Think Like a Teacher

Visit any place: a town, a school, a neighborhood, a college campus, even a restroom, and you will see telltale signs of the culture that lives there in the details that surround you. The trick is noticing. Here are images of details some may or may not notice when traveling in China. Each gives rise to some possible revelations about China– and raises some questions to ask about the culture in the place you call home.

This lady was carefully dusting every opening of a rooftop railing inside a garden in Shanghai. As tourists and other visitors walked beneath her, she continued cleaning. I immediately thought of the people we had seen sweeping the side of major highways with brooms. What might this possibly say about China’s employment or interest in cleanliness or care of public areas? What would I see on an equivalent place where you live?

I know I have possibly said too much about”western” and traditional (squat style) toilets in China. This sign was on the door to one stall where there was a western, seated style toilet. What does it tell you?

The library at the village school we visited had these books on the shelves.  All the bookshelves were arranged in single layer displays of books like this. What can you tell about the school and the library? What would we learn from looking at the details of your school or town library?

Speaking of libraries, in the brand new private school we visited in Shanghai, I saw students taking off their shoes to enter the school library. They lined them up neatly under the bench outside the library door, then went in. What might this say about libraries, shoes, or…? For what places do you take your shoes off?

In the ancient and older buildings of the Forbidden City, a Buddhist temple in Xi’an, and the beautiful garden home (now museum) of an affluent Shanghai family, we saw elevated door sills that our guide said were designed to keep the evil spirits out. You have to step up over every door sill that goes to the outdoors. What do architectural features –  even in non-religious buildings– reveal about the beliefs of people? What architectural features are common in your town’s buildings, and why are they there?

This photo from the Forbidden City shows another architectural feature we saw in many, many,  places in China. Can you find out what these rooftop animals mean? Do you have any decorations that have meaning on the buildings in your city or country?

Right outside the Forbidden City is Ti’ananmen Square. This light pole has more than lights. What else do you see? Why is it there? What would we see on the utility poles in public areas where you live —-and why?

The necessities of everyday life take up time and effort in every culture. What does this street photo tell you about the people of Shanghai? Actually, we saw this in every city. How do people where you live handle the same tasks? (Please pardon the blurriness. This was taken through a bus window.)

Play is important for children everywhere. This little boy had one rollerblade while his sister wore the other. They were playing outside the front door of their village home during the two hour break when children went home from school for lunch. What does this tell you about Chinese village children? If we watched children play in your neighborhood, what would we learn?

In the same small village, we saw this sign. What does it say about what is important there? What would we see in road signs (even on roads like this with few cars) where you live — and why?

Ceremonies and dances appear n every culture. This reenactment of a dance celebration from the Tang Dynasty was even more breathtaking when “stopped” by the camera. What ceremonies and rituals would strangers to your home find striking or surprising? Why do these ceremonies continue?

People say, “You are what you eat,” and one of the first thing everyone asks about my visit to China is about the food. This street stall in the middle of a Beijing neighborhood was well-stocked on a chilly December afternoon. What kind of food would visitors see for sale where you live, and where would they have to go to find it? What does that say about the economy and transportation systems where you live?

If we are what we eat, what would people say about you? These dumplings held mysterious contents, prompting us to ask “what’s inside?” before we tried them. What foods would visitors ask about when they visited your home?

Sometimes looking at the details reveals more questions than answers, but guessing and hypothesizing about culture from the outside details is as delightful as biting into it — and you discover some good stuff.

Snapsnack: (I made this up) n. a quick impression, much like a handful of M&Ms or crackers to give you a small taste but nowhere near a “meal.”  Snapsnacks also make your brain work

There are still so many things I have not written about the China trip, so–just for teachers and kids– I am sharing some quick “snapsnacks” from China. My disclaimer: As with any short trip (11 days), my impressions may not be fair representations of China as a whole. Think about a visitor to your town. If he came on a certain snowy day, he would have one set of experiences, perhaps thinking that everyone always wears boots. If he stayed for a year, he would have a much truer sense of what your town/city/country is all about. For fun, try people-watching at your local grocery store and imagine what a one day visitor would say about your community!

