Dangerously Irrelevant

Sometimes a story is just so egregiously stupid that you not only have to post about it but encourage others to spread the word too. This might be one of those situations (hat tip to Jon Becker)…

This picture is of a 5-year-old kid named Adriel Arocha. His family wants to move to Needville, Texas. Adriel is of Native American heritage and has never cut his hair in his life. No big deal, right? Well, apparently it is because the superintendent of the Needville Schools, Curtis Rhodes, won’t allow Adriel to enroll in kindergarten unless he cuts his hair. Why? Because – unbelievably in 2008 – the district doesn’t allow boys to have long hair. Really.

Read the article in the Houston Press, particularly the part where the superintendent defends the school district’s backwardness. Check out Adriel’s family’s blog about the situation. Feel free to publicly ridicule this school district because Curtis Rhodes is giving administrators everywhere a bad name. What university trained this guy?

Maybe it’s time to create a Stone Age Administrator award…

Photo credit: Houston Press

[cross-posted at the TechLearning
blog]

I’m in the midst of reading Clark Aldrich’s Simulations
and the Future of Learning. As Aldrich walks me through the process of
developing a leadership simulation, he has a number of interesting things to say
about video game and simulation design. Thanks to Aldrich’s clear and engaging
prose, I’m finding myself unexpectedly captivated by the nitty-gritty of the
workflow of simulation production.

So far the statement that has resonated with me the most, however,
pertains as much to education as it does to the gaming industry. Aldrich
said:

The goal of learning in any organization (business, educational,
governmental) should be to make its members more productive (p.
3).

I’ll agree with that. And I probably would add to the end of that statement
“… and more powerful.” I think that additional phrase takes the edge
off what might be construed as a focus solely on preparation for work and
expands it to include personal empowerment.

Productive and powerful. Isn’t that what we want
for the children in our schools? Isn’t that we want for the educators with whom
we work? Productive and powerful. I like it.

We have 50 million public school
students in the United States. Are the thousands of worksheets that they
will complete in their lifetime making them more productive? Are their countless
hours of individual seat work going to lead to greater personal empowerment? Are
they getting opportunities to be both productive and powerful on a regular
basis?

What about our subpopulations? Are socioeconomically-disadvantaged students
often getting the chance to be powerful? Do our students with disabilities or
our students whose primary language is not English have multiple, ongoing
opportunities to feel like they are productive, contributing members of our
communities?

What about our 3 million public
school teachers? Are the tens of millions of hours that they spend in staff
development and training each year actually making them more productive? Do you
think the bulk of them feel empowered by their ‘learning opportunities?’

Do we regularly ask ourselves these kinds of questions in our school
organizations? As educators, should we?

I have some hard thinking to do about my own graduate classes and degree
programs here at Iowa State…

The Teacher Salary Project is intended to call attention to the important and difficult work that teachers do. I agree that teachers "deserve more." Is it wrong of me to also wish that the first words that pop up in its video trailer weren’t grammatically incorrect [or was that intentional?]…

Samuel Smiles, a Scottish author, said:

We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.

Kenneth Boulding, an economist and systems scientist, said:

Nothing fails like success because we don’t learn from it. We learn only from failure.

Given our schools’ dominant emphasis on getting the right answer, I wonder how often students get a chance to actually learn from their failures (as opposed to simply being told that they are unsuccessful or incorrect). I’m guessing probably not enough…

Voting for the finalists in the 140-character book review contest is now open:

• CLICK HERE TO VOTE!
• See the results to date

I picked nine of my favorites. It was extremely tough. There were LOTS of great entries!

Voting deadline: noon Pacific time, Friday, August 1

Distributed (or shared) leadership is all the rage right now in leadership circles. And rightfully so. School leaders should tap into the wealth of expertise and experience that their staffs possess.

But determining which (and how many) people should participate in the decision-making process can be challenging. Too few and you risk an oligarchy. Too many and you get this (hat tip to Seth Godin):

The good news from the most comprehensive study ever done of gender and math performance?

‘No gender difference’ in scores among children in grades 2 through 11. [see research summary]

The bad news?

