A Time for Big Ideas

On December 6-9, 2009, the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME)—the research institute that champions the open education movement and developed the award-winning treasure trove of teaching resources, Open Education Resource Commons—will be hosting the first annual Big Ideas Fest. This small, interactive, and innovative event will be held just outside of San Francisco and the Silicon Valley, in Half Moon Bay, CA.

With support from a broad base of foundations, corporations, and non-profit organizations, Big Ideas Fest intends to bring innovative doers and thinkers from all levels of education together to explore “big ideas in education” that will better position us for a post-industrial world. From small moves to big systemic change, everything is on the table.

It is a time for these big ideas. We’ve talked about why on this blog for some time. From economic viability to international competitiveness to personal efficacy, education is seen as a lynchpin. Indeed, it’s seen as the key to national, local, and personal readiness and transcendence.

The Obama administration’s US Department of Education, under the leadership of Arne Duncan, is being praised for their approach to this challenge, which includes a push for new, novel, and data-informed change models. From its Race to the Top initiative for K-12—see David Brooks outlook on this program in today’s NY Times—to the $12 Billion community college initiative, they are clearly hoping to push the envelope. And they are not alone. I just spent three days in Alberta, Canada, attending their Inspiring Education event. Under the leadership of their Minister of Education, Dave Hancock, they have engaged a deep, thoughtful, and long-term process to explore how they bring new, innovative, and inspiring strategies to their education system on the road ahead.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation leaders are also in search of big ideas in education for the United States. From their early college high school efforts to their post-secondary double the numbers drive, they are exploring a range of programs to change the game in education. They are joined by—and often partner with—other leading foundations such as the Lumina Foundation for Education. With their Achieving the Dream, Knowhow2go.org, and Making Opportunity Affordable efforts, Lumina is hard at work as well. And both Gates and Lumina have something in common—neither seems to believe the answer to our education challenges involves simply working harder at our current system.

It is indeed a time for big ideas. It’s why I’m excited to join conversations like the Big Ideas Fest. It’s why I continue to be impressed by not only the large-scale initiatives outlined above, but by the day-to-day innovations, insights, and inspirations that come from the classroom teachers, caring administrators, and hard-working staff that I meet across the country and around the world. Somewhere in this mix are the game changing strategies that can help us better connect with students, and help them move more purposely down the pathway to possibility that is education.

Belting Technology Users

I’ve been uncomfortable with the metaphor of digital natives and digital immigrants for some time. The idea behind it is that some are “born into” the world of technology; they’ve grown up with it—like Don Tapscott’s Grown Up Digital—and have an almost intuitive sense of what it can and should do. Others who are older, or on the wrong side of the digital divide, are cast as immigrants busily trying their best to assimilate—or aggressively not (think Luddite).

While a compelling concept that is certainly useful at some level, the digital native metaphor makes it sound like the digital immigrant will always be on the outside looking in. It feels too much like a fixed wall between haves and have nots. Most important, I know too many incredibly tech-savvy “seasoned” professionals for whom this metaphor doesn’t hold at all. They intuit circles around their supposedly “native” students when it comes to technology use. There has to be a better way of thinking about these differences.

The model I’ve been using for some time in workshops and speeches is less based on what you’re born into and more focused on mastery. It emerged from an article I wrote about seven years ago called Getting a Kick Out of Technology, which was based on my own technology-based learning and martial-arts experience. This article got me thinking about another way to conceive of differences in skills sets and approaches to technology: Belts. And just as the Six Sigma world has taken to the belt metaphor because of its emphasis on growth and development, we too can leverage it.

We all know technology white belts—beginners who either want to or have to begin their instruction and are taking their first steps. They’re awkward, they make mistakes regularly, and they can be quite dangerous. Black belt martial artists will quickly tell you it’s far more dangerous to spar an untested white belt than a trained fighter with control. White belts often swing wildly and are less aware of the power of their strikes. The world is full of white belt technology users. From the hasty forwarding of obvious scam emails to posting strange comments on your Facebook wall to excitedly responding to requests for bank information from Nigerian royalty, they’re not hard to spot.

Up the belt levels we go. Green belt technology users have learned the basics, are more in control, and are beginning to see how they can use technology without being used by it. Brown belt users have significant skill sets using a wide array of technology tools, but still have much to master—particularly the issue of balancing technology use with the art of mindfully relating with others.

Black belt users have mastered the core skills. They have control of why, how, and when they use technology. Most important, as in the martial arts, they have a sense of responsibility to help others learn their art. Also, black belts know there is much more to learn—it’s the beginning of their journey. As they move up the degrees of their black belts, they master more and more but realize how much they still don’t know.

I especially like the belt metaphor because it focuses on growth, development, and mastery—not existing states that aren’t likely to change. Much like Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success, it doesn’t glorify innate gifts as much as it recognizes effort, experience, and insight—not to mention the good fortune to have access to the tools and teaching. For example, faculty members and students at colleges that have focused Centers for Teaching and Learning that provide technology use and instructional design support systems are simply much more fortunate and likely to better leverage technology. They have a much stronger techno-edu-dojo, if you will.

The metaphor also works because black belts in both martial arts and technology often intimidate us. There’s an air of mystery to their mastery. But as black belts in both arenas will confess, their mastery is less about mystery and more about a continually focused effort, the willingness to try, and an openness to learning.

Explosive Introspection

It was the ocean’s fault. Having grown up on the west coast, I’ve always been struck by the ability of an ocean view to give me pause. It’s like nature grabs me by the shoulders and commands me to pay attention, telling me, “You need to take a moment.” This time it was an east coast moment in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on vacation with my family. Even while swirling in the glorious maelstrom that is a family vacation with four kids, an ocean view-induced bout of introspection—about introspection—grabbed me by the shoulders.

Over the last year, I’ve been leading focus groups and holding dialogs with educators nationally and internationally exploring the question of readiness. Will our students be ready for the dramatic changes on the road ahead? Will we be ready to help them get ready? Is our education system up to the task? Given the dramatic changes at hand, what are the essential skills our students need to possess?

Out of these conversations, teachers, employers, government leaders, and parents have consistently highlighted the value of introspection as a transcendent learning skill—a skill that can prepare students to rise above their current state and achieve more. However, outside of the laudable efforts of the writing across the curriculum movement over the last few decades, introspection is a practice that many are not comfortable weaving into their instruction. At minimum, the students in our focus groups comment that the ubiquitous multiple choice tests they slog through don’t lend themselves to deep reflection. For some educators, introspection is too closely linked to religious practice. For others, it’s simply too “soft.” Still, echoing up through the passages of time, Socrates exhorts, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Introspection matters. Indeed, one of the key leadership lessons we review in our work with teams and individuals is the importance of going slowly—reflecting on ideas, issues, innovations, and connecting with people—so you can move quickly. Hardly the sexy, fast-paced technology tool, introspection remains a timeless skill our students need to develop and master for their learning today and their lives tomorrow.

To spark your own conversations about introspection, here’s a framework that materialized out of a couple of our dialogs. I call it “explosive introspection,” because it involves TNT: Triggers, Noise and Tools.

Triggers
Most people are forced into introspection when emotional events trigger such a reaction—the death of someone close, a relationship ending, or a major accident of some kind. When unexpected events or powerful external forces disrupt the rhythms of our lives, introspection is almost guaranteed. I’ve argued that it is the courage to act on triggered introspection that has driven many adults back into learning. Many will relate their current bearing to triggers that led to introspection, which led to action.

Also, internal triggers can lead to introspection—the sinking feeling that you’re not on the right path, something is wrong, this is not your purpose. It’s that still, small voice speaking to us in stolen moments through an intuition or insight. Listen to the lyrics of Ask for More by David Wilcox to hear the voice of these moments. While these internal triggers are often less explicit, they wield the same power as external ones.

Noise
External triggers seize our attention because they brandish the power to slash through the noise of our everyday lives. In our forums, people ranging from business leaders to busy parents discussed the challenge of noise. For a corporate team, noise from messy meetings and poor communication blocks them from quality reflection on major issues. For college students, the noise accompanying their newfound freedom and friends often misleads them to take dangerous, unthinking turns in their first semesters on campus. For older and returning students, the noise of list-heavy lives—caring for kids, parents, and an outside job—make contemplation difficult, reflection frustrating.

