Staff Evaluation Of Me

Last spring I read Work Rules by Laszlo Bock, who's the Senior VP of People Operations (Human Resources) at Google. It was an interesting read in many ways, but one particular take away for me was the need to ask more directly for feedback. Like everyone I, of course, get informal day-to-day feedback from the folks I work with, and more formal feedback from my supervising administrator. But that's not the same as specifically asking for feedback, so I decided to ask my colleagues to complete a google form at the beginning of this school year. (I've also posted a link to a Google Form for student feedback for me several places around the building but, so far, I only have one response. If I get some more I'll share that as well.)

When I sat down to create the form I quickly got into the weeds. I wanted specific feedback, yet when I tried writing specific questions I ran into two problems. I felt like the questions were both too "leading" and too "limiting", and to get at everything I wanted feedback on required so many questions that it made the survey way too long. So I eventually decided on a few open-ended questions that I hoped would get me some decent feedback but make the survey short enough that people would complete it.

Here's a screenshot of the survey.

Based on the suggestions in the book and some other things I've read, I decided to go with a simple ranking of 1 to 7, one question on what I do well, one on what I can improve on, and then the usual "anything else they want to add." I was hoping that this would give them enough to give me some valuable feedback without getting too specific or too long. The downside, of course, is that's it's not very specific. They could take it anonymously or give me their name if they wanted to.

Here are the results. This is an exact copy of the actual results, except for the optional name column. In that column I replaced anyone's name with an asterisk for their confidentiality. So, as you look at that column, a blank space indicates that it was an anonymous response and an asterisk that they gave their name. (I received 62 responses. We have about 115 certified staff and about 40 classified staff.)
I think there are a couple of caveats (at least) to keep in mind when looking at these results. First, I think they will tend to skew positive, both because people who were ready to say nice things were more likely to take the time to complete the survey, and just because educators are generally nice. Second, I think you can't read too much into the results (positive or negative) because the questions were so open-ended. I think that's a trade-off I had to make, but still something to keep in mind.

So, I have my own thoughts on what the results mean, but I think I'll keep them to myself for now, because I'd love to hear what other people see in the results without influencing your thinking. So please leave your thoughts in the comments - it would probably be most helpful if you would focus particularly on the "things I could do better column", but all of it is fair game.

Inertia, Obedience, and Faith

This past week I proctored TCAP for the last time. Unfortunately, it was only the last time because the name and content of the test is changing next year. Long-time readers of this blog (both of you) will know I have a bias against testing anyway, so take this with a grain (or ten) of salt, but giving this year's test was even more deeply distressing than normal.

You see, while I have doubts of the efficacy of this test in any given year, this year was obviously a bit different in my school. Given the events of December 13th, and all that has gone on since then, I don't see any way these tests had any statistical validity or reliability. If that is indeed the case, then why give them?

To me, it boils down to a pretty simple question:

Is there anyone on the staff who honestly believes that the best use of our limited time with these students, this year, is spending it giving the TCAP? Or would it be better for them to be attending their regular classes, with their teachers and their peers, learning as part of the Warrior community?

(Keep in mind that freshmen and sophomores took the TCAP for about 10 hours over three days, juniors and seniors stayed home for that time, then we ran a shortened schedule of classes in the afternoon.) While it's certainly possible there might be a few folks that would answer in the affirmative (return to normalcy), I think the vast majority would not. So, again, why give them?

I think the answer lies in a combination of inertia, obedience, and faith. Inertia, because once testing is in motion it tends to stay in motion. Obedience, because folks "higher up" have decided we should do this, so we do. And faith, because even though many of us question the value, we have faith that somehow the system, or the people running it, have made (and will make) the best decisions for our students.

I question that last one. While there are certainly many, many people more knowledgeable than I am about teaching and learning, I'm not so sure there are many, many people who are currently making these decisions that are any more knowledgeable about the future than I am. That's not to say that I am knowledgeable about the future, I'm not. But neither are they, and so much of the justification for the Common Core and standardized testing rest upon assumptions that, at best, are partially accurate.