In most states [the researchers] reviewed, and at most grade levels, there weren’t any questions that involved complex problem-solving, the ability needed to succeed in high levels of science and math. If tests don’t assess these reasoning skills, they may not be taught. [see CNN article]

Head on over to Leading From the Heart and leave Tracy Rosen a comment on her thought-provoking post about revisiting digital literacy. Here’s the comment I just left her:

I am by no means a ‘literacy’ expert. For me, the idea of literacy means something like ‘fluency in the dominant information landscape(s) of your time, both as a consumer and as a producer.’ In the past, that has meant being an adequate reader and an adequate writer. It is increasingly clear that the dominant information landscape of our present and future is one that is digital, networked, interactive, hyperconnected, dispersed, rapidly-changing, multimedia, and so on. This new information landscape requires additional fluencies beyond those needed for a paper-based world.

Fluency in paper-bound text and graphics is still a necessary skill today. The need to be a high-level reader and writer is going to be around for a long while. But the dominance of the written word slowly will be eroded by other forms of audio/video expression. For me, the exciting thing about many of these new ‘literacies’ is that students and educators now have unprecedented opportunities to create things of value to the larger world, to have a legitimate voice, and to reach authentic audiences.

Like any good progressive, Chris Lehmann advocates emphasis on facilitation of students as digital citizens rather than emphasis on preparing students to be digital workers. I too am very much in favor of empowering students personally and on the citizenship front. But I also want my kids to have a meaningful, rewarding career (that, hopefully, also contributes to society in some way). And that means getting what Richard Florida calls a ‘creative class’ job – one that requires autonomy, independent judgment, creativity, innovation, creative problem-solving, and, yes, fluency with digital technologies. Creative class jobs are facilitated and enhanced by digital technologies, not replaced by them (as often happens with service or working class jobs).

So I empathize with your concern, Tracy, about respecting others’ approaches to sense-making. And I too am concerned with the differential access that developing countries and underserved student populations have. But I think the task for all of us is to bring them into the digital, global 21st century, not to define ‘literacy’ in ways that continue to disempower them socially and/or economically for decades to come (note: I’m not saying you’re doing this).

Here’s an old post of mine on social justice that might be of interest:

  http://snipurl.com/35ivk

Thanks for a thoughtful, thought-provoking post. I look forward to reading others’ comments!

Over at the On Our Minds @ Scholastic blog, Tyler Reed is pondering the recent announcement by the Lamar (MS) County School District that it will prohibit teachers from communicating with students via social networking tools such as Facebook or MySpace.

The question in my mind is:

Why treat social networking spaces differently than any other means of teacher communication?

The issue is actual inappropriate teacher communication and/or behavior (which I’m guessing is already covered by board policy), not the method by which teachers communicate with students. A prohibition on use of social networking tools does absolutely nothing to prevent inappropriate teacher communication with students via other channels. So the district either needs to implement similar policies for telephones,
snail mail, written notes, instant messaging, cell phone text
messaging, e-mail, online video, blogs, wikis, podcasts, and the like or it needs to justify why social networking sites are so evil compared to all the other ways that teachers and students can communicate.

If the district is going to ban social networking and other 21st
century communication tools, it’s going to be awfully busy making
policies since new tools pop up every week. Also, one of the first things
you learn in law school is that you should never make a rule you can’t
enforce. How on earth would the district ever monitor this?

Facebook and MySpace are the 5th and 7th most popular sites on the Internet, respectively. Instead of exploring how teachers, students, and parents can use these sites productively, the district instead has turned into the social networking Nazi: no Facebook for you! Just for kicks, I took a look at the performance of the Lamar County schools. My suggestion for the school board is that perhaps its time and energy would be better spent raising the low academic performance of the students in the poorest school in the district rather than passing unnecessary and unenforceable policies.

This whole thing is just goofy…

As you can see below, there were a number of great Leadership Day 2008 posts. If I missed someone, my apologies in advance. Please add your link in the comments section (I recommend using tinyurl.com) so that we all can find your contribution.

Happy reading!

