The Pink PLC

Over the past ten years, I have been an advocate for the concepts of the Professional Learning Community.  I have read countless books on the PLC and taken or sent dozens of teachers and administrators from my schools to PLC Conferences.  I have worked with a number of different staffs in different districts on developing a collaborative culture, as well as creating structures within the school and time within the timetable for teachers to collaborate effectively with their peers about curriculum, instruction and assessment.  I have several Solution Tree T-Shirts.

We provide weekly collaborative time for teachers in our school.  In previous collaborative models I was very crystallized in terms of what I envisioned happening during this time.  In following the PLC Model verbatim as I thought I should when I started working on ideas from the Professional Learning Community several years ago, I wanted my different staffs to establish norms (which I still believe to be important), to develop common learning outcomes, common assessments, analyze data...the gambit of ideas described in the PLC.  I had weekly feedback sheets that my team leaders would diligently fill out, debriefing at coordinators meetings, I wanted to be 'in the loop' each step of the way. 


But I have noticed an evolution in the way that I have approached the Professional Learning Community.  As time has passed, and most notably in the last two years, I have changed my approach to our learning community model at SKSS.  I am attributing this to some different points of view that are shaping my thinking right now.   Many of these points of influence have come from people and theories that are circulating around my Personal Learning Network; one of these being Daniel Pink and his RSA Animate video on motivation.




Pink talks about a variety of things in this clip, but what truly resonated with me was his description of how a software company (Atlassian) gives their employees time to innovate and come up with different ideas.  To quote Daniel Pink on this concept-- "You probably want to do something interesting, let me get out of the way".  As Pink describes his own challenges with accepting this, I struggled with my not having a finger in all of the pies.  To completely 'get out of the way' was a challenge for me, mostly because I want to believe that I am not 'in anyone's way'.  I want to feel as though I am just an actively interested member of the team.  But looking at how things were going at that time with our Learning Community, I have to admit that I likely was 'getting in the way'.  As a result, I have made some changes to the way I approach collaborative time, and how we work together in our learning community.


As time has passed, I have been able to reflect on our journey toward a more collaborative culture. I realized that it has been a long, windy, and bumpy road with many opportunities for detours.  There were a number of occasions where it seemed as though I was really driving the PLC bus, and at some points, I was getting out of the driver's seat, walking around the back, and pushing on the bumper without a great deal of movement.  Furthermore, a number of staff members were not particularly engaged in (and sometimes incredibly frustrated with) the collaborative process, which made the collaborative meetings a bit 'hit and miss'.  And finally, some (not all) the products of collaborative time were disjointed, with varying levels of involvement by members of different departments.  The learning community that I so valued (and still value) was not always firing on all cylinders. We needed to something to change.

The learning community continues to thrive at our school, but it has a very different feel.  I attribute this change to our Coordinators and our departments putting their stamp on the structure and makeup of collaborative time.  Coordinators host weekly meetings, and set up the tutorial schedule that allows for them to give support to students in a way that works for their department.  The departments develop norms for their collaborative meetings that serve the needs of their group.  They have worked collectively to develop goals via measures that they developed on issues that they determined were vital to the success of students in their areas.  The coordinators track progress, and will present to the school (and the public through our School Improvement Blog) the things that they are proud of in their departments with respect to student and teacher achievement in the goal area they have come up with (here is an example from Math).

I would like to think that Rick Dufour might call this a loose-tight approach.  While I am tight on the fact that I want each department to have norms for their meetings, but how they set up those norms is up to them.  I am tight on the fact that I want departments to set SMART goals for their departments, but what those goals actually look like comes from the particular department.  I need to have our staff give students support in our tutorials, but how they schedule so that it is fair and equitable to students and staff is up to them. I want them to report out on their progress, but in a manner that they feel puts their best foot forward to students, parents, and the rest of our partners in the community. The list goes on. 

