Coping with Change – Great Videos

These are two different kinds of change but excellent advice and can be used together at different points of the process.

NOTES:

  • Be realistic about the change you to make make it small and do able. “Don’t look at the whole mountain, focus on the first six steps”.
  • Commit a small time focus to reflect – as often more effective to large financial boosts.
  • Listen to the neigh sayers and the feedback and the criticisms but keep to your compass – your values.
  • Acknowledge what is not working – and let it go.
  • Don’t makes the ‘solution’ and then look for the problem (google glasses).
  • You must share … talk, learn and interact.
  • Should I do this thing?
    • Does it scratch my itch?
    • Would I still do it if it took twice as long? (You can only have two of the three – Cheap, Fast, Good).
    • Would I still do it if it cost twice as much?
    • Would I still do it if I used my own money?
    • Do I have a realistic plan and timeline?
    • Am I ok with failure?

NOTES:

How to get past the “it’s not going to happen wall”.
Not real reasons:

  • “It’s always been like this”: It means the problem is older than you think it is.
  • “It’s the same everywhere”: the problem is broader and wider than you think.
  • “It’s not in the budget”: it means we’ve spent the money in the wrong places.
  • “It’s not in the charter”: the people who were supposed to provide the vision weren’t thinking as big as you.
  • “It’s political”: “I’ve learned to keep my ideas to myself.”
  • “It’s just traditional”: “Actually, I don’t know why we’re doing this, but it’s always been that way.”

Five most classic reasons people resist change:

“I’m scared of the transition, not the idea.”
Helping people moving through the transition – three normal phases ‘the Negative – Interesting – Positive’

“I’m scared of the transition. I’m not scared about the idea.”
Everyone is scared of the unknown – keep people informed “yes it’s going to be bumpy and scary but we will get there”.

“I don’t know how big a deal this change really is.”
Transition is moving through Four Doors:
The first door are the things that we used to be able to do and can still do. I’ll get people to write a list.
Door number two are the things that we couldn’t do before and we still can’t do.
Door number three are the things that we could do before and we can’t do now.
You can for door number four. That’s a door that’s only recently opened. These are the things that we couldn’t do before but we can do now. It means I can make my job suit my lifestyle.

“I don’t see how I fit into any of this:
You give them authorship. You empower them to design the change for themselves. Suddenly they’re not responding to change, they’re taking control of change.
The tool: What did you keep? What did you chuck? What did you change? What did you add?

“Yeah, but people hate change.”
The truth is they want real change. They’re sick of believing something that isn’t real. They want something genuine. Questions to ask …
Is the change real or fake?
Is the change cultural or structural?
Is the change offered of foisted?

When working with a cynical, closed groups …

You can keep things the same or you can make a difference. But you can not do both. That is the choice you have to make. I’ve made mine, you choose yours.

First TLIF Mini Conference – August 2016

I really need to catch up on a few posts, but to cut a long back story short … we WON!! Our Teacher Led Innovation Fund was successful. We are working with the amazing Keryn Davis, we’ve got $102 000.00 to burn over two years, and an amazing team to work with.

I will do a bit of back blogging later – we can pretend future posts are literary flash backs – but today I’m super psyched to tell you about today.

We began the day with a quick welcome by me and an invitation for us all to introduce ourselves and to share our own back story. I explained that the way we are as a teacher is shared by our own worldview and values within ourselves.

While I had been engaged in my CORE MLC course I have gotten into a conversation with Mary Milne about Leadership change practice – and that as a leader seeking to change practice in our teachers we must be very careful because changing a teacher’s practice is very much changing that teacher’s values and their sense of self – about changing the person.

So in order for us to journey together with the TLIF (which is all about researching into our own practice and changing it for the better) we must understand each other’s motivation for becoming the teacher we are today. asked each teacher to share their earliest memories of their experiences as learners, in ECE, in Primary, and in Secondary, then explain how these experiences as learners shaped them as the teachers they are today.

