Interest is growing

It has been an interesting few weeks.

The Australian Catholic University (Strathfield) invited me to present on my Churchill project as part of their seminar series. I presented an overview of my project in an hour long presentation entitled What difference can we make? It used a series of case strudies from the trip to explore some of the concepts.

The seminar was well received with over 30 participants across the Government, Catholic and Independent sectors. Word of mouth has led to some further presentations within the system I work for, to some key groups.

It is exciting to open up the thinking of others who are positioned to make a difference to the students they teach, their schools and the profession.

What difference can we make: Teachers innovating and building professional knowledge

I had the opportunity to present to a group of Primary Assistant Principals in the Southern region of Sydney. The presentation was essentially a repeat of a presentation I did as part of the seminar series at Australian Catholic University.
The group seemed to respond well to the concepts being put forward.
The significant ones for me seerm to be:

• slow learning to go deep - not just for students but for teachers
• teacher-led development work that provides a framework for teachers engaging in school improvement at the classroom level
• Disciplined innovation that provides a scaffold for engaging in innovation
• The focus in school review and improvement should be on improvement, not measuring.

At the heart for me is a desire that Teaching be seen to be The Learning Profession. Again this notion of courageous leadership and the courage to lead seem to be strong at the moment.

I am interested to see where the thinking and conversations develop and how. My goal in presenting is not so much to provide answers, but rather to open up and stimulate thinking.

More and more I am getting a sense of asking the questions about do we desire things to be like, what should things be like in education and what can I do about it? How can I contribute my expertise to achieving the desired outcomes of the profession?

There needs to be conversations about what is desirable and for whom.

Leading for Learning in a world that is flat

Today I presented a session to a group of principals on leading for learning. In providing a key note I hoped to open up thinking, conversations and possibilities. The notion of a flat world (as developed by Friedman) was drawn upon to highlight the lateral connectivity that exists in the world.
The presenation explored a new imaginary for schooling and education, networked learning, the need for disciplined innovation and possibilities for developing next practice. These were concepts that I developed as a result of my Churchill Fellowship.
As a result of the presentation and discussions there are a few thoughts that emerged:

• there is a need for courageous leadership in schools and systems
• focusing on what I have to do (compliance, regulations, etc.) limits the possibilities of what I could do to transform learning and schooling
• networking is important for developing possibilities, ideas and ways forward that transcend the system
• individual schools can move forward towards excellence/greatness more quickly than systems can.

It's Time...

After a bit of a hiatus I have decided to continue this blog as a learning journal following on from my Churchill Fellowship. This time last year I was away and swimming in thoughts and possibilities.

The challenge of writing a report for The Churchill Trust took something of the gloss off the experience as I only had 10 weeks to sythesise ideas and submit the report. To some extent the report fails to capture the full extent of my learnings. The report submitted to the Trust can be found via the link to the right. I have made some minor editings (mostly typos) sincing submitting it.

Interest in the report, the trip and my learnings was some what muted initially upon my return. A fair bit of grass roots interest - not too much interest from within the education system I work for (which disappointed me). They were in the throws of developing a new School Review and Improvement model. The system has a strong tradition of strategic management and review.

I did however have the opportunity to do the following presentations:

• Teaching: The Learning Profession - Some thoughts for growing the profession (Annual general meeting of NSW Pofessional Teachers Council 29/11/2006)
• Outside the box: Alternatives within a regulatory environment (Consultants of the NSW Association of Independent Schools 14/09/2006)

I also had an opportunity to meet with Fran Hinton, Chief Executive of Teaching Australia, thanks to the support and encouragement of Sue Gazis (a colleague at the NSW Institute of Teachers).

In the last few weeks things seem to be changing with an increased interest in the project and my thinking and learnings from the experience.

More to come on that later.