Noise plagues us all. Cell phones ring, emails ping, and kids scream in the background—the incessantly distracting world of the typical home worker. Ed Hallowell’s Crazy Busy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap is a great read on the topic. Hallowell tackles the noise of multitasking in particular—how we go juggling through our world with persistent partial attention. We have a hard enough time listening to the person standing right in front of us, much less the still, small voice from within.

Tools
External and internal triggers have an inevitable and irreplaceable role in our lives. At the same time, the distracting noise of modern living is a diversion to looking within. As a result, we must expose our students to beneficial, proactive tools that lead to introspection, so they are not simply at the mercy of external events. In the realm of Continuous Quality Improvement, reflection tools like plus/delta and affinity diagramming allow teams and individuals to achieve this. For larger and more personally reflective models, see the work of the Center for Renewal and Wholeness in Higher Education. On the individual level, teachers in our groups offered tools like training students to keep a journal or simply writing one-page reflection papers. Other students and teachers noted how blogging can trigger introspection. Again, the goal is not to rely on reactive, externally triggered introspection, but to initiate proactive, internally disciplined reflection.

These triggering tools, however, must be accompanied by habits that dial down the noise—both the noise of our personal lives and the cacophony of “a world gone A.D.D.,” as Hallowell describes it. An executive in one group suggested, “Do less to do more.” I’ve always talked about reducing variables in a situation—a principle drawn from research design. Hallowell suggests challenging ourselves to reduce the multitasking and move toward a more mindful approach to situations, particularly with people. The Buddhist philosophy on the topic is simple: one. In one moment, focus on one thing, and do that one thing well.

Then there is earth, wind, and fire (no, not the band). Participants loved the arresting power of the outdoors. Absorbing a stunning view, sitting by a camp fire, and strolling down a quiet path were all mentioned as tools to help learning and reflection. Moreover, several people talked about the importance of play and fun in activating introspection. In the playful book Work Like Your Dog, Barber and Weinstein suggest 50 ways to work less, play more and earn more. How often are we encouraging our students in this direction? Not enough. Even with studies extolling the virtues of exercise and aesthetics in learning, many of our public schools are busy cutting recess and stomping out artistic reflection.

Finally, when groups examine this issue, they always arrive at the idea of ensuring that technology moves from being a problem—raging ring tones, tempting texts, seductive social networking, PowerPoint presentations with neither power nor point—to a tool of introspection. From the ability to instantly search for information that can serve as the grist of introspection to the capability of the DVR to stop live TV so a couple can take a moment to talk, this fact remains: We can harness the beast. I’ve long said we need to make sure we are using technology, not being used by it. See The Road to DotCalm in Education and Pavlovian Problems for a couple of takes on this topic. The key to remember is that, however advanced, all of our tech toys have off buttons. We just need to use them more.

Playing with TNT
Tomes upon tomes have been written on the topic of introspection. From religion to cognitive sciences, we have labored to harness its incredible power. And it continues to emerge as a necessary and transcendent learning skill for our students. Indeed, Harvard Professor Howard Gardner argues that introspection is an essential element of one of Five Minds for the Future – the ethical mind. As people engaged in personal development, economic development, and societal advancement, we neglect it to our peril. We need to stop and pay attention. The explosive introspection frame that has developed in these conversations is at least one way to take a breath, bring the conversation up, and reflect on the need for reflection. And if we listen closely, we just might hear the explosion of possibilities introspection can ignite.

We Want YOU . . . to Learn: The Education Imperatives

If you’ve been working in the education field for some time, you’re used to hearing the imperatives. They are supported by compelling arguments about why education matters, why investing in education makes sense, why ignoring our education systems’ performance seems individually and collectively misguided. Still, we are challenged to make the case again and again—to ensure that education is a productive part of the national and international dialogue. Today there are at least three key imperative arguments in play.

The Individual Imperative
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Because of Socrates’ dogged commitment to seeking truth, he was being tried for corrupting young minds; yet he still challenges us with these words to question, critically evaluate, and approach the world with wonder. Critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, and the related habits of mind are at the heart of why education matters to each of us. Quality education frees us; it enables us to break the silence of status quo and look at life as our chance to add to the conversation, not just shut up and listen. Moreover, it engages us in artistic and creative pursuits that elevate and illuminate our human condition.

Of course individual economic returns count as well. Particularly today, if you want to participate in a globally connected, knowledge-fueled economy, education is the pathway to possibilities. Those without education have fewer and fewer options. While the relationship is not absolute, all you have to do is visit a prison and examine the background of those held to see that there is some relationship between education attainment and options. Whether through degree programs or quality technical training, the argument is simple: If you want to live well, learn well.

It’s the interplay of living free and well that is at the heart of the individual imperative. The education arguments aimed at you personally will almost always emphasize either the enlightenment or enlightened self-interest appeal.

The Community Imperative
If we advance the argument to the next level—our communities—you see a natural extension. For example, if we want a true participatory democracy, we need well educated and thoughtful citizens. Emerging advanced analytics and political micro-trend analysis create new opportunities to manipulate and strategically persuade a poorly educated public. Thomas Jefferson said it best, “if we want a nation that is ignorant and free, we want what never was and what never will be.” Additionally, if we want communities with vibrant arts and related creative enterprises, a quality education system is essential.

However, the citizenship and artistic elements of the community imperative cannot compete these days with the frenetic embrace of the economy-related community argument. From Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded to Florida’s Who’s in Your City, pundits, politicians, writers, and researchers are making the case that our economic future is inextricably connected to our ability to educate our citizens.

Sadly, the data for the US are not good. Of the top thirty developed economies, ours is the only country whose 25-34 year-old cohort is actually less educated than its 45-54 year-old cohort. We used to lead the world in education attainment, but now we are falling behind. In a knowledge economy—or a creative conceptual economy as Pink likes to call it—we need brain power. The other players on the field are investing in education—China, India, Brazil, Korea, and the European Union. And while many of them have a long way to go to educate most of their citizens, they have sheer size on their side. The ubiquitous Did You Know presentations make the surprising claim that China actually has more honors students than we have students. While many of the competitive claims are a bit hyperbolic, we still must take pause and realize that, as Friedman shares, “if we want things to stay as they are [i.e., the US a leading player in the world economy], things will have to change.” For us to keep up, education must change so our economic outlook can change.

Patriotic Imperative
Not since Sputnik spurred on a massive investment in math, science, and engineering has the call been as clear: getting an education is patriotic. From Sputnik’s launch in 1957 through the 1960’s, we worried about the national defense implications of other countries advancing technologically. We invested heavily in programs and policies to enable us to jump back into the lead in science and technology.

Today, in addition to national defense, we worry about our economic competitiveness and sustainability in a world increasingly fueled by insight, innovation, and creativity. And when creativity is a commodity, we have to ask hard questions about why we’re stripping out the heart of that infrastructure in our public education system. Of course we need strong reading, writing, math, and science programs. Yet art, music, and theatre—as well as career and technical education—provide the context in which these skills are applied. Focusing on one over the other makes as much sense as going fishing only knowing how to cast.

Moreover, it is clear that we are facing increasingly complex, systemically intertwined issues: for example, medical advances and their ethical implications, the balance between access to information and privacy, and the interplay between economic expansion and environmental sustainability. There are no easy answers here; and sound-bite policy and limited thinking likely will cripple us in the long run.

President Obama made the strongest case for the patriotic imperative in his February speech to Congress. His message to kids considering leaving high school: “dropping out is not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country.” His challenge to adult learners: use our community colleges and public universities to get at least one year of higher education. He sees clearly the connection between his larger agenda and the ability of this nation to raise the bar on learning to a new level.