• Tracy Rosen noted that reflective school leaders need to start digging deeper for essential questions around student learning in relation to the use of technology.
• If administrators haven’t become at least somewhat savvy about digital technologies, Jeanette Johnson can just about guarantee that they are neither leading nor functioning as effectively as possible.
• Edwin Wargo said that technology leadership is like connecting the dots but with murky starting and ending points.
• As I read Sheila Teri’s reflection on the progress that her school has made, I also enjoyed listening to her ‘mix tape’ about change. That rocked (literally)!
• Rob Jacobs asked if schools prepare students to be creators or just inactives and spectators. He also asked In what way is your leadership preparing your school and your students for the literacy of technology?
• The Science Goddess asked leaders how they justify to parents the inequity of access to 21st century skills that they are providing. She also said it is not okay for one of her building principals to refer to those who use social networking as ‘freaky!’
• Beth Ritter-Guth blogged about leadership in virtual worlds. Very cool.
• Sylvia Martinez said ‘Just Do It,’ reminding administrators that it’s their responsibility to lead with positive energy, not fear.
• Kevin Hodgson told school leaders to break down the walls, let teachers play, ask the students, and don’t block the world. Nice use of ToonDoo, Kevin!
• Lisa Sjogren apparently has the good fortune to work with someone known as the Chief Learner. Lisa noted that either you get it or you don’t.
• Jon Becker posted some reflections on whether a progressive pedagogy for 21st century schools is possible in high-risk communities.
• Because of a high rate of administrator turnover, Paul Cancellieri and other teachers have banded together to move their school forward.
• After noting that educators literally groan when given the opportunity to learn, Bill Ferriter discussed how digital tools can be of assistance.
• Louise Maine offered a Top Ten list of tips for her administrators. My favorite may have been her admonition that we are not going to please everyone (so please quit trying and lead instead!).
• Carolyn Foote wants leaders to bring teachers together into democratic communities and set them free. Sounds good to me, Carolyn!
• Vicki Davis used her Leadership Day post to reflect on NECC and remind us that in the 1990s content was king, now contact is king.
• On July 4, Hugh O’Donnell declared his digital independence to blog without regard to local social pressures while simultaneously reaffirming [his] intention to remain ethical, truthful, and transparent.
• Frank Buck affrimed that a great way to hook administrators is to help them see how digital technologies can make their jobs easier.
• Stephanie Sandifer said that leaders need to transform their schools into places where 1) teachers see themselves first as learners who are invested in improving their instructional practice through reflection and inquiry, and 2) students are more globally connected in a way that enhances and supports their individual learning.
• As a professor, of course I was extremely interested in Justin Bathon’s thoughts about how university educational leadership programs could better utilize digital technologies in their preparation of school administrators.
• Like Justin, I also noted that we have neglected our leaders’ learning needs when it comes to digital technologies.

The Faculty Room blog asked its panel of contributors to blog about effective technology leadership. Nine of them took up the challenge (awesome!):

• Gerry Kosater noted that effective technology integration occurs when there is strong administrative support and when leaders create learning communities that empower teachers to collaborate and learn together.
• Joe Scotese reminded us to put on our skeptic’s hat because computers often are used inappropriately and their mere use is heralded as an educational experience in and of itself.
• Michelle Crisafulli generated a lot of comments when she suggested that we should simply put the monkeys in charge of the zoo.
• Dana Huff said that unfortunately administrators often get in the way of teachers with good ideas.
• Ellen Stubblefield interviewed her director of elementary curriculum, teaching, and technology to try and determine whether administrators have to be technology-savvy themselves in order to be effective technology leaders.
• Cindi Rigsbee pondered the dual issues of feeling behind and being concerned that her use of technology often seems forced instead of stress-free and seamless.
• Greg Farr mused on the power of being surrounded by technology, even while on vacation in a 40-year-old cabin in the mountains of New Mexico.
• Michael Ashton creatively blogged about effechnology leaderschoolship (you’ll have to read his post to understand). I’m with you, Michael!
• Chris Lehmann said that we need to do some things in our classrooms better than ever before: research, collaborate, create, present and network.

Finally, in case you missed them, here are all of the links from 2007:

• Leadership Day 2007 – Summary

A HUGE thanks to everyone who participated in Leadership Day 2008. See you next year on July 4!