Feedback

I became a full-time school building leader at 24 years old when I accepted the responsibilities of a principal serving a K-8 learning community comprised of 330 learners and 35 staff members. As I reflect on that early entry into administration I remain more surprised now than I was all those years ago. Perhaps naiveté would account for the fact I applied for the position without concerns that I was "too young" and lacking in sufficient experience. Nonetheless, I interviewed for the role and the superintendent and school board hired me after working two years as a teacher/principal at a 165 member K-6 school in another district.


That first leadership experience proved to be a challenging and rewarding opportunity. Maybe the best way to describe it would be to explain that it was analogous to a child learning to walk. I crawled and expended great amounts of energy disproportionate to the progress I was making. Optimism, persistence, time and effort were valuable resources that conspired to help compensate for the absence of past performance or well honed skills. I gradually gained my footing and some momentum to sustain commitment and achieve worthwhile benchmarks of success. Little by little, I eventually acquired confidence in my abilities and earned credibility by staff members who were much older, including several that had sons or daughters my age. But, I really had no indication of how I was doing as a principal. Although I met regularly with the superintendent, I had not been evaluated at all.


I finally made an appointment to meet the superintendent in quest of some feedback and any advice he might possess and offer. Following some chit-chat, I posed the question,
"Mr. Fairchild, how am I performing as a principal?"
He paused a moment before replying with a question. "Mike, did you get paid last Friday?"
"Yes, I did" was my answer.
"Well then" he offered, "Do you think we'd pay someone if they weren't doing a good job?"
"I guess not" was all I could muster in response.


End of discussion. It was as simple as that. Such was the state of assessing school leaders back then.

Work and Non-Work time

It's been said that people generally pursue opportunities during their leisure, non-work hours, that are quite different from their workplace environments and roles. For example, someone who operates in a work climate that is rich in human interactions (intense traffic with people on work teams or in a human service agency serving countless people) is likely to invest their time out of work on solitary or more relaxed activities, like hiking, gardening, relaxing and listening to music, photography.... Conversely, someone who spends eight hours confined at work in a cubicle laboring on paperwork, phone calls and individual tasks may spend their off-work hours in a group oriented activity, like team sports or group recreational experiences, or social gatherings, like book clubs or church groups.

Naturally, this Blog perspective was intended as a general observation that is certainly not universal. However, as I examine how my work time and leisure time I have found one explanation that may support the distinctions between the two points.

Most of my decisions as a superintendent are based on long-term issues. For instance, selecting a textbook series or developing an operating budget or hiring a staff member are all decisions that represent long-term investments and do not produce immediate results. It will be years before we can categorically state that the new texts have improved achievement or the budget will further our pursuit of our mission or the staff member will positively impact performance levels of others.

On the other hand, I find myself choosing to immerse myself, or prefer to immerse myself, in activities outside of work that are much more short term, which also provide more immediate feedback. That is, there is no question after a sporting event whether you or your team were successful or not. Likewise, at the end of an exhausting day of work around the house (painting the exterior of the house, planting shrubs, fixing a broken item) you can readily assess and quantify your progress and realize a sense of achievement without having to wait months and years to determine outcomes. It's rewarding to be able to check off tasks from a to-do list and realize closure - all in one day instead of waiting on and wondering about the outcomes of decisions.

Buying Education

Here are two articles that present alarming concerns about the nature and future of public schools in our country. Please read them both and think about the potential consequences of this massive intervention by corporations in shaping educational policies and, subsequently, instructional practices.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-bill-gates-pulled-off-the-swift-common-core-revolution/2014/06/07/a830e32e-ec34-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html


http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/Education-reform-backed-by-the-wealthy-5006670.php

Invest Wisely

We have successfully experienced the annual gauntlet of presenting and receiving public approval on our proposed operational budget for the school district. We have not had a budget rejected in the four years I've been leading the district. In part it can be attributed to fiscal management that seeks to balance the needs of our learners to invent their futures with supportive programs, personnel and practices - on one side of the equation, with the needs of our taxpayers to preserve their future by avoiding debilitating tax burdens that threaten to move them from the community - on the other side of the issue.

However, I feel that the significant factor in the construction of an approved district budget involves adhering to the belief that the finances of the district should not be measured in  simple terms of revenue and expenditures. Instead, leaders must think in terms of revenue and "investments." It doesn't take much thought to spend money, but it does require wisdom to invest through strategic deployment of scarce resources in areas that make a difference and leverage success.

