Teresa Draguicevich
Elementary Educator
helping children step into the future together
Foundational Learning:
Beginning an Odyssey of Professional Growth
Recently, I heard a story about a conversation across generations. In it an older, wise scientist offered the following insight to a fact-loving youth. “There comes a time when everything we know will not get us where we want to go.” It got me to thinking about how much potential learning is out there for anyone willing to take the odyssey into unchartered waters. According to a variety of sources, the average American will have 5-7 careers in his/her lifetime. That’s a lot of potential learning and reinventing happening! No wonder “Life Coach” is becoming such a popular profession. Although I am not changing careers specifically, I seek to reinvent myself within the educational field. This is leading me into those areas where what I know will only take me so far; where the questions I have the courage to ask only mark the beginning of an epic personal quest, with no guarantee of its destination. Originally, I applied to the High Tech Graduate School because I hoped that it could be that vessel to help me move forward in my professional learning journey. However, I have to admit that as the time drew closer, I entertained second thoughts about beginning the leadership program, fearing that it would be just another master’s degree. Fortunately, the High Tech High Odyssey, which was a week-long combination of the High Tech High Graduate School and New Teacher Orientation, lived up to its name and quickly dispelled any skepticism I brought with me when I climbed all those stairs at High Tech High Media Arts for the first time. So far, everything that I have observed, learned, been inspired by and been encouraged to plan has resonated with the adventure of a true intellectual and spiritual quest, reminiscent of Homer’s original Odyssey.
To begin this Odyssey, those of us in the graduate program were asked to be participant observers in the program designed to introduce new teachers to the High Tech High system of education. No problem. I came into the experience confident that I could maintain objectivity. I was wrong. During the project slice, I completely forgot that I was not a new teacher at High Tech High; that my ultimate purpose for being there was to observe the experience of new teachers, not become one. In my field notes from that day, I have recorded, “I am thankful for this project slice and the opportunity to be a student-to feel it all from that perspective.” I felt a sense of loss when it was time to join the graduate program cohort. Carolyn Frank, the author of “Ethnographic Eyes”, points out that there are challenges inherent in being both an observer and a participant. While this can more easily be reconciled within the confines of a research study, it is nearly impossible for a classroom teacher to take off the cultural lens that each one of us wears (Frank, 1999). Well, for the record, she is right. I so thoroughly immersed myself in the experience that my observations completely lacked objectivity. However, just realizing how hard it is to take off my cultural lenses brought insight. It was impossible for me to stop being a teacher getting the rewarding opportunity to experience project based learning as a student. In the end, being aware of this lens is essential to creating an equitable learning environment for diverse learners, as well as to implement new ideas or programs effectively. Ms. Frank’s article raises thought provoking questions regarding how understanding ethnography and our own lenses can expand our cultural perspective; that it can enhance our ability to observe in the classroom and afford us an opportunity to more deeply reflect upon our own practice as educators. She sites Spradley and McCurdy (1972) who explain that the ethnographer’s goal is to “be more objective. He wants his account to be free from distortion and bias, to accurately represent what people know and believe.” (Frank, 1999, p. 3) Over the years, I have gained much wisdom and insight about how my cultural lens impacts the way I interpret the behaviors of those around me. This experience taught me to keep this awareness at the forefront of my consciousness and to acknowledge that there is still much for me to learn.
