What is a Learning Leader?

As we move into the third year of Collegiate Renewal, people who have been Learning Leaders and administrators are starting to offer a vision of what this form of distributed, teacher leadership looks like. Marshall Whelan cc-d me on his version. He says that as a leader he tried to do these things and was not always successful, but he figures this is what the the job needs:

Whether you are Right Brained or Left Brained or double dominant, learn to enjoy the practice of holding yourself professionally responsible in a widely divergent community of thinking that seeks to converge into the most engaging conversations about learning that you are likely to experience. This could be and must be a mix of the Philosophical and Practical - a steady diet of one and not the other makes for frustration.

Sincerely believe in the power of WE: a We staff, a We school, and WE classrooms.
Be prepared to learn from your fellow Learning Leaders, staff and students. You have something to contribute, but it may be at times no more or less important than that of anyone else. The real power is in Group Thinking.

Believe that Excellence is a process and not a state. We are never finished/fixed products, we will never "arrive", and we can only get better if/when we decide it is for everyone's progress.

Be prepared to see messy change: always ask people to explain their version of change , as they may be on to something that you in your omniscience may just have not realized.

Recognize that we are not just changing practice for the betterment of students, but also for ourselves. Collegiate Renewal is first and foremost about changing/ empowering teachers.

Know that you are not and will never be the ONLY fount of all wisdom and knowledge on the staff.

Listen often, ask questions, do not pontificate (This is a hard one for me, or so my wife and daughter tell me.)

Demonstrate a willingness to be judgmental: about practice, but not about people. (This is the starkest change for those who have never had THOSE conversations about people behind closed doors. And yet, it is reality!)

Do not seek this job if you are thinking that this is about ladder climbing to the higher echelons of power: others will reject your motives as base. Instead, roll up your sleeves and get at it! There is beauty and worth in this noble cause in and of itself.

Be critically minded: about reading and points-of-view: Always ask "Does this make sense?" "Who could use this?" "Who needs this?" "How much of a change is this from OUR collective philosophy or practice?" "Is this something I can be the first to try?" Don't be a bandwagon leader. Remember: you not only sipped the Kool Aid; you mixed it! So drink deeply!

Lead by example....Be consistent in all your practices and schedules. Inconsistency is perceived at best as lack of organization; at worst, it is seen as lack of conviction.

Be a detective when it comes to trying to understand people's reasons BEHIND the reasons they give. Everyone is an individual and comes with a learned set of experiences and ideas and situations. Yours are not theirs.

Always be willing to look forward in both vision (where are we going?) and immediate steps in the process ( where are we headed tomorrow/ next week/month? and HOW do we get there?)

Never be afraid to look back and check if you have gone off course or gotten sidetracked. While you look back, always check for stragglers to come along beside. Be positive and be willing to compromise, but exact commitments to proceed in the process. As we say: "Permission to try, and permission to fail and try again. BUT NO Permission to NOT try."

Always look for others who can be of like mind and can take your place in offering suggestions to any and all, especially the stragglers. Someday, you will need to be replaced.

Try as much as possible to create a like minded progressive staff that can begin the process of Mindset change through seeing as many people as possible at the front giving exemplars.

Celebrate often the small victories and little changes in practice.

Never be afraid to ask "Howzitgoin'?" the worst that can happen is they'll tell you the truth! BUT before you ask, remember that the answer to the question: "when I ask you 'How is your AFL journey going?', is that pressure or support?", the answer is YES.

Look for the weary staff as a whole; know and sense when to take your foot off the gas pedal. Remember that taking one's foot off the gas pedal doesn't mean you have hit the brakes or stopped moving forward.

Be wary of the nay sayers that they do not spread poison. Enlist their participation wherever possible (make them sip the Kool Aid too). You just might be surprised at their growth!

Enjoy reading and thinking .......a LOT!!!

Seek ways for people to spend time in collaboration: it is better if they learn HOW and WHY themselves than by being told by you.

Small groups are easier to work with. They are the best blend of all that is good about individuals and all that is Good about large group thinking without the Bad.

Remember to seek feedback....carefully. You have the right to find out what you need to know and the responsibility to let others tell you what they want you to know.

Be reasonable and realize that while you may not have a life, others want one. Don't be a Collegiate Renewal Nazi.

Recognize that you will get to work with some incredible people in the Learning Leader community: some days will be terrific and some days won't. But there will always be progress made if you learn something new every day.

Collegiate Renewal is NOT a contest between schools.

Always ask superiors to explain their rationale for why they believe or do what they do. They usually have a good reason for what they want!

Strive to explain the message of Collegiate Renewal as often as possible to those who know less about it. But do it in a manner that dignifies them, and try it in plain layman's lingo.

Hopefully, you'll do yourself out of a job as We all become independent and co-operative thinkers.

Lastly, BE POSITIVE and realize that this initiative of change will take years to effect. In fact, it will and should never be over, as this is the true culture of learning civilization we are attempting to inculcate. In retrospect: I do not like the term Kool Aid: this is really a vintner's dream. We are not trying to grow the definitive grape or the best year. We are seeking to become the best vintners who grow the best varieties of grapes for any and every climate and region, adapting on a continual basis.

