The Education Catapult
Last evening I had the opportunity to do some of what I call #LearningTogetherApart. Yesterday was Day 245 of the Global Pandemic and the webinar was entitled “Post-Election 2020: Charting a Path Forward in Education.” The webinar was put on by The Hunt Institute and the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE), which I am chair of the board for, was one of the partner organizations involved in making this conversation possible. Other partners were The School Superintendents Association, National Association of Elementary School Principals, National Association of Secondary School Principals, and National School Boards Association. And, what a great conversation it was. The panel included The Honorable Margaret Spellings, Former U.S. Secretary of Education (2005-2009), President & CEO Texas 2036; The Honorable Arne Duncan, Former U.S. Secretary of Education (2009-2015), Managing Partner, The Emerson Collection; Chancellor Richard A. Carranza, New York City Department of Education (2018-Present); and Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, Miami-Dade County Public Schools (2008-Present). As you can see this was quite the lineup of experience and expertise in the room.
Another highlight yesterday was receiving the new book Beyond The COVID – 19 Pandemic from authors Pradeep K. Kapur and Joseph M. Chalil. I am so glad that I started reading it in the space between the end of the work day and the webinar. In the preface of the book there are six questions posed for the global community to contemplate (p. xxi-xxii):
- What sort of changes are required at the policy level to cope with such pandemics in the future?
- How do we better equip global organizations to evolve for dealing with the challenges ahead?
- Do we need to think of setting up new organizations to replace the WHO and the UN?
- Can we have new paradigms for healthcare?
- How do we create reserves and stockpiles of essential healthcare supplies? Where will the money come from when the budgets are already under great stress?
- How do we get the global economy back on its feet?
As you can see, these are pretty good guiding questions and even though these are not education specific questions they could be great guiding questions for any conversation. Really, the answers to these questions need to involve education in every answer. The authors point out that the pandemic is the biggest disruption to our county in 100 years. In having studied the 1918-1920 pandemic, I am amazed that we are experiencing and struggling with many of the same issues we had then. I can’t wait to immerse myself into the book as these authors dream big and have offered solutions that are possible if we just reach political consensus and carry through to implementation (a core value of how I try to serve as a policymaker on the Indiana State Board of Education).
The panelists last night were also using their experience to dream big. I want to touch on a few thoughts they had by referring back to tweets I made during the conversation. Allow me to pick a highlight or two (or three) from each of the participants using tweets. You can check out all the tweets at @byronernest or by going to #ElectionEd2020. Here we go!
Secretary Margaret Spellings reminded us that education must be a major component of any pandemic recovery plan. As she said, “Education must be on the first train out of Washington.” And, she also reminded us that in order for there to be economic recovery, education must be involved. As a person who believes so much in the involvement of business/industry in education it gave me hope when she suggested that “Alignments between our schools and workforce are going to be critical right now.” This also includes continued alignments with higher education for all of dual credit, dual enrollment, Advanced Placement, internships, and work-based learning opportunities. We cannot let the pandemic take these away from our students. These opportunities provide for some of the greatest outcomes being afforded our students. I loved that Abigail Potts, NASBE’s Director of College, Career, and Civic Readiness, retweeted my tweet on this with comments that added the importance of our high school pathways, broadband access, and state and local investment. And, Abby pointed out in that tweet that education is not partisan but a place to come together to support our students. Thanks for the tweetversation (yes, I just made up a word), Abby!
Additionally, I have to add in one more insight from Secretary Spellings. She reminded us that “We cannot just go back to normal; we must catapult to the new way ahead.” I love the way she put that. I have continued to say over and over we have to take what we have learned and apply it and never look back. “Catapult” was the best term that could have been used for this. Go back to the questions posed in Beyond The COVID – 19 Pandemic and put them into the context of education and that is exactly where Secretary Spellings is suggesting we need to go.
