PLD that 'sticks'

Like every other education professional, I've had, or done, my share of professional development/PLD. I've 'done' it, and I've had it 'done to me'. I've had those things I've really wanted to go to, those I knew I needed to go to, and those in which I really had no interest at all, but that someone else had decided I needed to do.

I've previously written about some of the factors I think are necessary for effective change in our kura. But even with the best strategic change management processes, if staff lack the requisite skills the change is doomed to failure. 

There will be those who think that the problem lies with teachers. you know the sort .. "bloody lazy teachers", they'll say. Yet I have only rarely in my career met teachers who didn't care, who didn't want the best for their students (yes I have met a couple!!). It's not as if teachers get up in the morning and say to themselves 'Righto, let's go and screw over a few kids today'. Teacher resistance to change is often driven by the view that they know best, based on current knowledge. There are those who say 'well this has worked for the last *** years, so why would I change?'. However, often when presented with information, data, and alternatives, it is possible to change the practice of those teachers. I have often argued that rarely do teachers say 'I'm just not going to change and do what you want me to do'. It's more likely (in my opinion) that they are really saying 'yeah I get it, but I don't know what that would look like in my daily practice', or 'I don't have the skills necessary to do what you are asking'. They are often also saying 'I don't have the time', or 'I'm just bloody well exhausted'. I suspect you need to have been a teacher yourself to understand that.  I think that those who have never been in the profession just don't understand.

I love this piece of wisdom which, I suspect, is true for most teachers.

So, what do we know about the best way to undertake PLD? What makes professional learning 'stick'? What gives us best bang for buck, at a time (which is not in the least unusual) when there are never enough dollars to provide all of the PLD we need?

I have seen, and experienced, two very different forms of PLD. There is the PLD that arises from teacher inquiry. Arguably this is the most effective because, if done with sincerity and application and good guidance and support (the 'critical friend' thing), sees each teacher get to the heart of what needs to be done next for the learners in front of them right now. I have said before that inquiry should be 'the way we do things around here'. It is certainly an expectation and a requirement for teacher registration, as it should be. What about the more traditional forms of PLD, those delivered by the 'expert', those that look more like 'courses'? THE most effective model I have ever seen is (sounding like a broken record here, but ...) the Manaiakalani network model which is so profoundly effective it hurts.

For a number of years (sorry, but  don't know how many) the Manaiakalani network has run a 'course' called the Digital Fluency Intensive. It aims to create digitally competent teachers who can implement the 'learn, create, share' pedagogy daily in their classrooms. 

It goes like this. The kura releases the teacher for one day a week for a term (so that's 9 days). The content itself has been delivered both F2F and online. The teachers are taken through the specific skills, and are then expected to use these in their classes over the following week, reflecting and reporting back on what they have done over that next week. The course does not just focus on skills development but offers a valuable chance to delve into the pedagogy and kaupapa that drives what teachers do in their classes in order to maximise the impact of effective teaching and learning. These teachers continue to be supported by the network, and the cluster Education Programme Leader, once the term is over.

It's that simple. Nah seriously, that's it. Hardly rocket science, eh. The kicker in the approach (apart from the incredible levels of skill of all of the facilitators) is the one day a week away from classes to allow the teacher to focus on the skills development. So at current rates (with relief costing $300 ish per day ??) this costs the kura around $3000 per staff member. But the point is that it works. Brilliantly. EVERY teacher I have spoken to who has attended one of these DFI's describes it as THE BEST PLD in their entire career. They are upskilled, supported, and motivated, to change their practice.

And.. yes there's more. The Manaikalani network has now employed specialists to distill the best in reading and maths teaching practices, and is using the same model to upskill teachers in the teaching of reading, and mathematics. It just takes time, time that money has to buy, because you can't do this stuff in the evenings after you have got home from an exhausting day teaching, attending staff meetings, running sports practices, and ... oh yes that parent meeting for the school trip, and then used the first half of your evening to mark the student work that you have brought home with you.

And... this creates those internal experts and change agents that Dr Kevin Knight talks about for sustainable change in kura. Each person who completes this DFI (or the equivalent in reading or maths or...) is an internal expert committed to this kaupapa, able and willing to sustain the changes in practice that our learners need.

And.. this is all evidence informed, the outcomes tracked with rigorous data collection and analysis undertaken by data specialists employed by MET, AND  overseen by the academic team from the Woolf Fisher Research Centre, University of Auckland.

We KNOW how to do this stuff. We DON'T need no politicians telling us how to improve outcomes. We don't need no charter schools. 

We need to be able to give teachers time, and we need the sorts of course that work exactly like the DFI. For goodness sakes, it's NOT rocket science. Is anyone listening?

Better school improvement?

I've been contemplating how we could do better at school improvement in Aotearoa NZ. That train of thought tends to take me down the 'well of despair'. It seems to be fraught. 