The stories which came out of this process were beautiful and surprising and I believe brought us together so quickly in an open and honest way. Many connections were made, lovely stories told, and surprising observations made about the power adults have over young learners.  This process covered the whole morning block right up to morning tea – and at moments throughout the day we would find ourselves referring back and making connections with the stories told during this time.

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Keryn’s Research Vocab Explaination

After a delicious morning tea – Keryn ran an amazing session unpacking what ‘Research’ actually meant. She ran a brilliant activity talking about and explaining the terms and vocabulary around research. Qualitative vs Quantitative research; Rigour; Bias etc.  Throughout this process we had to build three statements around our TLIF – “Risks and Limitations”; “How we are going to work together.”; and “Ethics”. I won’t go too much more into it, but I will say that we were all leaning over the table eager to learn what she was explaining – she did it so very well (here’s a photo).

Keryn then led us through an activity about the tensions which raise when Curiosity turns into Critical Thinking – she used Jelly Beans. It was both delicious and thought provoking.

Then finally we started to build our story of us, and our innovation journey – how we got where we are.  I loved this part because it really honoured Māori Methodology – the need to look at the past, understand and celebrate the past, to value the past because this is what has made us.

I have kind of skipped through most of the day, but I am very aware that I am now part of a public research project and I must be careful with how I publicly reflect. Today was wonderful and every piece feed and grew the next piece of the day – I can’t wait until tomorrow.

Also I have to work out a way to get the rest of my staff involved as soon as possible!! Peace out.

Shifting Leadership to the 21st Century

A very short post, I should be in bed asleep not blogging.  Actually I should of done this earlier instead of watching the first season of Sherlock.  Best ever, now addicted.

So I last year, I managed to volunteer to be chairperson of my local New Zealand Principals’ Federation (NZPF) cluster.  Therefore, I now represent my cluster at the annual NZPF Moot.  Thankfully I quite enjoy this, despite what certain other principals in Auckland mutter about ‘fossils’, and met a whole bunch of very knowledgeable, interesting educational leaders.

Unfortunately, I have noticed, that about 95% of the leaders of our education leaders were completely missing the 21st Century boat :-/  In fact, I doubt most of them would understand that emoticon I just used … *

So I am on a mission, a Social Media mission, to shift the thinking of our educational leadership to the awesomeness of the 21st Century Waka!!!  Well after whole school camp that is …

I shall begin my campaign to ditch the eighties at the First Time Principals’ Programme Residential in Auckland (this holidays).  Unfortunately this means rejigging my entire presentation, but hey ho, it’s not like I need sleep ;-)*

*translation :-/ disappointed face

*translation ;-)* cheeky wink with a zit.

Managing Your ICT Infrastructure

On Monday I am presenting the Prezi below at Massey University to Sector Leaders involved in the NLC Cluster programme.

Click here for resource website – https://sites.google.com/site/managingict/

The Big Questions.

Just Because I Meet Richie McCaw :-)
Just Because I Meet Richie McCaw 🙂

I wrote this little piece this morning for the school newsletter.  To be honest I am not quite sure where it came from, but there you go it’s out now.  Anyway I was quite proud of it, then I received an email from our local reporter asking permission to publish it in our Taihape Times.  I had a good hard think about it, and he sent a second one pleading so I said yes.  Anyway hopefully I get a few people thinking.

