Apace of Change

by Damian Bariexca, Ed.D.

Archive for the ‘Ed Leadership’ Category

Book Report: Avoiding the #SLDunkTank

So I’ve started my 2017 Reading Challenge off on a real tear, devouring nearly 13 books in the first two months alone (my goal for the year was 15!).  I’m grateful that life circumstances are affording me the opportunity to pleasure read as much as I am – certainly more than I have in a very long time – so I figured I’d pause and reflect a bit periodically here on some of what I’m reading, since most of it is related to education.

“Have you ever felt as if a supervisor, coworker, or even your own school board was trying to sabotage you?” reads the bright yellow text on the back of Escaping the School Leader’s Dunk Tank: How to Prevail when Others Want to See You Drown, by Rebecca Coda & Rick Jetter.  Thankfully, the answer for me in my current position/district is a resounding NO, but that hasn’t always been the case throughout my career.  It’s through that lens – of a targeted employee, not necessarily a targeted leader – that I read this book, and I think the stories were just as relatable and the advice just as relevant.

The bulk of the book is anecdotes shared by current and former school leaders – an assorted variety of principals, superintendents, and other similar building- and district-level administrators – followed by relevant commentary and insight from the authors.  I think it would be easy for the uninitiated to read these stories and engage in a bit of Monday-morning quarterbacking, but do so at your own risk.  It’s very easy to read about these horrible situations from a neutral third-party perspective, but I’m here to tell you that the decisions and analysis don’t come quite as easy when you’re mired in the thick of it.

If you’re lucky enough to never have had that bullseye on your back, I recommend reading this while waters are calm so you know the warning signs to look out for (or, equally as valuable: know that there may never be warning signs and a bad situation could just hit you out of the blue – when and how you respond is even more crucial then).  If you are currently experiencing or have experienced this, Dunk Tank offers some tips for how to be proactive as well as how to cope and respond if and when things begin to go south.

As I reflect on my own dunk tank experiences (admittedly mild by the book’s standards, but my employment was still at stake), I think the biggest takeaways from this book that I would have found most helpful at the time were:

  • It’s not you, it’s them (maybe).  I’m good at owning up to my mistakes, my failures, and my shortcomings, and I’ve always been on the lookout for ways to be a better scholar, writer, teacher, psychologist, administrator, friend, dad, and husband.  That’s a big part of why my dunk tank experience impacted me so much and the residual effects lingered – what did I do?  Why wasn’t I good enough?  Didn’t I try my best?  Am I just not cut out for this?  Am I a failure?  Coda & Jetter would suggest that while introspection is good, sometimes the person trying to dunk you has reasons, agendas, or issues all their own, and you’re just collateral damage.  If it wasn’t me in the dunk tank at that time, it would have been somebody else (and subsequent experience has confirmed that to be the case for me).  Look inward but don’t consume yourself; sometimes, the problem really does lie with someone else.
  • Quitting isn’t quitting.  There may come a point in your dunk tank experience when you need to take a long, hard look at the situation and decide if you can continue to work there.  I know this is much easier said than done in most cases, but taken on balance, what is more important: the job you currently have in which you are being set up for failure, or your long-term mental and physical health?  I think in our profession especially, leaving a job can be seen as admitting defeat or “giving up”, and I admit to falling victim to that mentality from time to time as well.  But when you have tried everything to stay out of the dunk tank, then tried everything to get out of the dunk tank, and you’re still in the dunk tank, well… that’s a call you have to make for yourself in your specific life situation.  I know that for me, staying and trying to make a bad situation better was a Sisyphean task, and leaving really was the only thing I could do to improve my situation, and better to do so on my own terms than on someone else’s.  It was scary as hell at the time, but in retrospect, has proven in spades to have been the right decision.

I think I have one more post on the dunk tank in me, but I’ll cut it here for now.  In the meantime, my final thoughts on this book are these: while this book is aimed at school leaders, I’d suggest that anyone who works in a hierarchical organization could benefit from the stories, insights, and lessons shared in this book and apply them to their own situations.  Give it a read yourself, or – even better – get your administrative team to do a book study on it!