I've written before about the changing world of work. Yesterday I came across two separate articles that contest some of the assumptions so many folks are making. First, via Will Richardson, I came across this post from John Robb:

Technological change is rapidly killing entire industries and job categories without replacing them. Across the board, incremental productivity improvements are making it possible for employers to get by without hiring new people (even the head of the biggest employer in the World has plans to replace most of his workers with robots). However, that won’t be where we see the greatest losses. Those losses will occur in the industries that are completely gutted from the arrival of products and services that make them obsolete.

As this trend strengthens, we may see results similar to what we saw with the agrarian economy. If that occurs, the extreme endpoint of this decline may be a world where most of the commercial activity in goods and services we see today — from education to health care to manufacturing to transportation to retail to legal services — is accomplished by less than 1% of the people it used to require.

That means only 1 of the hundred jobs being done currently will be left. More strikingly, it’s very likely this won’t take the 200 years it took agriculture to go from 95% of the population to less than 1%. It’s going to be much, much faster this time due to the speed at which improvements can be distributed (software/data). Given this catalyst, we may find ourselves more than half of the way there within twenty years.

Another catalyst will be economic crisis. With each successive crisis, there will an increased competition for the remaining economic scraps. This competition will force companies to use technology more aggressively as a replacement for workers. Economic crisis will also force bankrupt governments to radically reduce their expenditures. This shortfall will drive a willingness to bend regulations to adopt alternatives that provide significant benefit for a fraction of the cost, despite vocal opposition from existing interests.

This process is both inevitable and irreversible. Our world is being upended. Get ready.

This echoes some of what I wrote about previously in terms of the future of work. Is Robb right? I don't know. I suspect he is partially correct, and partially incorrect. I don't know if 1% is where we will really end up, but I think the trend he is pointing out is accurate. And I agree that it will happen much more quickly than when we transitioned from an agrarian to an industrial economy.

What does this have to do with TCAP or the Common Core? I think a better question is what do TCAP or the Common Core have to do with a future that looks like this?

The second article I came across discussed similar topics, although perhaps not with quite the same economic-Malthusian perspective. Richard Florida was recently interviewed on WGBH's Innovation Hub program. The entire podcast is 27 minutes and worth your time, but I'd particularly recommend the portion from about 18:30 to 21:37.


Florida doesn't see things quite as direly as Robb does. He feels that humans have always done a good job of adapting and creating new forms of work. But he also says,

What we're going to have to do as a society is create a new social contract. This is our choice. A new social contract which says we should probably work fewer hours, we should have a shorter work week, we should pay people more and we should engage more human beings more fully. But we're going to have to organize that society; the magic of the market and the magic of innovation isn't going to do that . . . [We have to have a conversation about] how do we build a new social contract that empowers and engages workers, creates a middle class, for this innovative economy.

So how do we build an education system that empowers and engages students, that allows them to create, and in turn creates innovators for this new economy?

Our world is being upended, yet our education system is being standardized; driven by inertia, obedience and faith. I guess I just don't have that much faith that TCAP or the Common Core are going to help us get where we need to go. And I'm beginning to wonder if we have the capability to overcome our own inertia and tendency to be obedient.

What If They All Took Art?

It's interesting. Over the last several months I've been involved in several conversations around the idea of giving students more control over their own learning, letting them choose to pursue things they are interested in, pursue their passions, create a more "personal" curriculum and perhaps not take a full-blown, "comprehensive" schedule of classes in high school. At some point in each of these conversations, someone always objects with a statement along the lines of, "Well, they'd all choose just to take Art." (In fairness, sometimes it's PE.) That question kinda bugs me, so I thought I'd take a few minutes and explore it a bit.

First, what if they all did take Art, would that be so bad? I mean if everyone had a greater appreciation for art, and beauty, and creativity, as well as perhaps had more opportunity to be creative themselves, would that be so bad? I can imagine a lot worse things than a world full of folks who create and appreciate art.