I got to know Secretary Arne Duncan during my service as 2010 Indiana Teacher of the Year. He is so passionate about doing what is right for ALL children. In fact he made this clear when he said, “We need to be fighting for our most vulnerable.” I’ve also been impressed with the non-partisan way in which he views education. He also reminded us that “Education is our best way to bring the country together.” He firmly gave us a call to action for stitching our democracy back together. He posed the question, “What if we committed to go find every lost child?” Wouldn’t it be great if we could reach some consensus on a vital few things we could all work on and begin our evolution dealing with educational challenges? Secretary Duncan finally reminded us that, “We need need a healthy debate/conversation, putting aside political ideologies, based on data. We need the courage to do some things differently.” Well said!
Superindent Carvalho and Chancellor Carranza brought great perspective to the conversation from street level at the school. Superintendent Carvalho taught us that “The rules of the past stop applying. We need to start using what we have learned from the last nine months.” Providing education to ALL children has been a continuing challenge for families, schools, local, state, and federal governments, and leaders around the world. To answer the challenge we have tried and need to continue to try different paradigms to equity in learning for all. In my opinion we must develop a system by which we are developing the whole child in every child. Also, we must develop an ethos that sees the potential in every student. As a policymaker I use the test question of “Will this policy reduce inequity, maintain inequity, or increase inequity?” to inform my decisions. As I listened to these two school leaders I thought about how, after 245 days, we really need to assess what to de-prioritize and what needs to be prioritized.
Chancellor Carranza warned us to not “let our foot off the gas.” Some might argue that in some areas we need to put our foot on the gas, but those are the areas that Secretary Duncan told us we need to all get around and start working together on. When speaking of early childhood education and education funding in general, Chancellor Carranza gave a very real example by asking and answering his own question: “Do we invest early in education? Yes! It takes $20,000/year to educate a NYC student. It takes $275,000/year to incarcerate someone in New York State.” This was a reminder to us all how important an investment education is. And, let’s not forget the economic impact of having students prepared for our ever changing workplaces. Additionally, I think a lot about how we need to identify all the reasons for our students’ learning struggles. This goes beyond having devices and internet access. It takes us into the support structures in place or not in place for the student. We must have the whole portrait of student if we are create the ideal environment for learning.
As you can see, this was quite the discussion and I’ve only scratched the surface. This truly was a conversation, not an interrogation around defining the challenges and how to best disrupt education with the exponential learning we have done during the pandemic.
Spreading The Wealth
Over the weekend a teacher leader asked me how her principal should be deciding which teachers should get development opportunities and be empowered. I said, “That’s easy; all of them should be getting those opportunities.” As I learned from Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor, everyone has potential. Everyone should have empowerment and opportunities for development. Really, our teacher leaders should all have individualized development plans. Therefore, everyone should be in development mode and be empowered to lead from where they are. Everyone is a leader, so leadership should happen whenever and from wherever it is needed. We need to be very careful to not fall in the trap of “earned empowerment.” In other words only empowering the chosen ones who someone thinks has earned it. This might yield empowering and developing 10% at best. I blogged about this in Earned Empowerment is Dangerous.
Then tonight I was reminded how important it is to have the whole team empowered and ready for action. In the first quarter of the New Orleans Saints big 38-3 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, quarterback Drew Brees had thrown completed passes to nine different receivers. At the end of the first half he had thrown completions to 12 different receivers. That is a big deal. Think about how much more successful the Saints are with that many empowered targets.
So, we probably better take a page from the Saints playbook and empower and develop everyone. Think about it; if we are able to empower all of our people with projects and responsibilities, aren’t we really expanding the capacity of our organization. Really, mass empowerment equals capacity building. This in turn means leadership development of our teams. It also allows us to tap into all of our resources and expertise, which can lead to achieving amazing results.
Great leadership is shifting from telling everyone what to do, to empowering and developing everyone to be ready to come up with the best and brightest ideas and solutions that have ever been thought of before. This will give you a receiver core for big wins like Drew Brees and the Saints.
We Voted!
