Category: Looking
Why Bubblecatchers Matter
A few days ago, My family and I went for dinner at Anne’s house. Anne was one of my Mum’s closest friends when we lived in Tanzania in the 80s, and I haven’t seen her for 31 years. During the evening, I spotted a very nice notebook on the coffee table in front of us… “nice Bubblecatcher” I said.
“Ooooh yes… Bubblecatchers!” Anne replied with incredible enthusiasm.
It turns out that, for many years, Anne has shown her students at the International School of Tanganyika – and her students in the school she works in now – the video of my Learning2 talk in which I shared the story and concept of Bubblecatchers.
As we talked about how she has used them, I was reminded – again – of their profound importance, of the many nuanced habits that they encourage, of the way they can change and enhance relationships with writing for all sorts of purposes, the way they can become beautiful records of our lives and contain nuggets of information – written, drawn, scribbled, stuck in – that may reveal their importance at any moment.
Just this morning, I posted the photo on the left during breakfast in Zanzibar. On the other side of the world, my Mum – an avid Bubble Catcher – remembered a sketch she had done from almost the exact same spot over 30 years beforehand. She dug through her many notebooks, found the sketch and sent it to me.
When that kind of thing happens, there is a definite magic to it.
And, I think, there is a magic to the Bubblecatcher concept.
As teachers, we continue to fabricate things for students to write about… and are still surprised when they are reluctant to write, when they can see right through the situation and realize there is no genuine reason to write. They are not fools, they know they are being asked to write “just because”. That justification went out of fashion years ago.
Bubblecatchers turn this situation around. Life is full of reasons to write that require no fabrication. When we give our students rich and varied experiences, when we put them in situations or contexts that are interesting or inspiring, when we empower them by helping them see that the things they do, the things they need to do and the things they have done are valuable and worth remembering… then writing them down makes perfect sense.
And, their Bubblecatcher is the perfect place to write them.
Next school year, I challenge all teachers to be like Anne and take their students on the Bubblecatcher journey. Take them somewhere to buy notebooks, or just give them a week or two to buy them in their own time (choosing their own is an important ingredient). Then, bring in the habit of jotting things down in them, of carrying them around to different learning experiences, of quickly writing to-do lists at the end of the day, of taking notes and quotes when watching a video, of doodling in them when there’s some time to spare, of pausing for a moment and recording how you all feel.
And, have your own Bubblecatcher so you are with them.
Don’t mark the writing, but also make sure it is not always private. Invite students to read things out sometimes. Model the enjoyment of the words, model the satisfaction of crossing out an item on a list, give them the beautiful sensation of having something they said become a quote that shifts your collective understanding.
Let your pedagogy create the bubbles… and then let the notebooks catch them.
P.S. a digital replacement is a cop-out, don’t kid yourself. A real Bubblecatcher doesn’t need charging.
The effect of our encounters
Chad Walsh and I recently ran two 3-day workshops at a school in the Netherlands. One of our goals was to leave several mantras behind that would help the leadership team and the faculty focus in on some of the main themes that revealed themselves before, during and after the workshops. One of those mantras was “connect up”.
Chad had picked this up while doing some work with Neil Farrelly, and we found ourselves saying it a lot as we explored communication, relationships and encounters within the faculty. Like in many schools, there had been some situations in which the encounters between colleagues had left one or more of them feeling down, disheartened, disempowered, disengaged, disappointed, disrespected… lots of “dis” words! The concept of connecting up really seemed to resonate as something that could create positive change in the school.
So, what does it mean?
Well, basically it means intentionally trying to make sure that all of your encounters lead to an upward connection, such as:
- feeling more empowered
- feeling uplifted
- feeling affirmed
- feeling more energized
- feeling more connected to someone
- feeling seen or heard
- feeling amused or cheerful
- feeling inspired
- feeling curious
- feeling excited
… the list could go on.
Obviously, it’s at its most powerful when everybody is setting out to achieve the same upward connections.
