Social Capital

Today, I had the opportunity to listen to Andy Hargreaves speak about the whole concept of professional capital. Professional capital is the function of three different types of capital - human, social, and decisional. While all of these are important and play a distinct, important role in the success of a school or other organization, I couldn't help contemplate the role of social capital in my current context.

Social capital is defined as, in my own paraphrase: who we are together and how we work, communicate, interact with one another for the benefit of ourselves, others, and the organization. For any business or organization where success is dependent up on interdependence, social capital should remain a constant focus and area of nurturing.

Social capital is highly dependent upon nurturing trust at all levels of the organization. Trust doesn't happen overnight and needs to be cultivated. While trust needs time to develop, it has to be developed with intentionality. Hargreaves put it best when he said, "Trust doesn’t come from micromanagement or leaving people alone. It comes from engaging with people about their work." This engagement has to be intentional, thoughtfully planned, and monitored by all involved.

Each of us experience roadblocks to enhancing social capital within our teams.  In my current professional life, the size of the organization is a challenge.  The elementary school where I proudly serve as principal has nearly 140 staff members serving over 1,000 students.  In an international setting, we experience a lot of staff attrition.  Any time a new staff member joins, the whole dynamic of the team changes.  By team, I really mean teams – grade level teams, curricular teams, and the entire elementary school team.  Of course, time is a challenge.  How do you create opportunities to build trust at grade levels, between grade levels, horizontally and vertically?  How do you work to establish a culture of trust that, regardless of staff movement, permeates the building so that anyone who enters feels that trust is high, honored, revered, respected, and cultivated?  How do you help newcomers realize that trust is not just earned, but it’s given and supported?  How do you help everyone within the organization understand that levels of trust are constantly changing and that the only way to get trust moving in the right direction is to be vulnerable about practice and to communicate openly and professionally? 

Social capital is what we as leaders need to focus the majority of our time on.  How much time in your daily schedule is dedicated to raising the social capital of your organization?

Motivation is Everything

One of the most popular articles in the New York Times this weekend caught my attention. The article describes a recently published paper that examined the two types of motives that exist, internal (motives that are inherent in the task such as writing a blog for the joy of writing) and instrumental (motives that are not inherent to the task such as writing a blog to become a thought leader in education). The article further describes how all of the activities that we undertake have both internal and instrumental consequences (writing a blog can be both for the joy of writing and make the writer a thought leader in education), but that having both types of motives does not predict success and that, “instrumental motives are not always an asset and can actually be counterproductive to success.”

The research, based on data collected from West Point cadets showed that, “remarkably, cadets with strong internal and strong instrumental motives for attending West Point performed worse on every measure than did those with strong internal motives but weak instrumental ones.” This seems to make sense when we step back and think about achieving any difficult goal. If we are motivated by the outcome, and not mastery of the task itself, we can easily step back when it becomes too difficult and find another path towards our goal.

I think often of my students that want to go to college, “to get a good job and make money.” When the Advanced Placement or introductory college classes become challenging, they see that there are much easier ways to get “good” jobs and make money.  Since the opportunity to learn or the experience of going to college were not what was driving them forward, they found it easy to pass up on the college dream.

 Like any successful article, I find that after reading it I have to reexamine how I approach my students about the value of an education. As an AVID teacher, a program designed to support marginalized students in their path to college, I often use instrumental motivation to get them to perform their best. I explain how success in school can lead to acceptance to a good college, earning a good job, and earning a living that will support a happy family. The article makes a clear point that, "for students uninterested in learning, financial incentives…for high performance may prompt them to participate, but it may result in less well-educated students."

After reading this, I see that I may need to step back from the instrumental motivation I use. As the article states, just because there are instrumental consequences of being good in school it does not mean that is the best way to motivate my students. Instead I need to focus on the value of learning for its own sake, which I have tried to do in my class and explained in a previous post, but need to continue to consciously incorporate into my classes. 

Just like everything in my teaching career, it ends up reminding me of coaching football. I want my offensive linemen to block well. I do not talk to them about the fact that the better we block, the more likely we are to win. I simply value the skill of blocking and motivate them to master the skills, irrespective of the outcome it plays in the game. Whether the player is a starter or will never see the field, I expect them to master the skills. The end goal is the by-product of doing everything else right. It is as true for one of my AVID students as it is for my offensive linemen.