Today was a very special day. First off, it was Election Day; a very special day for our democratic society. It was even more special because my son, Heath, chose to come home from college to vote in person. It was his first National election he was eligible to vote in. He wanted us to go as a family. Of course, I was excited to have him home and I was proud he wanted to go together to vote. From a young age Heath always went in to vote with me before we went on to school and then would proudly wear his “I Voted” sticker into school. He was such a cool kindergartner!
This got me to thinking about how much our children learn about civic responsibility from their parents and other adult role models. Heath has always seen me take the ballot seriously and we even discussed the school board and judge candidates. I’m proud that Heath understands his role and civic responsibility in the local, college, state, national, and world communities he lives and belongs.
In doing a little studying on the topic I learned that, “Civic engagement during adolescence predicts adult volunteering and voting. Furthermore, civic engagement during adolescence can promote positive developmental outcomes, particularly for marginalized and at-risk youth” (Middaugh, Clark, & Ballard, 2017, Pediatrics, 140). This really got me thinking about the civics experiences we need to be giving our children and students. They need to be given opportunities for civic engagement. These need to be project-based so the students are actually engaged in real world community experiences.
Bottom-line: parents who involve kids in elections raise civic leaders! By involving our children and our students in civic engagement and exposing them to the voting process teaches them real-life lessons in democracy, and it helps show our communities and country that families matter and have a powerful voice.
Knowing The Water
Yesterday I assumed the role of Chair of the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) Board of Directors. The day before, in a meeting, I was introduced with the byline that in 24 hours I would be taking the helm. I’m not sure why, but I shivered a little at this. I even said, “I’m not sure what to think about that.” Then, our NASBE Northeastern Area Director, Dr. Audrey Noble (Delaware State Board of Education member) who is an avid boater/sailor said, “You’ll be fine. The key to success at helm is about knowing the water, and you know it well.” She had made a powerful statement there and had said a lot.
Later, as I reflected on that interaction, I remembered an awesome story that came out of World War II. And, of course, the story involves the great leader and 34th President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower. The story goes that he went to the tent where his soldiers were mapping out a location for the troops to cross a river. Eisenhower pointed at a spot on the map and said, “We will cross here.” One of his troops said, “We cannot cross there, Sir.” Eisenhower asked why not. They told him they were not sure how deep the water was. Eisenhower pointed to his dampened pants leg and said, “It is this deep.” Clearly, he “knew the water.” Eisenhower had taken the time to actually get his feet wet and know where he was sending his troops.
Leadership by example and working shoulder to shoulder with those you serve continue to be the most successful forms of leadership. These concepts can take many different forms, but is expressed well with the phrase that is on a picture that hangs in my den, “Walk The Talk.” Walking the talk is one of my core values. It really speaks to the fact that our character is our legacy. If we say we believe or will act in a certain way, then our actions should prove that. I blogged about this in Walk the Talk!
A helmsman relies on his knowledge of the water he is in, visual references, GPS, other technological tools, and a rudder angle indicator to steer a steady course. Leading in an organization is no different. One must “know the water.”
Explicitly Rethinking Your Leadership
There are so many great pieces of information in today’s chapter in Mindset Mondays by David Taylor-Klaus (DTK). The lesson (#5) was entitled “Rethink Your Thinking.” I have a school leader I am mentoring for a client right now who I just had a conversation about this very topic with. In fact, I actually said, “You need to rethink how you are doing this to get it streamlined.” He was involving himself in every single thing that happened. Every single thing that is happening in the school has his fingerprints on it. Result: the rest of the team is not using their expertise to the fullest, and he is so bogged down, he can’t get it all done. As DTK pointed out, “Delegating the activities and tasks that drain energy frees you up for activities that fuel your growth, serve your clients [in this case the teachers and students], and deepen your impact.” We need to think about and recognize how the highest and best use of our time can be most powerfully spent.