But, you can give it a go next week – see if you can monitor your encounters with other people and get a sense of what effect you might have had on them as a result. You could also gather some informal data about the effect the people you encounter have on you, and start thinking about how that might impact your mood, your mindset or your capacity to be at your best.
Trust: The delicate balance
I know many people who have worked in many schools. A recurring theme in conversation and behaviour is an unwillingness, or inability to trust. A kind of protective wall, probably erected because of previous bad experiences.
I too have found myself silently uttering the negative mantra of “trust nobody” at certain times in my life, nearly always as a result of being “burned” by someone professionally in some way. But, even as I do that, I know that is not a good way to live. If we are all, or if most of us, are living that way in our schools then it means trust is absent from our culture. If trust is absent from our culture then it will become apparent to our students too – they don’t miss much you know! If it becomes apparent to our students it means we are modeling it to them. If we are modeling it to them it is more likely to become a thing for them too.
I’m not writing this post because I have the answer. Bestowing, investing, earning, denying and betraying trust are all complex parts in the bigger complexity of what it means to be human.
What I will say, however, is that there are things that can be done to create the conditions for trust to thrive in our schools. A quick search online, or reading a couple of books will show us that. The most important thing is that leadership teams in schools understand how much trust matters, how much having ways of getting along matters, how intensifying relationships can transform the work… and then setting out to make that a priority for them, and for all the protagonists in the school community.
The only way to make it a priority is to give it thought and give it time.
Forget multi-tasking (it’s B.S.)
There is something utterly compelling about a person who does one thing, and who does that one thing deeply.
Think about how transfixed we are by TV shows about bakers, tailors, photographers, make-up artists, chefs, glass-blowers, BBQ-ers, farmers, designers, surfers… its a very, very long list. But the common thread is that these are all people who do one thing, and who do that one thing deeply.
If you’re like me, when you’re learning about people like that, you experience a mixture of emotions that range from awe to envy.
But, mostly, it makes me ask questions:
- How did they find their thing?
- What is my thing?
- How do we help young people find their thing?
- Is it good to have “a thing“?
- Does “school” help people find their thing?
- How many disciplines can blend into one thing?
- Do we find our thing by accident… through serendipity?
- How do we create the conditions for serendipity in schools?
- What is the relationship between having a thing and being happy… or fulfilled?
- What is like to ‘be fulfilled’?
These are complex questions… each worthy of a long and detailed study. If doing so is our thing!
Personally, I’d love to work in a school that was designed to help students identify things they want to work on deeply, for extended periods of time. A school dedicated to the pursuit of the flow state. Sadly, I probably never will… it just doesn’t seem to be compatible with the school institution.
In the meantime, perhaps something I can take away is that multi-tasking is B.S. When we’re multi-tasking, we’re doing several things badly. Our concentration is fragmented and interrupted. People who have a thing are generally “mono-tasking”, their concentration is focused, their time is dedicated to doing that thing fully, deeply.
So, I suppose the actual thing is less important than the knowledge that we need to mono-task, to allow ourselves to focus fully on what we’re doing… knowing, without doubt, that we do things better that way because years and years of human history tells us that is the case – no matter how unfashionable that may be.
Meandering thoughts and reflections…
A colleague of mine shared an interesting article with me over the weekend that gave me a bit of a kick in the ass. First, he caught me in a moment where I realised that I should be writing, it has been too long. Not because I fancy myself as a writer by any means, more as a way to grow and reflect to be better and do better. The second reason propelled me to reflect about my experiences over the years. Below I’ve tried to capture points that demand radical transparency to build my own self-awareness in my professional and personal life.
In the article mentioned above, it stated that 95% of people think they are self-aware. After a 5 year study their findings were very different. About 5-10% of people are actually self-aware. Surely, most of us are too stimulated and distracted to ensure we consistently dedicate time to deeply reflect. I find the reflection piece quite easy. It is the daily discipline that leads to behavioural change that is the true test. To me that action and motivation needs to be in sync with wanting to make positive changes to grow as a person and learn from experience.