But I know the real objection is often along the lines of a more practical nature: employment. Where would all these artists work? Don't they need math, and science, and language arts, and social studies in order to be prepared to enter the workforce? Well, maybe. But don't they need Art just as much? As Daniel Pink said in A Whole New Mind, the MFA is the new MBA. Whether it's high profile folks like Jonathan Ive at Apple or Michael Graves at Target, or under-the-radar folks like the person that's creating websites or the latest app, design is huge in today's workforce. Both beauty and functionality is prized in products today (at least in the so-called developed world). People who can design things that work well and look good, and especially if they can do it with a minimal environmental and energy footprint, are in high demand (coincidentally, this came across my Twitter feed as I was composing this.) So perhaps we should be asking, "What if they all took Math" instead. Or what if they all took a "comprehensive" curriculum that was often devoid of relevance and meaning, and only allowed them to explore many different areas at a superficial level. What about that?

The second piece I want to explore is the assumption that our students will take the "easy" way out. That's typically part of the conversation as well, students will just take Art (or P.E.) because it's easy and they don't want to work or think hard. But let's examine the assumptions behind that. First, the "easy" way out assumes a culture of required courses and the all-important grade. Whereas the idea many of us are exploring is students pursuing their own interests, and grades are nowhere to be found. If you remove the artificial constraints of grades and transcripts, required courses and required credits in certain areas, the whole idea of "the easy way out" doesn't really apply anymore. There is no "out," there is only learning more about what you're interested in.

The second underlying assumption is that students are lazy. There's an incredible lack of respect shown to our students in this attitude. Imagine the entire four years of high school was built around the students' interests and passions, with guidance from caring adults. Do you really think that students, looking at four years of that, would just completely blow it off? Some folks argue, "Well, 14-year olds don't know what they're passionate about." That's true to some extent, but what if the four years of high school was helping them find and develop that passion? Would that perhaps be a better use of their (and our) time?

The next objection is often, "But what if some kids don't find their passion" or perhaps "some kids still won't care?" That's certainly possible. But what do you think is happening to those kids right now in our current system? Do you really think they are being successful now? I would bet that many more students would be successfully served by a passion-based education than our current system, even if I won't guarantee 100% success.

The third piece I want to explore is the idea of a "comprehensive" high school. This argument revolves around the idea that if students are allowed to pursue their passions, they won't be well-rounded and won't be functional citizens and community members. I share this concern, and believe there is some merit to this argument, but again I think there are two big assumptions being made here. First, that our current system is being successful in this area, and second that a passion-based system would not be.

We read every day about what a horrible job we're doing in schools. Whether it's state testing, or PISA, or some other measure, clearly we are "failing" in our job of creating well-prepared, well-rounded citizens and employees. Yet all of the mainstream education reform efforts are built-around doubling-down on the existing system. "Let's have more, and higher standards. Let's increase graduation requirements and the number of days of school. Let's hold students and teachers more accountable." If the current system isn't working, getting better at it isn't going to help, it's just going to more efficiently not work.

But what about the other side of this, that if students are pursuing their passion, say, taking all Art classes, that they can't possibly get a well-rounded education? I find this so interesting, because the argument is essentially that as an Art teacher, or a Math teacher, or a whatever teacher, I'm not capable of helping students learn about the world around them in these other areas. How often have you heard a teacher say, "Well, I'm a math teacher, so I can't really help you with that. Go see so-and-so." So we don't expect ourselves as teachers to be well-rounded, but that's exactly what we're asking our students to be. "Well, I can't help you with that, but you sure as heck ought to be an expert in all these areas all at the same time." Double-standard much?

If we truly expect our students to be well-rounded, shouldn't we have the same expectations for ourselves? Shouldn't an art teacher, or a math teacher, or a whatever teacher be able to help students learn more about the civil war in Syria, or Nelson Mandela, or climate change? Shouldn't a Language Arts teacher be able to help their students with the scientific method or understanding social security? If we expect our students to master 8-9 classes at a time (in my school), and pass comprehensive final exams, shouldn't we be able to as well? So go ahead, I dare you, take all the final exams that a representative high school student in your school is going to be taking in about two weeks. See how you do. Now convince me that all those topics you just tested on were "essential." Paraphrasing Yong Zhao, if things are really essential, then it's awfully hard to avoid them even if you are pursuing your interests and passions.