In case you missed the memo, I am a confirmed believer in the benefits of embedding creativity in all schools. Remember: that doesn't just mean the creative arts, although it does include them. I believe in the benefits of creativity in all areas of the curriculum, and in all aspects of school operation. I had the privilege of working with a Head of Maths who pioneered a 'creative maths' week. It can happen in every learning area.

And of course I really like the Manaiakalani concept of creativity that sits at the centre of the 'Learn Create Share' pedagogy.

Is it ever possible for a Tumuaki to ensure that the vision she/he has led is sustained once they leave?  In this thought piece I want to focus the issue of sustainable change management. Once change has begun, how do you ensure that there is continuity? What are the obstacles to embedding change? How do you ensure that change endures?  Short answer.. I don't have the answers.. here though is a slightly longer answer to a little of that kōrero.

My first port of call is Vivian Robinson's Student Centred Leadership model.

This overview informs a lot of what it takes to lead, and where necessary to create and embed change that benefits learners. Be present, be a leader of learning alongside your team, put your money and resources (well the school's money and resources) where your mouth is, manage the environment around everything to do with student to staff behaviour. Detail matters!!! Staff and students pay attention to what you do, not what you say. They will quickly spot hypocrisy when you say one thing and do another, and they will watch where you spend your time, because that is what signals more clearly than anything what you think is important. And leaders have to constantly articulate what they want, what they think is important.

The Knoster model is a useful tool for considering the essential elements of change, and perhaps how to recognise what is missing.

For example, when we lead change we have to ask if our team members have the skill set to implement what we want. If they don't we need to give them that skillset. Otherwise we get an anxiety response.

I do however feel that there are other subtleties at play. One is ego. I fear that all too often new principals feel the need to change simply because it's their show. To adapt an old saying, they may well be saying 'it IS my circus, these ARE my monkeys'. The problem here is that they forget the need to be kaitiaki of what has gone before, to respect the achievements of their predecessors.  Things evolve, the world changes. Nothing stays still. I get that. But I have often seen those situations where an incoming Principal feels the need to make rapid, often ill-considered, changes .. and just for the sake of saying 'I'm here, this IS my circus'. 

Yes our individual and inevitable biases play a part. We all carry with us our own  'confirmation bias'. We think, if my current evidence, and opinion, support a different way of doing things, then we are quite likely to ignore evidence to the contrary, we are likely to persist with our current paradigm, ignoring that evidence that does not support our paradigm. With incoming Principals this may take the form of 'this worked in my last school, so that's what we'll do here'.

I was talking with Dr Kevin Knight, NZ Graduate School of Education. He observed that getting external facilitators in to support change is useful, but has minimal impact unless at least one internal staff member is completely onboard, in the school all the time, and continues to act as a change champion, once the external facilitation has finished. Ouch!!!

This all leads me to consider the work that continues to go on across the Manaiakalani network. Each Manaiakalani cluster employs an EPL (Education Programme Leader), someone who works alongside staff to develop skills, and to be the voice of coherence and consistency with the kaupapa, to be the change champion within schools. I asked Kevin if he thought that counted. He noted that the person has to be 'internal'. So the EPL? He said, do you invite the EPL to the staff Christmas function? If so, then yes. What a great 'acid test'.

I asked Dorothy Burt whether or not she thought that creativity was well embedded across schools in the network, and if not why not. Her response was (as always) insightful. Amongst other comments she said:

"The key drivers for delivering TMP are regularly ‘cherry picked’ by school leaders:
• In class facilitation
• Staff Meeting delivered by a Manaiakalani staff member once a term
• The Digital Fluency Intensive - all staff participate over time
• School Leaders and Principal hui on a regular basis, including annual attendance at the Wānanga
• Participation in the Research and Development content"

Given that schools are self managing, one cannot mandate change for school leaders, one cannot insist on adherence 'chapter and verse' to any initiatives. A shame when Dorothy also made this comment:

"We do know that where our programme is most faithfully adhered to and social circumstances are settled we see this and we know how to get there."

As I said, evidence that is contrary to our paradigm is often rejected. Yet gathering evidence, and taking action, lies at the heart of the inquiry cycle that is expected of every teacher, every SLT member, every Tumuaki, in the country.

The key questions are:

• What am I doing?
• Why that way?
• What difference is it making?
• How do I know?

This is powerful stuff and it ought to be taking place with every individual teacher, and with SL team members and Tumuaki, creating positive change at the micro level. I am a fan of the current ERO model (will it survive the latest political dogma?) that supports capability building in whole school inquiry. 

What then happens if you have this happening across kāhui ako or larger groups of schools? Again my 'gold standard' is the Manaiakalani network which runs the Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher programme in which it resources selected teachers from across the network to engage in the inquiry cycle. The difference is that their findings are shared across the whole network. This is evidence based, and means that effective strategies are shared across the 130 kura currently in the network. MIT helps to create more 'change champions' within each school, again helping to build sustainability within each kura.