Although, I completely lacked objectivity, the project slice experience profoundly impacted my willingness to explore questions and concepts more authentically and openly later in the week. The project was designed to explore how the border affects our community and how we affect the border. Our group spent the day with an organization called the Border Angels. During the course of the day, our group met a reluctant hero, a humble owner of a small fish market. It was his heartfelt and authentic interview that marked a pivotal moment in the day for me. His ability to reach out and help an immigrant family in need, even when it put his own family at risk, served to inspire me to examine how my own core values and life choices currently align or don’t. The act of plunging me into a new awareness about a reality of something happening so close to my home-one that I was not doing anything about- served to upset my equilibrium; reminding me to be a custodian of my own personal core values. Usually, facing uncomfortable truths can be a very negative experience. However, with the project based learning practices, it proved to be very positive; serving to build community among the participants, providing a sense of belonging to something important and igniting curiosity and investigation. I felt safe to reflect and to share. Since this proved to be so positive, I think it really opened me to the possibility that going out of one’s comfort zone can be fun and rewarding! I have saved the artwork of the woman enduring a clearly perilous journey to the border, the heart-wrenching map marking the untimely end of other journeys. I will hold dear the brochure and t-shirt from the Border Angels and the photograph of the reluctant hero’s fish store. Although, the sunburn acquired from the walk to the border will eventually fade, the sensory experience it provided engraved memories on my heart that will stay. Reminding me to be a custodian of my own personal core values will impact my ability to do the same in the classroom and the school as I seek to protect and develop the core values of shared learning spaces with my students and colleagues. These artifacts along with the notes I took of my experience serve as reminders not only of the positive experience associated with trying something new, but also of the teacher I aspire to be; one who provides opportunities for my students to feel like they can make a change for the better and turn their core values into action.
I realize the inherent subjectivity of these observations. At best, I am aware that like all the other teachers in the room, I was both a student and a teacher in the experience. That was the extent of my participant/observer roles. My notes reflect the pedagogical practices along with the affective experience. But in the end, my reflection journal is mostly about me and how I was experiencing the Odyssey. I went back through my notes during a quiet time during the Odyssey and rewrote them, dividing them into two categories: note taking and note making, with the first category being observations and the second being my reflections and opinions. I discovered that I had many more opinions than straight reflections.
Along with those professional observations, I noted that it was interesting to see how even though I was politely friendly and smiled at people, there was a different light of recognition among the members of my group who had shared the project slice and collaborated to create a final product. The connection made by a powerfully shared experience clearly transcended other cultural and social barriers that might have otherwise divided us. In fact, along those lines, I chose to interview one of the participants in the Odyssey specifically because he had expressed a keen awareness during our time in the project slice together. He is very connected to his indigenous heritage. He is Nahua (Texas) on his Dad’s side and Otmie (Central Mexico) on his mom’s side. He still speaks Otmie and considers it his native language before Spanish. He mentioned the experience of the Kumeyaay regarding the border and how their nation had been cut in half by project Gate Keeper, breaking numerous Federal treaties, something that was not explored in our limited project slice time. It made me realize that he wore a cultural lens that I have little experience with and one that I wanted to learn more about. What was his experience of the Odyssey? Did he believe that High Tech High’s design provided an equitable learning environment and if so, was this conveyed during the Odyssey experience?
In the interview, I attempted to utilize the technique of taking ethnographic field notes from the beginning, having learned my lesson from attempting to note-take earlier in the week. I believe this simple tool can assist me to reflect upon my practice. By taking notes of my observations and categorizing the notes into descriptive and interpretive, I believe it will help me to become clearer about what my own judgments and evaluations are and their impact on my responses. In the article “Ethnographic Eyes,” Ms. Frank suggests that by focusing too much attention on evaluation during any given activity in a classroom, much of what is actually happening can be missed (Frank, 1999). So, I entered the interview determined to record the responses and reflect immediately afterwards. For me, it was easier to record the observations and answers first and then to add the interpretive notes later.
In honest assessment of the interview, I was successful for a majority of the time. But I cared too much about the response to the last question. It turns out that the teacher I interviewed had many interesting and inspiring insights into the impact of the Odyssey experience from an equity perspective and I just couldn’t keep quiet! For instance, although issues of social justice, educational debt and equity were not explicitly discussed or addressed in his perspective, the very structure of multiple types of grouping, what he called, “mixing it up” helped him feel a sense of belonging and allowed everyone to get to know each other in a more meaningful way. He wondered how the lack of diversity among the staff represented at the Odyssey would impact collaboration later on for him. “If I am the only one on the team…don’t want to be seen as the expert representative of my race.” He goes on to explain that when this happens it doesn’t allow him to just focus on his feelings, when he is also aware of how he is being seen. At this point, my notes in the “note-making” column reflect my concern if I have been forthcoming enough not to make him feel like I see him as just the representative of the Otmie people. I was also reminded of the powerful insights gained during the “The Paseo: Circles of Identity” exercise and the portals or lenses through which people have access to me. I think that this teacher I interviewed would have found it to be a powerful example of a technique that can build bridges among people. In my field notes from that activity I entered this reflection. "It was an activity that reveals so much more about who we are at the heart of it all." In the end, he concluded that reading Paulo Freirie’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed had prepared him to look upon the Odyssey with discerning eyes, to understand it more. He mentioned that the spirit of collaboration that permeated the experience was the opposite of the banking system that Freirie mentions in the book. Rather than the teacher filling up the students with facts that the teacher deems necessary, the Odyssey was structured to allow groups of individuals to consult and construct their own learning from the experience. Again, he felt it critical that the groups were changed as frequently as they were, thus allowing multiple people to share perspectives, viewed through their unique cultural lens. And it is this collaboration that provides the ultimate equitable learning environment for all students by broadening their vision and giving them equal voice in the learning process.
