venture drives task activity before the working relationship is developed.  This is all normal when entering a new collaboration, but too many people aren't familiar or comfortable with the process.  Tragically, this little thing called “unfamiliarity” can destroy all the hope and promise of what might become of this union.  So, how do we prevent things from falling apart?  Open and honest communications.

When two people enter into a new partnership the safest track to take is establishing a freedom to speak openly and an acceptance of whatever is said.  This is one way collaborative relationships differ from other work-based relationships. There are going to be moments of question where we don’t know what they mean or what they really want.  But, we can find out. 

In normal “office” relationships between colleagues there are established rules of conduct, goals, company cultures, and a singular boss at the top to answer to.  In collaborations there are no clear boundaries, processes, or even an agreed upon goal.  All these have to be established.  Establishing these things ahead of time would be nice, but there isn’t a history or basis for establishing them.  So, it all has to happen simultaneously… which we are not used to doing unless we have done collaborations before. 

Two people establishing a new collaboration is difficult, three is worse, and four… oh, my goodness.  For instance, place four strangers together in the woods with the tools they need, and let’s even give them the previous knowledge they will need.  What will they do?  Will they build shelter?  Will they hunt and gather?  Will they cook and season the food?  Will they enjoy the process or argue and maim?

Collaboration is about saying, “We agree to work together” and part of that process is discovering what “working together” looks like while we are working of setting up the way we’ll work together.  Things change.  Roles change.  Outcomes differ from intentions.  Can we adapt?  Can we learn?  Yes, we can, if we are willing.

So, collaboration is an organic process that is never the same.  That makes it exciting.  It is a process that reveals character and skills.  It is an original creation of a functional relationship that will create an original outcome… and THAT is a very good contribution to this world.

Why Not?

Just got off the phone with an education professional who sees the possibilities.  She has thirty years experience in the education system and instead of being mired in the traditionalistic views that many who have served so long end up in, she has a contagious eagerness to create impactful and beneficial changes.  In my experience, this is rare… quite rare.

As we rambled back and forth with erupting ideas, and the natural enthusiasm for having found a cohort in a mutual quest for improving school systems, we saw many new and readily available possibilities that evoked a simple question.  “Why not?” 

• Why not shift the emphasis from teacher-centric strategies to learner-centric strategies? 
• Why not use technology to release teachers from the droning repetition of rote lessons and elevate their student interactions to the higher levels of subject integration?  
• Why not save money and also accelerate each student’s progress? 
• Why not use algorithmic software to track each student’s progress, rate of learning, and areas of need?
• Why not embrace the obvious momentum, the inevitable integration of new visions for a remarkable learning system that gives our children the greatest advantage in a global economy that is quickly distancing itself from what we are providing? 
• Why not accelerate the rate of change and simultaneously create solidly effective foundations?
• Why not invite the teacher unions to take the lead in transformation instead of applying the brakes of traditionalism?
• Why not create individual learning tracks that allow students to learn at their own pace, in their own direction of interest, and in the manner that best suits their personal learning styles?

As we chattered on, each nudging the other from the proverbial microphone, we prudently retained a whisper of caution – realizing the wheels of change grind slowly in school systems.  The process is tantamount to moving a mountain that does not want to be moved and only having a single spoon to move it.  Yet, we still saw the possibilities and were excited that someone else agreed. 

Where two can see the same horizon and the same paths that cross over it, more can come and stand with us.  Maybe all they need is to be invited… and to be asked, “Why not?”

Being the Ant On the Elephant's Trunk

A while back I read an amazing book by Vince Poscente about change management called "The Ant And The Elephant - Leadership For The Self" where the tiny ant rode around on an elephant trying to help it change direction - for the benefit of the elephant.  It is a great metaphorical message and I recommend it to anyone studying change management.

In the book the ant represents the conscious mind and the elephant represents the enormous, powerful, and difference-making sub-conscious mind.  The metaphor also carries over to organizational culture and bureaucratic change applications.  The small influence of a knowing leader trying to get the entire organization to shift direction, shift behaviors, shift expectations, etc. becomes like an ant on an elephant.  The current crisis at the Veterans Administration is an example of "bureaucracy out of control" and asking one person (even the Director) to change it is like asking an ant riding upon an elephant to change the pachyderm's direction.