Earlier this week I was having a chat with our senior students about how different primary school is compared to when attended in the Eighties.  The kids were amazed when I explained that we had ask permission to leave our desks, go to the toilet or to get a drink of water.  For these 21st Century Kids who were sitting on a cushion in front of the fire, doing their math book work while munching on an apple, the thought of being confined to one’s desk was just abhorrent.
I guess that’s what much of education was like back in the bad old days (which really is not so long ago).  Children confined to a classroom, a year group, an achievement level, a set of standards or a desk.  Learning was confined to Three Rs, and occasional PE.
According to Sir Ken Robinson and many educational experts, this is called the Industrial Model.  Schools were formed to create batches of cookie cutter graduates that fit into an industrialized society.  Below is a link to a fabulous Youtube Video, which explains how education needs to change and move away from this industrial model in order to meet the dynamic needs of our 21st Century society.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U
The wonderful thing is, that New Zealand is already way ahead of the ball game, when it comes to dynamic education, with it’s world renowned New Zealand Curriculum.  The Vision Statement for our curriculum is to have “young people who will be confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners”.  How wonderful is that!
I believe that it is really important that our community have a long hard think and begin a robust conversation about what we really want for our children in education. Our society has changed irrevocability, as a consequence shouldn’t our education system also evolve to meet our society’s needs?
Lately the media has been full of accusations that our education system is in a ‘crisis’, and how we need to get back to the ‘basics’.  Well, I say (and I will probably get in trouble for this but …) rubbish to that!  Can’t you remember how bored and uninspired you were at school?  Sure, if you were lucky you had one or two teachers who inspired you and broke the mold, but in general we were confined to our desks waiting for lunch time.
As I watched the kids this term, bubbling with excitement while preparing the school fundraising fair, experimenting with technology and science, and interacting with Richie McCaw on our Richie Day a horrible thought occurred to me.  If we went back to the basics, if we conformed to aspirational standards and league tables, if we turned to national testing like Australia, we wouldn’t have been able to participate in any of our exciting learning this term.  We would have been too busy pushing our children into their prescribed achievement levels, so that we could report that they weren’t ‘failing’.
I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem right to me.  I just want the school I teach in to be a place that inspires children to shine in all areas of their life, not just where the politicians deem necessary.
So that’s what I want for education, my question is what do you want?  And do those Suits down in Wellington know it?

Earlier this week I was having a chat with our senior students about how different primary school is compared to when attended in the Eighties.  The kids were amazed when I explained that we had ask permission to leave our desks, go to the toilet or to get a drink of water.  For these 21st Century Kids who were sitting on a cushion in front of the fire, doing their math book work while munching on an apple, the thought of being confined to one’s desk was just abhorrent.

I guess that’s what much of education was like back in the bad old days (which really is not so long ago).  Children confined to a classroom, a year group, an achievement level, a set of standards or a desk.  Learning was confined to Three Rs, and occasional PE.

According to Sir Ken Robinson and many educational experts, this is called the Industrial Model.  Schools were formed to create batches of cookie cutter graduates that fit into an industrialized society.  Below is a link to a fabulous Youtube Video, which explains how education needs to change and move away from this industrial model in order to meet the dynamic needs of our 21st Century society.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

The wonderful thing is, that New Zealand is already way ahead of the ball game, when it comes to dynamic education, with it’s world renowned New Zealand Curriculum.  The Vision Statement for our curriculum is to have “young people who will be confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners”.  How wonderful is that!

I believe that it is really important that our community have a long hard think and begin a robust conversation about what we really want for our children in education. Our society has changed irrevocability, as a consequence shouldn’t our education system also evolve to meet our society’s needs?

Lately the media has been full of accusations that our education system is in a ‘crisis’, and how we need to get back to the ‘basics’.  Well, I say (and I will probably get in trouble for this but …) rubbish to that!  Can’t you remember how bored and uninspired you were at school?  Sure, if you were lucky you had one or two teachers who inspired you and broke the mold, but in general we were confined to our desks waiting for lunch time.

As I watched the kids this term, bubbling with excitement while preparing the school fundraising fair, experimenting with technology and science, and interacting with Richie McCaw on our Richie Day a horrible thought occurred to me.  If we went back to the basics, if we conformed to aspirational standards and league tables, if we turned to national testing like Australia, we wouldn’t have been able to participate in any of our exciting learning this term.  We would have been too busy pushing our children into their prescribed achievement levels, so that we could report that they weren’t ‘failing’.