This got me thinking… What experiences have revealed more about me, (ego, biases, assumptions and realities) and the people I have worked with over the years.
Over my career there have been many peaks and valleys. Every moment with impact has shaped and uncovered countless lessons. I’m going to do my best to offer some pearlers (yes, at least I think they are) that I have come to value as insights for me to learn from and bring with me for the road ahead.
Alright, let’s dive right in…
Share the things that are hardest to share.
While it might be tempting to limit transparency to the things that can’t hurt you, it is especially important to share the things that are most difficult to share, because if you don’t share them you will lose the trust and partnership of the people you are not sharing with. So when faced with the decision to share the hardest things, the question should be not whether to share but how.
Be extremely open.
Discuss your issues until you are in sync with each other or until you understand each other’s positions and can determine what should be done.
Don’t worry about whether or not people like you.
Just worry about making the best decisions possible, recognising that no matter what you do, some will think you’re doing something – or many things – wrong. Sometimes you have to make unpopular decisions. Explain the why behind it, make tough calls and own it when you get it wrong. It’s ok. Be humble. They will respect you if they understand the bigger picture.
Be weak and strong at the same time.
Sometimes asking questions to gain perspective can be misperceived as being weak and indecisive. Of course it’s not. It’s necessary in order to become wise and it is a prerequisite for being strong and decisive. Always seek the advice of wise others and let those who are better than you to take the lead. The objective is to have the best understanding to make the best possible leadership decisions.
Allow time for rest and renovation.
If you just keep doing, you will burn out and grind to a halt. Build downtime into your schedule just as you would make time for all the other stuff that needs to get done.
Beware of fiefdoms.
While it’s great for teams to feel a strong bond of shared purpose, loyalty to a ‘boss’ (or another team member) cannot be allowed to conflict with loyalty to the organisation as a whole.
Make sure decision rights are clear.
Make sure it’s clear how much weight each person’s vote has so that if a decision must be made when there is still disagreement, there is no doubt how to resolve it.
Make finding the right people systematic and scientific.
The process for choosing people should be systematically built out and evidence-based. Also show candidates your warts by being open and honest. Show your job prospects the real picture. That way you will stress-test their willingness to endure the real challenges.
Fall well.
Everyone fails. The people I respect the most are the ones that fail well. I respect them even more than the ones that succeed. People who are just succeeding must not be pushing the limits.
Know that nobody can see themselves objectively.
We all have blind spots; people are by definition subjective. For this reason, it is everyone’s responsibility to help others learn what is true about themselves by giving them honest feedback, holding them accountable, and working through disagreements in an open-minded way.
When you have alignment, cherish it.
While there is nobody in the world that will share your point of view on everything, there are people who will share your most important values and the ways in which you choose to live them out. Make sure you end up with those people.
Assess believability by systematically capturing people’s track records over time.
Every day is not a new day. Over time, a body of evidence builds up, showing which people can be relied on and which cannot. Track records matter.
Know when to stop debating and move on to agreeing about what should be done.
I have seen people who agree on the major issues waste hours arguing over details. It’s more important to do big things well than to do small things perfectly. But when people disagree on the importance of debating something, it probably should be debated. Operating otherwise would essentially five someone a de facto veto.
The same standards of behaviour apply to everyone.
Whenever there is a dispute, both parties are required to have equal levels of integrity, to be open-minded and assertive, and to be equally considerate.
Pay north of fair.
Be generous or at least a little north of fair with others in terms of salary and benefits. This will undoubtedly enhance both work and the relationship. This comes back 10 times when people feel valued. Don’t nickel or dime people over small things.
Learn about your people and have them learn about you through frank conversations about mistakes and their root cause.
You need to be clear when recognising and communicating people’s weaknesses. It is one of the most difficult things to do. It takes character on the part of both participants to get to the truth and find a positive way forward.
Look for creative, cut-through solutions.
When people are facing thorny problems or have too much to do, they often think that they need to work harder. But if something seems hard, time-consuming and frustrating, take time to step back and triangulate with others on whether there might be a better way to handle it.
