Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading

Implications for School Leadership

By William Brennan

Over the last few years there has been a big debate across the country on 21st

century schools. I believe that most schools are simply doing that, debating about what it

means to be a 21st century teacher and student. The actual federal and state learning

outcomes do very little in helping districts address these skills which is why we don’t see

many other districts moving away from the “Standardification” of American education.

So let’s begin by asking ourselves, what does it mean to be a school LEADER in

the 21st century? According to Heifetz and Linsky, “To lead is to live dangerously

because when leadership counts, when you lead people through difficult change, you

challenge what people hold dear – their daily habits, tools, loyalties, and ways of thinking

– with nothing more to offer perhaps than a possibility.” (Heifetz, 2002)

I want to pay close attention to two very specific items in this book and I expect

that by understanding these, I will be a more effective school leader. The two of interest

are “adaptive challenges” and “exercising personal pacing by allowing (or causing) issues

to ripen”. As noted in this book, “Adaptive challenges” require leadership. “Adaptive

changes are problems that are not solvable through expertise or standard operating

procedures.”

As the Director of Technology for a quite progressive school district I am in the

midst of a major adaptive challenge and it’s certainly up to me and my colleagues to

exercise pacing by allowing issues to ripen. Our goal is to create conditions that will

allow the faculty to transform teaching and learning so that two things will be

accomplished. The first is that all schools and teachers will create conditions for students

to be master learners. The second is that by providing students and teachers the

necessary tools they will become proficient in the use of technology and develop an

appreciation and understanding of how it will help them in life after high school.

As I speak with the faculty and many of my colleagues I often explain that this

initiative has very little to do with technology, but all to do with creating conditions for

learning. You see, I often preach that we must stop using this word “technology” so

much, because things like laptops, cell phones and the Internet are not technology as all

these things existed prior to when our students were born. Take a second and imagine

speaking to a nine year old today about how revolutionary the Internet is. Students today

are not amazed by this stuff. They were born into it. It’s a part of their life and how they

live. Yet, when students walk through those doors into school we shield them these

powerful learning tools. This continues to be the cornerstone of an adaptive challenge

that is happening in our schools. In education we are faced with a plethora of difficult

situations as we move down the pathway of change. I look forward to addressing these

issues deeper in later discussions.

So what it is I am asserting? I am offering my students and faculty the possibility

of Universal Design for Learning. How we get there requires some well thought out

planning and resources. “UDL is a framework for designing curricula that enable all

individuals to gain knowledge, skills, and enthusiasm for learning. UDL provides rich

supports for learning and reduces barriers to the curriculum while maintaining high

achievement standards for all.” (Center for Applied Special Technology) This initiative is

combined with another major initiative called, 1:1 Laptop Computing which has attracted

much debate and speculation. Imagine trying to convince a group of teachers and parents

that children will no longer have textbooks, but will carry a laptop with them at all times.

Over the last two years I have lead this adaptive challenge and I have had to deal with the

drastic resistance. In some cases, there has been outright disgust among staff and parents.

This is not quite an easy task. My challenge though is to break down the mental

models that teachers, parents and school leaders have on what it means to be a learner

today and how we best go about that? I must change their thinking, develop new

understanding and inspire learning across the organization. Senge explains "Mental

models are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures or images that

influence how we understand the world and how we take action." (Senge, 1990) Do

parents, teachers and school leaders understand the world our students will enter is

different from when we went to school?

So while technology is making a major impact on the way we do business,

construct new knowledge and connect with others to solve problems, we should

remember that the following from Senge, "If any one idea about leadership has inspired

organizations for thousands of years, it's the capacity to hold a shared picture of the

future we seek to create." (Senge 1990) I believe it is about painting this picture and

recruiting the right people, obtaining the proper resources and carrying out a plan that

will help our students become the leaders in the 21st century.

C.A.S.T., (2009). Retrieved from http://www.cast.org/index.html

Heifetz, Ronald A. and Marty Linsky. (2002). Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through

the Dangers of Leading. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Kotter, J (1996). Leading Change. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Senge, P (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization. New

York, NY: Doubleday.