And then, what if you could take recordings of teachers implementing their inquiry informed best practice and share THAT across your network? That is the Manaiakalani 'Class on Air' programme, a large and ever growing resource bank of recordings of teachers' practice.

Now, THAT is leveraging inquiry to improve outcomes for learners, provided of course that it permeates down and impacts teacher practice at the individual teacher level. This is 'holy grail' type stuff, and it is the stuff of real change .... PROVIDED Tumuaki believe it is important, and provided they continually say in a loud voice that they think it is important, in which case their teams will also believe it is import

The secret is to embed inquiry into the school culture, to arrive at that point where inquiry is simply 'the way we do things here'. 

Why is this so hard for teachers? We have a best practice model that I'll share in a further post.

Who'd want to live in a city that values creativity?

In response to a local authority comment on social media about the impending installation of a piece of public art recently, there was the inevitable 'what are you wasting rate payer money for?' response. It included the also inevitable 'go fix some potholes' reference too. I'm a fan of public art, and for no other reason that I have liked them, I have been accumulating photos on my 'phone when I have seen cool examples around Ōtautahi. I've also noted and captured a few examples from Ōtepōti, and Oamaru. Here are a few examples. In the selection is also an example from a 'private' restaurant space too .. art, it seems, can be found all over the place. I've left these photos to the end of this post so as to not intrude too far in my comments. So what?

Having led a kura for seven years, one in which we embedded the vision 'he puna auaha a centre of creative excellence', and one of a network of over 130 kura across Aotearoa New Zealand (the Manaiakalani network) for which the underlying pedagogy is 'learn create share', you'd hope that I had a little more reason for such things than simply 'it seemed like a good idea at the time'. And I have. 

There is the work of Professor Peter O'Connor here in Aotearoa (University of Auckland) on creativity in schools to lead the way in my thinking. In what for me as a reader and educational practitioner was a ground breaking paper 'Replanting creativity in post normal times' Peter and his colleagues spelt out the case for creativity in education, covering off wellbeing and learning benefits for all.

And now I am in the process of reading the book 'Your Brain on Art' by Magsamen and Ross (2023).

Now to some degree the book feels a little like some of the 'pop psychology' that has run through our educational discourse for the past few decades,  but I am reliably assured that there is some very good stuff in there. It's one of those books that I 'want to believe', hence my question to an academic colleague about its reliability. The book gives repeated evidence of the impact of the creative arts on our wellbeing, on who we are, on pain relief, on dealing with trauma, coping with the inevitable 'end of life, on learning. The evidence is substantial.  I've been aware of the therapeutic impact of creativity on our wellbeing for some time, and here it is spelt out with what, with my non academic background, seems to be solid research and practitioner evidence.

Consider this:

HEART ('Healing and Education through the Arts') has collected data over the years to assess how the arts support our wellbeing, particularly those who are most vulnerable. Their research has shown that self expression, communication, concentration, and emotional regulation vastly improve in the program. When HEART is in a school, attendance goes up, and learning metrics improve. Most important, interest in learning improves, which is perhaps the greatest gift you can give a person: the curiosity and excitement to learn. Children develop a future forward mindset. In some of the most marginalised communities, children dare to dream about what their lives might become. And because they are emotionally agile, they are open and eager." (page 87)

Now consider this: what if schools across entire communities emphasised the arts more? (The authors are at great pains, by the way, to talk about arts AND science, not arts OR science). What if entire communities were nudged, nurtured, encouraged, resourced, to support involvement in the creative arts? What if from the youngest age groups cities saw the creative arts as a part of their preventative health investment and infrastructure, not just the money spent on treatment and palliative care, on ambulances at the bottom of those so many cliffs?

For the Manaiakalani schools network creativity is central to their work (bearing in mind that when they use the word 'create' in their pedagogy is has a much broader meaning).

I saw the impact of that focus on engagement, and outcomes, over the years across the network. 

I am now a trustee on the Ako Ōtautahi-Learning City Christchurch trust. Their vision is:

"Ako Ōtautahi Learning City Christchurch champions learning as a way to transform lives, communities and organisations."

What if they were successful in connecting across our city's vulnerable groups, in building the trust and confidence of those vulnerable groups, in building connection with our creative communities and opportunities, such that our most vulnerable are enabled to be their best selves, giving to their communities just some of their enormous untapped potential, to live their best lives?  What if that reach covered the many cultures that co-exist within our communities, and what if that reach enabled us all to participate in a truly bi-cultural community where we are all our best selves, comfortable in who we are, in where we came from? What if we celebrated creativity for what it is: one of the things that makes us profoundly human?

I am brought back yet again to this wonderful whakataukī:

Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi

With your food basket and my food basket the people will thrive

There is a great quote in the lines of Robin Williams' character in the movie 'Dead Poets Society' in which he says:

"We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."

A city that values and nurtures creativity: what sort of city would that be to live in?

Here are just some of the fabulous examples of public art I referred to at the start.