This will be easy to solve for my men-tee. He already believes in distributed leadership and a flattened hierarchy, so all he needs to do is “declare explicitly” empowerment to others. Notice my terminology here: “declare explicitly.” I have found this to be a step that gets left out. Sometimes as leaders we need to make sure and make the implicit, explicit. In order to rethink his thinking and go down the much more improved and streamlined path, my men-tee must make sure the teachers know explicitly what needs to have his fingerprints on and what the teachers can just do. The teachers are at street-level working with our students and are in the best position to make many decisions and solve issues because this is where the data is created.
Don’t Overlook The Brilliance Of Our Students
I’m still getting caught up on my reflection of the lessons from Kevin Eikenberry’s Virtual LeaderCon last week. This post is about Chip Bell’s response to my question about where education and the students we serve fall into the realm of the work he has put together in his latest book, Inside Your Customer’s Imagination: 5 Secrets For Creating Breakthrough Products, Services, and Solutions. The first thing he said was, “We must treat students like customers, not consumers.” There is brilliance in our students that so many times gets overlooked.
I asked Chip to go into a little more detail about treating students like customers and not consumers. To this he stated that we have board meetings and where are the students (I’m excited that many states have put students on their state boards of education – I’m still working on Indiana)? But, local school boards should think about student members in some capacity, too. He also asked us to think about where the student was when we were having planning meetings. Chip explained that everything we do should “have our customer’s fingerprints all over it.” He used the example of when we coach little league baseball we tell the kids to “be the ball.” We need to be telling our students to “be the customer.” And, then letting them be the customer. Chip believes our students should be partners along with our students’ families. He promotes student-staff partnership initiatives.
Chip Bell reminds us that customers can give us our best next idea. We should be asking the question, “What is something no-one else has ever thought of?” This discussion reminded me that the words “customer” and “consumers” are often interchangeably used and are easily confused with one another. While students are consumers and the ultimate user of the product, we need to treat them like customers – the person buying the product. We need to think of our students as a final customer– these are the customers who buy the product for their own need or desire. This kind of thinking will help us to better individualize education for every student.
We must innovate. Listening to our students will help us to do this. We can’t keep offering the same thing over and over and over again. We owe it to our students to be authentic. As Chip told us during Virtual LeaderCon, “Authenticity wins every time.”
Salient Issues From The Field Of Personalized, Competency-Based Education
I had the opportunity to be a part of what I would call a silver lining of the COVID-19 Pandemic situation. Aurora Institute had to pivot to their annual symposium being virtual so took that opportunity to develop a virtual pre-symposium webinar series of over 20 webinars leading up to the Aurora Institute Virtual Symposium being held October 26-28, 2020. Click here to see past webinars and click here to see webinars yet to happen. The webinar series has been incredible and I had the opportunity to present with Lauren Bailey from the Middlebury School Corporation and Sarah Koontz of Horizon Education Alliance. I have had the opportunity to work a great deal with both of these great individuals when providing professional development on project-based learning for the school corporations in Elkhart County, Indiana and then when we (Noble Education Initiative) partnered with them on our free webinars last spring. Click here to read about this.
Yesterday, Lauren, Sarah, and I presented on Integrating Project-Based Learning in Online and Blended Courses in Indiana for the Aurora Institute Pre-Symposium Webinar Series. This was such an awesome experience and I have had so many participants reach out afterward wanting further information and wanting to stay in touch. I also love the fact that the Aurora Institute has made the recordings of these webinars open access. Its great that that these webinars are available for educators, education leaders, and policymakers for high quality learning.
For this post I am going to let our webinar recording and the quote banners that the Aurora Institute did do the talking. Here is our webinar:
Here are some quotes from the webinar:
Angry Fishing
I just tweeted that having your son in Murray, Kentucky at Murray State University had its advantages; one of which is getting to spend the day on Kentucky Lake fishing for Crappie. Heath picked such a beautiful place in the world for college. We had a great day that started at 5:30am. It’s always great to spend the day doing anything together with the boy. We have been blessed to make so many memories doing a variety of things together. I’ve always said that raising this kid has been the single most important and rewarding thing I am doing.
