A Lesson for Educational Leadership

Another Biblical Parallel to the World of Education

Most books have the ability to awaken one’s imagination. The Bible, through God, has the ability to awaken one’s reality on a completely different level. I’ve once again sensed this power, as God has uniquely given me a parallel in the Old Testament, in the man of Nehemiah. 

Like Nehemiah in his quest to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, I’m journeying to find the optimal approach to education. I plan to start in the same way as Nehemiah, with a purpose and a passion.

Much of Nehemiah’s example can be applied to chasing a goal of any kind, but I’ll specifically apply it in terms of educational leadership.

Purpose and Passion

Nehemiah was so concerned about the broken down Jerusalem walls that he “mourned and fasted and prayed”. He was deeply concerned that without these walls his people would lose their God-given identity, purpose and hope.

This divinely aligns with the burden I feel for the kids in today’s schools. Based on your personal experience, you can determine for yourself the state of the figurative walls of our educational system. But I must believe they’re at the very least vulnerable; and at their very worst, crumbled ruins. As long as the protection, support, and encouragement of these walls are absent, so too are a child’s God-given identity, purpose and hope missing.

So, what did Nehemiah do with his load of passion? Knowing the only way to reach entire restoration, Nehemiah began to fervently pray, confessing and repenting. The result was that when the door was open for action, he was more than prepared, knowing exactly what needed to happen. It’s almost comical the laundry list of requests Nehemiah makes to the king. Not surprisingly, the king grants them without hesitation (Nehemiah 2:4-9).

This example of thorough reflection and preparation is what schools need on every level. Legislators, administrators, and teachers are so quick to act on what’s perceived to be a quick fix or a step in the right direction. See Common Core State Standards, the most recent teacher evaluation systems, schools’ approach to intervention, and the list goes on.

-Reflect Constantly- 

Common Vision

Nehemiah was continuously working hard to maintain a common vision amongst every individual involved, no matter leader or laborer. He always gave each person support from the whole and reminded them of the purpose! Nehemiah had to fight hard to eliminate all traces of personal greed in the project. He recognized that the task God had assigned was far too important to allow distractions to interfere with its work.

            The sense of community and maintaining a common vision is possibly the most important concept to the education system, but it’s also the most difficult to achieve. The vision varies in every state, district, school building, and down to every classroom. We must be reminded of the purpose and eliminate greed and distractions that prevent the possibilities of the purpose.

            This reminds me of a quote from The Alchemist. “A shepherd may like to travel, but he should never forget about his sheep.” In its current state, educational leadership is enamored with trending methods or the latest popular resources. I’m afraid we’re forgetting the children.

Our School's Product: Serviceable or Dynamic?

Image licensed under Creative Commons by David Poole http://www.flickr.com/photos/dipster1/1403240351/sizes/l/

       












The students the public school system develops could be described as an abandoned toolbox. The ability of the tools all depends on the person using them. For the tools to create something dynamic and unique, they rely on someone to tell them what to do. Our system is creating a generation of stuffed toolboxes just waiting for a designer, a carpenter, anyone that can tell them what to do. 

Each tool strategically and individually processed for the purpose of one job. Resulting in an overwhelming amount of potential when found in the same toolbox as many varying tools! Tragically there is no ownership of this set of tools (skills or talents). These tools are starving for interaction with each other, looking for opportunities to explore, create, construct, and experiment.

Only, much time is spent improving and evaluating an already adequate tool. Instead of utilizing school to show what capabilities a toolbox allows for, when paired with the special talents of a unique individual.

Measurable goals produce predictable measurable results. In this case the result or outcome produced from the public education system, is a serviceable person. SERVICEABLE. Is that how we would want our children to be described?

They’ve learned what to think instead of how to think. They’ve admirably developed their skillset but have no clue how these can be used together to produce something authentic.

The measureable standards and skills are important but should not be our priority. I'm going to attempt to teach in a way that engages the way students are made to learn.

