Because Counting Our Blessings Just Isn't Enough

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Doctoral Confessions: 14 Years Later

“Doctoral confessions” is a series of stories started by my twitter friend, Will Deyamport (@peoplegogy) on the good, the bad and the ugly in pursuing a doctorate. Will, currently in the final stages of his doctorate, refers to those of us who have graduated as “brave souls”. I think it’s more honest to call us “persistent souls”. There are surely much more difficult experiences in life than pursuing a doctorate. Getting a Ph.D. doesn’t require bravery; just time and patience.

I hadn’t intended to start a doctorate. It was the early 90’s and I was a rabbinical student, not yet sure how I would craft a career. I taught religious school as a means of supporting myself and found I loved being in the classroom; adoring the middle school students I taught. To improve my teaching skill, I added to my schedule as many education electives as I could. I found myself drawn to education.

At the time, the field of Jewish education seemed to be expanding and there was great demand for qualified Jewish educators to serve in a range of settings. My school, The Jewish Theological Seminary, among other institutions was asked to produce doctoral students capable of becoming educational leaders. Apparently, I was gaining a reputation for holding educational promise. The chair of the education department, with whom I took a course, invited me to lunch. Would I be interested, he asked, in a full scholarship along with a living stipend to pursue a doctorate in Jewish education?  It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.

The experience was a dream come true. I continued rabbinical school, with the cost of classes covered as part of the same scholarship I received for my doctoral studies. I engaged in learning with professors and colleagues who stretched my thinking. I read countless books and journal articles that were meaningful and thought provoking.

Do I have “war stories” – the bad and the ugly as it were? Well, of course I do. There was the German exam I failed miserably, finally squeaking through the language requirement with a B- (by the skin of my teeth) in two semesters of German.  There was the moment I and three colleagues in my program approached our department to schedule our comprehensive exams, following six months of intensive study, only to be told the department had a new literature list and we would need to begin our exam prep anew. We protested that decision and were allowed to take the exam on the material we had initially been told to learn. There were the demanding years of intensive writing, critique and revising. Through it all, I always felt privileged both for the opportunity to learn and for the potential to contribute.

Now, looking back 14 years into the past, the pain of grueling hours, days and years of writing almost forgotten, I wonder whether the intensive academic study prepared me for real challenges in real schools. Hubris aside at being able to call myself Dr., I question whether the study made me a better educator today than I would have been without pursuing the doctorate.

I suppose the answer is yes – my academic training has helped me become a more effective educator.

I can read and apply educational research utilizing critical thinking honed in my doctoral program. I can ask good questions. I can research and I can write. I can assess the quality of data and utilize data to formulate hypotheses and opinions. I can recognize the possibility of multiple interpretations of the same data. I am open to differing perspectives.

And, I suppose the answer is also no – my academic training is not primarily what makes me an effective educator.

I wasn’t prepared to support a child excluded by peers or frustrated by work that is too challenging or not challenging enough. I wasn’t instructed in ways of assisting a parent saddened by a child’s difficulties or angered by a school decision. I wasn’t shown ways of empowering teachers stiving to meet ever rising demands. I wasn’t made ready to allocate insufficient financial resources during economically trying times. Perhaps most significantly, I wasn’t equipped to lead the cultural change required in response to the rapid changes our world has experienced in the past fourteen years since I received my Ph.D. All of that I have learned from experience.

Was receiving a doctorate worth the effort? Absolutely! Was it sufficient? Not by a long shot. Are there other paths to becoming an effective educational leader? Of course! Am I still grateful for the opportunity I received? Unquestionably; grateful and ever-committed to utilizing the gifts given me in order to make a contribution for the sake of our children.

Category:

Doctorate, Graduate School, Ph.D, Professional Development, Professional Learning, Uncategorized

Twitter Travel

In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.   Eric Hoffer, Quoted by Will Richardson and Rob Mancabelli in Personal Learning Networks: Using the Power of Connections to Transform Education

cc licensed image shared by flicker user Rosaura Ochoa

 

This Friday, February 3rd, marked the one year anniversary of my signing up for twitter. An engaging keynote speech by educational technology leader Alan November at a conference I attended had piqued my curiosity.  And still, I tarried. A full year from that thought-provoking keynote address came and went.  During that year, I gently waded into the waters of social media, starting a blog for parents in my school and reading a few educational blog posts I received via Facebook.