When I look at our national education system as a conglomerated bureaucracy it is easy to see it as the elephant.  The voices of the many who cry out for change are the cacophonic ants who are frantically trying to keep the elephant from heading over a cliff.  But, they do not cry out in unison.  

I have failed to give my loudest plea, and therefore accept the responsibility of education's peril as much as I can own.  For some, myself included, the urge to save this plodding, stumbling, and ill-fated monstrosity is like watching a trainload of first graders chugging toward a ravine with no bridge.  I constantly wonder, "Which ant will be heard?"  

In Poscente's book, the key to reaching the elephant's will comes through the ear.  But too often our agents of educational change rush out front and position themselves on the trunk because it is farthest forward.  Well, if you have ever watched an elephant walk you can see the problem; everything moves all over the place, and the trunk is constantly moving the most.  

Being the ant on the elephant's trunk may seem like a brave and "leader-like" thing to do, but it changes nothing.  In order to save the train of children, we must come together in our voice.  We must compose a message the elephant will revere and heed. We must gather at its ear and shout in unison.  

The longer we ants rely on our own single voice, the closer we get to the cliff's edge.

 

Reforming the Rules of the Road for Education

Ever stop and wonder why we drive on roads the way we do?  Sure there are laws and financial reasons, but usually it's for our safety and for the safety of others.  However, there's an even bigger benefit - the equality of everyone's opportunity to get where they want to go.  Why can't public education work like that?

When we learn how to drive we realize that what works best is to become part of the flow.  We learn to have courtesy and patience because it works for the best - for us, and for everyone else, too.  We drive on freeways and streets determining our own path and pace - confident we will get to our destinations, while hopefully not hindering anyone else from their path, pace, and destination.   Shouldn't education allow our children the same opportunity?

Think about it... we signal and turn, stop, go, accelerate, and slow down in an enormous flow of mixed intentions, different desires, and unique driving styles.  Yet, it works.  We all get to go where we want to go.  We all have an equal opportunity to enter the stream of traffic, choose a road, proceed as far as we choose, and end up at our destination of choice.  Yet, before William Phelps Eno wrote “Rules of the Road” in 1903, the misery of congestion and mishaps was an accepted part of life on the road.  People didn't know what else was possible.  They couldn't conceive a society where people were courteous about sharing the road.  And, you know what I think is funny, people who seek to reform schools don't see equality of opportunity as realistic.  They say the logistics won't allow it.

Soon after writing the book Mr. Eno wrote the first ever municipal traffic code for New York City, then helped London and Paris fix their traffic issues.   Having never driven a vehicle himself, he was able to observe the issues and possibilities, and then think of a system that allowed everyone to flow instead of clog.  He described a system where grace and mutual respect allowed everyone the chance to get somewhere more easily.

The old system, based on "I do things my way, and to Hell with everyone else" had proven to be a culture of desperate survival.  Looking at our current national system of roadways, stoplights, crosswalks, and painted lines, it has become a case of - the many making things better for the greater good of all.  We still get to do things our way within the new system, but instead of "to Hell with everyone else," we work together to create a flow of equal opportunity.  We have taken Eno's idea and created a highly functional community of participation; effectively encouraging civility and allowing everyone who wants to... to enter into the system, use it to their liking to attain their specific results, and then to leave the system until they need it again.  It is the ultimate "Opt-in" community of mutual opportunity.

Our public school systems and all the reform/improvement efforts are much like the city streets of 1902 New York City.  According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2010 our public K-12 schools had more than 3.6 million teachers, 3.4 million administrators and support staff, 55 million students, and more than 132,000 separate schools.  Add to that the tens of thousands of educational technology companies, non-profits, reform groups, political lobbyist groups, publishers, authors, parents of students, and government education departments, and we see an enormous population of people interested in improving education, but there are very few, if any, coordinating influences.   The system is not set up to grant students equal access to whatever paths of learning they want to follow.  Instead, just as in New York City before traffic laws were passed, we have many students who are desperately trying to get where they want to go despite the clogged roadways, gridlocked intersections, and mounting frustrations.  We also have many students and reformers who have given up.  They just stand on the sidewalks - looking upon the mess with incredulity.  Thankfully, just as they had then. we have some who try to help by stepping into the fray to direct traffic.  But, even those who are trying to help have no agreed upon system of waving their arms and giving directions.  From one street to the next the customs and expectations are very different. The same is true in our schools.