We Need YOU to Learn
Yes, education is good for us individually. It opens our eyes and—in today’s economy—it helps us feed our families. It follows that our communities are better off politically, aesthetically, and economically when more of us are educated well. However, we again find ourselves at a time when we must elevate the patriotic imperative. We need to truly become, and actively foster, a nation of learners ready and willing to embrace rookie courage, attend the latest seminar, take the extra training, and question even the most compelling claims. Indeed, our country is turning to us to say, “we need YOU to learn!”

The Change We Need in Education

*Dear President Obama,

Congratulations on running a stellar campaign and bringing such energy and enthusiasm to the electoral process. A special thank you for demonstrating what a “new generation” campaign should look like: inclusive, engaging, informative, and exciting. Your use of social networking, web resources, and advanced data analytics combined with the best of traditional campaigns—on-ground volunteers, phone banks, and community organizing—was stunning.

By the way, this is exactly what we’re looking for on the road ahead in education. We’re looking to leverage new generation technologies combined with the best of education tradition to engage, excite, and educate students in powerfully positive ways. As you noted in your campaign, education is going to be essential to prepare America to compete in tomorrow’s economy. As you well know, your administration’s aggressive environmental, health, and economic transformations will be short lived—if not abject failures—if we don’t ready our educators and educational systems to prepare our students for the change to come.

As a first step, educators need to be ready to champion digital and information literacy as a basic skill—for themselves and their students. With our students, we can’t assume that because they play video games or text endlessly that they are ready to leverage technology in the workplace or as citizens. To build digital muscle for both students and teachers, we should exercise more options to learn with new technologies. At a minimum we should expand our use of blended and online resources. This means ensuring a national broadband infrastructure for our schools, Smart Boards and projectors in our classrooms, and virtual school resources beyond the buildings. We should also explore how we bring mobile devices into learning, gaming into instruction, social networking into academic communities, and advanced analytics into assessment, counseling, and teaching.

Regarding advanced analytics, in our everyday lives, we see Amazon use these tools to give us instantaneous book recommendations, iTunes uses them to customize its “Just for You” section, and credit card companies leverage them to catch fraudulent charges. But imagine if we could use these tools to give our learners instant access to learning resources based on their assessed needs—e.g., “students like you who had these difficulties in algebra have found these web-lessons useful.” Or imagine if our counselors had analytic systems to help them identify and intervene with the most at-risk students before they dropped out. Given our dropout rates in high schools and underprepared-student challenges in higher education, the imperative to leverage these advanced analytics for more than shopping or TV watching should be an imperative.

However, as your campaign modeled, we can’t just throw out the tried and true because of tantalizing technology. We need the best of both worlds. We need to recommit ourselves to the traditions of emphasizing the human touch, fostering mindfulness in educators and students, and inspiring the best of critical thinking as we all wrestle with technology’s problems of persistent partial attention. Indeed, the longstanding tradition of educators working together to imbue our students with strong habits of mind is more important than ever before. The potential of marketers and Machiavellian special interests to manipulate this generation of kids is staggering. We must remember Thomas Jefferson’s admonition: “if a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it wants what never was and what never will be.” In today’s digital democracy, this has never been truer.

As they take on this change, our educators will need our state and federal education systems to incent and reward their efforts. As a result, our systems have to become more nimble and responsive. Our students will be learning for a lifetime, so building strong institutional partnerships between early-childhood, primary, secondary, post-secondary, and continuing workforce education (public and private) is a must. The expansion of early college high-schools, dual-enrollment programs, and institutional articulation agreements is essential.

In addition, the traditional “education pipeline” metaphor needs to be retired. Instead, we are better served as policy makers to think of our diverse students as swimming in a lifetime learning swirl—flowing in to and out of our education systems at all ages and stages. Correspondingly, policy that rewards partnerships, powers technological innovation, and recognizes and rewards student progress (e.g., laddered credentials) is vital. Moreover, we can’t just measure our success in these endeavors against static, 20th-century benchmarks. We need to embrace more complex growth models for students and diverse goal sets for institutions.

There are of course key tactical steps we have to take—continue to aggressively expand science, technology, engineering, and math education, and integrate globalization more fully into our curricula. However, it is the larger strategy of taking the best of our education traditions with the transformational tools and progressive policies at hand that will truly outfit us for the road ahead. That is the powerful lesson we can learn from your successful run for the presidency. And, like your campaign, we’ll need your leadership to take on a big-picture, 50-state strategy to drive this positive transformation.

Again, congratulations on the inspiring embrace of change in your campaign—and the happy result! Here’s hoping that we can embrace this model in our world and bring the change we need to education.

Sincerely,

Mark David Milliron, Ph.D.
President and CEO
Catalyze Learning International

*this open letter to President Obama was first published by Scholastic Administrator

A 2009 State of Mind

Buckle your seatbelts. 2009 is looking like a difficult year. From all reports, more homes will fall into foreclosure and retirement accounts will shrink. More businesses will close and jobs will be lost.

Our schools will be called upon to raise standards higher, even as their budget allocations sink. Public universities and colleges will have the best of times and the worst of times. Enrollments will burgeon as displaced workers go back to school, in-place students stay longer to wait out the economy, and a changing job market demands more educational attainment. But the money needed to expand services will not follow. More accountability with less funding for the colleges and an affordability crisis for the students will be the standard fare.

These challenges notwithstanding, opportunity beckons. A new administration is about to take over in Washington, bringing hope that brighter days are ahead. We’ve been promised that we’re finally going to tackle the perennial problems of healthcare, infrastructure, energy, and the environment—issues that often need a crisis to create the collective will to act.

While the prospects for some businesses stink, some entrepreneurs smell opportunity—a once-in-a-lifetime chance to displace the “big players” that have fallen on hard times. In the world of education, the need for quality learning has never been greater. In addition, we have more exciting techniques and technologies maturing and emerging to teach and reach students than at any time in history. The promise of dynamic, engaging, lifelong learning seems within reach.

So pick your poison. Desperation and desire are driving human motivators; and in 2009 we seem to have both in abundance. Motivation isn’t the problem. The problem we must face is getting our mind around this moment and readying ourselves to take on these challenges and opportunities in the best way possible. Put another way, our charge is to approach this coming time with the right state of mind to make the most of the moment. Here are seven ways I propose for the 2009 state of mind—a mindset that will position us for a more promising road ahead.

Tough Minded
These are not times for the faint of heart. We’ll need individuals and organizations ready and willing to face the brutal facts about what is happening in our world, work, and learning. Our challenges require good-intentioned, well-informed critical thinkers to help us move beyond angry screeds against the status quo to engaging explorations that include everything from the analyses of hard data to the work of soft reflections.

Moreover, in the face of often-harsh realities, we must not be frightened by the new and novel. From the auto industry to the banking world to failing schools to under-performing colleges, we have plenty of examples of environments ready for a thoughtful, critical look.

Beyond inspection and reflection, we need critical projection as well—hard thinking about what could happen by leveraging our best visioning and analytics. Even schools and colleges are beginning these progressive, prospective analyses. 2009 will be a time for thorough, tough-minded, thinking, planning, and execution.

Action Oriented
Facing hard truths can make us lose heart. Whether we’re talking about our bottom lines or drop-out rates, we may ask, “how did we ever let it get this bad?” But now is not the time for pensive pity; nor is it the time for analysis paralysis—locking ourselves in to endless loops of study and reflection and never getting on the move. 2009 is a time for action.

From the single mother who heads back to school to the business that adopts social media marketing to the college that more broadly embraces blended learning, today’s trends favor those willing to step into the mix. Combining tough-minded analysis before beginning and as you continue will be a must—but movement is the key variable in this mix.

The disheartened lead character in the Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne, said it best, “we have to get busy living, or get busy dying.” I spoke at a college convocation last year where a faculty member paraphrased this same quote when talking about a key decision point in his own career: he said, “I finally decided I had to get busy trying new things, or get busy retiring.” Let’s get busy bringing good ideas and insights to life in 2009!

Next Level
The tough-mindedness needed for exploration and action, however, should not result in the far-too-common eager embrace of all things new. Neither should it lead to settling for small steps that make the least amount of people upset. Tepid incrementalism is not a recipe for success in 2009. We need to strive to have our actions take us and our organizations to the next level.