Do what you say you will do.
Show others that you execute – it’s contagious. This one does not need further explanation.
In the interest of this becoming too big – I’ll leave it here. This has been inspired by ‘Principles.’ What shapes your code? For another time.
Set-up. It’s more important than you think.
Recently, Chad and I ran three days of professional development at United World College Maastricht.
Every session had a different focus: we wanted to provoke different types of thinking; we wanted people to collaborate (or not) differently; we wanted people to experience different emotions and sensations; we wanted people to move (or not) in different ways.
Over the course of three days, we must have changed the physical set-up of the space more than 10 times. We moved, changed, found, borrowed, adapted and replaced furniture, lighting, display boards, music, scents and resources over and over again to try and achieve the desired effect.
This is not something we just do for teachers. It has become a natural part of our pedagogy. If we want students to think, feel or act in a particular way – which we always do – then we take the time to set up for that. We don’t just assume it will happen and then get all disappointed (or, worse still, blame students) when it doesn’t happen.
So:
- when we want students to focus on one thing, we set up a space in which all other distractions are removed
- when we want students to be calm, we set up a calm atmosphere with lighting and music
- when we want students to create, we set up a studio space that promotes creativity
- when we want students to collaborate, we set up furniture that encourages togetherness
- when we want students to be able to access materials easily, we set up so that everything is accessible quickly and easily
- when we want students to…
I could go on… but I think you’re getting the point! The only time we don’t set things up for students is when we want them to set things up for themselves, when that is the focus of the learning. But, come to think of it, that involves some setting up too!
The scary thing about setting up for learning is that there are many educators out there who don’t do it, who don’t see the purpose or the power of it, who don’t take the time to ensure that their students are thinking, feeling or acting in a way that maximises their potential in each learning situation. Then, when their students are fidgety, when their students misbehave, when their students don’t produce what they’re capable of, when their students’ thinking doesn’t go as deep as it could, when their students make thoughtless choices, when their students struggle to find the materials they need, when their students become irritable… they point the finger at their students, not the fact that they didn’t spend 30 minutes setting up.
Think of the classroom, or learning space, as a series of dinner parties. Take the time to create environments and atmospheres according to the purpose.
It works.
Thinking Aloud
There are some great minds out there in different circles. Leaders and teachers doing creative things to explore and examine Who we are and Who we want to become. You just have to look at the steady stream of books being published about the importance of people, relationships, community and culture development in schools, and for life in general.
It’s all great stuff!
For inquiring minds, it creates time and space for contemplation and introspection. However, this is only where the seed is planted. The real growth happens when the germination of ideas breaks through the soil to reveal one’s conscious effort and energy to put words into action. Not only to learn more about Who we are, but to understand why we are the way we are.
It all starts with the notion of ‘Working From Within.’ We need to work on ourselves before we expect our culture or community to change. The climate of our culture, environment and community is a direct reflection of who we are as individuals.
Challenge: Over the course of a week, when chatting with people about a concern or issue do an audit on whether the person you’re talking to is doing one of two things:
- Looking at external factors or forces to explain or make sense of how things could be better; or,
- Looking within to explain or make sense of how things could have been handled differently.
There are many ways you can view the above circles depending on the situation and context.
How can we increase the circle of “What I say to other people,” in the way of honest feedback or challenging negativity without placing pressure or straining the relationship?
While all these books tell us to have radical candor, give feedback, be open and honest…. it’s all great stuff, it really is. In theory. In practice, when feedback is given or there is challenge, the reality is, that after such an interaction, things shift. In the end, we are human.
How can we truly express the things we want to say or more importantly need to be said with grace and honesty, in a way where others understand and the relationship deepens?
We all know of people who are forward and have a steady stream of consciousnesses. We all know of people, who live in their heads and keep it locked there. And then there is everything in-between.
Right now, it feels like (it is like) we are always skimming the surface. We talk a big game, yet we’re constantly traversing and balancing our weight on a tight rope filtering through these circles.