We have no consistency from one school to the next, from one classroom to the next.  How can this be equal?  How can we offer one child one education and another a different education and say it is equal?  It is not, and their future opportunities are changed by what opportunities they have in school.

Not only do we need a system that allows every student to safely and equally get where they want to go in life, we also need a system for the people who are helping in the street.  When a study is done on student drop out rates and a key factor is found, how can someone who wants to help pitch in?  How can others in another state take advantage of that valuable information?  Isn't it time we reformed our rules for the roads of education reform?

A new system is just around the corner.

What do you think it looks like?

Ignoring the Wall Writing - To Our Own Peril

Those of us who are able to tackle the job of improving our public school system should be very, very afraid.  We stand with each foot in a separate boat.  The boats have been released from their mooring, and set adrift, they are moving away from each other.   Being products of the very system we seek to change, we are stuck waiting for someone else to assign us a solution or a text to read that will tell us what to do.  But, life does not go according to the practices of schools.  Most every decision we make in life is one we had to figure out on our own.

Those of us who have been in two boats at the same time know that waiting only gets us wet.  Earlier decisions... uh, earlier better decisions bring us relief, dry feet, and commitment to a singular solution.  The hope of continuing in the old boat while committing to the new boat's promising future is akin to walking on two paths simultaneously.  Can't be done and shouldn't be attempted.

There is writing on the wall.  If you can't see it from where you stand - step closer.  Whether you look for it or foolishly wait for it to reach out from the paint and grab your sleeve - it is still there.  Like a tornado warning that falls under the desk, it is still there and the tornado is still coming, whether or not we look for the report. 

The gap between what students need to know and what they are being taught in public schools is widening exponentially each year.  The problem is monumental and includes millions of stakeholders in more than 100,000 organizations, schools, universities, businesses, governments, and institutions.  The problem we see isn't the actual problem.  The actual problem is that we are all products of the system we seek to change.

Just as if a top Microsoft engineer was asked to make Windows 7 run like Leopard OS X the task would be insurmountable because the Microsoft mentality and culture that he/she absorbed in order to succeed would inhibit and taint the need for new thoughts and ways of building an operating system.  The solution provider would need to be someone who knows Windows 7 but left Microsoft and went to work for Apple developing the Leopard OS X system.  The problem we see, converting the system, isn't the main issue.  The main issue is inside the existing mentality that prohibits Microsoft from hiring the programmer from Apple who once rejected Microsoft and left.  Territorialism is the problem.

In trying to solve the pending crisis of our two-boated leaders, their insistence that they know best, even though they themselves perpetuated and still advocate for the existing system, fails to inspire confidence.  At the rate we are changing, by my conservative estimate, we will be lucky to move halfway toward any collaborative and effective solution within 10-15 years.  That is an entire generation of children, and the problem is still only halfway solved.

Why is the peril ours if we ignore the writing on the wall?  Because the system will continue to produce new members of our society - new retail clerks, new sales reps, new factory workers, and new delivery drivers as well as new college students, engineers, managers, and voters.  Most terrifying of all is that the system that needs to be changed will continue to produce new teachers for the next 10-30 years.

The longer we ignore the tornado report, the closer the tornado looms.  We are going to be dealing with these members of our community who could be so much more prepared to contribute instead of being a burden to the economy, the cultural goodness we love to experience, and other areas where they are not providing good thinking and good solutions.

And, besides, who is going to teach them to decide for themselves what boat is best before they get soaked?