So, if we're going to have a real conversation about this, let's at least be upfront about our assumptions, and then let's examine them to see if they really hold water. I'm not arguing that students shouldn't be exposed to many different areas, that they should narrowly focus and "major" in a subject in high school. What I'm suggesting is that pursuing your passion and discussing the wider world of knowledge are not mutually exclusive and, in fact, might better achieve that "well-rounded, comprehensive education, liberal arts" ideal that we claim to value.

What if they all did take Art? I think that might be a good thing.

Galvanize: The Future of (Different) Work

I had the opportunity to present today as part of a local speaker's series put on by the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the International Interior Design Association. I talked about the usual things I talk about regarding education, and really focused on the need for them to get involved as parents and community members to help their schools make the "shift."

The reason for this post, however, was the location. It's a place (space) called Galvanize. Coincidentally, as I was driving down there this morning I heard this story on NPR about Galvanize (just a tad bit intimidating to hear right before you're about to present). Galvanize describes itself this way:

Galvanize creates an “innovation ecosystem” designed to give entrepreneurs and innovators the best chance of success at the start of their next (or first) big thing. Through the three pillars of Capital, Community, and Curriculum, Galvanize builds a community greater than the sum of its parts to spark disruptive ideas and breakout companies. 

After I presented they were kind enough to give me a tour and talk for a bit, and I found it fascinating. It's really a community of startups, a space for entrepreneurs to gather, work, intermingle, innovate, learn from each other, and generally create new stuff. (The second and third pictures at the bottom of this post show you most of the companies that are currently there.)

There are three levels of space that companies can lease (month-to-month, no long-term commitments necessary). There is an "open" area that is just a wide open space with various types of furniture and the tenants don't permanently occupy any of the places. It's typically used by companies just getting started, with maybe 1-5 employees or so. One step up (in terms of cost and also physically - it's on the second floor) is "permanent" spaces where you have a designated spot and the companies might be a bit larger. Then there are suites that are even larger still. It's configured so that as companies grow and expand, they can move between the spaces, until they are perhaps ready to move out into their own space if they are successful enough. (I'm probably not doing this justice, but it will give you an idea.)

They also have an education component, called the "G School," which is an intense, six-month coding course (currently Ruby on Rails). It's small (20 or so students at a time), but they guarantee that you'll get a job at a minimum of $60,000 within a certain time period after graduation or they refund your tuition. (The class that just graduated averaged $74,000.) It's a place with very high energy and I'm hoping to go back with a group of teachers and students to visit. (I'm also thinking that some of our students might be interested in applying. You have to have some background in coding, but you don't have to be an expert.)

It reminded me very much of the ideas in two previous posts about the changing world of work:

I'd like to see my future principal lead our school community in a discussion of what this means in terms of how we're preparing our students for the world of work. I'd also like to see a discussion that might be even more important – is the basic structure of how we are educating our students compatible with the emerging structure of the world of work? Are 59-minute classes, with bells that ring and fixed curricula, with grades and class ranks, with high-stakes tests (that are most certainly not “open book” much less “open Internet”) and rigidly set schedules really the best way to go about this?

Imagine an office [school] where meetings [classes] are optional. Nobody talks about how many hours [credits] they worked last week. People have an unlimited amount of vacation and paid time off. Work [learning] is done anytime and anywhere, based entirely on individual [student] needs and preferences. Finally, employees [students and staff] at all levels are encouraged to stop doing anything that is a waste of their time, their customers’ time, or the company’s time. [bracketed comments mine]

and how perhaps work and learning can exist side-by-side:

I think networked learning has the possibility to replicate (or actually improve on) much of the outside-of-class-but-still-academic learning that takes place in some college settings. I can also envision a different, but still similar, environment that doesn't require a college campus. What if students right out of high school gathered in an urban area, working for employers who believed that young people can (and should) learn and work simultaneously (check out this post for Harvard Business Review by Michael Schrage)? What if those employers also believed that formal learning and working was only part of life, and that their young employees should be heavily involved in the communities in which they lived? Would four (or more) years of that be valuable? Could it replicate (or improve upon) the college experience?  Especially when you take into account that the "students" would be earning money, not just spending it, and contributing to economy by producing (not just consuming), and not spending four years accumulating debt.