I was struggling; charged with implementing an ambitious educational strategic plan, the magnitude of which none of us who had been involved in its design had initially understood. We were grappling with questions of the early twenty-first century, primarily how to prepare students in this rapidly changing world for a future we cannot imagine. The learning and leadership tasks, which were in and of themselves daunting, together presented significant new perspectives on schooling. I recognized the need to stretch my thinking beyond the training I had received in the doctoral program in education I completed in 1998 and beyond my decade plus worth of experience as a principal.  

Although decidedly skeptical about how much could be expressed in 140 characters, I embraced the possibilities of a medium utterly new to me, hoping to find insight and support in leading a process of change in my school. What I didn’t bargain for was the change and transformation that would occur within me. 

I embarked on a journey I lovingly refer to as “twitter travel”.

Twitter travel is not an expression I’d ever heard before. It’s my own terminology for a journey that has changed the way I learn. On a daily basis I travel the world from my computer, ipad or phone, conversing with inspiring educators around the globe. I not only travel geographically, but even humbly broach movement through time, gaining small glimpses into the future of schooling and learning with colleagues who have pushed the boundaries of education. I reflect, question, find resources, collaborate and wonder with educators who share my passions and interests in an informal, yet potent, professional learning network that is fluid, flexible, creative and profoundly meaningful.

So, how am I different as a result of my twitter travel?

Through my participation in organizing international #NoOfficeDay on which educational leaders close their offices and engage all day with students and teachers, I have come to understand the importance as an educational leader not only of “doing” but of “being”; of presence. I now spend dramatically more time not only observing, but actively participating in learning experiences throughout our school; two hours daily in classrooms along with a full day from arrival to dismissal with each of our grades K-5.

Co-moderating the weekly twitter chat #educoach on instructional coaching with Kathy Perret (@kathyperret) and Jessica Johnson (@PrincipalJ), has assisted me to redefine the role of educational leader, finding greater opportunities for teacher leaders and transforming my own job definition to emphasize coaching for professional growth more than evaluation.

Participating on podcasts with the dynamic Jeffrey Bradbury (@TeacherCast) and numerous talented TeacherCast guests has informed my thinking on the role of educational technology, supporting our school to consider how to shift learning with technology from a lab based experience to far greater integration into the classrooms where daily learning occurs.

Actively participating in the weekly #jedchat on Jewish education with wise moderators Rabbi Akevy Greenblatt (@akevy613), Dov Emerson (@dovemerson) and Rabbi Meir Wexler (@RabbiWex) has enabled me to share with Jewish educators serious about the connection between innovative contemporary learning grounded in our ancient, enduring tradition and values. Attending a #140edu conference last summer organized by the energetic super-connector Jeff Pulver (@jeffpulver) opened up imaginative thinking I previously hadn’t had the opportunity to consider. Skype conversations and Google + hangouts with some of the people in my professional learning network on whom I rely has enabled us to extend conversations beyond 140 characters or links to resources. Making a daily habit of reading numerous blog posts by educational thinkers inspires and helps me reflect. And finally, I have taken what for me is a significant step of engagement, beginning my own professional blog.

Perhaps the most substantive change in me is the courage I have gained to acknowledge unabashedly that as an educational leader I can’t offer all the answers, nor even pose all the questions. Instead, it is my task to nurture an environment of creative collaboration focused on student learning and growth. That is a far more complex task than I ever could have recognized at the beginning of my twitter travel.

And so, I end with my personal connection to the Eric Hoffer quote with which I began. These are times of change. It is our responsibility as educators to support our students to be learners who will inherit the earth. It is also our task to help them escape the very real danger of becoming the learned and finding themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.

I am grateful to my twitter travel for helping me to become one of the learners. I’d love for you to share ways in which you are among the learners rather than the learned and look forward to our continued learning journey together. Happy traveling!

Category:

Educational Leadership, Strategic Planning, Teacher Leadership, Twitter, Uncategorized, Web 2.0

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The Greatest Gift of No Office Day

Our principal will be spending the day with us. What do you want her to learn?