Snapsnack 1: Students in China do not work in groups much. They do things all together as a class, often reciting things out loud as a whole group. When one student is called on, he/she stands, hands behind the back, and looks at the front wall as he/she answers. We never saw a student raise his/her hand. I don’t know if this means they do not ever raise hands to ask questions/volunteer or if our visits just did not happen to see it. The students sit two-across or four-across with long aisles from the front to the back of the classroom. The only schools where we saw other seating arrangements were the international schools– where desks and tables were arranged many different ways. Do you think the way the seats are arranged in your classroom affects the way you learn and behave?

Snapsnack 2:  Did you know that high quality jade changes color over many years of being worn against human skin? I guess it is the warmth that changes it. The hardest jade comes from a mountain that is only partially in China. It is called jadeite. People in China give jade, not diamonds, when they get engaged. What natural resources from your area are rare? How rare are they? How do people use them? What affects their value?

Snapsnack 3:  The terracotta warriors were not always brown. When they were first excavated, they had brightly painted colors, but the colors faded very quickly once exposed to air. When the Chinese officials figured out that even the experts could not stop the fading, they stopped excavating the warriors. They are waiting to dig up the many thousands more (that they know are still underground) until they have found a technology to prevent the fading. They have consulted experts from around the world. What ideas do you have that might prevent the warriors’ colors from fading? How would you test your ideas?

Snapsnack 4: Most people in the Chinese villages have never had  “land line” telephones. Your grandparents probably still have one, even if your family does not. The people in the villages do have cell phones.  Knowing what it takes to put “land line” telephones into homes vs. making cell phones work in the countryside, why do you suppose most villagers never had landlines? What do you know about the economic level of people in the Chinese countryside villages? What happened in China during the years since cell phones were invented? Can you think of reasons why the villagers’ phones are mostly cell phones?

The picture below shows a village home. What can you tell about what jobs people have in villages?

Snapsnack 5: There are web sites that do not work in China because of censorship, but people still “see” them. YouTube does not work on computers, but it does work on smart phones that have web browsers. Some sites do not work, but people pay to “get around” the censorship using a proxy server service. The cost is about $50/year. Teachers even pay it so they can use some sites with their students. Do you know of censorship that people “get around” or rules that people ignore? What is your definition of a rule that is “made to be broken” vs. one that should be respected and followed?

I hope to share more soon. For now, stay warm — those of you in the northern hemisphere.

Today was our first full day in Shanghai after arriving yesterday afternoon amid a steady snowstorm. The climate here is supposed to be roughly the same as Jacksonville, Florida, so snow is quite rare. The drivers, already insane in China, proved to be the same as U.S. drivers when winter weather hits. The streets were completely gridlocked, making what should have been a 15 minute bus ride (on a chartered bus used to get us to our city locations) last about an hour and fifteen minutes. We ended up having to cancel our plans to have dinner before an acrobat show. Instead, we ran into take out places right by the acrobat theater. We actually had Chinese take-out in Shanghai; that is we had take out McDonald’s! We had to order by pointing at menu items on the countertop pictures, since the people at the counter did not speak English. The cost was about the same as in the U.S., but the sodas tasted a little different, and the menu offerings were slightly different. In other words, it was about as bad as it is at home. They do manage to make the french fries taste the same. Incidentally, we have been offered french fries at a couple of our otherwise Chinese restaurants. I guess they think this is what all Americans eat. Do you have expectations of what people from another country will want if they visit you?

The acrobat show was incredible, but no photos were allowed.  There were about 36 acrobats in all, about 2/3 male. They were teenagers who obviously practice very hard and do very scary things. The smallest boy was about the size of an American third grader, and he was always way at the very top of every dangerous stunt. This troupe is reportedly the best in China. I’d love to know more about the history of acrobats in China. Is there any performance that is famous where you live?