Cross-posted from: http://notfillingthepail.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-trip-is-more-important-than.html

Please follow John @jhhines57 or check out his blog at notfillingthepail.blogspot.com

Learning From the Ground Up

While we do not often think about it, we can start redesigning schools with the physical space. As I think about how to structure a high school, I see ways to change the school simply with the furnishing. Open spaces, natural light and comfortable seats can all take a school from “cells and bells” to a place of innovation and invention. I have often said that I go onto college campuses and I see how I wish to teach. It is amazing to have open manicured lawns, wooded paths, and some time to be outside. Being at a traditional high school, cooped up inside, it makes me wish I could escape, not stay and learn. If I feel that way, and I had a positive experience at school, I know my students feel the same way.

Along with how the school is designed, I am interested to see how much schools could become like the best idea companies. Places like Google, Microsoft, and Twitter have to give their employees space to think. Google has become famous for its Genius Hour in which the employees are given time to simply pursue whatever interests them and some of their newest innovations (Google Glass, the Google self driving car) have come from this time. These companies thrive based on how well their employees think. This is how we should be approaching schools. We should treat our students and teachers like thinking, and developing new ideas, was their job. We should give them time to pursue their passions and interests. We have to trust teachers to develop systems and solutions for the issues they face. We then further need to trust students to learn and find passion in learning.

When we think about public education, it is frustrating that while we want to have schools as a place of learning, growing , innovation and invention we run them like factories. With fixed amounts of credits, minutes and grades, we are trying to mass produce graduates (the all important graduation rate as the critical marker of success) with teachers working on the assembly line. We have this system, not because we think it is the best, but because accountability demands clear criteria to measure (test scores, graduation rates). Free time to generate ideas and follow passions is not as measurable as 3 years of high school science or 55 minutes of Geometry.

While places like Google see Genius Hour as a way to allow its engineers to follow intellectual endeavors as vital to it continued success and relevance, it is hard to see this becoming part of our public schools in our current high stakes, high accountability climate. There are some educators calling for the changes, to make schools more like our most innovative and productive companies, it has failed to penetrate the average school and is not part of the much of the current popular reform conversation. Less is more is not as prevalent as more is more.

If we are serious about schools being places of idea production, we have to build them to support the creation of ideas. We have also recognize that learning is an organic process, not a mechanical one. We cannot simply speed things up and have students simply learn more in less time, just like we cannot double the fertilizer we put on crops and expect them to grow twice as much in half the time. What we can do is create a set of circumstances, a climate, that can support higher growth. This can be done many ways, but one way that might need to be considered includes natural light and some free time.

Cross-posted from: http://notfillingthepail.blogspot.com/2014/07/designing-climate-for-growth.html

Please follow John @jhhines57 or check out his blog at notfillingthepail.blogspot.com

What does your legislator know about your work? If you said, "Nothing!"....please read on.

‘Critical Questions’ Series – This post is also available at the Washington State ASCD affiliate website blog: http://wsascdorg.blogspot.com/ as well as the link to the article as pdf: http://www.wsascd.org/downloads/critical_questions/June_2014_CQ.pdf.  

June 2014

What does your local legislator know about your work?

“The difference between a politician and a statesman is that a politician thinks about the next election while the statesman thinks about the next generation.” –Hillary Rodham Clinton

Policy changes can move slowly and impact people – including our students and teachers – for years while we learn about actual consequences to well-intended mandates.  For those of us used to the crazy pace of the classroom, the geologic-timing of governmental response can be frustrating.  (Although, to be fair, if policy change happened quickly – that would have its own set of consequences.)

Here in Washington State we have what is termed “citizen legislators.”  In general, while the “salary and time required for the job” significantly limits who can serve, it is also “difficult for legislators to obtain and maintain outside employment.” According to the Washington Citizens’ Commission, (Washington) state legislators typically spend about 70% of a full-time job.  Although their income from legislative work is greater than that for (other types of state) legislatures, it is usually not enough to allow them to make a living without other sources of income.

According to a 2012 National Conference of State Legislatures survey, Washington state elected officials have average annual salaries of $42,106. If we take the “70% of a full-time job” figure at face value, this means our elected officials are in jobs that would average annual salaries of … wait for it… $60,151.

Wow.  Why would someone do such a difficult, important job for such paltry compensation?  I mean – the complexity, the stress, the 24/7 public element of the position…it sounds so…so much like…TEACHING.