At the conclusion of my first year as superintendent in Green Island, in response to a perception I held that we were wasting valuable resources in unfocused pursuit of improvement, I presented a short you-tube video narrated by the late singer John Denver.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz5ZDIiDE5A

The vignette shared the problem of a small village that was financially overwhelmed by the frequent occurrence of drivers carelessly driving off the curve of a road that hugs a cliff above the village. The village was compelled by its leaders to purchase more ambulances to meet the need to respond to these emergencies. It was an expensive proposition. The real answer was not spending money in ambulances to react to the problem. The real answer was to address the cause of the accidents and invest in a guardrail and other safety measures that would prove to be far less costly than ambulances.

Now, let's look well beyond the classroom and the individual school district and examine how our society may be guilty of a similar case of misguided priorities in which spending more and more is considered a remedy to a growing problem, and investing funds in preventative measures is somehow obscured.

http://www.money.cnn.com/infographic/economy/education-vs-prison-costs/

Now, it’s a perfect example of overlooking that time worn adage of, “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.” Earlier this year our Governor proposed legislation, or “floated the idea” that the state should provide low cost higher education opportunities for inmates in an effort to reduce recidivism rates that result in an extension of costs of incarceration. While there is research to support that inmates released from prison with a college diploma are more likely to distance themselves from a return to the prison, it does sound like buying more ambulances when the problem is the absence of a guardrail – or, in this case, underfunded public school systems in New York that lose support programs and preventative intervention systems which contribute to drop-outs that in turn contribute to incarceration figures that reveal a vastly disproportionate percentage of inmates without high school diplomas.

We can’t spend our way out of problems. We must improve our ability to properly and accurately analyze issues to determine cause and effect to (as Peters and Waterman stated three decades ago in In Search of Excellence) look for a difference that makes a difference, and then respond with targeted investments designed to address root causes, not symptoms.

A Girl Rising

Four of our secondary level learners and I attended a special screening of the documentary film, A Girl Rising, depicting the sad plight of girls throughout underdeveloped areas of the world seeking an elusive education. The film shared the inspiring tales of several different girls who had persisted in gaining an education despite overwhelming obstacles. http://www.troyrecord.com/social-affairs/20140506/local-students-learn-important-lesson-about-education-in-the-developing-world

There was a girl in Nepal who escaped the life of indentured servitude (beginning at age six) with the help of a determined social worker. A girl who lived on the streets of India but still managed to attend school through the commitment of her family that valued education above all else. A girl from Afghanistan who endured the horrifying constrictions of her culture (forced marriage at age eleven, childbearing soon thereafter, beatings from her husband) and insisted on seeking an education despite the threat of death for doing so. A little girl from Haiti who had attended school, only to lose hopes and dreams as a result of a devastating earthquake that destroyed her school and deprived her mom of the means to continue to pay for her education, but regained her attendance through sheer willpower. There were several other vignettes of similar confrontations with adversity by indomitable girls intent on improving their lot in life through education.

All of the stories featured in the documentary included schools that require tuition. There were no free public school programs in the countries appearing in the film. While the finances certainly represented a potential barrier, that proved the least of their worries given the myriad impediments they all faced.

Given the nature of the documentary, our school selected four girls to attend the screening along with representatives of several other Albany area high schools. There was a question and answer session following the movie which involved the producer, a man associated with a Non-Governmental Organization in Pakistan devoted to educating girls, and a young man from the region who had spent a month in India researching the subject of education for girls in that country. The resulting discussion was enriching and enlightening.

After the movie, we stopped at a restaurant and enjoyed lunch while sustaining a conversation about the meaning and value of the documentary. One question stumped us as we reflected on our shared experience. Why, in the richest and most powerful nation on earth, do we have girls in America who willingly forego a free public education by dropping out of an opportunity that girls in underdeveloped countries pursue despite incredible odds against them?

Looking Through New Eyes

French novelist Marcel Proust suggested, "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." This year has enabled me the opportunity to "see with new eyes." In August we welcomed a foreign exchange student from Russia into our home for the full academic year. This has served as a valuable source of learning for me as I view experiences with new eyes.

Kids have been known to employ the following phrase to describe a perplexing situation of comparison and contrast - "The same, but different." I now find myself referring to that expression when reflecting on the result of these interactions.

Anton is a participant in the FLEX program (Future Leaders EXchange) sponsored by the United States Department of State. It is a competitive, merit based program that selects promising young men and women from candidates representing Russia and the former countries that formed the Soviet Bloc (i.e. Armenia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan…). For each student admitted to the program after essays, reference checks, and extensive interviews, there are nearly three-hundred applicants who do not meet the lofty standards. The goal of FLEX is to provide the several hundred FLEX sponsored teenagers with a year-long experience designed to expand their awareness of our culture, political structure, economy and daily life so that they can understand our country as they aspire to productive futures in their native nations.