Shanghai is the financial center of China, like Wall Street in New York,  and has grown remarkably in the past 20 years. What was farmland on one side of the river that flows through the city is now a farm of skyscrapers, each more impressive than the last. Architects love to design for Shanghai because it is a real showplace for new buildings.  The people remind me of New York: very fashion conscious, very busy, and accustomed to crowds. There are 20 million people in this city, and it grows more each year! Young people in China like to move here for job opportunities, but the cost of living is very high. I bought the world’s most expensive bag of cookies this afternoon at a coffee bar similar to Starbucks where we stopped to get warm after walking outside on the Bund (waterfront by the river with a view to the skyscrapers). The bag of 24 small cookies cost $15!

As we travel around in public, we see people stare at us, both because we are a group of almost 40 Americans and because certain ones of us look very different from anyone Chinese. The African Americans cause a sensation because most Chinese have never seen anyone with dark skin. The three of us who are blondes are treated as an oddity, too, sometimes making people stop to take our picture . One of the men in our group is about 6 foot 2 or 3, and some Chinese men at the Xi’an airport ran up to him and pantomimed that they wanted to have their picture taken with him because he is so tall. They then “asked” us (by pantomime) to take their picture with an African American in our group and with our group member who has silver gray hair.  We all laughed together even though we could not actually talk to each other. I think the children who swarmed around me in Xi’an did so both because of my blonde hair and because I was American. It is a very funny feeling to be stared at as an oddity, though people are genuinely respectful and cheerful about it.

The rate of change in China is unbelievable. We joke that instead of the 1000 paper cranes of Japanese story fame, China has 1000 construction cranes in each city skyline. Our conversations continually underscore the urgency in China to progress and improve, both for as an expectation for students to learn and improve and for progress and change as a society. They are very proud of the way they can implement new ideas or new building projects. They expect changes to be complete very quickly, almost as a two year old asks, “Are we there yet” two minutes after leaving the driveway. The flip side of this urgency is that when they are not sure how to go about making changes, they seek advice on how to “get it done” very quickly. Our group has been asked for advice on making certain changes in education and use of technology during our visits with universities, schools, and national technology centers working with education.

From our perspective, some of the changes they are asking to make will first require some major shifts in the underlying culture and the culture of Chinese education. For example: schools and teaching in China have always been teacher centered, with a teacher at the front of the class talking while students sit and listen. They sit in rows, never making a sound until called upon. They recite aloud as a whole class. They do not do group projects or sit on the floor, except in very unusual, progressive schools who are trying to replicate models from other countries.

Just as educational technology leaders in the U.S. often struggle to get teachers to integrate technology as a learning tool, so do Chinese educational leaders want to see technology put to effective use. But until the teachers have SEEN and understand a different model of teaching, they will have no way to see the role technology might play. Most of the technology use we have seen has still been teacher-centered: projecting a video or PowerPoint show and then asking questions about it for students to stand and respond. Although this happens in the U.S., too, we are far ahead on student technology use as a learning tool. We have invited Chinese leaders from several places to come to the ISTE conference and to learn alongside this professional group in the U.S. If they are as determined as I think they are, I suspect we will see some Chinese folks with us at the annual ISTE conference in Philadelphia next summer.

A class left a question on this blog a day or two ago about Chinese number systems, so I asked. The Chinese use both roman numbers (1,2,3,4, etc.) and Chinese characters to represent their numbers, but they use the Roman numbers more. These are easier to print. The characters are more like spelled out numbers or number names. I am including a close up of a bulletin board in a Chinese school (click to see it larger). The math facts should look familiar!

The second bulletin board shot shows science work on the human body in both English and Chinese (click to enlarge).

Another topic mentioned to us as something the Chinese want to bring into their schools is creativity. But I could write a ton about that. I also need to tell you about the meeting we had at the distance education center here in Shanghai…and many other tales of adventure.  We have only one more day here, but I hope to spend some time on the long flight home writing up more about our China experiences. Also to come: Shanghai at night, silk museum, laundry, Shawn– our guide and interpreter, pollution, “there is a policy.” Stay tuned.