Regarding equitable learning, I am also keenly interested in the powerful effects that critique and revision can have on an environment. Reading Ron Berger’s, An Ethic of Excellence (2003), inspires me to reach for and build the type of learning environment that he created for his students regardless of ability, prior label and socio or economic background. And the desire to do it yesterday! Ron Berger asserts that teachers would benefit from “taking critique to a whole new level and make critique a habit of mind that suffuses the classroom in all subjects. “ (Berger, 2003, p. 92) Another teacher I interviewed echoed these sentiments. As a special education inclusion support teacher she commented on the importance of collaboration in order to get valuable critique feedback. "I'm not the best. There are people out there who are much more creative doing great things that I shouldn't ignore." She felt strongly that the ability of teachers in the classroom to support and give feedback to each other had a direct and positive impact that affected students with special needs and therefore in the end all students.
Mr. Berger also reminds us that because most of us spent our educational careers producing final draft after final draft, we never developed the comfort with rethinking, revising and polishing a piece of work that his students possess (Berger, 2003). These points certainly hold true for me. It took me years as a recovering perfectionist to be able to identify the difference between striving for excellence and striving for perfection. I grew up as a learner who naturally did multiple drafts of a writing assignment or project. I did this in a culture of learning where the final grade was final and one passed, did ok or failed as evidenced by a grade. Multiple revisions were seen as unnecessary and excessive. And certainly peer feedback was not even considered. It is clear that as I move forward with implementing critique more deeply into the classroom culture, I will be bringing with me the shadowed memory of emotions resulting from my own experiences.
As I plan for the year, several questions arise regarding how to effectively model the critique process using models of quality work and later students’ work. How do I inspire the learners under my care to engage, without coercion, in the process of creating multiple revisions? Lastly, I am wondering how my own feelings and doubts about the validity of using this method with young learners will impact the final outcome. On a personal level, I will need to continually remind myself that multiple revisions are not the bad thing they were in my childhood. On a professional level, I believe that with young learners, process is often more important than final product. I struggle with wondering how I can balance this knowledge of child development with the understanding that creating a product of excellence is also very empowering for children. Perhaps, it makes more sense to use critique with behaviors and in the practicing of key virtues associated with our classroom agreement than it does to do so with a product? At any rate how do I find the balance? I do like the images of polishing and referring to the revisions as versions that Mr. Berger presents. I am considering reserving a space for an art gallery for each student to display his/her favorite version of a group drawing lesson that we do together and where we do 4 different versions of the same object. After critiquing the aspects or qualities that make this our favorite version, we can put the version in a frame and hang it in the gallery. Perhaps, I might have them write or dictate to me the quality or attribute that they like the best about the version and hang that up under or next to the drawing. At any rate, it is exciting to discover that I have joined a cohort of professionals, many of whom have experience with critique and from whom I can receive feedback as I practice implementing this new strategy. I am very excited about its implications for impacting equity in the classroom since it will give all students a chance to exhibit their best effort and learn to honor the best offered by others.
At the High Tech High Graduate School of Education, I am exploring the connection between the design principles of personalization, adult world connection, common intellectual mission and teacher as designer. How do these structures and practices promote equity?
We all see the world through a cultural lens.
