First rule of job security (from Machines Are the Easy Part)

From Machines Are the Easy Part; People Are the Hard Part. 

Illustrations by Brady Johnson

14. First Rule of Job Security: Find out what problems are keeping your boss from sleeping well at night.

If you can’t list the top three things that your supervisor worries about, your job may be vulnerable.

My boss, Ed, the superintendent worries about finances, public perception of the effectiveness of our district, and (bless his heart) if all our kids are getting the best education possible. 

Now it is my job to:

• First, honestly work toward helping relieve Ed’s worries

• Second, make sure he knows of those efforts

What keeps your boss awake at night?

 15. Remember the Drill Bit Rule

An old maxim states: “People don't buy a drill bit because they want a drill bit; they buy them because they want a hole.”

• You don't buy technology because you want technology; you buy it because you want a more effective school.

• You don’t have a library for the sake of having a library; you have a library because you want better educated kids.

Too often we confuse the thing with the reason for the thing, much to our own peril. Having a computer on every desk is not a goal. Having x number of books in the library is not a goal. These may be means to reach a goal, but they are not the goal itself.

16. We can no longer afford to only work with the living.

The standing advice for achieving success in staff development activities has been:

Work with the living.

A parent once approached me at an open house. “You’re the technology director,” she confirmed. “I just love what Miss Smith is doing with the third graders in her classroom. The computer-created booklets, the keypal project, the video-taped presentations – all of it. These are good skills that kids need.”

“Thanks,” says I, puffing up a bit.

“But here is my problem,” the parent continued. “My little Susie has Mr. Brown for his third grade teacher and Mr. Brown wouldn’t know a computer if it bit him in the butt. When are you going to do something about that?”

Parents see technology and information literacy skills as too important for their children to be left to the chance of getting a technology-savvy teacher.

We’ve got to start having reasonable technology-use expectations of all teachers – not just those with respiration.

Change can only be made by the rank and file (from Machines Are the Easy Part)

From Machines Are the Easy Part; People Are the Hard Part. 

Illustrations by Brady Johnson

10. Change can only be made by the rank and file.

A tour guide in Nairobi told me this tale about how the Ngong (Knuckle) Hills came into being.

A giant once ravished the land. The animals of the savanna were determined to get rid of it. The big animals went in first: the elephants, the rhinos, the lions. Each in turn were soundly trounced.

That night all the ants gathered and decided each would carry a few clumps of dirt and place them on the giant while he was asleep. By the next morning the giant was buried so deeply that he never rose again. All that can be seen today are the protruding knuckles of one hand – the Ngong Hills.

Who can make the most improvements in education: The Department of Education or all teachers making small changes?

 11. You always have to do something else before you can do what you want to do. 

Schools ignore attention to infrastructure at a high cost. Putting high speed computers in the classroom without thinking about network speed and capacity, security, and teacher training is like buying a Ferrari for someone who lives on a dirt road and can’t drive.

Without reliable networks, good tech support and a degree of personal comfort in its use, teachers will not use technology – period. We are foolish to insist that teachers have a “backup plan in case the technology doesn’t work.”

You think they don’t have enough to do without creating two sets of lesson plans?

Technology has to be adequate, reliable, and secure if it’s to be used.

 
12. Teaching is harder than ever.

I have worked in education for over 25 years and am happy to report that today I work with better teachers, in better facilities, using better resources, and seeing better results than at any other time in my career.

I have also never felt my profession more heavily criticized by politicians and the press. Why?

It simply boils down to the fact that being well-educated – knowing how to communicate, to solve problems using information, and to work productively with others – is no longer optional for anyone in the current workforce. The no-brainer jobs have been taken by robots or by workers in developing countries.

It’s not that we are not doing better. It’s that we are not doing better fast enough.

 13. Research can tell you anything you'd like to hear.

Shakespeare once wrote: “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.” Were he alive today, he might have said. “The devil can cite Statistics for his purpose.”

The current drive for “data-driven decision making” concerns me because

• Few educators REALLY have the training to make good judgments based on data (quick – define “standard deviation from the norm,” “statically significant,” or “T-score”)
• Data-gathering efforts can be constructed or interpreted to meet political ends
• We overvalue those things in education that can be quantifiably measured

Of course, I like the research that backs up my observations, gut feelings and philosophy. And, by golly, I’ll keep looking until I find it.

Change is inevitable (from Machines Are the Easy Part)

From Machines Are the Easy Part; People Are the Hard Part. 

Illustrations by Brady Johnson

7. Change is inevitable - except in human nature.

People have been grouching about change for a very long time. Just accept it and change what needs changing.

As far back as 1515, Machiavelli said " ... it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new."

The very best way, I’ve found to get people from complaining about a particular thing is to give them something new to complain about. That’s one good reason to update your computer systems every now and again. Maybe it’s the only good reason.

8. Change anything and someone is not going to like it.

But some people will. The real keys to getting people to accept a new ways of doing things is to convince them on the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) factors. If you can sell people that the new policy, technology, or plan is:

• Going to make their jobs easier
• Going to make them more efficient
• Going to make them more effective, or
• Going to… no, it has to be one of the previous three.

If the change doesn’t result in one of these things happening, you might want to question what exactly your motive is for asking people to make the change. To make YOUR life easier is not sufficient reason.

 9. The two things you need to make any kind of change are a thick skin and a mission from God.

All of us are sensitive to criticism. I can read 100 workshop evaluation forms and manage to only remember the three or four that were less than enthusiastic. That’s way most people are made. But you must take your shots along with the praise. 

What helps deflect the arrows is faith that what you are doing is in the best interest of others. (Or as the Blues Brothers put it: “We’re on a mission from God.”) Without this faith in yourself and what you do, it won’t take much to turn you back. 

I think Ambrose Redmoon said it best: “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”