W: What we want to know

Here are some questions about China that I have received from U.S. and Australian teachers. Feel free to add your own in comments, whether you are a teacher or a student:

• What would they [the Chinese] like us to teach about them? What resources can they offer both on line and hard copy?
• How can we better create strong educational bonds between us?
• Are there any universities there that accept foreign post grads, like us, and yet do so in English and on line?
• What sites do Chinese teachers use to 1) provide resources to students? 2) to connect globally and interculturally on projects? and 3) for Web 2.0 learning?
• Are teachers paid on par with other professionals?
• I would want to know what resources they are using, what they are teaching, and how. I’d like to see us move beyond knowing the “Big C” of culture into the “little c” in order to change our misconceptions and create a more accurate perception.
• I teach early childhood….I would like to see what happens in a China Classroom, what they eat, read, and study.
• I would be interested in knowing more about what the school day is like..do they switch classes, have special area teachers, do they have learning centers or are the more structured? I am really thinking about the primary level.
• What do kids want to know? What’s it like at school? What are you into? How are you the same as me? How are you different? We are human beings. Whether kid, teacher, adult..in roles as parent, teacher, student, athlete, artist, administrator, teacher, specialist, counselor, what do you do? what do you like? what do you use? what works? what challenges do you face? what do you in the face of adversity (financial, administrative, etc etc) to meet the challenges? what would you never want to do without in your class?

In short, most of us want to know,

“What is it like to be YOU?”

“How are you the same as me? How are you different?”

I will try to share the experience of finding out. Stay tuned.

I have so much I want to know about China. Two weeks from now I will be over the Pacific! So I have started to organize my W list of things I Want to know. If you have any you would like to add, please feel free to comment here. Students welcome, too.

Unfortunately, I can’t embed the KWL here interactively because we need to upgrade this version of Wordpress. Here is a static version:

And here is a link to the interactive visual map of my KWL. And here are my lists so far, simply in verbal form:

K -What I know:

• Chinese students learn English and like to practice it.
• Chinese history is rich and very complex, much older than the U.S.- Students must have a LOT to study about history!!
• Reportedly, teachers are treated very respectfully.
• High stakes tests determine student opportunities for higher education. The highest scoring students have a chance to study science/math/medicine. The second highest tier study business. Teachers are from the third highest  scoring tier.

W - What I want to know:

• What is a teacher’s day like? A student’s?
• What do teachers and kids wear?
• Do  students ever use computers at school?
• How do schools view technology and the web?
• Would a Chinese class ever do project-based learning?
• Can I explain what TeachersFirst is so they can understand it?
• Will I talk too much for them?
• Can we set up a way for schools in China to communicate easily with U.S. and other classes?
• Do parents help with schoolwork or leave it up to the tutors and late evening school?
• Do parents have any input into what schools do? Do they want it?
• Will I have to eat things that I can’t identify or don’t WANT to know about?
• What web-based tools that I am used to will be unavailable in China?
• Is sense of humor valued/suppressed at school?
• What happens to divergent, gifted thinkers?

L - What I have learned: Watch here and see!

According to neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky’s fascinating piece in the New York Times, “This is Your Brain on Metaphors, “ the structure and sheer size of the human brain give us certain capacities that distinguish us from other animals, most notably:

• the ability to defer reward and engage in long term planning toward long term goals
• the ability to make connections through metaphor and enjoy the experience of mental metaphors as expressed in poetry, oxymoron, and other creative combinations. As Sapolsky explains the delight:

We know, and feel pleasure triggered by … unlikely juxtapositions….Symbols, metaphors, analogies, parables, synecdoche, figures of speech: we understand them. We understand that a captain wants more than just hands when he orders all of them on deck….And we even understand that June isn’t literally busting out all over.

It is precisely this latter capacity that Sapolsky probes further, including the neurobiology of the brain’s responses to analogous  experiences, both real and imagined.  Significantly, both real and imagined sensations are experienced in the same place in the brain. If  we feel disgust at an imagined experience, it triggers the same physiology as disgust at something real, touched or smelled.