Teaching Social Media at #Techspo17

I was fortunate to be selected – along with my colleagues Andrew Zuckerman and Natalie Richey – to present our talk Teaching Social Media: Lessons Learned from Year One at the NJ Association of School Administrators’ annual Techspo event in Atlantic City this past week.  The session focused on our collective experience of rolling out an elective course called Intro to Social Media at our district high school.  The session description/sales pitch to the planning committee starts like this, and I think it nicely encapsulates the seed that eventually grew into this class, which first ran in the 2015-2016 school year:

Students today have unprecedented access to social media but may not have structured opportunities in which to think critically about how and why they use it, and why doing so is important.

If you’re interested in viewing the presentation slides, you can do so here (within is also a link to our curriculum document), but this post is not meant to be a presentation rehash.  Rather, I want to highlight some of my thought process going into the day, as well as share some feedback we received.

Photo credit: Elissa Malespina

The Road to Techspo

I attended the 2016 event and was disappointed that none of the sessions really pushed my thinking the way that those at an EduCon or an Edcamp have.  I didn’t feel I learned anything new, and – at the risk of sounding snobby – I felt pretty strongly that if this represented the cutting edge, both my district (collectively) and I (personally) were fairly far ahead of it.  I decided that if I was going to go back, I wanted to share some of what we were doing in our district, if for no other reason than to help push the conversation/standard a bit further.  Based on the feedback from the organization and the participants, I think we accomplished that.

Feedback

Feedback from participants was overwhelmingly positive.  A common theme I heard from our participants was that they had never seen anything like this before (I’m taking that as a compliment, regardless of how it was meant!).  Many schools have one-off lessons here and there on “digital citizenship” or – worse – scare tactics about the dangers and horrors of social media.  Maybe it’s integrated into a technology class; maybe it’s a grade-level assembly.  Either way, none of our participants had ever heard of an entire high school level course solely dedicated to critical examination of social media, and many told us they left our session excited to explore the possibility of implementing one in their districts.

This matches our experience.  As Andrew, Natalie, and I all sought models upon which to base this course as we developed it over the summer of 2015, we found nothing.  That doesn’t mean it’s not out there, but if it is, not one of us could find it (I’ve since learned that Howard Rheingold has made public his syllabus from his Stanford course Social Media Literacies).

We also spoke with quite a few folks who wished to come observe a class session or two, which we are happy to accommodate, and I extend the same offer to you – if you can make it to central NJ, drop me a line or hit me up on Twitter and we’ll make it happen.

It’s worth noting that I was cool up until about an hour before we went on, when my Impostor Syndrome went into overdrive and I began to think of all the holes people might poke in our presentation – and publicly, no less.  Fortunately for my fragile ego’s well-being, the presentation was warmly received all around, and might even be responsible for the development of similar courses around the state.

We were also asked to write up a short 3-4 paragraph blurb on our story for an upcoming edition of the NJASA newsletter, which we’ll happily do.  In fact, that got me thinking that another professional organization of which I am a member publishes a magazine consisting solely of member-authored articles once or twice a year; we could certainly submit to that publication as well.

Reflections on the Process

Sometimes presentations are stressful (for any number of reasons), and sometimes even group efforts become one-man or one-woman shows.  My experience putting this presentation together with Natalie and Andrew underscores what I always say about my experience in my district: it’s an environment that truly values and supports collaboration.  What is perhaps even more unusual is that the three of us operate in different tiers of the district hierarchy: Andrew is our Director of Instructional Services (and my direct supervisor), I am an Instructional Supervisor who oversees a half-dozen different disciplines across all grade levels, and Natalie is a Business Teacher at our high school (and one of my supervisees).

None of that mattered, though, in the development of both the course curriculum and the presentation.  We worked together – sometimes face-to-face, sometimes asynchronously – but without any of the nonsense of pulling rank or exerting undue influence (at least not explicitly; I know that power and influence is sometimes exerted more subtly or unconsciously.  I do as much as I can to combat that but I suppose it’s never really removed from the equation).

We asked questions, we listened to each other, and we all respected the three very unique perspectives each brought to the table.  This was probably most evident in the revision of the curriculum last spring, during which Natalie – who had taught the course for a year and had the most intimate knowledge of the daily classroom environment – was the primary driver of discussion, and I – with more experience in both teaching and curriculum development – helped shape and give form to it all.