I’ve been reading  a novel that could probably also be found in the self-help section. I love those types of books! It is flooded with powerful themes of producing results through perspective and decision-making. In The Noticer Returns, the character with great perspective suggests that an end result must first be agreed upon. This drives the process. Every decision and activity must drive us closer to that end result.

Unfortunately, the end result agreed upon by the educational system is mastery of isolated skills on a standardized assessment. This drives the process everyday in every classroom.  

In the book by Andy Andrews, a small group of parents identify traits and characteristics that they would desire for their children.

Some were:

To be divinely guided, to have a grateful spirit, to have a joyful spirit, to be loyal, responsible, humble, to be a creative thinker, to have a servant’s heart (p.91).

The list went on with about a total of twenty characteristics. And the point is, none of them are very measurable, concrete traits. And surely none of them are listed in the state or national standards for the classroom.

How would our results change, if we put these types of abilities and traits as our priority and the needed measurable skills and objectives were still developed with intent but now served a supporting role. This would allow our children’s lives to result in dynamic, creative accomplishments according to their uniqueness.

What great contrast between the ideas of a “dynamic” individual and a “serviceable” person. Lets agree on what we desire for an end result so that our process and decisions can align with that. Great conversation to have for every school, community and household!

What do you want your child’s school to produce?

When Schools... DIRECT TV style

While the Direct TV commercials may be obnoxious, they are great examples of cause and effect, in showing how one small decision can snowball into something much greater.
I help with my church's youth group, and the youth pastor used these commercials to spark student interest in his message about using our God-given abilities and passions. (Thanks David Trainer!) This cause and effect concept can be applied to so many areas!
Here are the commercials:

And as you would guess, this method can be applied to schooling.

Ready for some examples...

When big business feeds on k-12 education, it becomes all about the money. 

When it becomes all about the money, they make standardized tests and common core standards.

When they make standardized tests and common core standards, we're no longer acting in the best interest of the children.

When we don't act in the best interest of the children, the kids don't feel valued or cared for.

When kids don't feel valued or cared for they devalue their self-worth.

When our boys and girls devalue their self-worth...(FILL IN THE BLANK). 

We all have witnessed the consequences dealt to a young innocent generation. Unlike the commercials, these extreme effects are our reality.

I'm not blaming big business, because frankly, you could replace big business with a number of factors that have taken the focus of main stream education away from the children. Whatever point you start with in the public education process, at some point it becomes a selfish system, deflecting the love and care away from the students. 

What if...

When every individual involved invests in the wellness of the child first, the child views his life as valuable and purposeful to others.

When a child views his life as valuable and purposeful to others, he cherishes himself as a unique creation.

When he cherishes himself as a unique creation, he desires to inquire and explore his God-given abilities and passions.

When he desires to inquire and explore his God-given abilities and passions, he lives unselfishly with great motivation and vitality.

When he lives unselfishly with great motivation and vitality, he can be powerfully used by God to bring light to the world!

-I'm aware there are many missing pieces in these scenarios, but the bottom line is; There is a big difference in the results of an unselfish community compared to those groomed by the selfish system.     

Joy in the unselfishness

Does Production Match the Purpose? The Food and Education Industries

Too Close to See the Problem?

A person residing and working in a smog-filled city, probably doesn’t recognize the danger and harm being inhaled daily from his polluted surroundings. He is so deeply entrenched that there is no opportunity for perspective within the conditions. He doesn’t gain true reflection and perspective until he spends a long weekend at his countryside cottage amidst the pure, clean surroundings, infused with a natural floral fragrance.

After participating in parent-teacher conferences, contributing and listening to the concerns and priorities of all involved, I can’t help but think that the entire system is covered in pollution. We were obviously consumed by the educational smog as words like, "test scores, data, and common core standards" were repeatedly hacked from our mouths. The dialogue was clouded with the theme of WHAT students are thinking and learning. As we continue to sit in the fog we no longer notice the flaws in our purpose for teaching and learning.