System-Centric or Learner-Centric

When we examine our options for improving training or educational instruction, we have many factors to consider.  The breadth of what we consider is dependent upon our own willingness to explore and learn.  Most often we know what we know, look over the fence of our boundaries, see something new, and proclaim it the Holy Grail of learning.  A teacher who knows that technology is the devil ends up trying an email app that saves her time and then she thinks email is the savior of all learning challenges.  A wearied corporate trainer, traveling cross-country to all branches, feels he is the company's best chance at fervent and authentic instruction.  Then he creates a video of his best training and uses a learning management system to administrate it to all employees, spending his saved-time developing new training curriculum, and suddenly he sees the light.  There is a better way, and now he thinks learning management systems are better than anything else. 

In public education we have teachers and principals who are entrenched in their knowledge and slow to look over their fences.  In Corporate America we have VPs of development who want to stick with what they know.  Hey, it's natural.  As humans we trust what we know and fear the unknown.  (Some would argue we are this way because we were trained to think this way by our public school systems where informational bulimia is taught and exploration of the unknown is discouraged, but I digress.)

The real question we must answer is related to our developmental focus.  When we are considering what to improve, what to change, what to keep, and how to go about any of this... we eventually find ourselves choosing between two options.  Which is more important - the learner or the system?  The easy answer is - both.  But, that doesn't help us when we get down to decisions between competitive options.  At some point the two paths will diverge and we must be more loyal to one or the other.

If we make the learner our focus we will have to make each and every learner's maximization our greatest intent, and that is very hard to do considering all the possibilities of learners and learning/development outcomes.  If we make the system our top priority then we become slaves to what engineers say is possible, to what options are available, and we end up trying to fit learners into the limitations of the system.

The funny thing about systems is they are formed for a purpose.  Gas pipelines and electric lines are extended through neighborhoods and to each house for a purpose.  We didn't connect utilities to homes and then think of heaters and refrigerators.  To educate people based on system capabilities is backwards.  The only way to develop pertinent systems is to begin with the learner in mind and determine system needs from there.

In order to serve all learners, we do need a system.  So, the learner-centric thinker must eventually realize that some learners will be failed without an adequate system, which puts the system into a high priority position again.  When this happens it is easy to be consumed with thoughts about developing a system, but we must be constantly aware that the system is intended to serve the learners... all learners.  So, if we are thinking about all learners we must think about systems, and if we are thinking about systems we must make them subject to the needs of all learners.

In other words, we need comprehensive thinking about system development, subject to the purposes of learner maximization, equal to all learners, and inclusive of continual system optimization.  Whew.  That's a handful, eh?  But, can we really settle for anything less?  Which learner deserves to be overlooked and under-served?

The Tree of Poisoned Apples

I recently attended a meeting of public school reformers.  As I listened to their list of demands I couldn't help but notice their myopic willingness to be content just shuffling the same old issues around the table as if the view would change enough from where they sit to make them comfortable.  I was perplexed and a bit miffed.  Not at them, but at the system they've inherited and poisoned by.

Like a family of drunks who wonder why they drink from the same bottle that polluted their parents, these people are all products of the very system they seek to change.  It is as if they willingly walk up to the tree of poisoned apples, pick one, take a bite and grimace.  From where they stand they cannot see the other orchards over the hill that many people are happily eating from.  So, resigned to their 'only' tree, and perhaps dulled in their thinking by the very poison they keep swallowing, they remain ignorant and unhappy.

The irony is that they are advocates for improved learning, and yet they do not open themselves up to the exploration and curiosity that drove the others over the hill to bliss.  The old tree cannot be made sweet and healthy by any means known to mankind.  The only solution it is worthy of is chopping, cutting, and burning.  While it rots and heads slowly in that direction, it continues to feed millions who don't know any better.

The current condition of our public schools warrants massive change, and revolutionary thinking.  Miles and miles of progress is needed and yet these advocates are content to battle over the inches the system is willing to discuss.  Crisis is the time for radical change because the masses can agree in their desperation that something must be done.  The danger here is that radical acceptance of poor alternatives does not improve our long term condition.  We are in real danger of desperately drowning administrators handcuffing themselves to a cement block that teeters toward the depths.

  

Isn't it funny that the very people who hold the power of creating change, the constituents of every district, are hindered in their ability to see better solutions because of how that same dysfunctional system taught them to learn?  It seems ludicrously ironic, and frustratingly tragic.