Marshall retires this year and he says the white hairs in his beard are stress highlights. He also says that the work of Collegiate Renewal has been the richest work of his career. I think it is the richest because of what Marshall brings to the work. He is a linchpin as Godin describes them, and his growth mindset is in all his suggestions. Adaptation, learning by looking at what is working and what isn't, and being the change you want in world are all a part of what Marshall recommends. Marshall's ideas are similar to my own, if more eloquently expressed, and I know some people find them daunting. They ask how anyone can be all that and be a full time teacher. I think maybe we miss the point. We want you strive to be these things - it isn't a destination, it is a way of thinking.

Not just talking

As a part of the work of Collegiate Renewal, we have been working to support both Learning Leaders, Learning Coordinators and administrators in leading other teachers towards student engagement. In the last month and a half, I've had the opportunity to work with a number of groups, and I have noticed that small group conversations, chances to ask questions, and work re-focusing on the specific goal of the leadership team make a much bigger difference than big professional development sessions. Last week I participated in conversations clarifying assessment goals and re-focusing on engagement, and I have concluded that these conversations are more than just talking, they are an essential part of a distributive leadership model.

When we are hoping that teachers are reflective practitioners, we are hoping that they are life-long learners and teacher leaders. Life-long learners look at research, question what is, and vision what it might be. They lead by innovating, and that innovation is the result of observing what is happening in their classrooms and considering how to grow it. Everything we are aspiring to in Collegiate Renewal hinges on all our learners being publically engaged in their learning, and teachers are a critical part of all learners, because they need to be seen making changes that help students.

I write this blog because it is one of the ways that I engage with both ideas and other people. Sometimes I feel like I am talking to myself, but even then, I am reminded that journalling my thinking is a critical part of the reflective process. Now this is mostly whining, as I get emails virtually everyday as a result of the blog, and they continue the conversation. This weekend, Scott St. Pierre sent me a number of other blogs related to the Collegiate Renewal conversation over the weekend. Two of my particular favorites reminded me that conversation itself is a complicated process:

• I have been discussing Sir Ken Robinson's conversations since his TED talk came out. I hooked people up to webinars, recommended seeing him live and shared his ideas through PD. However, I think it is challenging for us to really understand the implications of what he is saying in terms of how we need to change schools. I think the Innovative Educator really explains it well in the post We Have Finally Perfected Educating Students for the Past.
• I have also been concerned about the grading conversation we are having around The 15 Fixes for Broken Grades. It gets confused with our conversation around Assessment for Learning, and we see changing grading as a substitute for changing school. The conversation we had about the problems with grading is problematic for the division and parents are concerned, but the reason we had Kohn in to speak is because the focus on grade is a problem. Joe Bower has some interesting ideas on Abolishing Grading that get closer to where we want to go in terms of focusing in feedback and growing learning.

Reading the blogs of others, like talking with small groups of school leaders, reminds me how conversation is organic. Ideas spread and grow among those who are looking to learning, and talking about them is more than one conversation. It is the extended dialogue, across times and beyond a physical location, that really creates the growth all learners need. It is this growth that is our best hope for changing schools - making the simple process of talking to others a firm step in the direction of the 21st century school. We need to remember that the process of talking to others about the changes you are making is a critical part of leading as an educator.

Affable Lurking

Two years ago my school division embarked on Collegiate Renewal. The goal of the renewal is lofty:

All collegiate students will be engaged in their learning so they will graduate
as active participants in lifelong learning and as responsible and caring citizens
in the community, nation, and world.

My principal put out a call for people to be Learning Leaders in our high school. I had recently finished a masters focused around professional development and technology and wasn't sure it was the gig for me. I think part of me wanted to keep lurking.

On the Internet, lurkers are people who consume what others post but rarely or never enter the conversations themselves. Some 90% of us are lurkers (Nonnecke and Preece, 2003). In the world of teaching, almost every adult lurks. We all went to high school, we all have strong opinions about how school should be taught, but few of us teach. Those who do often lurk in the school system, observing and privately commenting on our students, our peers, those who lead us, and the school system itself. When I decided to become a Learning Leader in 2007, I decided to stop lurking.

Change processes, particularly transformative changes, are a difficult proposition in high schools. Like blogging, leading change in Collegiate Renewal is a far cry from the affable lurking of my teaching career. I find myself talking publicly about changes as I am making them, sharing what I am doing even as some of it goes wrong, an act of inviting the comments of observers. It is a process we are asking our students and teachers to embrace as we all learn about the role assessment for learning plays and it is a place of vulnerability.

For the last two years, I have been muddying the torpid waters of our high schools even more. I am now working on helping lead professional learning around how technology can help us with renewal. There are days I could really use a little camouflage. One of the things that buoys me the most is understanding that I am not alone in the work I do. I have been reading everything I can - research on change literature, assessment for learning, learner engagement, differentiation, and 21st Century literacy. But more than anything, I have been lurking on the blogs of other educators who write about the value of technology in transforming the classroom. The wealth of their ideas and richness of their shared conversation reminds me that lurking, however affable, is the opposite of contributing. Deeply engaged learners are always participants, and I need to be one myself.

Cited in this post:

• Blair Nonnecke and Jenny Preece (2003). "Silent participants: Getting to know lurkers better". in D. Fisher and Christopher Lueg. From Usenet to Co Webs: Interacting with social information spaces. Springer. pp. 110–132. ISBN 1852335327.