The entire time I was touring Galvanize I kept thinking, "Is there a way to transform my school to look and operate like this?" Here are some really bad cellphone pictures I took, although the NPR story has some better ones.

I'm still processing my morning there, but I think there are many implications for K-12 education, ranging from how (and for what) we are preparing our students, to the spaces we are preparing them in, to the culture of the learning (working) space itself.

The Future of (Less) Work

Disclaimer: I almost feel like every post I write needs a disclaimer, but I think it's especially true when I talk about economics. I have no formal training, nor do I feel like I have a great understanding of economics. Which means I have one thing in common with professional Economists :-). So I'm sure I don't understand the full ramifications of any of what I'm about to write. But even with an imperfect understanding, I still think there's something important here, so perhaps it will spur some thinking somewhere.

The recovery from the Great Recession has been painfully slow. Unemployment remains stubbornly high, and most experts think those numbers are under-reporting the problem, due to some folks not even looking anymore and many more folks being underemployed. Yet corporate profits are doing quite well, and the various U.S. stock markets are all at or near all-time highs. What's going on?

Keeping in mind my disclaimer above, I think at least some of it is due to the changing nature of work. Corporations are able to have strong profits even while employing less people because those people are more productive. (For this post I'm going to avoid the whole 1% issue, but I do think that plays a part as well.) This is due to many factors, but clearly technology - both in the form of automation and in the form of connectedness - has played a huge role in this. And I think we are still just in the beginning phase of this transition.

As an example, let's look at just one near-term change that I think could have a profound impact: self-driving cars. I know some folks will scoff and say "yeah, right, where's my flying car they promised me?", but I think wide adoption of self-driving cars could be much closer than we expect. I think the biggest problems aren't technological or legal (although there are many issues still to be resolved), but cultural. President Obama, when he was Candidate Obama, was famously caught saying that Americans "cling to guns and religion." I would alter that a bit for this context and say that we "cling to SUVs and textbooks."

But even with the American preference to be in control of their own destiny - including when driving - I think self-driving cars are going to make quick inroads (pun intended) into our daily lives. It may take a generation or two for individual folks to accept them, but businesses (and cities) will accept them much quicker. When you combine that with the increasing number of people who work from home - or neighborhood coffee shops or startup incubators - this will have a tremendous effect in many areas.

So what will that mean in terms of employment? Well, first of all, think of how many truck, bus, train, taxi, and other transportation drivers we currently employ. Gone. Then think of many of the jobs that feed off of those jobs, including gas stations and the associated convenience stores. Gone (or at least transformed). Traffic will undergo major changes, which will require less new road construction and less road repair, so fewer construction jobs. We won't need as many police, fire, and EMT's on the roads. Streetlights and road signs? We won't need as many. Insurance adjusters? Emergency room workers? Lawyers (at least of the ambulance-chasing kind)?

And of course cars themselves are being assembled with fewer and fewer human workers. If I'm a venture capitalist, then I'm investing in robots, solar, battery technology, real estate (locations that are appropriate for charging stations, shopping and restaurants), and in-car grooming stations (make-up, shaving) and exercise machines (why not a rowing machine in your self-driving car - exercise on the way to work), and gluten-free food. (Gluten-free food really has nothing to do with this, I just want someone to make some gluten-free food for me that tastes good.)

I'm sure there will also be some job creation that goes along with this, but not enough to make up for the workers who are displaced. When you then multiply this times five, ten, twenty or one hundred similar employment changes due to technology (just think of all the jobs that will potentially be disrupted by the Internet of Things), then you have a future where perhaps there simply is not as much "work" as there is currently (at least not paid work).

These articles might be of interest.

• Freelance Nation: The Greatest Economic Transformation in Human History?
• Drones to Delivery Parcels in Australia starting in March
• IBM's Watson is Better at Diagnosing Cancer than Human Doctors
• What Happens When the Pace of Startups Slows Down?

Now, I'm nowhere near smart enough to understand the economic or social ramifications of this, but I do think they will be tremendous. Especially in the United States where the attitude of many is not that we "work to live" but that we "live to work." But for this post I'm mostly interested in thinking about what that means in terms of education. If our students will be entering a world that is both rapidly changing and also perhaps requires less human workers, then what do they need to know and be able to do?


