Do you remember that old expression that starts, ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but…’? After recent events in the media, I have focused much of the in-class facilitation I undertake on looking at the language we use in the classroom. How often do we throw away comments, especially while in the stress response, without thinking about the effect they can have? The phrase above usually finishes with ‘…words can never hurt me’, but just how true is that? Of course, rewording the phrase into, ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can do lasting damage to my self-image, confidence, and resilience’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it!

I took the opportunity to share a story with a group of students earlier this week, one that has stayed with me ever since the experience. Several years ago, while teaching in an all-boys literacy-focussed class, I encountered a very ‘creative’ young man. I intentionally use the term ‘creative’ to try to show that he was a thinker who embraces lateral thought, and often moves in an unexpected direction when compared to peers. He thought more laterally than any other student I’ve encountered. He had an incredibly vivid imagination that would push him to the edge of, and beyond, his levels of self-control. Yes, he’d been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), but that’s in addition to his lateral thinking style. Much of his classroom behaviour focused on using an incredible bank of avoidance strategies when it came to working independently. He often told jokes, shared funny stories, and went out of his way to make others laugh. The attention he received from others seemed to encourage him to pursue greater levels of laughter, often at his own expense. It was that behaviour that saddened me. The attention that followed visibly lifted him, however, the disregard for whether that attention was positive or negative led us to loggerheads on many occasions, but everything changed after I asked why. You see, it turns out that two years previously he had been taught by a very experienced, stern male colleague of mine. Just a week or so into that year, the teacher stopped the class, highlighted the student’s distracting behaviour, and promptly labelled him the class clown. And it stuck…

“The future belongs to the curious. The ones who are not afraid to try it, explore it, poke at it, question it and turn it inside out.”
– Manifesto, Skillshare, Jan 2012

Can you cast your mind back to a time when as a child you were totally absorbed in the moment?

My early years memory of total absorption is of counting burger rings onto each one of my fingers — how many could fit each knuckle. Could I load up all fingers and eat them without them falling or leaving teeth marks?

If you don’t recall intense curiosity or absorption in a moment as a youngster, consider times you have sat alongside a young child and quietly watched how they interacted with the world around them, exploring, talking and learning from every movement, every noise, every sensation.  If you brought an adult lens to their curiosity and work what words would you use to describe what they were saying and doing? It is likely, that our wee inquirers will:

Have you ever sat in a meeting or discussion with others, with the beginnings of an idea sitting deep in your brain? Yet for some reason, you don’t share the idea. Maybe the idea needs more thought and development? Maybe you’re lacking in confidence to share? “My idea just isn’t that good,” you think. “It’s so simple. Someone else will come up with the same thing.”

But no-one else does. Sometimes you finally share the idea, other times you run over the meeting in your head that night, wishing you had spoken up. Or maybe the group has now taken someone else’s idea and run with it, so a different direction is now on the horizon.

I have often been that person who, for a variety of reasons, keeps an idea in my head. Recently I watched a life-changing video from entrepreneur Derek Sivers. It made me really think about why we sometimes hold back from sharing and contributing and how we can create conditions to get those great ideas out in the open.

Transcript of video

As the video says, everyone’s ideas seem obvious to them! But often an idea might be absolutely amazing.  How can we make sure that these ideas are shared and developed? This got me thinking about our learners and staff in schools and the ways that we as educators and leaders provide the environment and opportunities for this to happen. After much thought, reading and discussion with colleagues this is what I think is key.

In a previous post on this blog I discussed how professional development (PD) is a key to enabling teachers and schools/kura to cope with the constant of change in our education system. While I stand by what I wrote in terms of the dimensions of an effective PD progamme, I’d suggest that, while PD may build the capacity to cope with change, we need to set our sights a little higher than simply being responsive to external change pressures — to being the architects of change in our schools and system.

If, through our programmes of professional development, we are seeking to achieve more than growth and development in individual teachers, and lift our horizon to thinking of organisational change, we need to consider the relationship between professional development and change management.

The key link here is in the thinking about how to make professional learning engaging, and what motivates teachers to pursue their ‘cycles of inquiry’ etc., to improve their practice. The same (or, at least, similar) thinking needs to be applied to how we then engage these same people in pursuing the change management goals of the school as an organisation.