Over at the countryside cottage, free from the suffocation, we consider the best methods for teaching children HOW to think and HOW to apply.

Education and Food: My two favorite things (when done right)!

I think there is a legitimate analogy to be made between our culture’s food industry and our process of education. (This idea has quite possibly resulted from me watching too many food documentaries).

            In both cases the healthy, organic alternative is an option, though this path is distant and often obstructed. While mass production and sheer numbers can be appropriate objectives, I’m not so sure we want that driving these vital areas of our lives.

In order to eat smart and healthy, a

consumer must be resourceful, committed and informed. I would say the same attributes are important when consuming an education. What do you value as an educational consumer? I’m concerned that our children are becoming obese on a hunger for extrinsic motivators, chasing a number, and competition.

Let me introduce you to an educator’s pesticides and hormones. Things like “data-driven instruction” and “adequate yearly progress” have disconnected the relationship between teacher and student,  just as the industrial farming processes are unnatural and inorganic.

We can earnestly evaluate food or education by asking the following questions:

Are these products being made in a selfish manner, or is the process pure, genuine and selfless? Does the producer cherish the wellness of the consumer?

God uses Paul and Jesus to express His strong feelings about selfish teachers. Paul in           1 Timothy 3-11, and Jesus in Matthew 23 both condemn these teachers that exert self-interest and base their instruction on measurable outcomes.

A School of Vitality: More than academics

Based on his Tedtalk, Andrew Solomon said “the opposite of depression is not happiness, but vitality, and it was vitality that seemed to seep away from me in that moment.” Solomon also points out that depression is the world’s leading disability.

These points caused me to consider two main things:

1.                    To what degree can our schooling environment and experience impact a person’s mental/social/emotional state? Is it a positive or negative influence?

2.                    How is vitality defined? Can we create learning environments that boast this characteristic?

While my medical knowledge only goes as far as WebMD, I can tell by the statistics that we do not have depression figured out. So I think it’s fair to discuss and even speculate how school, just one facet of a child’s life, is influencing the well being of these children at their fragile age. Oh, by the way, I’m talking about “well being” beyond simply academics. School has become so much about scores and academic growth that arguably the most important component is being left outside the walls of these supposed “learning communities”.

John Dewey, known for his educational reforming mind, wrote that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform. How disappointed would he be to know that the public school system has become so hungry for a higher numerical mark that strategies today could be described as a divide and conquer tactic to increase each individual score. While this may work for what is being measured, all of the isolation and testing is harmful to everything that isn’t being measured. Since we’re really only measuring one thing these days, that’s suggesting a lot of harm!

I guess what I need to know is, what does vitality look like? I can surely describe what it doesn’t look like: worksheets, rote memorization, rows of desks, silence, “don’t forget this is for a grade”, and the list goes on.

Vitality however carries a culture of complexity. Each child is considered valuable to the social, emotional, mental, and yes even academic progress of every member of the community. Students are intrinsically motivated because their time is spent on authentic projects that relate to their current life and the world around them. The relational interactions are supportive, encouraging and even fun because we need each other to become better. Development and growth are found here due to productive collaborations and luminous reflections. Each contributes to and benefits from the community. I must infer that vitality aligns with a healthy and safe culture as well. This prepares kids with tools for living their lives today, which naturally will provide skills for the future.

In contrast, the creative George Lucas noticed, “Traditional education can be extremely isolating…many schools operate as if they were separate from their communities.”  

Lastly, I have a hard time thinking of vitality without encountering the concept of purpose. Rick Warren, in The Purpose-Driven Life writes, “Without a clear purpose…you will tend to make choices based on circumstances, pressures, and your mood at that moment. People who don’t know their purpose try to do too much – and that causes stress, fatigue, and conflict.” 

It’s alarming how perfectly Warren has described today’s mainstream education.

We can probably apply this depression-vitality spectrum to many facets of our lives.

Let’s increase our vitality by making genuine connections for an appropriate purpose! I would also include the Author of Life as an essential for consistent vitality.

Joy in the journey.