The Obama presidential campaign provided a great example of such an approach (see my contribution to this Scholastic feature). Their strategic combination of more traditional political strategies—on-ground organizing, phone banks, and volunteers—and new generation tools and techniques—online resources, social networking, and analytics—took political campaigning to the next level. It’s not surprising that this new strategy is already be modeled nationally and internationally.

Sometimes going to the next level is about changing strategy and technique. Other times, it hinges on embracing the right tools and technologies. Sometimes it’s about taking the time to invest in the research and development necessary to do all of the above. It’s rarely about working harder at what we’re already doing. Expecting that to take you to the next level is the classic definition of insanity.

By honoring and learning from the past as we move boldly toward the future with an improved approach, businesses, schools, colleges, universities, government agencies, and non-profits will all be better positioned to come together and move to the next level in 2009.

Broadly Connected
This is no time for Bowling Alone! We need to work on connecting with our kids, parents, extended families, friends, community members, as well as our deepest sources of inspiration and sustenance. Moreover, as Goleman demonstrates in the book Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, we need to be intentional about forming and maintaining positive social connections in the process. Indeed, in difficult times, these relationships make all the difference.

We can use both on-ground and online tools and techniques to connect as well. Social networks like Facebook, Bebo, LinkedIn, and Twitter can help build communities of colleagues and communities of practice like never before. Indeed, record numbers of people from all demographic categories are leveraging these tools. I come from a diverse family of nine children, and we probably know more about each other today than when we were growing up in the same house. And it’s mostly because of these social networks.

Beyond social support, these broad connections help people find jobs, solve problems, and locate learning. See Sue Waters’ conversation on Personal Learning Networks (PLN) to explore how people are using PLNs to broaden perspectives, enrich understanding, and solve practical problems. If we can broadly connect to people near and far, in-person and online, we are better positioned to take on the challenges that come our way today and tomorrow.

Government agencies, corporations, colleges, and schools can leverage these broad connection strategies as well. These expanded connection strategies can help them recruit more effectively, retain more successfully, and serve more meaningfully; in addition, they can increase reach, build loyalty, improve learning, and survive the most trying of times. In short, 2009 is no time to be an island—take the time to connect!

Well Balanced
Our 24 hour access to tempting communication technologies and multimedia entertainment offerings presents a challenge. In difficult times, many people want escape. They want to find some way out of the mess we seem to be in. While getting away from it all is useful at times, this escapism taken too far can lead to problem avoidance—and even people avoidance.

Ed Hallowell’s Crazy Busy: Overstretch, Overbooked, and About to Snap is a sometimes painful look at this problem with kids, parents, schools, and communities. At times, we seem like a society on the brink of a collective attention deficit disorder—running by each other in airports and shopping centers talking and talking, but never to one another. As I noted in On the Road to DotCalm, as we fall prey to persistent partial attention (i.e., the divided mind) we need to slow down, stop the metaphorical car, and clean the windshield or else dangerous crashes can result. In Coffee Talk with Dad, I explore how the death of my father brought the need for this kind of balance into clear relief. Even though my sales numbers and article production might have been lower than normal that year, I’ll never regret the time I took to slow down and soak in those moments with my Dad.

Organizations will need to bring this mindful perspective to bear as well. While many will be tempted to move quickly, automate at all cost, drive all traffic to the web site, or rely solely on technical solutions, we need to remember that people count, relationships matter, and balance is essential in keeping us individually and collectively on a good path.

Service Oriented
One positive side effect of our major economic downturn is that many businesses suddenly care about customers again! We matter once more. Because there aren’t 100 people just like us coming through their doors or clicking on their links, our stock has risen. The survivors and thrivers in 2009 will be the people and organizations who have either had this kind of service orientation all along and have a loyal base as a result, or those who quickly learn that service matters and get their service acts in order.

In schools, colleges, and universities, embracing a service orientation means strong student services and careful attention to learning and engagement strategies. In corporations, we’ll see a renewed sense of urgency to get to know and better customize relationships and interactions. Regardless of the arena, expectations are higher than ever. Those we serve expect us to have better insight into their needs and higher standards of delivery.

Working, leading, and living with each other will have a service component as well. For many, the first instinct as the maelstrom rages will be “every person for themselves!” As Kent Keith, CEO of the Greenleaf Center, argues in The Case for Servant Leadership, we take on this selfish mantra at our peril. No matter how tough things get, we’ll be much better off if we lift our narcissistic, selfish veil and look to see how we can best serve those with whom we live and for whom we work in 2009.

Courageously Humble
My favorite Eric Hoffer quote is:

“In times of drastic change, it is the learner who inherits the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.”

Continuing to learn is an expression of humility. It shows that we are willing to empty our cup a bit and open ourselves to something new. It is also an expression of courage—what I’ve called rookie courage. You have to once again step into a moment, or an environment, where you’re uncertain, not in control, and vulnerable. You have to admit you are not the expert.

But the results of these courageous and humble acts of learning are renewing, energizing, and almost always open new doorways. And it’s good for our health! I once had a neuroscientist tell me that given how the brain works, if you want to stave off Alzheimer’s and dementia, you should strive to “be a rookie every year.” It is in these learning moments that our brain is at its best.

It is the courage and humility to learn that we are seeing today in displaced workers going back to school, smart professionals retooling for the road ahead, and learning organizations investing in R&D that will enable us to take on the challenges of the coming year—not to mention the years to come. The individuals and organizations courageous and humble enough to reach out, ask for help, and open themselves to new learning will be able to take on the turbulent times ahead in 2009; even as their learned colleagues curse the coming of the year.

Bringing Together our 2009 State of Mind
We can’t sugar coat the challenges that are in our face and on the horizon. Indeed, it could get much worse before it gets better. However, it seems to me, that if we take on the year with a tough-minded, action-oriented, next-level, broadly connected, well-balanced, service-oriented, and courageously humble state of mind, we will be best positioned to make the most of what comes our way in 2009.

Learning and Humility

I’m taken with this notion: as we get older, continuing to learn is an expression of humility. There are many implications of this perspective for our personal and professional lives. Moreover, there’s a real challenge here—similar to what we discussed regarding transcendence.

I’m writing a longer article on this notion this week and would love to get your thoughts on the idea in particular and any implications you see. You can either post here or email me directly at mark@catalyzelearning.com.

Thanks!

Memorable Messages

Some of my own memorable messages came flooding back last night, loosed by a drive-time conversation. I was taking Alexandra, our 10-year old daughter, and her friend to swim at the YMCA. En route, the subject of science came up because they had just visited a health clinic on a field trip. Then Alex’s friend said it, the classic: “science is hard.” As an educator, all the alarm bells and warning whistles went off – particularly given my sensitivity to the importance of gender issues in teaching math and science. So I probed a bit more.

“Why do you think that?” I asked.

She went in to a long explanation about how a series of other people had told her about how hard science was, giving me at times exact quotes. At 11, she was already convinced that science was not for her.

We kept the conversation going for a bit and I tried with all my might to convey some counter communication. We talked about how science could be incredibly fun, full of discovery and adventure. We talked about how easy the basic process of science was (we even used kid-speak to talk through the observation, hypothesis, testing, reporting, conclusions, and sharing cycle of science) and how neat it would be to be a part of making discoveries that made life better—or better yet, saved lives! Alex and her friend perked up and began talking about things they wanted to discover or make. I’m sure they were humoring me until we got to the pool; but, it was still fun to hear them talk about science without fear in their voice for a little while.

Daniel Goleman’s Social Intelligence is a must read to really get the power of these memorable messages. Seemingly off hand comments and throw away lines can turn into mind wiring realities—particularly for those following every word of a parent, teacher, coach, or pastor. Positive and negative comments that we might see as trite or silly end up shaping the way people think for years at a time—for a lifetime for some. Indeed, in student focus groups, I’ve heard so many students talk about how they were told early and often that “math is hard,” “girls aren’t good at science,” or “you’re not college material” that I think we should have laws against these phrases ever being used again!