What does this mean for our students (and us)  for learning? What about as producers of multimedia experiences (”class projects”)?  Students who do a good job creating an experiential metaphor for the senses — perhaps a glog, a video or an enhanced image — can trigger brain experiences that are as real as the real deal. The better we can trigger the analogies of experience for learning, the better they will “feel” and understand concepts. If we want students to know the Civil War, we should first let them immerse themselves in as many “experiences” of it as we can find. We should also challenge them to create such experiences for others. The mental poetry of both feeling and creating analogies for vital, invisible concepts such as citizenship or atoms can make the experience of learning real. Even the very young can understand simple analogy and experience if it is personal and familiar enough in their context.

Teachers, take the time to read this one. Although Sapolsky focuses more on the international, political implications of analogous brain experience, the analogy of extending such experience in our classrooms is important. We need not make virtual experience realistic. We need to help students trigger analogies, build analogies, and notice analogies. Think like a teacher.

Humphrey Jones, a teacher-blogger from Ireland, suggests that we relabel “teachers.” What would happen if we hired a Madison Avenue firm to “rebrand” our profession? (Now that the elections are over and the economy slow, they could probably use the business!) As Jones says, we need to “relabel the term ‘teacher’ and replace it with a word that more accurately describes the multi-faceted nature of our role.” Over the years, I have read facetious job descriptions of  teachers as a combination of parent, psychologist, cheerleader, health aide, trash collector, and much more. This one was quite popular via email. But these exercises do nothing more than cheer those in the faculty room drinking cold swigs of this morning’s coffee as they grade papers at 4:30 pm. We need a real branding effort.

A brand is much deeper than a label. It is

… what your company stands for and what it is known for. “Look at yourself in the mirror

and ask yourself what you stand for. Go around the room with your leadership and ask them what the company stands for. Settle on one or two brand pillars and build your brand around them.  (A Practical Guide to Branding, Business Week, June 9, 2008)

or, as this article says in a nutshell, your brand is:

The Promise You Make to the World

Interestingly, promise is exactly what teachers bring to the world. We seek it out, nourish it, praise it, polish it, revere it, stretch it, describe it, measure it, mold it, let it grow, prune it, savor it, sing it, respect it, help it recognize itself, and turn it loose to be responsible for itself. We are promisers of promise.  That could be the start of our brand as teachers.

Oh, rats. Somebody already named a margarine after us. I guess we need to keep working on this brand thing. Any MadMen volunteers out there want to take on several million teachers as clients?

Many well-meaning and caring adults outside of Educationland want to offer the benefits of their worldwide experiences to kids unable to have such firsthand knowledge.  An adult visits an African country and bemoans how little U.S. students know of the world beyond U.S. borders  (or even beyond own town/state). The adult generously offers to share his/her pictures  with a local school or to come into as a guest speaker. He/she may even organize a way of disseminating pictures and telling the stories of the trip online. I wholeheartedly echo the desire to help kids learn beyond borders and the invisible fences of  socio-economic backyards.

I am sure you can hear the “but…” coming.

Why don’t  worldly, caring adults take the one, most important step of involving Educationland insiders who have expertise in teaching and learning to join in their efforts to share and disseminate? I don’t mean that we educators need to pablumize the experience of the person who has been to Uganda or other world location so our kids can learn about.  We don’t need to dumb it down or “can” it a la filmstrip/tape of the 1980s. We do need to assist caring Educationland visitors in communicating their global experience in a context that students can share and take part in, given the students’ location, connectivity, prior knowledge, developmental stage … and, unfortunately,  time/curriculum restraints. Ask one of us to act as a friendly but flexible tour guide to Educationland, a learning sherpa

The Sherpa’s Role

The Educationland sherpa knows the lay of the land in Educationland. She knows where the crevasses of technology limitations will trap a well-meaning visitor: the filtering, the lack of plug ins, the potential attacks of armed AUPs ready to spear a visitor and toss him off a cliff.

The sherpa guides — but does not lead — the trip. The sherpa plans together with the worldly visitor and acts as a translator with the Educationland natives, making advanced connections with student-natives so the visitor encounters students ready and eager to converse. The sherpa is brutally honest about how the Educationland natives will probably act and how to win them over. The sherpa explains why they behave as they do, how much they probably know already and how to ensure a successful encounter.  The sherpa may even ask “what if” questions aloud during the visit. Then the sherpa steps back, letting the visit happen and new bonds form.

