More
Susan Loucks-Horsley [remote] ( sloucks@WestEd.org )
Mon, 05 Aug 1996 12:19:36 -0800
Like most if not all of you, I've been totally immersed in programs
this past month. When I said I'd moderate this discussion, I
suspected, and now I'm sure, that "real life" would impinge on
thoughtful, careful dialogue on complex issues. But, I reasoned,
real life IS about these issues, so it will force me to be reflective
(very easy not to be when you're constantly getting on planes). I'm
very excited about the discussion we've seen over these airwaves (now
there's something very un-scientific) this summer, although I recall
that there is a difference between discussion and dialogue and
sometimes I feel as if there's more "parallel play" than real
listening to/hearing each other than responding. I'd suggest this is
our way of getting to know each other: sharing what we care about and
do and looking for some common ground to actually dialogue around.
The issues brought up are all so interesting and important -- born
and made leaders, empowerment and direct instruction, r&d models and
emergent reform, differences in the disciplines and leadership
required, personal and system change. We need to keep talking about
them. Let me dive in after a month out of the conversation and add
my 2 cents. My time away has included visits to two teacher
enhancement projects that I'm evaluating and a week helping to
facilitate a science leadership development institute in Alaska
(Peggy referred to it in her message). MUCH food for thought. My
guess is that all of you have too been immersed in projects and so
have living questions and issues and stuff to contribute. First I'd
like to note that (it may be my being a Libra contributes), I'd come
down about in the middle of all the issues we've been talking about.
For example, in the leadership institute I mentioned, we chose to have
the teachers bring their own contexts and leadership challenges and
needs to the table (as Dennis talked about) while we brought to them
some tools and strategies. One goal was to broaden their ideas about
leadership roles and activities, as Jim suggested, since most of them
came with the idea that their roles were confined to training other
teachers. While we expanded that vision early, we chose to focus on
two roles: leaders in professional development (THAT defined very
broadly as the professional learning of others in a wide variety of
formats and contexts) and in change (i.e., as change agents). Dennis
early remarked on the problem with presenting generic leadership ideas
(e.g., Covey, etc.), and sure enough they didn't relate much to
Senge's ideas of systems thinking (except the three roles of new
leaders, which I think are keenly important -- as designer (Jane!),
teacher, and steward), but they did dive into the tools andn ideas
that were closer to their reality. We played the Change Game, which
is based on the implementation literature, including the
Concerns-Based Adoption Model, near and dear to my heart. We drew on
professional development characteristics and alternative models from
the Professional Developer's Toolkit that Mary Kay referred to. And
all the while we had them relating these ideas to their own
situation. Where are the people you work with in the change process?
How can elements of the system, including administrators, be more
closely aligned with our shared vision of effective science teaching
and learning? What different models for professional development
could you bring into your school, district, even the training (I use
that word carefully) you do with teachers statewide? Etc. etc.
Throughout our week together we also designed in "non-institute" or
indirect opportunities to learn: a heavy emphasis on networking and
developing a strong cadre of support for each other; careful modeling
of effective teaching and learning for adults -- and being
"metacognitive" about it, i.e., talking about what we were doing and
why, how it was working or not (not everything did, naturally), but
working the issues together. Finally, we worked hard on how to keep
the institute from being a "one-shot" experience -- how to maintain
the momentum, the collaborative work, the sense of partnership and
working on hard common issues together.
The reason I'm describing this is to offer a concrete example of
leadership development to dialogue around, if that would be useful.
It seems to me that every one who has contributed to the discussion
so far does something to nurture and support leadership; I mentioned
early on that I try to do it though "direct instruction" as well as
collaborative work on people's own issues. THis combination seems to
address some, but not all, of the dilemmas we've raised in our
discussion so far. To bring in Jane's ideas about redesign (the
Wilson book is high on my to-be-read stack, but not opened yet), the
r&d process certainly has a place for preparing people to help in
scale-up, and that's what I see as one important goal of leadership
development. What I've learned from Jane's and others' reports of
Ken's book, though, is that we can benefit as well from reading more
of Fullan's responses to what seems more of a linear approach to
change. His Kappan articles, "Getting Reform Right" and "Turning
Systemic REform on Its Head" (titles are close but not exact) , and
book, Change Forces, could be interesting complementary reading to
the Wilson book. But I'm going on too long -- far beyond what is
suggested a moderator do, i.e., ask good questions and raise issues
-- and I'm interested in what other busy people have to say, ask,
add, etc. I believe this discussion is worth carrying on for a long
time, even if as individuals our tune-in times and contributions are
sporadic. Susan
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