I’m struck by how careful we have to be in our many roles—particularly leadership roles—about the messages we send. Whether we want to accept the responsibility or not, many of these comments stick. The good news, however, is that the positive ones can stick as well. To this day, I hear the voice of a little Filipino pastor—Pastor Cruz—from my childhood church who always took the time to send the most positive and affirming messages my way. His messages were reinforced by a series of inspirational teachers and coaches, most notably a faculty member at Mesa Community College, Jim Mancuso. His message—“it’s amazing how luck seems to follow people who work really hard and care about what they do”—has stuck with me to this day.

What are the messages those you teach and reach will take away? Not the big theoretical treatises, but the little life theories that emerge in conversations off to the side, throw away lines, and jokes. Are we as intentional as we should be about these messages? Or, are we content to let these life changing communiqués happen by accident?

Treasuring the Work: Portraits of our Students

Battles with educational bureaucracies can be brutal. Seemingly simple requests require forms, signatures, and endless steps in an archaic process journey. Tangling with temperamental technology can tempt the most dedicated educator to throw their hands up in disgust. The bits and bytes seem to conspire to make the task of engaging digital-age students a daunting one. And clashing with colleagues that seem dead set on demonizing the best-intentioned innovations you champion can cause you to ask the question, “Why do I put myself through all this?”

Here’s why. *Portraits of Life: Student Experiences is an exhibit showcased at Montgomery College in Maryland. It’s a tribute in words and photographs to diverse students that chose education as their pathway to possibilities. It’s a powerful look at the faces and places of these students, their stories, and the futures to which they aspire. Moreover, it’s a useful reminder of the reasons most of us champion education—to change lives for the better and, by extension, make our world a better place.

During one of the focus groups we did for the book Practical Magic: On the Front Lines of Teaching Excellence, a seasoned instructor told us one of her secrets. She said that she kept a “treasure chest” of student evaluation comments, personal notes, stories from her journal, and clippings of her students successes packed away in a special box. When we asked her why, she said the reasoning was simple. “There are many times in your career that you question your worth, your sanity, or your ability to really make a difference. There are times you feel like, despite your best intentions, you’ve just been punched in the gut. These are the times you need to cook your favorite meal, pour a glass of good wine, and open your treasure chest. You need to remember your whys for all this work.”

The Portraits of Life showcase is a moving visual treasure chest of student stories. These are powerful whys. None of these stories excuse the sloppy systems, troubling technology, or cultural challenges we sometimes face in education. However, they do give us good reasons to do the important work of improving our schools, colleges, and universities so that we can teach and reach well the students who come our way—students working for brighter tomorrows after often-challenging yesterdays.


*This effort showcasing students followed an earlier project that profiled Holocaust Survivors (absolutely worth a look as well).

Worried, Innovative, and Changing

The stakes for education are high, and the pressure is on. Thomas Friedman’s new book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, is a stark admonition to educators to ready our students for a time where science, politics, and demographics converge as never before. The metamessage is not difficult to divine. It’s summed up in one of the book’s best quotes: “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” However, change is not easily accomplished in the hallowed halls of education tradition. It is because of this standard resistance to change that some authors are asking if higher education may be the next bloated industry to go—much like the housing and banking industries. The link to Arthur Levine’s Higher Education in the Age of Obama in particular is a must read.

These worries notwithstanding, it is still an amazing time to be in education. Education has never been as central to economic prosperity as it is today, which means it is viewed less and less as a luxury and more and more as a necessity. Moreover, just think of the tools we have today! We’ve talked about many of these here, from YouTube to Gaming to Social Networking to Open Courseware to Mobile Devices and a ready army of student assistants in Generation We ready to take it to the next level.

While I take pause because of the challenges, I remain excited and heartened by the innovation, inspiration, and insight drawn from the field. And here’s some more. Check out this virtual resource from Google on ancient Rome:

The teacher who sent this my way was almost giddy when talking about how she planned to use this with her class.

Now check out this gaming simulation for medical education put together by George Washington University:

http://inside.gwumc.edu/nemspi/zero_hour.swf

There is so much excitement about their effort they have been hard-pressed to handle the flood of requests to either leverage or model their work.

In short, while there are great concerns about the road ahead in education, there is great excitement as well. The challenge will be to catalyze positive change in educational institutions and systems in thoughtful and substantive ways. If we’ve learned anything from the banking and housing failures, it’s that advocating sloppy deregulation and taking dangerous risks with our nation's mission critical systems might not make the most sense going forward. However, I fully agree that “if we want things to stay as they are” (America serving as a model of high-quality, dynamic education), “things will have to change.”

YES IT DOES!

If you don’t think our dynamic American education system of public and private schools, colleges, and universities matters,
If you don’t think that parents and grandparents reading to their children and grandchildren and pushing them to excel in learning matters,
If you don’t think inspirational teachers, counselors, and mentors matter,
If you don’t think Pell Grants and Student Loans matter,
You’re not paying attention:


Love or hate his politics, Barack Obama’s story is not possible in any other country. Moreover, his path to the presidency shows clearly that even with all of our challenges, in America, education remains one of the most powerful pathways to possibilities. We have a lot of work to do to make it more effective, more open, more dynamic, more modern, and more responsive. However, we have to keep in mind how important it really is. President-Elect Obama puts that fact in clear relief.

So if the question about American education is: “does it matter?” The resounding response must be:

YES IT DOES!

Generation We

In our New Generation of Learning work, we’ve been talking about the rise of “Generation We.” And now comes an interesting manifesto—on YouTube of course—from a group of these folks. Notice the dialogue about education here and the aggressive connection they make between education and opportunity. Interesting!

Joe the Governor

For all the talk about Joe the Plummer in the last few weeks, it was the commentary of another Joe—Joe the Governor—that impressed me.

As Governor Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and I talked over lunch on Thursday, he made one thing clear – he needs the education leaders and teachers in his state to take their efforts to a new level, to educate more citizens at higher levels than ever before. Even more impressive, was the fact that he got up after lunch and issued the same challenge to a room full of college presidents, faculty, and staff.

“I hate to put this pressure on you,” he said, “but let me say it straight: you hold the future of this state in your hands. I can bring the best companies in the world in, but if we can’t produce a world-class work force, there is no way we can compete. Tax breaks and give aways aren’t what it’s about anymore. These folks want an educated, motivated, and ready workforce. Whatever we need to do to change and help more of our children and adults be successful, let’s get to it. I’ll support you in any way I can. But you have to be willing to try new things, to step up to this challenge. I’m talking about flexible schedules that aren’t tied to an agrarian calendar—six-week, six-month, nine-month training programs, different kinds of credentials, and new technologies. Everything needs to be on the table.”

This Joe said it as plainly as he could—for West Virginia to continue its positive growth, the education system needs to transform. Coal and natural gas resources will not be enough to ensure a positive future.

My job was to follow Joe the Governor and catalyze the conversation on what’s possible in education transformation. But he was a hard act to follow. However, his closing statement provided the needed impetus to drive our dialogue. Pointing at the audience, he said, “I have more faith in you than you do. I know we can do this. We must do this. Let’s all do this for West Virginia.”

While Joe the Plummer’s getting some major media right now—and probably a book deal as a result—I liked Joe the Governor’s message better. He’s the kind of Joe we should be listening to!

Debating Reflections on Education

As I reflect on last night’s Presidential Debate between Senator Obama and Senator McCain and the conversations about education and America’s future, I am debating the value of the debate. It’s always encouraging to hear education being placed front and center in these debates. Education is indeed a lynchpin in today’s economy, and as such has both economic and national security implications—i.e., no country has retained prominence when their economy falters. However, education is so much more than a utilitarian tool to power local, state, and national economies. Education is also about personal transcendence – giving people a pathway to possibility. A progressive society has to embrace this role as aggressively as it does the others. I’m not sure we marry both roles in our education debates as we should.