Modern media and the reach of social networks among youth can account for the discovery that Anton arrived from Russia with much more than a passing awareness of American culture. In fact, he possesses an astounding knowledge of American music, both past and present. In addition, he was well versed in language, both formal and informal, with a surprising command of slang and cultural nuances. Yet, he was stumped by the simple and overlooked everyday items that had escaped the scope of television shows, movies, and Facebook. For instance, he looked all over the counter at an ice cream stand searching for straws without realizing he was standing right in front of the straw dispenser. He was shocked as the straw appeared after a flick of the finger on the tab that released the straw from the container. He hadn’t seen anything like it. Ah, the blind spots of the mundane that fail to attract the interest of postings on websites or exported movies and television programs.

Anton is a curious and intelligent young man (seventeen years old) with a keen interest in the distinguishing characteristics of America, particularly the rights we too often take for granted, and a surprising grasp of world affairs, which is very evident as Russian intervention in events in Ukraine unfold. He has earned my respect with his ability and willingness to sort through the complexity of issues and attempt to analyze both perspectives – that of a native Russian, and that of a Russian currently enjoying the full spectrum of freedoms routinely available in a democracy that the people of Ukraine seek as a future goal. He explores Russian media, the British Broadcasting Corporation, The New York Times, and Al Jazeera in an effort to research a balanced perspective on the dispute that threatens the tenuous status of relations between his country and NATO, the European Union, and the United States. I wish that more American teenagers were as attentive and concerned as Anton is with world news and developments. Then I am reminded of the nature of the FLEX program that identifies the best and brightest applicants to bring to our country and realize that it’s not a fair comparison.

The most pronounced difference in education between Anton’s schooling in Russia and his experience here has been one of focal points and opportunities. That is, beyond attending school six days a week in Russia, the schools in his hometown (like those of most public schools outside of the United States – we’ve previously hosted foreign exchange students from Holland and Germany) lack the breadth of social activities that exist in schools throughout America, whether large or small, affluent or poor. Specifically, he has been pleased to discover a variety of sports and extra-curricular activities on the expansive menu of American schools. He has eagerly devoured these opportunities – playing on the school soccer team and baseball team, attending many dances and meetings of the Junior Class, student council… In addition, study halls are another new experience.

It appears that Anton’s typical school day in Russia is narrower and academic oriented and involves more rote learning or recitation on an individual basis that isolates each student as they comply with rigid guidelines and find the one right answer to algorithmic problems. Attention and debate on the Common Core controversy aside, this contrasts with the focus on the group effort and the desire to promote creativity through exercises that are heuristic in nature that is the goal of public school education in much of our country.

So, while Anton has assimilated himself rather easily into the social milieu of American teenagers because of his familiarity with our widely exported pop-culture across media streams, he has had to adjust to the flexibility and accessibility of school experiences and degrees of prioritization. Though he was baffled at first by the apparent discount of all things learning as measured against his education at home in Russia, he has come to realize and appreciate the benefits accrued through the menu of social/educational experiences in American schools that promote growth in the “whole child.” The manner in which teachers provide instruction and the wide range of opportunities available to American students has been confirmed to Anton by his fellow FLEX students from abroad during his electronic exchanges with them as they encounter similar perspectives in schools sprinkled across the map of the United States.

In short, though I could write on and on about the many experiences Anton has had, and his reactions to them, it seems that the culture has been rendered permeable on levels shared by teens and therefore is more the “same,” while the way we go about our daily lives is “different.” That is to say, while Anton enjoys the same movies (he can quote from many popular films) and the same music and similar clothing styles, he does not enjoy the liberties within a truly free environment, since he will return to a country with more guarded access to media (particularly with the propaganda emerging from the Russian view of the US in light of the crisis in Ukraine) and restrictions on expression (i.e. the jailing of members of the Russian music group Pussy Riot after singing a song protesting Russian leader Vladimir Putin).

I hope Anton has learned as much from me as I have learned from him. He is a terrific young man with a promising future. I think the world would be a better place if there were more frequent cultural exchanges like this so we can all learn that in many respects, we are more alike than different.

Why?

Why do we sustain a school calendar predicated on an outdated agrarian society of planting and harvesting cycles?

Why are we still teaching subjects in high school, in which knowledge has grown exponentially (i.e. Science, History...) within the same time constraints of 7,200 minutes (40 minute periods x 180 days of school) as we did fifty years ago?

Why do we continue to organize learners in grades based on their age instead of on their abilities?

Why are legislative bodies appropriating funds for public schools in arcane distribution formulas (equally) that sustain existing achievement and opportunity gaps instead of providing money based on needs and the ability to generate revenue (equitably)?

Why are schools marching forward bearing much the same instructional infrastructures that were prevalent fifty years ago, despite the advent of technology and the growth in brain research?

Why are a small group of publishers and corporations exercising such a vast and disproportionate voice and heavy hand in the policies and paths of public education?