by Donna Kennedy-Glans
In early June, I was invited to participate as a respondent in strategic planning sessions hosted by the Alberta Teachers’ Association (the ATA). Organizers scheduled this deep thinking to coincide with Education Minister Dave Hancock’s release of the Inspiring Education Report. Newfoundland-born and U.K.-resident, Gwynne Dyer , was the key-note speaker. My job was to take Gwynne’s vision for Alberta and translate that into actions that individuals within Alberta’s education system could take in their own organizations and communities.
Gwynne is a compelling speaker. In his signature deep-throated voice, he dared Albertans to:
- Imagine classrooms where electronically-savvy, easily-distracted students weren’t bored.
- Imagine Aboriginal youth being excited about the possibilities for their education.
Gwynne is a motivating kind of guy. He even dared us to imagine a high speed train connecting Calgary and Edmonton, creating a North American corridor of innovation (aka Silicon Valley North) capable of attracting world class researchers…people who could lead creative thinking in agriculture, energy and climate control, forestry.
Well, maybe the high speed train connecting Calgary and Edmonton (two cities that seem bent on maintaining their differences) was a stretch. But people gathered at these ATA sessions in Calgary and Edmonton were willing to have their minds stretched, and there were no differences of opinion on the need to boost critical thinking in students. Maintaining the status quo in our education system doesn’t look like our best choice if Alberta wants to build the potential seen by imaginative people like Gwynne…few people in the room were blind to the obvious fork in our road. (The ingenuity challenges facing Alberta are well documented in the ATA Changing Landscapes Report).
Over the course of our three days together, it was clear to me—a relative outsider—that the ATA had gathered together a lot of organizations representing a lot of specialized knowledge: educators, the union, provincial regulators, higher education institutions training teachers, for-profit companies needing educated workers, champions of literacy and adult learning. I have few doubts about capacity within each of the represented organizations. I’ve seen the outcomes of this system up close, within the companies and voluntary organizations I’ve worked with and in my own family. All of my sons have been educated in Alberta’s public education system.
The challenge? We have excelled at building expertise within these individual organizations. Going forward, we need to encourage dialogue between individual organizations…between the knowledge silos. This is not easy work. Yet it seems to be critical work if we want to bring together the specialized intelligence held by individual organizations into shared wisdom. It is the spaces in between organizations that remain uncultivated. That is where Alberta’s unrealized potential lies.
As individuals, how do we reach outside our comfortable boundaries to connect with others on education…or on anything? Conventional leadership training reinforces the need for leading, not following. Leaders in companies, government, unions, voluntary groups, and communities…leaders anywhere…are expected to carry the flag and inspire others. We don’t expect leaders to be inspired by others.
At this point in our province’s history, deciding to do something different in our education system may seem obvious. But it isn’t an easy choice. People are hard-wired to resist change. It’s far easier to rationalize the status quo. (op-ed in Calgary Herald Alberta Education report is recycled edu-babble June 8th 2010 by Michael Zwaagstra ). Many people in the ATA strategy sessions asked how they could be catalysts for change, without resorting to fear-mongering. What actions could individuals take to create the conditions for positive change… without arm-waving and apocalypse?
Many ideas were explored. Positive personal experiences were quite helpful, and many were hopeful. Here are a few of the many suggestions:
- Educators are natural optimists. They see potential in students, in all humans. Optimism is a rich asset to be nurtured and modeled in Alberta’s education system. Optimism and a ‘can do’ attitude are critical to our progress; too often we are mired down in pessimism and negative thinking. Yet we must remember that blind optimism can be callous. A ‘can do’ attitude can be dangerous when it constrains honest dialogue within organizations about operational limitations, practical timelines, financial realities, even organizational purpose. BP’s experience with the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico may be a case in point.
- Understanding how change really happens. When options are being evaluated by a wide range of decision-makers, it can be challenging to know when a change is going to emerge from the seeming chaos. And, as an individual, it can be really daunting to understand how your on-the-ground experience influences top-down strategy. Being positioned for change is critical; when that opening for change appears (often with little advance notice) you just have to be positioned to act. Social entrepreneurs thrive along the edges of chaos.
- Adjusting our model of leadership. We’re conditioned to see leaders as people with all the answers and all the knowledge…as people who inspire and lead others. Imagine what could happen if we adjusted this stereotypical image of a leader—to instead see leaders as wise people who are open to the ideas of others; who inspire and are equally open to being inspired.
More focus on shared wisdom; less focus on islands of specialized knowledge. Sounds like a creative strategy for Alberta’s education system. Maybe Gwynne’s idea of a high speed train between Edmonton and Calgary isn’t such a crazy idea…
Tags: Alberta, blog, community integrity, education, political integrity