Moreover, we continue to discuss education in terms of discrete silos and systems – reifying a model of education that no longer exists. We predominantly talk about K-12 and “educating our kids” and higher education as “going to college.” Today’s education world in the US is so much more dynamic. We have dual enrollment programs and early college high schools helping high school students earn two or more years of college before they graduate from 12th grade. We have incumbent worker programs in community colleges that provide credit courses for workers during their breaks. They aren’t “going” anywhere when they go to college. Moreover, the static conversations about college as a one-time event cause even more challenges. Sure we still have a segment of higher education that attends college in a traditional way—4 years, on campus. However, an increasing number (if not the majority) of students in higher education are swirling in to and out of the system at different ages and stages. Students transfer between institutions in ever-greater numbers and they return on a regular basis to upgrade skills or change career directions. (Often not by choice!)

Today’s debates about education need to move beyond the static “improve K-12” and “increase access to higher education” arguments. We need to talk about supporting policy and practice that enables a dynamic system of learning that spans early childhood programs, K-12, early-college high schools, dual-enrollment offerings, AP courses, adult literacy programs, community colleges, universities, workforce development, and contract training in on-campus, online, and blended formats – at the very least.

Education debates need to be about more than just improving our economy and protecting our national status—they need also to be about helping individuals move to the next level. Education debates need to be about more than advocating new models for K-12 and better financial aid for universities—they need to be about fostering a dynamic system of multiple providers using a myriad of tools to reach individual, local, and national learning goals.

It’s time to change the debate and possibly change our education system for the better!

Open Courseware in the Mainstream: The Big Blend Continues

We’ve talked here about the need to leverage open resources and educator social networks for some time. Moreover, the build out of the blended learning infrastructure—in terms of facilities and online environments—has been a continuing theme. These dialogues are hitting the mainstream more regularly. Check out this article in the NY Times on the rise of free digital textbooks as a counterbalance to the publishing industry. And the big blend continues!

The Power of One and Many

Today’s blog is a reflection on the power of one and the power of many in education institutions. It’s something I see in my work all the time. However, it’s not a topic that is often directly discussed.

When I talk about one, I’m not referring to the “all-powerful” senior leaders with the many being everybody else. Yes, formal leaders make a huge difference in shaping the culture, systems, processes, and outcomes of an educational institution. Quality presidents, chancellors, deans, superintendents, and principals are essential ingredients in the educational excellence mix. I’ve written about educational leaders at length here and elsewhere—see the Catalyzing Positive Change in Education post for just one example. However, there are many others beyond formal leaders that have a powerful impact in our education institutions. Indeed, sometimes individuals completely outside of the formal leadership structure can empower or destroy an institution. These individuals have embraced the power of one.

While any institution’s organizational culture has a unique flavor and form, it is often these key individuals in the cultural community that spice and shape it. Sometimes it’s a longstanding patriarch or matriarch who is asked to bless or berate change initiatives. Sometimes it’s a newcomer, whose voice and verve compel the community in new directions. Other times, previously quiet members are inspired to step forward and take leadership in driving a dialogue. New purpose or passion ignites their efforts, and the fire soon catches.

Most institutions have several of these archetypes in play at any given time—a number of “ones,” if you will—wielding different levels of power. Some use their influence to move the institution in positive and progressive directions. To them, any innovation that might improve the institution is worth a good look and thoughtful exploration. However, there are also times when proposed changes could be harmful. Most of us have seen educational institutions pushed by authoritarians or over-the-top advocates to accept extreme action and large-scale initiatives without involvement or understanding. During these times, the positive power-of-one player is willing to civilly confront the change agents and call for dialogue and more careful consideration. The authoritarian or extremist will quickly label this person a trouble maker. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Whether playing the advocate or protector role, these positive and progressive folks are usually motivated by service—service to students, learning, the institution, the community, or all of the above. Most important, almost everyone in the culture knows that these individuals make the school, college, or university a better place.

Other times, however, there are powerful players determined to protect turf, settle personal scores, and stop anything that might make them have to learn something new. A friend of mine calls these folks CAVE people—Colleagues Against Virtually Everything. Their mere presence in conversations gives rise to bullying tactics and uncivil discourse. Everything and everyone is fair game in their quest to maintain the status quo. They play out their personal issues—fear, insecurity, or ego—on the institution like it’s a bad episode of Dr. Phil. Unlike the positive and progressive voices, their core motivation is most often service to self. Their root question is: How will this change impact me? They convincingly cloak their self interest in compelling arguments. But those who can see through their often-impressive rhetoric understand the real intention. Deep down, almost everyone in the organization knows that these negative players make the institution a worse place to be—except, ironically, for the negative player themselves. They revel in the attention and influence.

You truly see the impact of these individuals when a culture turns—usually in times of stress, transition, or opportunity. In some cases, a previously positive culture allows negative, cynical, caustic, self-interested and influential voices to take the stage and drive the conversation. With these voices left unchallenged and given focus—often for fear of confrontation—a once dynamic school or college is soon mired in mediocrity and wrapped in conversations that are full of sound and fury, but lead to nothing.

Other times, however, either through luck (a person leaves) or choice (a negative person is marginalized or a positive person embraced), you see a move in a positive direction. You watch a culture literally cleanse itself of the influence of negative players; or, you see the culture begin to embrace the opportunity offered by another voice. They are inspired, however slightly, to move and take positive action. Sometimes a negative voice, once marginalized, finds their way out of the organization. They just don’t fit anymore. Other times, they realize the energy is going in the other direction, and respond in surprising ways. Indeed, the best outcome is when a previous problem person becomes a cultural symbol of positive change.

Regardless of the outcome—progressive or regressive—the impact of these key individuals is undeniable. However, don’t give these “ones” the keys to the kingdom just yet. In my experience, it is the power of the many that really holds the key. It is the many that either give or deny power. As the Buddhist saying goes, “it is what we pay attention to that grows.” An academic community can literally change the channel. It can finally decide it wants to watch a different program, hear a different voice, one that is more likely to make the school, college, or university a better place for everyone. The focus of the many—or the lack thereof—is the secret behind the power of one.

Given this relationship, the best question for the many of our educational institutions might be “which ones?” Who are the informal leaders that bring a positive and productive voice to the community? Who are the power players we should unplug? When one of these individuals gets attention, does it feel like this place is getting better, or worse? More important, do we feel enough resonance to add our own voice, so we feel like together we are making this a better place for ourselves and our students? And, for some in the many group, the most important question might be: “is it time for me to lead, to add my voice to the mix?”

You’ll have to be the one to answer that question.

Ready?

I’ve been on the road the last few weeks, mostly speaking at fall-semester convocations. I just love these kick-off events for colleges, universities, and school districts. It’s a great time to hear about their successes, challenges, and innovations.

One of the conversations we explored on these campuses surrounded the speech series Ready?: Dramatic Change and Transcendent Learning. Check out the sample presentations here to see a more full description. You can also download my white paper from SAS Press to explore this transcendent learning framework—critical, creative, social, and courageous learning—in more detail.

What was fascinating about these dialogues was the near unanimous contention that our students will have to learn more, more quickly, and more often than previous generations—and that we’re not sure they’re ready for it. Moreover, they’ll need the courage to learn, to break out of comfortable patterns, if they truly want to transcend—go to the next level—throughout their careers. Remember, we talked about this here a few months ago. Most important, however, was the also near unanimous sentiment that one of the best ways for them to develop the courage and capacity to learn more effectively is for us to model it as we work through the change issues in our institutions. In short, we need to bring critical reflection, creative solutions, civil dialogue, and courageous learning to our efforts or we seriously undercut our lofty learning lessons.

Are we ready? Are they ready? These folks argued that we’re best served by getting ready together!

Learn to Earn World

Check out today's David Brooks column in the NY Times on education called The Biggest Issue. He points to studies that show historically education is vital not only for personal success, but community and national success as well. Indeed, it may well be our national commitment to increasing educational attainment that made the US the radical success story of the 20th century. So as our state and national budgets begin to be slashed after the November election --as most government watchers agree will happen, given our economy--we should not look to education as an easy target. It's penny wise and dollar dumb. The 21st Century demographic, economic, and technological trends with which we now wrestle demand a redoubled commitment to create a dynamic P-20 education system that serves increasingly diverse individual, community, and national learning needs. While I firmly believe it's a learn to live world, it is certainly a learn to earn world as well.