I think that's a complicated topic, and certainly can't be answered in a short (or long) blog post. But one thing I think they will need is the ability to create. Whether that be creative in the sense of ideas, creative in the sense of solutions to problems, or creative in the sense of making things, I think it's going to be an integral part of the future of work (and play, and life). So let's look at our classrooms today, how often do students truly get to create? This varies tremendously by school, subject and classroom, of course, but overall I think it's still very little.

In my classroom at least the best they get to do is re-create. I don't think that's all bad; after all, in order to "stand on the shoulders of giants" you need to know a bit of what those giants knew. But I can't help but think that the direction we appear to be headed - more standardization, more "rigor" - is not a direction that's going to best serve our students.

If the future of work is really "less" work and perhaps more "creating", then what should K-12 education look like?

By The Numbers

It's both a fun time of year in high school and a time to reflect. I've had kind of an interesting juxtaposition of a couple of items. We have a couple of students that I know at my school who are graduating and think they want to become teachers (we have a great Teacher Cadet program where they get an opportunity to learn about teaching/learning as well as a mini-student-teaching opportunity).

In many ways I think this is great - we must be doing something right if we have bright, amazing students thinking they want to become educators. But the second item gives me pause, so I thought I'd take just a few minutes to share some numbers that I've come across recently.

From the Colorado School Finance Project:

1. Colorado’s teachers made $6,400 less per year than the national average.
   
   
2. When adjusted for inflation, Colorado’s teachers made $5,200 less than a Colorado teacher in 1992-93, a 9.6% decrease. During the same time period, the national average teacher salary increased by over 2%.
   
   
3. In 2010-11 Colorado’s teachers were paid at the national average level five years ago.
   
   
4. If Colorado put the same effort toward K-12 as it did in 1992, there would be $1.2 billion more dollars for K-12 per year.
   
   
5. If Colorado put the national average effort toward K-12, there would be $2.248 billion more dollars for K-12 per year.

Okay, so that's not terribly encouraging, but that's Colorado in general. What about my school district? Let's look at beginning teacher salaries.

1. Let's compare the beginning teacher salary in my district in 1991 with today. When adjusted for inflation (Bureau of Labor Statistics), beginning teacher salaries would have to increase by 9.5% just to break even with 1991.
   
   
2. When you take into consideration the increase in employee contributions for insurance premiums, that changes to an 11.3% increase just to stay even with 1991.

Okay, so that's not terribly encouraging either. But we have a fairly traditional salary schedule in my district (although a committee is about to meet to consider changes to that), so the beginning teacher salary doesn't reflect the built-in raises a teacher that's been in the district since 1991 has received. (By the way, I picked 1991 because that's when I entered the district.) When you look at my salary, I certainly have seen increases that put me comfortably ahead of inflation.

Well, until you look at the last five years, in which case I've lost 6.6%(and even more when you include increases in insurance premiums). This happened at the same time that I, and every other teacher I know, has had their responsibilities and expectations increase dramatically. My case is somewhat different because I wasn't - and am not - a full-time classroom teacher, but I still think it's instructive. Five years ago I was the full-time technology coordinator for my building. Today I am still the full-time technology coordinator for my building, but I also teach one section of Algebra. We have significantly more technology in the building than five years ago, plus that one section of Algebra added at least 15 hours to my work week. All while taking a pay cut.

Now, I want to be clear, this is not about my salary. I've even gone on record in my district with the somewhat blasphemous statement that I think I get paid enough, especially when compared with younger teachers. (Having said that, in case anyone from my district is reading this, that does not mean I would turn down a hefty raise :-). My district has a good relationship with its teachers and, while I don't always agree with the financial decisions they make, they have generally done a good job in a difficult time. What I think this is about reflects a larger issue in America today - the decline of the middle class.

I would say teachers are pretty representative of the middle class in the United States. What the above trends show is that, should those trends continue, teachers will no longer be able to achieve middle class status (unless they marry well). And I wonder what that says about what we value in this country?