If the visit is an open one, such as an online sharing site, a 24/7 public basecamp for learning, the sherpa can help plan that site so it has the tools  students need to survive and thrive as learners. No one should expect a novice world traveler to know how to build a learning camp inside Educationland. The worldly visitor should realize the value of the Educationland sherpas in making the Educationland basecamp– a website or blog or online community — a community that provides the right sustenance for learning. (Here is an example I serendipitously found: a blog created by a teacher-sherpa from her visit to Uganda. Note the language and support that make the experience accessible to the students.)

The sherpa carries the extra weight of logistics, the backpack full of provisions and maps for alternate routes when some Educationland natives refuse to associate with the visitor or cannot understand him/her. The sherpa brings experience.

If you are planning to visit Educationland or even to invite natives from Educationland to join in your global journey, seek out the sherpa who can make the encounter a success for the students.  And sherpas, think carefully about ways you can add to your global backpack and continue to allow the visits to play out successfully once you have provided wise guidance.

A blog post I encountered today inspired this idea for a culminating activity in a world cultures class. (Apologies for the post title’s inappropriate language in a classroom, but it could be worse, I suppose.) This idea could easily be the final assessment for the year. Or it could BE the course:  the one and only ongoing project for a world cultures class, with tastes of math, consumer science, and business/economics tossed in. A dream scenario would be for the best projects to be awarded actual funding for their round the world tickets.  Even if used as a final assessment but not as a replacement for usual classroom activities, it would be much better if students knew about it from the beginning and could collect, muse, investigate, and create throughout the semester or year concurrently with “regular” classroom activities about different cultures.

Here is what it could look like:

RTW Ticket: A study in World Cultures

Subject/Grade: middle school or high school world cultures

Rationale: Students rarely see their study of world cultures as anything except facts about far off, near-imaginary places they will never see or care about. What if they had the opportunity to plan a detailed round-the-world itinerary to hypothetically live and learn in person? The project requirements will build understanding of culture, customs, geography, history, and economics of lands and people around the world as student plan a RTW itinerary to visit and experience world cultures first hand.

Duration: full semester or full year

Objectives: (tailor these to meet your curriculum standards, but be sure to include demonstrated  understanding of at least ten different cultures: their economy, geography, etc.)

Project requirements: (adapt for the level of complexity expected in your classes)

1. Start from the inspiration blog post to learn the basics of planning a RTW ticket itinerary.
2. The itinerary should be presented using any web-based tool(s) or media platform(s) and submitted as a single URL.
3. RTW ticket itinerary must meet the specifications of your chosen airline and be accomplished within a budget of $5000 for air travel during a 365 day period. Travel may start and end at any location worldwide.
4. Itinerary must include rationale for each stop, including links and your own written explanation for this location choice.
5. At least ten different cultures must be included.
6. Experiences with all types of climates must be included.
7. Visits/experiences with at least 10 landforms or geographic features not found in the U.S. must be included.
8. At least 50% of the locations included may NOT be capital cities.
9. At least one third of the locations must not use English as a primary or readily-available language.
10. At least four different types of governments must be visited –  accompanied by explanations of how they differ from the others and how they are similar.
11. At least half the locations must include specific, detailed suggestions for local activities representative the chief economic and natural resources of that culture. You must explain HOW it is representative and how it differs from other cultures.
12. At least half the locations must include specific, detailed suggestions for local activities representative of the rich cultural heritage of that location. You must explain HOW it is representative and how it differs from other cultures.
13. At least three developing nations must be included, along with explanations of how they are developing and changing.
14. At least three countries not “U.S. friendly” must be included. along with explanations of their views of the U.S. and suggestions for activities Americans might do to build better understanding with those they meet.
15. Full credits for all sources must be included in the final product.
16. A completed self-assessment rubric must be embedded or linked in the final product.
17. A RTW ticket budget, documented using resources of the inspiration blog post and subsequent research, must be included in the final product.