I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem right to me.  I just want the school I teach in to be a place that inspires children to shine in all areas of their life, not just where the politicians deem necessary.

So that’s what I want for education, my question is what do you want?  And do those Suits down in Wellington know it?

A Bit of List Ticking

A Leading Change Up-Date!

You may all remember the list I made back in October.  Well I am happy to report that I have made some very good progress!

  1. Obtain Domain Name details. – Done! Took me three months but finally found it at xtra Business – charging us $45.00 per year for the Domain name, plus $14.00 per month to host the website they were not actually hosting!
  2. Sign up for Google Apps – Super easy, I switch the Domain hosting to Inspire Net ($45.00 per year total), did the online form for Google Aps, and emailed any technical instructions (copy and pasted from the google site) to Inspire Net.  Was set up in an afternoon, and my free Education subscription was approved in exactly two weeks to the day!
  3. Sigh and stare at my tiny budget. –Did a bit of that, but then gave up and played tennis.
  4. Re-assess our ISP – InspireNet, Telecom, or Vodafone? (we have very limited options in Kiwi-land) – Went with Inspire Net.  They were so helpful and hooked us up to their Wireless Network. Cost $350.00 installation, $70.00 per month for 10gig per month, 4mb download, 1.4mb upload -guaranteed! Sooooooo Fast!
  5. Spend at least 17 hours fixing internet connection problems or just waiting while I am on hold. – Was not put on hold once at Inspire Net, again soooooooooo fast!
  6. Create a new (official serious stuff) school website  – Self-hosted with Joomla or hosted by InspireNet with WordPress MU or use a hosted site like Weebly or Google Sites. – Again – Inspire Net is on the job!  They are hosting our site for free, all we had to do was put their little logo at the bottom of our site.  Sweet!  Check it Out!
  7. Up-load all policy documents to Google Docs and link to school site – Na, scrapped the google docs thing, does make a nice enough looking webpage.  Used Scribd instead, fantastic looking embedded PDFs, very professional – check them out here (click on a folder)
  8. Write the elearning policy – yik, still doing that …
  9. Sigh and stare at my tiny budget – decided it would be more fun to go white water rafting down the road instead.
  10. Start applying for Trust Grants to up-grade the current elearning infra-structure – Didn’t actually need to, after I presented an audit of all of the out of date gear, the BOT approved the purchase of three new iMacs, a Macbook lease and a new digital video camera.  Woohoo!
  11. Set up school accounts – Flickr, Voicethread, Delicious, Edublogs, GlogsterEdu, etc. – Done, for all except Glogster, will do that later in the year, have to teach the kids how to use their basic blogs first.
  12. Sigh and stare at my tiny budget. – Smiled to myself, because it turns out the budget was not so small after all!
  13. Decide if I should go to Learning @School or Ulearn10 and/or the NZPF National Conference. – Not going to NZPF Conference, sound to serious, am applying for a grant to go to Ulearn, I have so many more things to present!!!  Maybe three workshops this time!
  14. Create a school/class learning blog (for the fun learning stuff in edublogs) am thinking I might get the students to create a school mascot to host the blog. – Just decided to combine it with the school one, don’t you think our mascot (the Voki Character) is cute?  We thought we might call her Lady BaBa!
  15. Create an ePortfolio for each child (in Edublogs) and set up their school email accounts. – Done!  Slowly does it while we work through the necessary skills.
  16. Clean out the old school room (currently used as storage) and turn it into an awesome Creative Art Space! – turns out this amazing space has no instillation, so maybe a tad too cold in the winter when it snows (and it doesn’t have water or power, but it does have rodents!), anyway heaps of space in the classroom.
  17. Feed the chickens. – and lock them in their run so they don’t keep coming into my kitchen!!!

And Once more Sooooo Fast!  Thanks Inspire Net!