Jeff,
Take your time in the writing. Looks like this has been a kick-ass week for ya. Glad we had some time to catch up and hang with Dana on Thursday. Part 1 of the charmed-life theme of this post -- you're right, the life long friends that we've made at the Guild have really changed me. For the better.
Please don't remind me of Big Bang. This will be the first time in six years I won't be there. It feels weird to be the first week in August and I'm not going to Providence.
ARENESSA ROCKS! I am so happy for her and am reminded that we CANNOT lose site of the work we do with (and for) kids like her. Rhodesia Rocks! You are so right, the ideas of what school provides for opportunities to narrow the achievment gap do NOT need to be focused just on what is happening inside the building. This current push to see school as the place where the bulk of the important studnet learning happens is somewhat demoralizing. I would wish for more publicity for experiences like Rhodesia's.
We both know that ain't happening anytime soon.
This week, I got 2 days worth of iCoach orientations. (Like that, dontcha? iCoach! Makes me want to sync myself with other iDevices!) I can now report that I'm on informational and structural overload. Processing all this stuff is gonna take some time. I am working in a very messy and gray area in the DoE -- and it feels GREAT! So far I am defining (and designing) the work that I'm doing and getting some incredible looks into how the system and how the schools operate. The orientation's big happenings were conversations with Arthur Vanderveen and Tomas Hanna, who are co-leading the Office of Innovation. Tomas has just come from Philly, where he knew David Bromley and had some interesting insights into Big Picture's work and design. Nice Guy. Smart and funny. Just like us!
But what I really wanted to write about is how charmed I feel like my life and work is right now. As I've said, in the past couple of years it felt like my leadership skills were deteriorating. I feel like, for a variety of reasons, I just couldn't figure out how to learn and be a learning leader at the Guild. I'm not gonna say it was all the Guild's fault -- I should have been able to work and learn in almost any conditions. But for those many reasons, I had a really difficult time.
Well here I am now. July is over and I've started to dig into my iZone work. And I'm feeling really lucky. No, I mean REALLY lucky. The biggest part of my feeling charmed? I'm working with 6 dynamite principals. Five of the six schools got A's on their last year's report card (and the sixth is only 2 years old, so they didn't get a report card grade). They all have flying colors on their last quality review. So, according to the system evaluation metrics, there is already some great work being done in the schools. So I get to see what the day-to-day operation of these schools look like. And I get to help them plan and implement a change process. So not only do I get to work with some incredible school leaders, I've get to watch them lead their staffs through an interesting change process.
I'm gonna try to write about some of the incredible leadership moves that I see during this process. I'm gonna start at Tompkins Square Middle School and its principal Sonhando Estwick. TSMS has an incredible leadership structure -- the school is run completely democratically. That is to say that all major visioning and implementation decisions are done by staff vote. There are monthly staff meetings that serve as a venue for forming committees, reporting out on work and voting on changes and implementing initiatives. So small committees form and do some work or study that may result in a change of practice for a few (or many) teachers. They present their work to the staff and then Sonhando (pronounced soy-hand-doo) facilitates a vote of the whole staff to adopt the initiative or provide time and space for more study or to drop it all together (or anyt combination of the 3). An initiative must get a 66% majority to carry. Everyone gets one vote. So the principal gets the same vote that the school aids get.
Sonhando sees his leadership role as complete facilitator. He knows he has good people working in the school and he trusts their professionalism, work ethic and intelligence to do right by the kids. So he helps coordinate the efforts and provide the venues for folks to do good works (committee structures, work time during PD times, etc.) But when it comes time for decision making, he has one vote.
I'm going to start working with one of the committees in two weeks. I'll let you know how it goes.
How different would our lives have been if Michael had stuck around and finished that process with the Guild ('cause I felt like that's where he was heading to with the distributive leadership process). Or if Sam had run the Guild with that kind of process? Sonhando has an exceptionally stable staff (he reports that in the past 4 years, he's never had more than 4 teachers leave at a time) and has that same sort of "I love my teachers" vibe that Michael used to give off (both in message and in practice). But the teachers really own the work and own the school. I can't wait to see what it looks like when the school year gets flowing.
Now, you have to excuse me. Pedroia just hit a 2 run double giving the Sox the lead against Chicago in the 7th. I'm a happy man.
Peace,
Al
Al, you give me more credit than I deserve. I doubt I would ever have gotten to a place where we would have run the Guild democratically. I am for far greater distributed leadership and ownership of an organization but there are many things I would never put to a vote: will we use internships as a core part of our pedagogy? will we teach math using a traditional approach? I would be willing to be just one vote on these as I had a vision for what would be at the core of the Guild. I am not criticizing the process. I admire and am envious of those who pull it off. I think that's great. But, it wasn't inside me to do that.
ReplyDeleteCorrection of typo in previous comment: I would NOT be willing to have been just one vote on issues that I felt were critical to the BG vision.
ReplyDeleteHey Michael,
ReplyDeleteWhat's interesting to note is that Sonhando didn't start the school with this process. He's not the founding principal (I think he's the second or third). The school has been open and running for (I think) 8 years. This is only the second year of this democratic structure. So the school community, vision, professional norms and the core instructional practices were WELL established before this leadership initiative. So, while possible, the likelihood of a vote on an issue critical to the school's vision is almost non-existent. And the way they've structured the voting (any initiative that changes practice requirers a super-majority 66% of the vote) practically nullifies the chances of passing an initiative that would restructure the vision of the school. (It is hard for me to imagine that 66% the staff of BG year 7, even under the competing visions of the school that were in place then, would have voted a change away from internships or crews).
As a thought experiment, I'm betting that, given our arc and our commitment to distributive leadership, we might have "pulled it off."
But then again, you know how much I enjoy romanticizing the past!
Al, All good points. I can envision running things democratically under certain conditions and maybe we were on that path. At the very least, I am heartened that you think so.
ReplyDeleteMichael