However (and clearly I can't speak for him), Dr. Dufour might also call what we do in terms of collaboration at our school 'collaboration lite' - where portions of our collaborative meetings are comprised of more sharing than action, more brainstorming than results.  But I believe that is where I have changed, and where I want to take ideas from Daniel Pink.   Of course I want our departments to improve teacher achievement and student achievement by working together; of that there is no doubt.  But I also want our staff to use some of the time that we have created to be CREATIVE, to come up with points of inquiry to investigate in their classes, and to really 'think outside of the box' to establish a rich learning environment for their students. 

We are not Google, and not able to free our staff up for one day per week to work together and 'create' as some companies do.  However, we are able to provide a bit of time for teachers to look at curriculum, instruction and assessment as a collective to improve the learning at our school.

I think we will try to call it 'Dufour with a touch of Pink', or 'The Pink PLC'.

Drinking from a firehose

For schools across British Columbia, today was the first day of school.  And what a day it was!  Does any of this sound familiar to you?

“Can you tell me where J216 is?”

“Where do you want the coffee and muffins for the staff?”

“Welcome to South Kam, you are going to love teaching here!”

“How was your summer?  How are your little girls?”

“What does Mr. Smith look like?”

“How long are the classes today?”

“Someone is parked in my parking spot, can you find out who it is?”

“I went to my class and the class wasn’t there, do you know where they went?”

“We just moved here and want to register our son.  Where should we go?”

“Thanks for the coffee and muffins and the golf shirt.  I will wear it on Titan Fridays!”

“When time are volleyball tryouts?”

“There is a bolt on the locker I was assigned. What do I do?”

“Sally broke her leg last night and we need a sub, can we get someone to cover?”

“Did my textbooks come in?”

 “Can I change this class so I can get Art?”

“The floor in my class was supposed to be replaced and it wasn’t.  I moved all my furniture out—what I am I supposed to do?”

“When do our international students show up?  The LINK Crew is ready for them?”

“What is the site license code for the marks program?”

“My key doesn’t work, do you have another one?”

“Where do I get an agenda book?”

“What time is the staff getting together on Friday?”

“What is the password for the wireless for my Blackberry?”

“What time is the last bell?”

Sigh.  And the next thing you know, you blink, it’s the end of the day, and the last bus is pulling out to take our students home.  The first day of school is always hair-straight-back-buzzing-with-excitement.  Everything comes at a hundred miles per hour.  It's no wonder that I rarely sleep the night before, and  always sleep soundly the night after.  I am certain that tonight will be no different.

The first day of school--it’s kind of like trying to get a drink from a fire hose.

It's also my favorite day of the year.

DO what should be done THEN tell, not tell what should be done.

Last night, I watched an interesting pseudo-documentary called "A National Disgrace, Revisited" hosted by Dan Rather. It as an unflattering and scathing two-hour piece on the schools, School Board, and various individuals (including the former Superintendent) connected Detroit Public School System.   When I watch these investigative reports, I try to approach them from a neutral, critical-thinking perspective.  These shows tend to be laden with editorial comment and often have a bias towards sensationalism rather than fact.  But nonetheless, I believe that I always have something to gain by seeing different perspectives on public education.

There were a number of threads that wove their way through the narrative, including a piece on a young student who was making her way through high school with the goal of going on to a four-year college.  The young girl had a challenging home situation; she had a single mother and a younger sister moving from rental property to rental property, trying to scratch out a living on a very limited income.  The mother was a selfless, hard-working woman whose goal was to have her children enjoy a life better than the one she had.   Mom placed a very high value on education and was pushing her children off to school at 5:30AM each day to ensure they had enough time for the public transportation system could get them to school and work.

Throughout the program, the overarching theme was the need for (and resistance to) educational reform.  At one point, Dan Rather asked the mother what she would say if she could say anything to the DPS School Board about the education afforded to her children, and she responded with a comment that resonated with me.  She said: "I know you care, now what are you doing to show it?"

Each day, I read countless newspaper articles, impassioned posts, and convincing studies that shout out "we are failing children", "change the system", or "do something different".  These excellent resources are written by talented, skilled educators who work in the system today and clearly care deeply about students and student learning.  And to this end, I agree with all of them (or at least almost all of them) that I have read.  But then I think about Mom's comment in the DPS investigative report--"I know you care, now what are you doing to show it?".