Is it just in schools that it is like this? A lot of us have never left school in the way of a being a student and then coming back as a work place. I wonder what it is like in the police force, hospitals, business firms, law office, construction site……….
It’s not what we say to people, it’s how we say it. Easy to say, more difficult to do.
Developing a culture starts with you. Parts to the whole. What is one thing you’re going to do to be true to your inner thoughts?
7 Habits of Highly Collaborative Educators
Although meetings are a context for collaboration, they are not collaboration itself. It is totally possible for collaboration to exist without meetings, and it is also totally possible for meetings to exist without collaboration.
True collaboration becomes part of a school culture when educators are inclined to be collaborative. Not because they have been told to collaborate, but because they can see the value in it for learning.
This inclination to be collaborative involves a number of habits. Here’s my take on what 7 of them might be…
- Friendliness – Highly collaborative educators are basically friendly. They enjoy chatting with people, and this opens up a myriad of possibilities to enrich learning. Because they are friendly, other teachers like hanging out with them and this makes it much easier to work together. Pretty simple really.
- Being curious –Â Highly collaborative educators are naturally curious, always asking questions and always interested in what is going around them. This curiosity is infectious and invites other teachers and students to get involved. Curious people are more likely to stick their head into other classrooms, more likely to probe in order to find out what people really mean and more likely to take an interest in what other people think. They are learners and are highly aware of how much there is to learn from their colleagues, students and community.*
- Looking and listening for connections –Â Highly collaborative educators want to be collaborative and are, consciously or subconsciously, alert and actively seeking out connections and relationships with ideas, knowledge, talents, skills, thoughts, places and people. Because of this natural connectivity inclination, highly collaborative people become more receptive to coincidence, serendipity and good fortune that can make learning rich, complex and real.
- Continuing the thinking –Â Highly collaborative educators don’t switch their brains off when they leave the school campus and back on again when they arrive the next day. They’re still thinking late into the night, jotting down notes, sharing ideas on social media, reading blogs, contacting other educators and collaborating with a wide variety of networks. In addition, they generally like to share what they’ve learned with their colleagues over coffee the next day and don’t feel ashamed about “talking shop”!
- Putting learning first – Highly collaborative educators automatically generate more work for themselves by putting learning first, they can’t help themselves! When you put learning first, you remain open to all possibilities and are always keen to explore them further to see if they will have an impact on learning, and these possibilities frequently involve collaborating with other people.
- Making time –Â Highly collaborative educators do not allow themselves to use time as an excuse not to collaborate. If there’s an idea they want to share with a colleague, they make the time to talk to them. If someone needs or wants to talk with them, they make time to listen generously. If an idea demands more time to become fully developed, they make the time to work on it. Most importantly, they don’t wait to be told what time they can collaborate, they just do it instinctively.
- Making thinking visible –Â Highly collaborative people invite others to join them by putting their thinking “out there”. They are honest about what they think, they make crazy suggestions, they verbalise possibilities, they expose their vulnerabilities, they take public notes and draw visuals in meetings, they offer to help, they leave their doors open (or remove them), they stick post-its on the wall, they display quotes, they write, they share. Far from being about attention-seeking or self-promotion, these tendencies are all about looking for like minds, allies and the desire to be better educators.
Would you add more to this list?
Thanks to Chye de Ryckel for asking the question that prompted me to write this blog post!
*Thanks to Alison Francis for adding more to the Being curious habit.
Artwork: Totem Pole by Ken Vieth
Wake up! Slow down. Leave time for learning.
I caught myself again.
The last time was in 2013 and I wrote about it then too.
What did I catch myself doing? Rushing my children… and, by doing so, denying them countless opportunities to learn.
We’ve just moved to Paris. Everything is new. At the moment, the newest things are christmas decorations in the streets and the increasingly intense cold. Every morning, my children just want to look, talk, feel, experience, ponder, notice, appreciate and wonder. But, I have caught myself rushing them. Hurrying them up towards some imaginary or completely unimportant deadline – the need to be early, on time or not late.