Catalyzing Positive Change in Education: The Four Pillars

If you’re looking for a copy of my white paper, Catalyzing Positive Change in Education: The Four Pillars, it's now available on the SAS Press website for free—I think you just have to fill out a registration form. Here’s the direct link. For those not familiar with the four pillars framework, I’ve been using it in speeches and workshops for the last few months.

The framework is based on the idea that to work toward positive change in education, these four support pillars all have to be present:

Catalyze Conversations: Involve the community in key dialogues on important issues to ready and engage them. In the paper, I use four key conversations as examples of these efforts: students swirling into and out of our education systems throughout their lives, the impact of globalization, the changing face of institutional advancement, and the build out of the big blend—technology and human intensive—learning infrastructures.

Inspire Innovations: Spark action from the community and support key innovations. Put simply, we need both a readiness and willingness not just to talk about, but try new things. In the paper, I suggest four major innovations impacting education as examples: K-20 partnerships, strategic enrollment management/customer relationship management, gaming and social networking, and educational and civic engagement.

Champion Insight: Create the systems and cultures necessary to ask and answer the hard questions about the impact of our conversations and innovations. Topics range from analytics to learning outcomes to evidence-based (or inquiry-based) education. I outline four steps that must be taken to champion insight: start with strategy, build out the technology, raise your sights, and ready the culture.

Foster Leadership: Without quality leadership at all levels (faculty, staff, administrative, and governance) change initiatives will at worst not work or at best not be sustained. I offer four fundamentals for fostering leadership: find it, grow it, energize it, and renew it.

I hope you find the resource useful!

Waking the Fire

We’re in to campfires. Our family and friends love to get a fire going, cook out, roast marshmallows, tell ghost stories--the whole thing.

Everyone seems to have a theory about camp fires. They tell you the best mix of wood and tinder; which kind of wood burns the longest; how much space to leave between the wood to let in oxygen; they set up the logs in X patterns, teepees, and square crisscross. We’ve seen it all.

New technology has crept in as well. Commercial fire starters are a cheap tinder mix, but make your life easy if you don’t have the time to rustle up dry leaves, small twigs, or newspapers. Nana is never happy about fire starters. Seems like cheating to her.

Lighting a fire is an often-used metaphor for learning. All the pieces fit: tinder (engagement strategies), room for oxygen (reflection and critical thinking), theories of arrangements (learning theory), and new technologies (reading this on a computer, are you?). Moreover, once a fire gets going, there is an intense, glowing center that continues to light new fuel as it is added (deep learning informing new experiences).

However, what strikes me most about the metaphor involves what can happen the next morning. A new day is here. The sun rises, birds sing, dew glistens, and little creatures all around bring greetings as you stretch awake. The camp fire that was the literal center of attention last evening is spent—reduced to a small pile of grey ash. But wait. There is a tiny plume of smoke rising from the center. You can easily kill the fire by spreading the ashes to burn out the last bit of fuel. Pour a bucket of water on it and the final spirit of the fire sizzles and releases a billow of smoke to the heavens.

But you can wake the fire as well. You have to stir it to add some oxygen. And be careful, if you don’t add anything new, stirring can lead to an even quicker death. You have to add new fuel. Carefully add tinder and wood to the existing fire, and within minutes your glowing, warm friend is back as hot as ever. In fact, the deep center of a woken fire catches quickly and cooks a great breakfast.

This is the learning metaphor that warms me. For all of us, there are times we burn down. Our ashes are glowing, but there is no fire. All that seems left to do is to wait for the bucket, the sizzle, and the smoke.

But if we are stirred--by teachers, reachers, kids, grandkids, new technologies, or old photographs--and new learning is carefully added, we can wake up hot as ever. Indeed, our lives are a constant cycle of fire renewal, adding fuel and tending flames. So don’t be fooled by the sullen ashes in yourself or others. Look for the plume of smoke, and see if learning can wake the fire.

Are You a Life Entrepreneur?

I love this new book: Life Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives. It’s written by Christopher Gergen and Gregg Vanourek. Many of us in the education world know Chris for his vision and leadership in founding Smarthinking.com, the innovative online tutoring company.

In short, Life Entrepreneurs advances the idea that there is a new breed of entrepreneurs who buck the conventional wisdom of entrepreneurship. They are not enamored with killing themselves and sacrificing family time in the process of starting new ventures. Indeed, they are applying traditional entrepreneurial skills toward the end of creating a more balanced, integrated, and personally fulfilling life. The venture fits the life more so than the life fits the venture. Indeed, its ideal when they are a synergistic blend—i.e., you are doing your life’s work in a way that lets you live a great life.

Central to their premise is that often you can’t find this beautiful balance by working for someone else. You have to start your own thing. Courage, passion, and purpose are all a necessity here—as are mindfulness, effort, and insight. However daunting it may seem to leave the embrace of working for someone else, Gergen and Vanourek profile people from all walks of life who have taken this fulfilling plunge. Its inspiring stuff, made more so by the sense of personal exploration that is at this movement’s root.

The reactionary education question that jumps out for me after reading this book is whether or not students at all levels of education are actually learning the skills necessary to even test these waters, much less jump in. Because of the volatility in the job market, we now talk about preparing students for careers and not jobs. However progressive these statements sound, we have to ask ourselves, do our schools and colleges prepare our students more to fit in or find a fit? Are we consciously inspiring the creativity and introspection necessary to become authentic life entrepreneurs?

The good news is that America has one of the best and broadest education systems accessible to second-act students—those returning to pursue a life’s dream. So, even if you don’t get what you need on your first swirl through our education system, there is still hope. From community colleges to alternative-delivery-model universities to corporate training providers, we have one of the best on-demand learning systems in the world. You just have to be an entrepreneurial student and use it.

And so the final question: Are you a life entrepreneur?

Let’s Open Up in Education!

Open education is on the move. Check out the Cape Town Open Education Declaration to explore an example of the ideas behind this movement. Putting quality resources at the fingertips of educators around the world is the ultimate goal—opening up accessible learning opportunities to millions.

Serving as board chair for the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME)—an organization founded and inspirationally led by Dr. Lisa Petrides—I’ve had the pleasure of watching one powerful response to this open education movement. ISKME’s response is showcased in the Open Education Resource Commons (OER Commons) site. We had our spring board meeting this week, and once again I was taken aback by the breadth and depth of this initiative—not to mention it’s skilled use of Web 2.0 strategies (e.g., social networking) to connect educators and content in compelling ways. And while the resources already available are stunning, it’s the long-term potential of this initiative that has me beaming.

If you're an innovative educator, it will be worth your time to visit OER Commons and check out the thousands of quality, open, and innovative learning objects/resources available across K-12, community college, and university settings. If you want to learn more about the background of the initiative, how to best leverage the content, and how you can contribute, check out this presentation put together by Mark Basnage that describes one of the OER Commons international pilot projects.

I hope you decide to explore and leverage the resources on OER Commons. More important, however, the folks at ISKME hope you’ll be willing to add your voice and talent to this emerging open education community. There’s so much we can do together in education if we’re willing to open up!

Private- and Public-School Independence Day

Monday of this week was Independence Day . . . well, sort of. I spent the day with leaders, school heads and directors from the Pacific Northwest Association of Independent Schools (PNAIS). We talked learning, technology, leadership, educational trends, and more with representatives from independent K-12 institutions of all shapes and sizes. We’re not just talking about private schools serving “elite” kids who would do well in any context. Many of these institutions are designed to serve at risk, developmentally disabled, and special-needs children. Several provide specialized education outreach. For example, one school was run through a social service agency and focused on educating the children of the homeless.

What struck me when I talked with these leaders—some of whom actually founded their schools—is the passion and purpose they bring to their focus on student learning. Moreover, many expressed a common challenge of leveraging creative and innovative educational strategies, while being laser focused on documenting and advancing educational quality. Indeed, a major part of this meeting involved their dialogue about learning outcomes and accreditation strategies.