Which brings me back to those two graduating seniors I know. They are both about to spend a fair amount of money on a college education. They are both very bright and very successful and could choose careers in a wide variety of areas. I really want them to choose to become teachers. My problem is I'm just not sure I should encourage them to do so.

And that makes me sad.

Trends I'd Like My Future Principal to Consider: Jobs Are Disappearing, But Work Isn't

I touched on employment in a previous post in this series, but wanted to revisit it briefly after reading this article:

This is all a part of the transition toward a postindustrial economy.

Jeff Dachis, Internet consulting legend and founder of Razorfish, coined the phrase “everything that can be digital, will be.” To the extent that the world becomes more digital, it will also become more global. To the extent that the economy remains physical, business may become more local.

The question is, what is the future of work, and what can we do about it? 

This article touches on a subject that appears to be surprisingly absent in our discussions of school reform. Much of the current rhetoric around reform talks about preparing students for a globally competitive world of work, but seems to completely ignore the nature of what that work will look like.

Work will always be about finding what other people want and need, and then creating practical solutions to fulfill those desires. Our basic assumptions about how work gets done are what’s changing. It’s less about having a fixed location and schedule and more about thoughtful and engaged activity. Increasingly, this inspiration can happen anytime, anyplace.

There is a blurring of distinctions among work, play, and professional development. The ways that we measure productivity will be less focused on time spent and more about the value of the ideas and the quality of the output. People are also going to have a much better awareness of when good work is being done.

The old model of work provided an enormous level of predictability. In previous eras, people had a sense of job security and knew how much they would earn on a monthly basis. This gave people a certain sense of confidence in their ability to maintain large amounts of debt. The consumer economy thrived on this system for more than half a century. Location-based and formal jobs will continue to exist, of course, but these will become smaller slices of the overall economy.

The new trends for the workplace have significantly less built-in certainty. We will all need to rethink, redefine, and broaden our sources of economic security. To the extent that people are developing a broader range of skills, we will also become more resilient and capable of adapting to change. (emphasis mine)

I worry that much of what we currently do in schools is prepare students for the old model of work, for a world of work that is predictable, educating them for the routine instead of the novel:

It's easy to educate for the routine, and hard to educate for the novel. . .

And then keep on challenging yourself, because learning doesn't end with graduation. In fact, in the real world, while the answers to the odd-numbered problems are not in the back of the textbook, the tests are all open book, and your success is inexorably determined by the lessons you glean from the free market. Learning, it turns out, is a lifelong major.

I think many folks are looking at our current world and thinking we are in a time of massive upheaval, but then things will return to “normal.” But what if this is the new normal?

The new norm is for people to maintain and develop skill sets in multiple simultaneous careers. In this environment, the ability to learn is something of a survival skill. Education never stops, and the line between working and learning becomes increasingly blurred.

 . . . Fixed hours, fixed location, and fixed jobs are quickly becoming a thing of the past for many industries, as opportunities become more fluid and transient. The 40-hour workweek is becoming less relevant as we see more subcontractors, temps, freelancers, and self-employed. The U.S. Government Accountability Office estimates that these “contingent workers” now make up a third of the workforce.

I'd like to see my future principal lead our school community in a discussion of what this means in terms of how we're preparing our students for the world of work. I'd also like to see a discussion that might be even more important – is the basic structure of how we are educating our students compatible with the emerging structure of the world of work? Are 59-minute classes, with bells that ring and fixed curricula, with grades and class ranks, with high-stakes tests (that are most certainly not “open book” much less “open Internet”) and rigidly set schedules really the best way to go about this?

Imagine an office [school] where meetings [classes] are optional. Nobody talks about how many hours [credits] they worked last week. People have an unlimited amount of vacation and paid time off. Work [learning] is done anytime and anywhere, based entirely on individual [student] needs and preferences. Finally, employees [students and staff] at all levels are encouraged to stop doing anything that is a waste of their time, their customers’ time, or the company’s time. [bracketed comments mine]

 I'd like my future principal to help us imagine.