Leading a Reading Group on No Office Day with Our Fifth Grade

The potent question, “what do you want our principal to learn?”, posed by one of our teachers to her class at the beginning of my No Office Day with the second grade last week, not only served as a short journal writing prompt for students to begin their day, but also deepened my understanding of No Office Day.

I love No Office Days! I get to spend the entire day, from arrival to dismissal, with one grade. I’ve scheduled six this year, one for each of our grades – kindergarten through fifth. With each No Office Day I celebrate, I gain greater perspective and insight on the tremendous value of the practice.

I’ve written about No Office Day before in a guest post on the PEJE (Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education) blog here as well as on my own school blog, Perspectives From the Principal here and here. I’ve been interviewed on an Eduleadership podcast along with my talented colleagues Jessica Johnson and William King which you can listen to here. And, I’ve been privileged to collaborate creatively with many inspiring educators on No Office Day, some of whom have shared their reflections on our  No Office Day wiki, which was honored as a featured wiki by Wikispaces and described in a guest post I authored for the Wikispaces Blog.

Don’t misunderstand. No Office Days are not the only times I am in classrooms.  I deliberately schedule two hours every day – No Office Hours – during which I escape the gravitational pull of the office: the meetings, the phone calls, the e-mails, the planning, and the communications, making sure I am present where it matters most, among students and teachers. I’m also out of the office other times: leading student council, covering or co-teaching a class for a teacher, participating in assemblies and programs, interacting with students at lunch and recess, and more. Yet, while I strive to spend much time throughout the school, No Office Days are special. I do no supervision or evaluation of teachers on these days. Instead, I participate actively in learning and teaching as a peer. Sometimes I teach a lesson a teacher has planned and sometimes I teach lessons I have designed myself. Sometimes I provide student support – taking on a small group or assisting an individual student. Still other times, I am simply present, participating enthusiastically in whatever the activity.  

OK, I carry my cell phone and ipad with me throughout the day and have responded to texts from my administrative assistant with questions she needs answered in order to support management of the school while I am out and about. I’ve replied to e-mails from parents or members of the educational leadership team that appeared to require a quick response. Some teachers have sought me out during No Office Day when they feel they need immediate direction on a challenge they face. Our Director of Admissions has introduced me to prospective parents while I am in a class on No Office Day.  I’ve even received calls from the nurse at my own children’s schools and have dashed out of the building, dropped one of them off at home, and returned as if there had been no interruption. Life, both professional and personal, happens. But, mostly, on No Office Days I’ve managed to be present for our students and teachers, actively engaged in learning.

So, back to the profound essential question posed by a second grade teacher – Our principal will be spending the day with us. What do you want her to learn?

What students wrote was potent. What they shared was even more powerful.

Second graders wrote that they wanted me to learn about their centers, their class library, tens and ones, math, reading, writing, how we do tefillah (prayer), good things, what we are learning about nonfiction books, and naming stuff (i.e. text features) in nonfiction books like bold words and headings and captions. One particularly curious child astutely wrote, “I wonder what our principal noticed about our class.”

Students have shared with me on No Office Days even more, including the best place on our campus to build a fort, global variations on the Cinderella story, the status of a child’s sister struggling with an illness, insights on Jacob’s ladder described in the book of Genesis (Bereisheet), favorite football teams, how to have fun solving word problems, ways our pets make us laugh, games to play in Hebrew, areas on our campus that suffered erosion after Hurricane Irene, what the shapes of the continents remind us of and how to critique a friend’s writing respectfully.

With each No Office Day I’ve not only learned more, but as the wise second grader quoted previously wondered, I’ve noticed more. I’ve developed greater respect and understanding for the rhythm and nuance of our students’ days. I’ve gained deeper insight into our students’ school experiences, from their perspective, in their terms. I’ve seen school through the eyes of our students. I’ve been transformed from the leader to the learner; paradoxically helping me to become a far more effective educational leader. That transformation from leader to learner to more effective leader has been the greatest gift of No Office Day, making the time devoted simply to being with students and teachers absolutely indispensable.

Category:

Educational Leadership, No Office Day, Sharing, Uncategorized

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