In addition to providing a safe, enriching place for a diversity of students to thrive, an equitable learning environment must extend and include the adults in a learning community as well. Does the environment foster collaboration and support among the adults? Is it a safe and inspiring place for teachers and staff to collaborate and critique? Are parents and families empowered to be co-collaborators and their voice included? These questions really speak to leadership. How do we lead ourselves as a staff? How am I and others taking responsibility, if at all, for our growth as educators? How does the officially appointed leadership foster and encourage ownership and collaboration? In “Philosophy of Leadership,” Lillian Hsu expresses it sincerely. “I hope that my teachers leave every day with their curiosity provoked, feeling that our school inspires them as much as it does their students, to be lifelong learners.” (Hsu, p. 3) Specific strategies for attaining this lofty goal manifest in several of the articles regarding engaging in leadership for school change as well as in the Odyssey experience itself. First and foremost, as Roland Barth asserts in “Improving Relationships within the School House”, “You can’t lead where you won’t go.” (Barth, 2006, p. 2) During the Odyssey, I observed one of the facilitators, Angie Guerrero receiving feedback during a project tuning. Although I have some experience with project based learning, this experience made me realize how emergent my skills are with this process. Again, the theme of critique is coming up for me and I am wondering why it has taken me so long to reach this point professionally.
Although, there is much room in developing the practice of project tuning for myself and the program I am helping to develop, I am very good at fostering a precondition that Barth mentions in the same article. “A precondition for doing anything to strengthen our practice and improve a school is the existence of a collegial culture in which professionals talk about practice, share their craft knowledge and observe and root and for the success of one another.” (Barth, 2006, p.5) My co-designers of the “school within a school” program that we are growing at Innovations Academy allows us to take ownership of our staff development, meetings and direction of the program itself. It has been a very rewarding experience. However, as we move forward, an area of leadership fraught with land mines for me is exemplified in this quote from Heifetz, “[Leadership] often requires helping groups make difficult choices and give up something they value on behalf of something they care about more.” (Heifetz, 2004, p.1) It’s at times like these, that Larry Rosenstock’s advice that being the custodian of core values is as much about what you don’t allow into a school culture as what you do." Leadership is also about change, especially in today’s educational climate. And Weissglass (1990) says this means attending to the emotional reactions of those most responsible for implementing change, namely the teachers and empowering them to construct their own meaning of their emotional response.
I have always been drawn to the aspect of the Constructivist perspective that the learning happens best when the student is central to constructing meaning from his/her experience and that this process is honored and encouraged. This is congruent with my belief that inherently, human beings are noble. This means that within each of us is the potential to positively impact the world, especially when our ability to construct meaning is supported. The Prophet-founder of my faith described human beings in the following way; “Man is a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can alone cause it to reveal its treasures and enable mankind to benefit therefrom.” (Baha’u’llah). The concept of constructivist listening that Julian Weissglass presents in the article, “Constructivist Listening for Empowerment and Change,” honors this inherent nobility because it empowers the individual to “construct personal understandings, and use his or her full intelligence to respond creatively to situations.” (Weissglass, 1990, p.356) For the most part, I agree with Weissglass, who proposes applying this tool to the educational field in order to improve the effectiveness of reform, to empower teachers and ultimately to impact the learners in the classroom positively. It’s just that the reality of my cultural lens, a concept described by Carol Frank (1999) in the article, “Ethnographic Eyes,” predisposes me to shy away from public expressions of strong emotion, as well as encourages me to remain strong intellectually and cognitively in order to sustain sanity in the face of tremendous professional demands. Let’s face it; Weissglass is accurate in stating that the “culture of teaching does not value taking time to consider feelings.” (Weissglass, 1990, p. 354) In spite of these personal road blocks, I respect that human beings are spiritually, intellectually and physically integrated beings. Reluctantly, I recognize that accepting the impact of emotions on my practice as an educator and utilizing constructivist listening as a tool to improve my own effectiveness and the lives of those my presence impacts are essential precursors to becoming an effective agent of change.
