Week 1, Bastow LSDA 2015

Well it's come around again - quickly: the fourth of our Bastow Leading Schools in the Digital Age  courses and it starts tomorrow.

As I do at the beginning of each course - I feel excited anticipation, looking forward to meeting all course participants, finding out where their thinking is at, why they've elected to take this course, what they hope to get out of it.

I've just spent this weekend celebrating my youngest son's 13th birthday. We had 11 Year 8 students staying over last night and (while recovering from the inevitable sleep deprivation that such an event entails) I was reminded at the potential, the enthusiasm, the sheer joy kids at this age have in each other and I ask how often such energy is harnessed at school for them.

Do they power down or power up when they enter the classroom?

And then of course, there's the juxtaposition of my 17 year old who is doing Year 12...."doing Year 12"....it is so true. He's doing it, experiencing it, enduring it - but how creative is he being as he memorises facts, figures and formulae? Is he actually enjoying it? He's coping, he's up to date, he's immersed in the slog that characterises this final year at school - but what sort of quality educational experience is it offering him?

And so, back to BastowLSDA...I hope each participant approaches the course with a flexible, receptive growth mindset and through this is able to glean from the course a meaningful learning experience that enables them to change something in or about their own leadership, and strategise with their team to create a vision for their school which will make a positive difference to the students with whom they learn and the teachers who are their colleagues.

Week 1. Day 1 tomorrow. The first step of a wonderful journey. Together.

Change is such a simple word but such a complex process to implement successfully!

There are no end of change experts around who will give you their '7 Steps' or '8 drivers' of '10 blockers and ways of addressing them' - but for each of us, the context of change is different and the strategies we employ to effect positive change must be customised to the needs, concerns and goals of our specific situation. 

Progress is impossible without change. 

And change is a complex, multi faceted and gnarly beast.

It is important to decide whether the change we plan is of the first order (gentle, substitutive, unthreatening) or incorporates a fundamental alteration of how we do things - 2nd order change. Either way, we know it's going to get messy...and perhaps we need to be aware and reflective enough to understand that blending of both - 1st and 2nd order - might be the way to go. If everything we plan is of the 2nd order, then we will all feel confused, fearful, uncomfortable and the push-back could be phenomenal.

I'm a student of change - someone whose life has been full of it (I'm told that often) and so it makes me who I am: as an army brat, I've lived in 5 different Australian cities, in 3 countries, went to 9 schools and attended 5 universities to complete 4 different courses pre and post grad. My Mum proudly tells people she moved 22 times during my father's celebrated army career. When some people hear this, they look at me pityingly....or with an understanding that exudes "well, that explains a lot":).

These changes not only taught me how to mimic an accent pretty damn quick and to assimilate to a new group's social mores promptly in order to survive...they also instilled in me a comfort with (and perhaps solace in) the beauty of shifting sands. I became an intellectual nomad - too easily bored, always keen to find out more, see what resonated, test it out. Teaching in the classroom, I would epxlore new ideas with my students not just because this engaged and empowered them, but because it was the elixir of my own professional life. Now as a consultant, similar motivations exist. However, what I also know (after all, change without reflection and self-awareness is doomed to failure) is that I need to be a better finisher, I need to see the program, the idea, the recommendation through to its conclusion - it's no longer just enough to have a good idea and put it out there. I need to understand and develop and implement the most effective strategy for seeing it through. I wonder what this tells me about myself now....

Ah well, it's all part of the learning!

Mandela said that “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” 

I look forward to keeping on learning and honing that weapon.

Protection and control lead to compliance, not engagement

There, there, there. It's okay, Daddy's here, Daddy's got you. I promise I will never let anything happen to you... Nemo." 

I've always felt when Marlin says this with Nemo cradled in his fin after the barracuda has devastated his anemone, killed off his eggs and taken off with Coral, that Pixar are giving us parents a bit of a life lesson: sometimes you just gotta let go and see where the learning and life experience will take them (even if it means they go out there into the dropoff and touch a butt!).

And while this can be nerve wracking and uncomfortable, holding them back and protecting them from failure and pain and risk and hurt isn't going to help either!

There is a similar lesson in this for us as educators....protection and control don't lead to ingenuity, they lead to disengagement. 

Embracing, envisioning, reaching out and taking risks - albeit scary - can lead to some amazing results!

When I came across this image using a Samuel Beckett quote - it resonated with me (as much of Beckett's writing has). Just like Dory says: keep swimming :). 

The only way to learn how to swim with sharks, is to swim with them....no point in being a bystander.

 "Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavour." (Truman Capote) 

Here's to more flavoursome learning experiences!