Quotes I'd Like My Future Principal to Ponder: Isolation Costs Too Much

I'm currently reading Jeff Jarvis's book Public Parts. I'm not that far into it, so I don't know yet if I'd recommend my future principal read the book, but this quote from p. 45 is one that I'd like that person to ponder:

"Businesses used to be hierarchies of business units whose assets were called customers and products." Now "they are changing into networks of business units whose assets are called relationships and capabilities." Turning that perspective into an investment strategy, I'd bet money on start-ups that put relationships at their center so they can disrupt old, closed industries (later we'll look at what social car companies and airlines look like; imagine, too, the social store, restaurant and school). I'd buy the stocks of companies that know me well and play well with others. I'd short the companies that build walls around themselves. In a linked world and a relationship economy, isolation costs too much. (emphasis mine)

I'd like my future principal to ponder, and lead the staff in discussion around, the idea that an isolated school, a non-social school, a "closed" school that isn't actively reaching out to others and building those relationships (including letting students build those relationships as an integral part of their learning), is a school that is ripe for disruption. I think they should also lead a discussion about how well such a school would be preparing their students to live, learn and work in a networked world.

In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists. - Eric Hoffer

Things I Want My Future Principal to Read: What To Tell Your Twelve-Year-Old

(This is part two in a possible series. See this post for an explanation of the future principal part of the title of this post.)

I found these two recent articles from the Economic Revolution column in The Denver Post pretty interesting. They're written by Dave Maney who, in his own words, attempts to "connect the dots to our economic future." This sums up the thrust of the two articles:

The prescription for the last few generations has been: Work hard in school, get into a good college, pick a career field with lots of demand, and success will follow. I'm pretty sure that's what my parents told me, and it served me well. But I'm afraid it's largely misguided advice now.

While I don't believe that education is solely about preparing you for future employment, I do believe that's part of our mission. I also believe that many of the current batch of reforms are being made in the name of economic success and competitiveness, yet they seem to fly in the face of what I see happening. (Which, of course, is probably why these two articles caught my eye, since I agree with much of what he says. It's always dangerous to read too much into something that confirms your own bias, but here goes.)

I particularly like how he attempts to state his "ten big ideas," but then also tries to frame them in terms of how he would begin a conversation with a twelve-year-old. For example, one of his points is:

In this tumultuous time, I wouldn't trust anyone's traditional prescriptions for success. (Nor mine for that matter.) It's incumbent on everyone to think for themselves, to observe, to interpret, to plan and to course-correct.

 And he frames it for a twelve-year-old as

Starting point for your 12-year-old: "School's important, but being able to think for yourself is more important. We should talk about how people learn to do that."

Perhaps these articles could be part of the basis for a good discussion led by our new principal about our current assumptions about what our students are going to need to be successful in the workforce. As a bonus article, we could add in The Career Of The Future Doesn't Include A 20-Year Plan. It's More Like Four:

The particulars of Hasler's young career can appear exotic and, yes, flighty. But his essential experience--tacking swiftly from job to job and field to field, learning new skills all the while--resembles the pattern that increasingly defines our careers. According to recent statistics, the median number of years a U.S. worker has been in his or her current job is just 4.4, down sharply since the 1970s. This decline in average job tenure is bigger than any economic cycle, bigger than any particular industry, bigger than differences in education levels, and bigger than differences in gender. (Since women are more likely to interrupt their careers for child rearing and caregiving, their average time in a job is even shorter than a man's.)

Hmm, reminds me a bit of this.

Shift Happens Statistic of the Day 12-2-09

From the December 7, 2009 issue of Time Magazine:

In 1979, GM's U.S. employment peaked at 618,365. Today it's at 75,000 and falling fast. GM's U.S. market share, once about 50%, has fallen to about 20%.

That's about an 88% decline in U.S. jobs at GM in 30 years. Interestingly, it's only a 60% decline in market share, which illustrates the automation/productivity portion of the shift.


Flickr Photo Credit: two GM dealerships out of business, originally uploaded by marina.

Shift Happens Updated Statistic of the Day

According to today's Rocky Mountain News, citing the upcoming Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2009, Table 644:

4: Median number of years workers have been with their current employer.

The statistic in the original version was 5 years. Looks like things are still shifting.