Project timeline: (add more detail and intermediate benchmarks for younger students or those who need more direction)

Preliminary tool choices and “wireframe” (empty product pages/spaces/script headings/etc.) for the project due _____.

Tentative location choices (up to 25 possible) and requirement check/match list due _______.

Final location choices, location order, and requirement check/match list due ________.

Full location information for three locations completed by ________.

I could go on and on. The whole point: how well would an American adult do at planning such a RTW experience?  Where would YOU go? How much could YOU learn from doing this project? I know I would work hard to accomplish these requirements.

Darren Draper wrote a thoughtful post about the elements of effective edtech teacher professional development. As someone who has been there as both participant and leader in hundreds of profdev sessions, I find his list verifiable, both through my anecdotal experience and my reading. Every researcher has slightly different names for the elements, but they really describe the same must-haves that Darren summarizes.

Effective technology-related professional development:

• Is generally longer in duration (contact hours plus follow-up, not just drive-by)
• Provides access to new technologies for teaching and learning
• Actively engages teachers in meaningful and relevant activities for their individual contexts
• Promotes peer collaboration and community building
• Has a clearly articulated and a common vision for student achievement
• Helps in establishing a culture of technology integration
• Provides for the modeling of technology use
• Creates teacher leaders
• Culminates with the establishment of a teacher-led community of practice
• Is initiated by teacher-led groups with “strong ties” to design their own professional development and create their own PLCs

Looking back into the research Darren includes before this final list, I zero in on two elements he mentions before the final list. (One made the final list, while the other did not.) Both are deeply related to an individual teacher’s intrinsic motivation to try something new. I have seen each of these play out with huge impact, enough to elevate them high on my “list” :

the critical importance of prior “strong ties” among teachers that propelled their activism (cited by Draper from  Jones-Chris-2006 via Larry Cuban)

a mentor can negotiate the interplay of multiple barriers (time, beliefs, access, professional development, culture) on teachers who are learning to integrate technology (cited by Draper from Kopcha 2010)

There is no question that profdev for a group of teachers held together by “strong ties” and a mission, e.g. a successful elementary grade level team, an Art department team grateful to finally have Art-specific inservice, or a middle school teaching team accustomed to collaborating, is exciting for the facilitator and the participants. The group already has established patterns of working together and established respect for each other. They know who will care about what, so they can delegate tasks and share laughs as they learn together. They also feel comfortable saying what they think out loud and questioning suggestions made by an outsider that might not fit their context. “Strong ties” also make teachers more likely to prevent each other from slipping into negativism if they believe the profdev offering has potential for their “mission.” When one slips, the others pull him/her along. They are social learners of the highest order. Profdev planners assume that the strong ties exist due to circumstance, however, will see their efforts backfire. Just because a dozen teachers work in the same department, that does not give them a “strong ties.” So we need to ask questions and seek out the “strong ties” before we plan profdev. In some school culture, there is little beyond individual survival, and no strong ties exist except the negative ones.  And strong ties to negativity will propel negative “activism” every time.

The second descriptor conjures an image of Fred Astaire carefully tap-dancing through a room filled with barriers, hopping atop chairs and tables and off walls as he “recognizes” them, yet using each as a launch point for marvelous leaps and stylish moves. That’s what we profdev folks do when we listen to (and ASK about) what teachers perceive as barriers and then address them creatively.  As the dance floor group watches — and even positions new barriers in Fred’s way to test his steps– Fred lightly leaps to a new clear space, spinning a member of the group to join him. The group members grab others, in turn,  into the dance.  Fred must quickly relinquish the spotlight so all dance. He teaches the steps; they mimic, then spin off on their own as the music rises.  I dream of being an edtech Fred Astaire. I have had brief moments when I have heard the music rise, and it is exhilarating.

Darren gives us a good list. Each point deserves serious reflection and comparison to our own practice in profdev. For now, I will dream of Fred Astaire for the weekend, perhaps an edtech profdev dance marathon?