Leadership Challenges: Snakes, Doves, and Me

Problem
Let me be blunt: the person most likely to cause the leader problems is the leader. I face challenges everyday; the ones that become most challenging are the ones that are compounded by my lack of judgement. I believe there is much wisdom in the charge to be as innocent as a dove, but as shrewd as a snake. To me that is what leadership is about. However, I often find myself underwhelmed by the threshold of my own innocence and shrewdness. Let me frame the tension between dove and snake with two challenges that will be familiar to anyone who has held any leadership position.

Sharing
One of the toughest issues with which I struggle is information sharing. What should I tell to whom and when?  Sometimes, in frustration I decide the answer is nothing, to no one, ever. This is not a wise choice. This is not the shrewd choice. There is information that some people need to know to do their job. It should be shared. I can't, in an effort to seek false innocence, be so worried about being seen as a gossip, or one who is not trustworthy, that I never share.  I need to model innocence in my information sharing by not being sensational and not sharing information that will obviously hurt someone. I need to be shrewd enough to decided who can be trusted with information and who can't.

Pressure
Every organization has daily task, many of which are menial yet vital, that are affected by inconsistency. Every organization has group members, probably all members, whose practices and beliefs occasionally contradict the mission of the organization. And yet all of the members have unique strengths that support the mission. One of my biggest struggles is deciding how much pressure to place on folks to change, particularly when I understand factors that influence their actions and beliefs. How much change? How fast? How much support to provide during the change. Leaders must constantly check to see if their desire to be a change agent is driven by proper motives. Leaders have an ethical duty to provide support. You must be a dove to protect people during times of change. However, leaders must be shrewd enough to know that not all members will change without pressure. Leaders must also be shrewd enough to know that being consistent with the application of pressure and support will be difficult, perhaps impossible.

Solution
Because my biggest problem is myself. I know that the solution will not be myself. I can't depend on myself to be a good gauge of the dove to snake ratio. Therefore I must ensure that I cultivate a circle of folks whom I can seek out for advice.
         
                     SNAKE : DOVE


The leader's most likely problem is the leader. The leader's most likely solution is a leadership team. 

What should change most about schools? The pace!

Slow down
Recently, I was challenged by a professor to identify one change I would make to improve American public education. In my opinion, there is one place to start: pace. Our schools, in response to the annual testing cycle, simply move too fast.

Alternative visions for education are cast by Sir Kenneth Robinson, who advocates for slow learning, and the Finnish educators who are often highlighted by Edutopia. If our education culture were not so driven by the data cycles, more time could be devoted to creativity, collaboration, and deeper transfers of content knowledge.

Content Knowledge
Research proves that spaced practice yields more benefits than massed practice. Students need time to learn, and some need more time than others. However, many teachers, responding to poorly communicated expectations from leaders, often forfeit reteaching to maintain fidelity to regimented curriculum sequences. Projects, the kind that promote mastery and that show the relevance of content in real world applications, are also casualties. If we truly want all students to learn at high levels, we must be willing to support adjustments to the pace of learning that currently is demanded.

Relationships
Schools are dependent on healthy relationships, and cultivating healthy relationships takes time. Often the behaviors that impact learning are driven by emotions and experiences that lie under the surface. Strategies such as Conscious Discipline help students process their behaviors and motivations, but these interventions require time. Students often encounter set backs in their lives outside of school. The pace of schools should be flexible enough to support them as they bounce back. Teachers would also benefit from a slower pace. The collaboration and coaching that we all desire can not exist without time. Five minute feedback is better than none, and forty minutes of collaborative time beats none, but we could do better.

Slowing the pace of our schools would require substantial cultural and institutional changes and sacrifices. Making such sacrifices may not be realistic, but we should all consider what we risk sacrificing, richer learning opportunities and healthier relationships, to maintain the current pace.

At The Confluence

Aside from a dog that rambled out of the brush, looked us over, and trotted off like he was expecting to find someone else, we had the river bank to ourselves.  My daughter, who threw a pole and tackle box in the car at the last minute, searched the rip rap for anything that would serve as bait. I stared at the river, considering the swirling eddies that quickly popped up and disappeared like frustrations and anxieties that make a morning spent in a canoe so appealing.

"Dad you won't believe it! Look at this!"

No one else I know has the luck of my daughter. When I turned around she was holding a white carton of night crawlers that had washed up or been abandoned.  We spent the morning watching her tight line and snacking on fruit and summer sausage on the dry bag that served as our table cloth.

The Missouri was at eleven feet that morning and we decided to briefly test our strength against the 72,000 cubic feet of water that flowed downstream each second. We paddled out and then looped back into the creek to begin the mile long trip back to the ramp where we parked.

A breeze at our back allowed us to fish and float back without paddling. Almost too quickly. As we loaded up, both of us wished we were still at the confluence of Perche Creek and the Missouri River.

A Morning On Devil's Backbone

I don't know who was more restless, my four year old son or me, but with temperatures in the seventies on Labor Day morning ,we decided it was a perfect time to make like Christopher Robbin and go on an explore. 