Clearly, both members of political and educational professions must work from a reserve of passion and dedication, and not omnipotence.  Understanding that they are dedicated, what is the best way for these folks to learn about your day-to-day professional issues?  From YOU.  You and I must engage our citizen legislators and be the teachers we claim to be.  Educate our representatives.

One recent example of this occurred in Eastern Washington.  My colleague Dr. Lambert, from Whitworth University, and I convened a panel of student teachers, mentor teachers, a supervisor, and professors to teach our area senators and representatives about the new exam required of preservice teachers, the educational Teacher Performance Assessment

(edTPA).  One of the legislators left with this comment, “This was one of the best events of this type I have attended.”  Others agreed and thanked us for the format, which was a bit different than what they usually experience.  Instead of asking them to come with all the answers, we invited them to come with questions while we supplied the “testifying panelists.”  Every participant seemed grateful and expressed a desire to work further on the issues together.  I feel great confidence that each of these legislators is going to the state capitol with a much better understanding of what is happening in this area of the profession and will move purposefully toward action that supports quality teaching and learning. 

We felt proactive. We felt like we had been heard.  We did not wait up in the tower, sighing with our head in our hands, hoping that someone would come ask us about the issues of the day.  We refused to gripe… and then sit idle.  Understanding that communication is our duty as good citizens and educators, we felt good as we partnered with our citizen legislators.

We educators always have our eye on the next generation, and so do our legislators.  How can you help our well-meaning citizen legislators to become better informed about our profession?

Suzann Girtz, Ph.D. Asst. Professor Teacher Education Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA girtz@gonzaga.edu

Professional Relationship Dos and Don'ts

We all know that relationships are at the heart of everything we do in leadership.  Our success in leadership hinges on our ability to develop and maintain positive, working relationships with our colleagues.  Oftentimes, navigating these relationships with our colleagues can be the biggest challenge we face.

Having worked as a principal in a fairly large school district, fostering relationships with my principal colleagues was a challenge because of time and proximity.  The bi-weekly or monthly principal meetings were just enough for us to check in, ask about each other’s families, exchange a few professional pearls of wisdom and go on our way, only to wait another month to “rinse and repeat.” 

During the last three years, I have been a part of a leadership team in a small international school.  All of my principal and administrative colleagues work under the same roof.  While some of the same challenges of working in a larger educational system are still present, other obstacles present themselves in a smaller setting.  Having had experiences in both small and large educational systems, Based on my experiences in both settings, I’ve come up with four pieces of advice to help you navigate these relationships and keep peace, harmony and collaboration at the focus!

Challenge #1:  Communication – Don’t take the easy way out!

Communication in any setting can be difficult.  Oftentimes, we rely on the easiest and most time-saving way to communicate.  This is typically email.  When sensitive topics need to be discussed, it’s important to use methods of communication that allow all participants in the conversation to understand fully and let nothing get lost in interpretation.  Use your phone or walk down and have an actual conversation with your colleague, especially if the topic of conversation is time-sensitive or delicate in nature. 

Challenge 2: Collaborate – When decisions need to be made, don’t skip important steps.

Leadership can be fast-paced, requiring decisions to be made quickly.  Thinking through the decision and the potential impacts is helpful in determining your next steps and who needs to be informed and/or involved in a decision.  Proceed with extreme caution when attempting to make decision, big or small, when others are involved or need to have their opinions heard.  Rushing communication or skipping it altogether can only lead to mistrust and frustration.

Challenge 3: Assume positive intentions - Have a positive presupposition, but hold your colleagues accountable.

It’s important when working closely with our colleagues to have positive presuppositions.  The reality, however, is that this can be very difficult, especially in an environment of distrust and poor communication.  Always assuming the best intentions is an effective practice for school leaders.  This does not mean that when we feel a colleague has done something offensive or unprofessional that we turn the other cheek and say to ourselves, “I’m sure (insert person’s name) had good intentions so I will let it go.”  Repeated offenses of this nature can cause frustration and lead to more friction in the professional relationship. We owe it to our colleagues and the culture of the school to address these issues in a constructive (not destructive) way. 

Challenge 4: Talk it out – When there’s an issue, don’t ignore the problem.

When a colleague feels the need to talk something out with you (based usually on an interaction or experience they’ve had with you), don’t ignore the request.  Typically, these requests are intended to surface and resolve relationship issues so that they can be laid to rest.  When these requests are ignored, colleagues can only speculate as to why the request was ignored.  This speculation usually leads to dangerous territory and can ultimately lead to the demise of your professional relationship.