As I seek to incorporate all of these new ideas and strategies into my practice as an educator, it is helpful to remember the brain research cited in Goleman’s “Primal Leadership” article, “The more we act a certain way-be it happy, depressed or cranky-the more the behavior becomes ingrained in our brain circuitry.” (Goleman, 2001, p. 48) He provided a practical five part process for rewiring the brain, a process specifically created to help leaders grow and develop their capacity to lead. I see those five steps he mentioned as being pivotal to this graduate program, particularly to my experience of the Odyssey as the structures of the past week have provided space to do all five. The five are: Imagine your ideal self, come to terms with your real self, create a tactical plan to bridge the gap between the ideal and real, practice and create a community of colleagues as change enforcers or accountability partners. This past week and five steps mentioned above have been about all about a growth mindset for me and getting comfortable with the natural outcomes. Aristotle is credited with saying that, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Everything is a work in progress. What a freeing concept for a recovering perfectionist such as myself!
When I reflect about the events of this past week, I feel gratitude because all the experiences combined have given me the structure, protocol and courage to continue my professional journey and to begin to develop my own personal learning plan. For the quest, I brought with me metaphorical bags packed with a little bit of wisdom and several episodic memories of success gained over the years. But mostly, the bags were and are filled with questions. In fact, the truth is that right now I have more questions than answers. I guess I always thought that when I grew up, then I would be an expert in something and have more answers than I do now. Really, it was easier being twenty-something than being forty-something. I seemed to know so much more back then! In “Healing Democracy,” Palmer gives counsel to those of us entering unchartered waters. “Be patient towards all that is unresolved in your heart....Try to love the questions themselves…. Live the questions now. Perhaps, you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answers.” Rainer Maria Rilke (Palmer, 2000, p.124). The author goes on to remind us that it is important to, “…learn how to ask questions that are worth asking because they are worth living, questions one can fruitfully hold at the center of one’s life.”(Palmer, 2000, p. 125) If I am going to ask the students in my classroom to do this, then I had better be willing to do it myself. The Odyssey has provided a safe and inspiring environment for me to ask important questions and to become more comfortable with not knowing the answers right away. It is refreshing to join a professional culture, where nothing is ever considered finished; in the sense that learning is viewed as a continuous process instead of a destination. It makes heading out into those unchartered waters a little less intimidating.
References
Barth, R. S. (2006). Improving Relationships within the Schoolhouse. Educational Leadership. Volume 63.
Berger R. (2003). An Ethic of Excellence: Building a Culture of Craftsmanship with Students. Portsmouth, NH: Heineman.
Frank, C. (1999). Ethnographic Eyes. Portsmouth, NH: Heineman. Chapter 1: An ethnographic perspective.
Goleman, D. Boyatzis, R and Mckee, A. (2001). A Primal Leadership. Harvard Business Review.
Heifetz, R. A. and Linsky, M. (2004). When Leadership Spells Danger. Educational Leadership. Volume 61
Hsu, L. Philosophy of Leadership
Palmer, P. (2000) Healing the Heart of Democracy.
Weisglass, J. (1990). Constructivist Listening for Empowerment and Change. Santa Barbara, CA.
Project Slice Essential Question,"How do we affect the border and how does the border affect our communities?"
Humanitarian effort to inform and warn people wanting to immigrate to the United States.
Enrique Morones, founder of Border Angels, along the US/Mexico border near Friendship Park.
The Paseo: Circles of Identity
The Critique Process
Collaborating with colleagues in the HLC Program at Innovations Academy
"Man is a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can alone cause it to reveal its treasures and enable mankind to benefit therefrom." ~Baha'u'llah
"You cannot lead where you are not willing to go."
I enjoy co-designing workshops where parents and teachers collaborate to design individual family learning plans in the HLC program at Innovations Academy.
The reluctant hero's fish market. This site marked the interview that was pivotal for me.
Unchartered Waters: The professional odyssey continues.
Project Artifact: Artwork depicting one women's perilous journey to the US/Mexico Border
Project Artifact: Map marking the fate of unsuccessful attempts to cross the border as well as locations for fresh water.
Border Angel T-Shirt: An artifact from the project that serves as a symbol to remind me that I want to incorporate as many developmenttaly appropriate service opportunities into the classroom culture as possible.
Artifact from a GSE activity designed to heighten awareness about issues of equity.
This first grader's revisions of a butterfly serve as an example of the level of excellence that I want to encourage my students to strive for in all of their endeavors.
This book is an instrumental tool guding me in the specifics of how to incorporate a culture of critique in the classroom.