Today, we had the opportunity to use some of the latest computer vision technology for fishing. Thus the title for this post: Angry Fishing. It was truly like a video game, at times, that I would call Angry Fishing (referring to Angry Birds). As always, I was fascinated with the technology and learning how to use it. I was also amazed at how being able to use the technology, in much the same way a video game does, enabled me to improve my fishing skills.
We were fishing for Crappie today and they require a very patient technique, but you must be quick to set the hook at the right time. With the video technology we could literally watch the fish going for the bait. I’m not going to lie, I missed several today because I got caught up watching fish going for Heath’s hook and him catching them. We were able to, in real-time, just like when playing Angry Birds, know what adjustments to make in our techniques. And the great part about Angry Fishing (real life fishing like we were doing) is you get to do it over and over, just like you can when playing Angry Birds. It was fascinating!
This was a reminder of how we need to always employ ways to give students, or anyone we are teaching for that matter, immediate and usable feedback. Today, I was even able to begin to self diagnose areas for improvement and make those changes immediately. Another reason we need to always be teaching using real-world and relevant contexts. We all, no matter what our age learn best when we are using adaptation. We need to be applying across disciplines, thus why I am right now applying this day of fishing to doing a better job of teaching and professional development. This also gives us the opportunity to apply the learning to real-world predictable and unpredictable situations. I talk about these same things when using Angry Birds as a throughline for discussing high impact teaching strategies.
It is also my hope, and I believe they are, that these technologies can be a catalyst for transformation of fishing and fishery policy. Under a sustainable approach, where we satisfy the needs of the present without compromising the resources of future generations, technological innovations like my son and I used today offer an opportunity to improve the fishery and seafood industries; as well as protect the environment. Electronic monitoring systems and computer vision technologies combined with artificial intelligence machine learning is being used to improve the cod fishery and preventing overfishing of halibut in the Pacific.
I continue to be amazed and hungry to keep learning the technological innovations that can help us all learn more effectively and continue to make the world a better place. The possibilities are as vast as the great bodies of water we love to fish on. Join me in continuing to explore and learn!
Open Your Mind To The Past & All Of This May Mean Something
Late last night I found myself flipping through the television channels. Actually, using the term channels probably really ages me – are they even called channels anymore? Anyway, I came across an old episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (TV Series). This was my favorite of the Star Treks because I love the character Captain Jean-Luc Picard (played by Patrick Stewart). My favorite line of his that is in almost every episode is “Make it so.” I practice “Make it so!” leadership and just realized I haven’t really blogged specifically about that. Maybe tomorrow.
As I surfed and found Star Trek, the episode was just beginning. The episode was Season 2, Episode 17 and was titled Samaritan Snare. There were two throughlines established early: Captain Picard needed heart replacement surgery (routine in the 24th Century) so was traveling with Wesley Crusher in a small craft to far away Starbase 515. The Enterprise was on a rescue mission to a Pakled vessel that turned into an attempt to steal computer knowledge.
On their journey to the medical facility and surgery Picard and Crusher had a deep and revealing conversation where Picard shared how his heart had been damaged in a fight with Nausicaans as a young ensign. While at the base Crusher will be taking Starfleet exams. Here is the conversation:
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: There’s no greater challenge than the study of philosophy.
Wesley Crusher: But William James won’t be on my Starfleet Exams.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: The important things never will be. Anyone can be trained in the mechanics of piloting a starship.
Wesley Crusher: And Starfleet Academy…
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Takes more. Open your mind to the past – art, history, philosophy. And this all may mean something.
Star Trek has taught generations of us how great humanity could be if we study and learn from our past, learn to deal with our biases, and work together (I bolded that for emphasis) to create a better future. People have always faced difficult times and situations, and Star Trek always reminds us that when smart people come together they can come up with smart answers. It would be interesting to know just how many have been inspired to leadership, science, engineering, medicine, or many other careers because of Star Trek. As Edmund Burke taught us, “People will not looking forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.” Thus, pretty good advice from Captain Picard to open our minds to the past so that all this does mean something. Pretty good advice indeed in the 21st Century year of 2020!