Finally, a few words on the course itself: we mentioned during the presentation that we run it out of the Business Department as an elective, but with a little revision of focus, I think it could just as easily and just as effectively be taught as an English, Social Studies, or Technology course.  So much of what the course deals with (as we run it, anyway) has students grappling with big-picture questions of ethics and the disparities between the evolution of technology and the evolution of the law that it would be right at home in any of those departments.  Additionally, social media plays a role in so many current events that teachers will never want for fresh discussion topics.  The other edge of that sword, I suppose, is that it can be exhausting for a teacher to keep up with the latest tech and latest developments, but it’s a deal I’d gladly take, were I in the position to do so.

Since my dissertation defense in October 2014 and a few public addresses surrounding my doc program graduation in January 2015, I’ve had a bit of a dry spell in terms of presentations the last few years.  After giving a small workshop at the beginning of the month, it felt good to get back in front of an audience on a bigger (read: statewide) platform such as Techspo.  Hopefully there will be more to come soon.

 

#SAVMP Prompt 2: #Thankful

This post wasn’t originally intended to be part of the SAVMP series, but it really does fit the theme, so I’m going with it.

Let’s share what we are THANKFUL for. Do you have amazing colleagues? A student that makes it a joy to come to work each day? The most amazing office staff on the planet? Tag them, celebrate them, and let them know they are appreciated. Share the GOOD.

Between staff observations, curriculum work, program development, budget planning, meetings (oh, the meetings), and the everyday “putting out fires”, school administrators are a busy bunch.  It’s very easy to get carried away in the crush of it all, but that’s also precisely why it is so important to intentionally pause to share your gratitude for the people who make the work possible.

On this day, the day before Thanksgiving in the U.S., I wanted to pause to let the staff I supervise know that I see them and I appreciate them.  I sent them this message this morning:

Good morning everyone,

In the spirit of the season, I thought I would share with you some of what I am thankful for.

  • I am thankful for our art teachers, who teach our students to view the world and express themselves through a multitude of lenses.
  • I am thankful for our business teachers, who teach our students to navigate the ever-changing economic landscape of today and tomorrow.
  • I am thankful for our music and theater teachers, who teach our students to tell the great stories of history, as well as their own, with equal passion.
  • I am thankful for our librarians, who teach our students critical information literacy skills and foster their love of reading.
  • I am thankful for our technology teachers, who teach our students to be critical and ethical consumers and creators of technology.
  • I am thankful for our family & consumer science teachers, who teach our students to understand the importance – and foster the well-being – of the “cultural kaleidoscope” of individuals, family, and community.

Thank you for all that you do for students everyday, which are far too numerous to list but are most definitely appreciated.

Have a relaxing holiday weekend,

Damian

Our challenge moving forward should be to demonstrate our gratitude regularly – not just on holidays – through both our words and our actions.

#SAVMP Prompt 1: Connecting with Community

The SAVMP collaborative has issued its first prompt for discussion between mentor & mentee, as well as blogging:

What are some ways you connect with your school community?

I guess there are a few ways to read this prompt.  If we’re talking about the community of people within the district – the students and employees – then there are a few ways I have tried to make these connections as an administrator:

  • Be visible in person.  I am an instructional supervisor with staff in seven buildings across our district.  Although our buildings are (mercifully) all within a few miles of one another, it can still be challenging for me to get out to each one on a regular basis, given the “desk jockey” portion of my job.  I do try, however, to touch base with folks in all buildings across the K-12 spectrum at least once a week.  I may not see everybody every week, but I try to get into each building once a week.  I won’t always achieve this goal, depending on how my responsibilities and obligations ebb and flow over the course of a month, but it’s always something I’m shooting for.
  • Be visible online.  As I make my rounds, I (and many of my admin colleagues) do our best to document the great work our staff is doing by snapping pics and/or Tweeting about what we’re seeing or doing.  When we tag our tweets with our district hashtag #LTPS, anyone searching the hashtag (as many of our staff and community members do) can get a snapshot of what’s happening around the district.  This helps close some of the geographic gaps that separate us, and also do at least a little bit to break down the silos in which we often work in education.
  • Make time for people.  When people reach out to me with questions, concerns, or for any other reason, more often than not, I will drop what I’m doing and make time to speak with them.  This isn’t necessarily the most time-efficient thing for me to do, but I do feel that it has helped me to build relationships and trust with my staff members.  Not that I necessarily do everything that is asked of me at that moment, but I hope this sends a message that my staff and their needs are more important to me than paperwork.
  • Shut up and listen.  Super hard for me to do, but super essential.  When my staff does come to me, I close my mouth and listen to what they have to say.  My natural inclination is to immediately want to start talking and problem-solve; while I freely admit I’m not always successful in suppressing that urge, it is something I have worked on and continue to work on.  I never want my people to feel that I’m de-centering their needs or feelings and making anything about me.  Once I’ve heard everything and made sure I understand, I can then ask clarifying questions and start to brainstorm solutions with their input.  Sometimes asking, “Well, what do you think we should do?” is all it takes – more often than not, folks have a sense of what needs to be done; they just want to know that the admin trusts them to implement their solution.

If we’re talking about engaging with the community in which the school system exists – parents, businesses, organizations, etc. – then there are some other strategies you can use.  What follows is not necessarily a list of things I have done in my position, but that leaders in my district have done:

  • Community Conversations:  In the run-up to developing our five-year strategic plan, the district hosted a series of evening Community Conversations, in which we invited all stakeholders in the community to share their concerns and thoughts about the direction of the district.  We did this in a structured way, in breakout sessions, and distilled major themes from all the feedback received in the various sessions.  From these, we developed not only our four-point strategic plan goals, but also many of the objectives and actions needed to achieve them.  Through this process, the community had a voice in the movement of the district.
  • Take it to the streets: Sometimes it’s difficult for the community to come to us.  Work obligations, child care issues, and any number of other barriers exist that prevent some members of our community from coming to our evening Community Conversations.  In an effort to increase outreach to more of our community, our superintendent recently began taking our show on the road.  She has scheduled a series of Conversations in the Community: opportunities for community members to speak with her in relatively informal settings like local businesses and private residences.  She also conducts these events during “non-traditional” school event hours, e.g., 1pm on a Sunday afternoon.  Our Board of Education has begun to follow suit, holding meetings in remote locations.

Re-reading this post, nothing in the top section seems particularly groundbreaking to me; however, I think the difficult part is not necessarily knowing what to do, but rather figuring out how to do it while balancing the myriad other responsibilities of an administrator.

How you engage with your school community can – and probably will – look different depending on the role you play within a school district.  Regardless of position, however, connecting with the community – within the school and without – is a crucial part of building a positive, inclusive culture in your building and district.

#SAVMP 2016-2017

Moving ever onward out of my comfort zone in the name of professional growth, I signed up to participate in SAVMP for the 2016-2017 school year. SAVMP is the School Administrator Virtual Mentoring Program, and I volunteered to serve as a mentor to aspiring and novice administrators.

I know I’m only just beginning my third year, but in my experience, being in a position such as mentor or student teacher supervisor has helped me to clarify and codify my own thinking on any number of topics, situations, or challenges.  I’ve spent the last two years learning by the side of some excellent mentors in my own district, and while I’ve also tried to pay it forward to my admin colleagues who joined the district after me, I’d like to think I also have something to offer a fledgling administrator elsewhere in the Twittersphere.

Back in the heady days of 2007-2009, edu-Twitter seemed to me to be more about connecting with and learning from one another (it’s felt more like a self-promotion engine/mutual admiration society to me for the last few years, but that’s another post for another day).  The teachers we interviewed for The End of Isolation called out the networking and professional collaboration aspect of Twitter specifically as a primary benefit of the service.  Maybe it’s nostalgia, maybe it’s something else, but when I heard about the call for mentors, I thought this would be some small positive step I could take to help someone out as I’ve been helped as I transitioned to this new professional role.

An additional benefit (for me) is that apparently there will be blogging prompts.  I look forward to those, as I’ve been lacking for structure and focus for blogging of late.  I anticipate this will be a mutually beneficial project for both my mentee and me.

If you’re interested in seeing what this is all about, check out the hashtag #SAVMP on Twitter.