This year, I am going to focus less on TELLING people how much I care about students, education and the need for educational reform to better meet the needs of student  and teacher learners.  Instead, I am going to focus more on DOING things to make our school and current system of education better and then share with others.  I have started the ball rolling on supporting teacher Micro-Observations to improve instructional practice, and have just purchased pods of Android Tablets for each of our departments to support collaborative student learning and technology use in the classroom.  We will continue to work on our dynamic and interactive online School Improvement Plan.  As a school district, we have enacted new policy this summer to support Personal Learning Devices and Smartphones in the classroom, and have implemented free wi-fi for students and staff.

While these activities are neither exhaustive or perfect, I believe they will continue to make positive changes for our school.  We will DO, then we will SHARE.

Minor Tweaks

Over the course of the summer, I have had a bit more time to catch up on my reading.  And while I did manage to toss in a John Grisham and a sequel to the Bourne Trilogy, I also had the opportunity to read a couple of great books that were more germane to education.  One of those books was The Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

The basic premise Gladwell makes in the book is that "achievement is based less on talent than it is on opportunity".  He cites numerous examples of this with individuals he calls 'outliers', from Bill Gates and Paul Allen having been given free computer time at the University of Washington during their formative years to the Beatles becoming outstanding performers because of a set of marathon gigs they accepted in Hamburg.  In each of these instances, the individuals had talent, make no mistake.  However, they also had and took advantage of opportunities to hone that talent to the level that has made them recognized for it today.


Gladwell also talks about the advantages that are conferred on individuals that are born closer to arbitrary registration cutoffs and deadlines.  He highlights several examples that illustrate this point: rep hockey players tend to be born in the months of January through April (registration deadlined in January), soccer players on the English National squad are all born in September, October, or November (registration deadline in September).  Gladwell also indicates that students that are born earlier in the year (closer to the January registration deadline) can tend to be treated differently than their peer group that is born later in the year.  The reason, Gladwell cites, is that developmentally, a hockey player, a soccer player, a student that is born closer to that arbitrary cutoff date tends to be developmentally more advanced than their peers who are born months later, especially at an early age.  As a result, Gladwell contends, these more developed children can be seen as more talented and get more specialized training than the younger members of their cohort group.

Gladwell makes the point that we are neglecting the talent pool in the other 'half' of the year.  Imagine, he says, how talented our Canadian hockey teams would be if we had a hockey registration date and league for those children born in January AND another league for those born after June, complete with separate rep teams and specialized coaching for each of the different groups?  He goes on to wonder why we don't do something like this in schools.
While I don't agree with all of the points that Gladwell makes in his book, his observations about the registration deadline determining the grade cohort for children in schools made me think.  Why do we have one registration date for children?  Moreover, why do we organize schools according to age?  I know this is being general, and there are many exceptions, but are we able to accomodate the developmental differences between a kindergarten student born on January 2nd and another born on December 20th?  Could we re-organize schools to enable us to meet the needs of children more effectively, by perhaps having asynchronous starting points for our young students to meet them where they are at developmentally?  Are there other changes to schedules, reporting methods, or other small, subtle, technical parts of education that we are overlooking that could have notable effects on student learning?

I believe that meeting the diverse needs of our learners is foundational to the movement towards personalized, 21st Century learning.  I also believe that discovering a student's talents and then providing them with opportunities to hone and showcase those talents is another cornerstone of personalized learning.  But without oversimplifying the issue, I often wonder if there are not some simpler steps that we can take (such as those that Gladwell suggests) that might help us cultivate the talents of each of the students in our school.  To provide them with those exceptional opportunities afforded those like the Beatles, Paul Allen, and Bill Gates.  Are there easier ways that we can make all of our students "outliers"?

I enjoy thinking about big picture ideas for education, and trying to implement major, multifaceted initiatives that will positively impact each of our partner groups.  Yet sometimes I wonder if we overlook some of the minor tweaks we could make to day-to-day operational items that could have a major and positive impact on our students.

I think it is worth a peek.