I hadn’t thought about philosopher William James for a long time. William James, the father of psychology and a leading thinker of the 19th Century, actually laid the groundwork for the study and research that continues on leadership. James asserted that individuals do make a difference in history, and that the study of influential people an important pursuit. Interestingly, as I studied more and more on this I came back across the work of Thomas Carlyle and the “great man” theories I talked about in Leaders Crashing and Flying Higher. It also had me looking at studies on “hero-worship.”
According to James (1880, 1884, 1890/1956) any change that happens can be attributed to an individual or multiple individuals. The potential of a group, organization, business/industry, community, or country will be brought out not by just one individual leader, but by a collective of leaders. Thus why I believe everyone is a leader. I really believe James believed this too. No one leader has the power to determine change. No one has that kind of power. Instead a leader must work within the context she is given. Leadership then brings together individuals with circumstances.
And, I really got to thinking that this theory was modeled by the entire Enterprise crew. It took leadership from all to solve the issue with the Pakled vessel and Picard’s surgery that ended up having complications. The head surgeon said that the complication was out of his realm of knowledge and that Picard was dying. He then said that he knew someone who could solve the issue – she was summoned and did. Nothing happens in a vacuum. This is why the context matters and everyone’s expertise matters and must be brought to the “table.” This is why everyone must be a leader.
Leading Like A Superhero
Ever since we were kids we’ve dreamed of becoming superheroes. During our first fall gathering of 3D Leadership, I used a superhero throughline and had participants research superheroes and pick one that best represented themselves; or they could create an all new one. As always, they were super creative (a superhero power) and as they shared out I asked them a few questions:
- What is your superpower?
- How did you get your powers?
- What’s something that your arch nemesis has?
- Where would you live when your not saving the world?
- If you were on a team of superheroes, what would your role be?
- What would you fight the enemy with?
- In addition to your powers, what weapon would you want?
A couple of these superheroes really jumped out at me: Wonder Lori and Glinda. Wonder Lori was a new and made up superhero and Glinda was based on the good witch in the Wizard of Oz. The superpowers for these two were empathy and serving. Pretty good superpowers for leading like a superhero, right? Really being a superhero is about tapping one’s ability to do extraordinary things; and, being able to help others doing extraordinary things.
I was really struck by the superhero Glinda from the Wizard of Oz. The participant picked Glinda because of her power of always showing up at just the right time. This blew my mind because I had never thought about this in all the times I have watched the Wizard of Oz. But, what a great superpower, right. All of us as leaders would love the superpower of showing up at the right time. Glinda really did show up at just the right time, every time.
Additionally, the participant quoted Glinda at the end of the movie when she said, “You had the power all along, my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself.” This is such a powerful statement. Glinda was a great teacher—and this compliment is not undeserved. The first lesson she teaches is one of delegation. She tells Dorothy the Wizard might be able to help her get home, but that the journey to Oz is a long and treacherous one. Dorothy needs, as always seems to be the case, more information and asks for it (she’s very good at asking questions). Glinda tells Dorothy to follow the Yellow Brick Road and never take the ruby slippers off her feet. Of course, the Munchkins help her get started and find her way on the yellow brick road. Dorothy has more questions, but Glinda is a master delegator: she waves her wand and disappears! Remind you of any great leaders you have worked with?
Even though we don’t see Glinda very much in the movie, she’s clearly behind the scenes keeping watch, removing barriers, and doing things to help without desiring any recognition. We learn this in the scene in which Glinda sends snow to counteract the effects of the sleep-inducing poppies. Glinda never rushes in dramatically on a white horse (even thought there are really cool horses in the movie that change colors) to fix everything herself and, in the process, undermine Dorothy’s self-confidence as a leader. Even when Glinda reappears at the end of the movie, it is only to make sure that Dorothy has learned the lessons of the ruby slippers for herself – “You had the power all along, my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself.”
Byron's Babbles 
1 comment