Of course, public schools are wrestling with many of these same challenges; however, their contexts are radically different. Public schools in the US are more often than not swimming in funding challenges, testing trauma, school-board sagas, leadership transitions, and teacher turnover. Those who fight for focused learning conversations in the public school arena report feeling like voices in the wilderness. Ironically, its business leaders that sometimes end up driving learning dialogues in the public school arena. The State Scholars Initiative is one such business-partnership endeavor—focusing on inspiring rigor-, relevance-, and relationship-based learning strategies in public K-12. The independent school conversations, on the other hand, don’t seem to need the external push to bring learning to the center of the debate. The drive seems internal and independent of requirements.

I wonder how we can bring this sense of independence, ownership, and passion back into our public schools? Some turn to charter schools and key innovators to find the recipe for this independence—for example, see the Mavericks in Education D-Wade schools for some unique ideas on serving the at-risk students in the public arena. But the larger questions of scale, scope, and significance loom as we vision transforming the larger all-important public school system that serves millions and builds the foundation for our economy on the road ahead.

There are no easy answers here. And there are PLENTY of showcase examples of individuals, programs, schools, and districts that do amazing work with a learning-centered focus in our public schools. However, the daily dialogue of our public schools is all-too-often dominated by so many other things besides high-quality learning. Budgets, buildings, and boards capture the conversation—and most of the energy and effort of the leadership.

Here’s hoping for an Independence Day for public schools somewhere in the near future—a day when the passion, promise, and purpose of our teachers and students can be unleashed in the creative quest toward more inspiring, deep, and relevant learning.

*The Technology Prayers for Education

Imagine, if you will, a time on the road ahead when information technology becomes so ubiquitous, stable, and integrated into the educational enterprise that it is no longer the center of great debate, fervent support, or angry contention. The hardware, software, networks, and integrated database systems work together to make everything we do easier. We are empowered to better focus on students and their unique learning journeys. Information technology simply "goes away" from immediate attention, no longer trapped in wonder and confusion, and is more comfortably welcomed as an everyday and valued part of our world.

Although some would have you believe that this heavenly time is upon us, our everyday experiences defy the prophecy. All too often, we find ourselves earnestly turning our computers off and on again, hoping that their demonic behavior will somehow be exorcised by a lack of power. We passionately pray for the lost document to return, for the e-mail attachment to open, and for the wireless card to connect. First-born children are jokingly offered as sacrifices to keep a computer lab working through a class period or a network connected to a printer. And, the technology mystics on our campuses still descend from their mountain tops to help us solve problems without being able to adequately explain what they've done—trust them, have faith we're told.

All the while, academic leaders and scholars all over the world are offering poignant prayers within the text of national studies, conference programs, and committee reports to any and all powers that might help us realize what Steven Gilbert from the TLT Group calls "a vision worth working toward" with technology. Judging from the rhetoric of the researchers and painful practical experience, the following prayers are going to have to be answered if our desired technology heaven is ever to be realized on earth, if technology is ever to "go away" in the best sense.

Please Make it Work
Help our hardware, software, and systems stabilize to the point where befuddling incompatibilities, buggy software, and conflicting network protocols are a thing of the past. Give us truly user-friendly projectors, programs, and web services that don't embarrassingly crash in the middle of key projects or important class presentations. Weave change and improvements seamlessly into products and services, so our health is not endangered by the stress of our technological worlds being turned upside down with each new version of software or upgrade in hardware. We'll gladly take the responsibility for the problems we cause in use if only the information technology itself can mature to the point where these all-too-frequent problems no longer take precedence over our work with students.

Please Help Us Accept It
Give us the patience to temper the true believers and carefully listen to thoughtful critics. Help us understand and welcome technology as a tool, not as a savior sent from on high or a devil destined to destroy us. Let not hyperbole or fear stand in our way as we thoughtfully integrate information technology savvy as a basic skill, necessary for our students as they become educated citizens in a world fueled by and filled with information. Teach us all the important lessons of critical reflection and intelligent consumption of the mass of information at our fingertips.

Please Help Us Pay for It
Show us the bottom of this hell-fire pit in to which we seem to be pouring our money for technology upgrades, improvements, replacements, ERP systems, course management systems, and data warehouses. As we explore purchasing, leasing, and elaborate phasing plans, give us options that don’t force us to sacrifice the Peters of our organizations to pay this pervasive Paul. Finally, grant us the wisdom to integrate technology planning into the broader production of a learning-centered institution, where technology plays a role without overpowering the more important members of the cast. In addition, help technology become a welcome part of our overall infrastructure planning—and the lion of facilities shall lie down with the lamb of technology.

Please Help Us Help Each Other
Encourage us as we collectively embrace the humbling feeling of techno-ignorance. Help us use this process to better empathize with the fear and discomfort, the challenge and stress that many of our at-risk students feel as they begin their studies at our institutions. Bring the continuum of technology users closer together and keep us open to learning from anyone—external agencies, internal trainers, and colleagues. Let us not forget the importance of professional development and technology support as we move forward. More important, open our spirits to the possibility that students may need to be our guide at times as we step into this new world.

Please Help Us Bring All into the Fold
In our zeal to move forward with technology, let us not leave anyone behind. Help us remember that education can be the gateway to information technology inclusion for all, much like public libraries were for the printed book. Remind us also of those with disabilities and their needs. Quality technology accessibility efforts can help many more ascend in education. Help us work to make sure that any and all of our students can benefit from the information technology infrastructures we develop.

Please Let It Bring Us Closer Together
Tempt us not with terse e-mails, immersive ipods, bombastic blogs, and beeping blackberrys that consume our time and inhibit thoughtful, sensitive, and more substantive interactions. Make us more mindful of the ways and whys of our communication, so technology becomes a useful tool in improving and expanding our relationships—so technology remains the medium, not the message. Let us never lose sight of the importance of the caring smile, the encouraging word, and the interested ear. Remind us that human connections change lives in the education world more so than any email, podcast, social network, or interactive game ever will.

Please Let Learning Lead the Way
In all we do with technology, let us ask the burning question: "How does this practice, policy, or procedure improve and expand student learning?" Moreover, let us use technology to answer even more insightful questions about our students’ learning journeys. And let these answers help us ensure that our technology use significantly supports them all. In short, grant us the ability to move beyond the intoxicating interest in the novel and the new to a deeper and more systemic concern for the learner and the learning.

In Closing
If someday all of these prayers are answered, our image of a time when technology "goes away" may come into full relief. Until then, however, most of us will continue searching for answers to these prayers and grappling with the emotionally charged issues associated with each. And, we will keep turning our computers off and on with mystic and positive expectations.

___________

*I used this framework in a town meeting this week and promised to post this slightly updated version. I wrote the original version of this piece with a dear friend, Dr. Cindy Miles, who is now the Hialeah Campus President at Miami Dade College.

Reaching Higher at the Virtual High School Conference

Visiting New Hampshire was on the agenda this week--spending some time with the good folks at the Advancing Online Learning, Virtual High School Conference. From the VHS president and CEO, Liz Pape, to the instructors and administrators attending the conference, the conversation could not have been more engaging. Some fascinating findings from recent research were presented. For example, today 30 states have state-led online learning programs and 42 states have significant supplemental online programs or full-time programs. In addition, more than half of all school districts offer online coursework, which is a 30% increase from 2004.

What was most encouraging, however, is that the conversation here wasn't about basking in glow of the expansion of online options. More dialogue was happening about how these options are blended with on-ground education and how the quest for even higher-quality could be continued. From the recently released North American Council for Online Learning's national course and teaching standards (a GREAT document by the way) to the National Education Associations course and teaching standards, they showcased the benchmarks and presented the challenge--innovate with online education, but don't forget the quest for quality in the process.

Above all, my favorite characteristic of the educator conversations at this event surrounded their commitment to leveraging online education in the high school space to expand our ability to help students develop 21st-century skills. These folks were all about advocating new techniques to help inspire the learning of everything from critical thinking to decision making to interpersonal skills to information literacy to media savvy. I just loved it! Because thinking about how we leverage new tools and techniques--in conjunction with the tried and true--to reach for higher learning is always more compelling than the tired "get on board or be left behind" technology rhetoric we hear far too often.