Our destination: A portion of the Cedar Creek Trail known as Devil's Backbone.

If Lord of the Rings had been filmed in Boone County, Missouri, much of the action would have been shot here. The ridge, not more than thirty feet wide, with vertical drops on both sides, slips quickly down to Cedar Creek below. Not many places in Central Missouri feature as many rocky outcrops split by gnarled tree roots. We didn't battle any Wargs on our journey, but we did have a show down with a blood thirsty horsefly.

At the base of The Backbone we snacked on an orange while resting on an abandoned steel bridge before making the return trip up the steep trail. Before getting back in the van, we paused and dangled our feet off a limestone ledge two hundred feet above the creek bottom. It was a good moment for both of us. 

Nothing cures restlessness like an explore.  

A Few Thoughts On Assessment

Hattie's research demonstrates the importance of feedback. All of the individual techniques that yield high effect sizes do so because they are avenues for feedback. Because the quality of feedback depends on the quality of the assessment, time spent considering assessment practices is valuable. Rick Wormeli's Fair Isn't Always Equal provides guidance in this area.

Purpose
A core belief communicated by Wormeli is that the main purpose of education is to promote mastery. Most teachers embrace this concept in regards to instruction. However, remembering to extend the emphasis on the promotion of mastery to assessment is difficult. Often assessments are treated with finality. All teachers are forced to operate within fixed time frames for courses; the most thoughtful teachers extend the opportunities for mastery as much as possible within those parameters.

Differentiation
When teachers see assessment primarily as a tool for promoting mastery, they see the need for differentiation more clearly. Because all students are at different stages in the journey toward mastery, it is necessary to adjust assessments accordingly. If the goal is mastery for each student, the act of extending a deadline, allowing a second chance, or providing extra scaffolding becomes the most pragmatic response. If treating a student exactly the same as a peer does not move the student closer towards mastery, then alternative practices should be employed.

Three Practices Worth Scrutinizing
Wormeli identifies ten practices that do not lend themselves to differentiation or the promotion of mastery. I'll briefly discuss three. Assigning grades to homework or quizzes given immediately after a concept is introduced does not respect differentiation or mastery learning. This does not mean that feedback should not be given when a student has not mastered a skill. Students need feedback, but it should not come in the form of 4 out of 10 points. Similarly, forbidding second attempts on assessments limits mastery. If the goal is for the student to demonstrate knowledge and skill, it should not matter how many opportunities they take advantage of. Lastly, is the practice of assigning grades to behaviors. Behaviors should be addressed, but averaging in grades for "showing up to class prepared," will result in final grades that do not accurately communicate the student's mastery of the content.

Perspective
Wormeli acknowledges that differentiation is not easy. When teachers are asked to process grades for over 100 students a cycle, precise calibration for each one is impossible. Wormeli also grants that there are times when students will not perform without the threat of a grade penalty. The "ten practices to avoid" could perhaps be deemed "ten practices to minimize."

I won't take a dogmatic approach to specific practices; however, I believe the healthiest classroom cultures will be visibly influenced by the values of mastery and differentiation.

Questioning Growth Models

"Next month many administrators will spend valuable time explaining growth models to first year teachers. There will be a temptation to take a reductionist approach."

Growth model. I prefer the term to most conceivable alternatives: stagnation model, death model, plateau model. It is important; however, to pause and critically consider growth models, particularly in teacher evaluation.

Next month many administrators will spend valuable time explaining growth models to first year teachers. There will be a temptation to take a reductionist approach.

-Using this Kagan strategy will increase the probability of scoring above a five out of seven for this indicator.

-Read this excerpt from Teach Like a Champion, watch the accompanying video clip, and implement the strategy in your classroom for successful evaluations.

Administrators have a responsibility to clearly communicate expectations while consistently implementing policy. But there must be an appreciation for context and a few questions.

-Teaching, more importantly learning, is challenging. Sometimes very challenging, and rarely tidy.

-Whose growth is the priority?

-Can numerical systems stand without authentic reflection and conversation?

-Will authentic reflection and conversation take place without accountability systems?

-When we define growth narrowly how much do we restrict it?

Teacher evaluation is a necessary element in our schools. Students and teachers will be best served in environments where it exists with high levels of mentoring, coaching, and evaluation of student performance on tasks other than state assessment. 

On Leadership: Details

"It's important to me because it's important to them."

Attention to detail is an area where I must focus my energy through discipline.

I easily embrace the idea that leaders must be able to see the big picture and be able to adjust appropriately to shifting variables. Broad strokes and creativity are spaces that I move most naturally; however, I realize that the best leaders are the ones who discipline themselves to attend to the small, yet important, tasks that confront them everyday. Deadlines, advance planning, proof reading, and follow through are not difficult when they are part of a highly visible project that is a priority to me, but the real test is the attention to detail devoted to a task that doesn't excite me.

Often leadership involves participating enthusiastically, though not always visibly, in projects that are important to others. These are opportunities to truly demonstrate servant leadership to the organization.

An important mantra in these moments is, "It's important to me because it's important to them."