It doesn’t really matter if I’m early, on time or not late. My children matter. their experiences of the world matter.
It’s shocking for an educator to do this to his own children. But, we do it to our students every day. We hurry them from lesson to lesson. We dictate their agenda all day. We reduce break times. We don’t give them enough time to eat. We decide if they can go to the toilet or not. We treat “inquiry” as a stand-alone subject that we do in the last period, if they’re lucky. We make their lives busy, indeed we teach the art of “busyness”, as if we don’t trust them to do anything of value if we don’t.
And yet, we all know that the most powerful learning happens when we slow down, when we give them sustained periods of time, when we don’t interrupt and when they’re making choices about why, how and what to learn.
Old habits die hard. How much of modern schooling is still “old habits”?
Incendiary Learning
We’ve always stated that meaningful learning is flammable. It starts with a spark and then ignites! You know when learning has caught fire….. agency ensues and the student drives their learning and not too much can get in their way. The difference between a flame and incendiary learning can be categorized quite easily in terms of duration, desire and determination.
A flame burns during a specific period of time (unit of inquiry) and usually reduces to embers, just like a typical fire. The student was empowered and energized, yet there was a point that they moved on to the next thing.
Incendiary learning catches fire and stays burning bright, long after a unit of inquiry. The student is empowered and energized, and they are still in the fire taking their learning even further, long after the next thing.
A stark contrast. One is perishable and one is enduring.
The subtle difference between ‘was‘ and ‘is‘ has a remarkable difference at the same time. This changes the whole complexion of learning as the ‘energy of learning’ has been sustained and has the learner enthralled.
Last week, I visited a previous School I was at and a number of the students I taught literally, hunted me down. One of those students was Nicole.
This is Nicole as a Grade 5 student chatting with the Head of School (Adrian Watts) and explaining the message she is trying to communicate through her art piece. Her art work is incredibly personal and powerful as she is expressing the importance of finding her voice and expressing who she is. The mouths in the background are all those who have told her that she can’t do anything. With Nicole at the center of her art work, her positivity is radiating out and drowning out the negative and judgmental voices. This was a real turning point for Nicole in developing her self belief. She had a teacher who saw something special, and it was all about allowing her to see that too. This was Step 1 in Nicole’s journey of finding herself.
The next learning experience pushed her even further. Enter the PYP Exhibition. Nicole’s artwork was the first step she needed to take and this naturally led her to explore and better understand her next self-discovery…. putting her new transformative experience of who she is becoming into action and finding direction in the process!
This is Nicole during the Exhibition selling her ‘FABTAB’ (comes in different sizes and colours) at a market at a funky local cafe and skater hangout. This is the moment that shaped her to be a confident and articulate communicator as she interacted with dozens and dozens of people interested in her entrepreneurial idea. Incendiary Learning! Students, parents, teachers and customers were truly astonished!
As I mentioned above, I saw Nicole last week. We got talking and she said that she just made her first nternational order to Ireland of 100 FabTabs….. Nicole is still producing, refining and taking orders, now international orders, for her FabTab. What a journey she has been on and is still very much on. It all started from her artwork, that was the first step she took in believing in herself, because she had someone who believed in her. We must believe in all of our students. Personalize learning, individualize learning, whatever form it takes or looks like, choose the right approach at the right time to connect, develop and strengthen their identity of who they are. Work from that point, work from within! Let students determine their own identity and not the other way around! It is our role to play a hand in nurturing and nudging them in positive ways to see their own potential.
This is exactly what I mean by Incendiary Learning! The fire is still burning bright and Nicole has stretched in ways where she can confidently talk about the learning experience….. long after ‘the unit.’ Nicole has led her learning and is proud of what she has achieved. Agency…… yeah, true Agency at its very core! This is Nicole now in Grade 7 doing a photo shot for this very piece. The relationship and connection seems just like yesterday, still very much alive too!
Again and again…. keep our eye on the ball!
Time Space Education 