How do you make it work?

We had a wonderful faculty meeting this week, with considerable poetic talent displayed. The discussion was about where we are and where to go next. Now I am thinking about how to make it all work. It is a different question altogether. Operationalizing and institutionalizing ideas is the hard part. How to capture the energy, include all voices, and at the same time have a manageable number of projects and tasks, so nothing is forgotten and abandoned half-way. For example, we can hurry up and ask people to volunteer to join one or more of the projects below. But do I have the right list? We did not finish discussing which need to be done now, which later, and which – never? Is it worth waiting for the next DLC meeting for two weeks to finalize and edit the list of projects? How exactly do I ask for volunteers? Another survey? Just an e-mail? Ask chairs to identify some names, and then perhaps approach people more individually? Also, what happens if I call for volunteers, and very few people step up? Perhaps I should try to write out specific charges for each of the projects, so people understand what kind of commitments they are getting into. This is Friday afternoon, and it becomes clearer to me that I am not ready to answer most of these questions. However, it is not clear if the energy and enthusiasm will not dissipate somewhat. Those of you who taught for a while, know, that after classes started, but no major projects are yet to grade, there is this brief Indian Summer, a quiet moment in each faculty member’s life. I don’t want to waste it.

Here is another pressing issue: both the AFT-led Innovation consortium and RIDE are working on revising teacher evaluation systems. Both received substantial funding, but the two projects run in parallel. They are trying to merge them, but it is not clear if they can. It is very clear though that for us to compete for professional development business, an on-line portal of some sort needs to be created, where faculty expertise and specific classes/workshops are listed. In fact, if I could show something like that this week, we could plausible affect the proposed system(s). But we do not have anything comprehensive to show. Again, the dilemma for me is this: rush and get some info from some people now. Or go slower and get a better result. Doing it fast is likely not doing it right. Then we’d have to ask people again, for more information, and it just diminishes my credibility among faculty. However, if we go slow and deliberately, with a proper committee deciding how to build the PD portal, consulting with our partner districts, determining what questions to ask, etc., we may miss the boat altogether.

It is unlikely that RI will simply expect a Master’s degree from its teachers as an indicator of professional development. Although many states do just that, RI probably won’t. There is a good reason for that: just any random degree does not help to improve teacher performance. However, there will be some professional development expectations. It can go two ways right now: either each district will just determine its own PD policy, or we will be able to establish some sort of a state-wide market place for PD, where at least some quality of offerings is guaranteed. To weigh in on the decision, we cannot just promise something or have good ideas. We need to demonstrate some capacity, and give people an image, a picture of how it can work. Otherwise, by default, it will go to option #1, which we don’t want. But then again, if we produce something half-baked, it would damage our credibility rather than enhance it. That’s been the focus of my week.

I also attended a Board of Regents meeting, which discusses an interesting issue: to go to two-tiered high school diplomas (like in New York – one can get a Regent’s diploma or just a district diploma), or simply deny diplomas to a number of high school kids. Will this affect us? Definitely, because much stricter graduation requirements will trigger an exodus of border-line students from high schools, if they figure out there is no point in attending when a diploma is not likely to materialize. This affects high school teacher jobs, and our own enrollments… Everything in education is connected. And results of small decisions made today may have large consequences in the future.

My both children, Maria and Gleb are both visiting, which makes my evenings wonderful. We do not get to see each other that often, but now both are within 1.5 hours away from us.

Here is a list of projects, slightly edited to reflect the discussion
1. Shock and awe. Promote graduate programs and ED@RIC in general. Develop a PR campaign: ED@RIC newsletter, mailers, radio sponsorships. Identify the ED@RIC “Brand” tagline. What is it people should have in mind when they think of School of Ed at RIC? Repeat graduate follow-up surveys and employer surveys.

2. Acreditación o Muerte!. Get through NCATE, RIDE, and NEASC reviews, or die trying

3. Wag the dog. Accreditation is important, but we must not let that tail wag the dog. Let’s review all our assessment instruments and processes, with these goals: 1. Stop collecting data no one uses, and 2. Trim down all instruments to the size where they are useful for coaching purposes, and make sense to us.

4. Chalked and Wired. Designing a single point assessment system, with data export capabilities that are useful to faculty in making decisions.

5. Common Core and Classroom assessment. Revise curriculum and assessment to infuse the new Common Core standards for K-12. Develop vertical curriculum threads for each program on how to design and understand assessments, how to make sense of the data.

6. Web 2.0. Working, flexible site with simple logic designed for different audiences, not to reflect our organizational chart (no one cares about that). Provide clear and consistent advising materials. Eventually take direct control over editing the site. Develop a face book page, videos.

7. Operation Off-campus. Market off-campus graduate cohorts (certificates and degree programs). Offer convenient locations, schedules, and hybrid delivery. Develop incentives policy for off-campus, online and hybrid programs. Create a faculty learning community to boost expertise.

8. PD or not PD. Research professional development needs of RI districts, build an online database of experts/ professional developer instructors; package whole programs. Establish a common pay scale, an easy way of requesting workshops or whole programs. Pilot of the Coop Teacher Professional Dev Course

9. Onlining and streamlining. On-line application to School, to graduate programs, to student teaching; requests for payments from teachers; requests for travel money for faculty, annual evaluation reports. Scanning/archiving paperwork. Helping faculty scan and upload reading materials to Bb. Review all department procedures, and kill off everything that is not essential.

10. CRC. Create a working committee with reps from each department to help the Library with their curriculum resource center

11. A playground of one’s own. Let’s take more risks, and return the meaning of “Lab” to the Lab School. Create inter-departmental innovation teams with HBS faculty included. Internship program for undergrads.

12. JERICO. Create Journal of Education at Rhode Island College, Online. It could be focused on what we’re strong in: a dialogue between practitioners and scholars.

13. Sorry, forgot to include this on the firsttry: SASS-Y (Student Assessment Support System?); A group to help students to get through the revised PPST admission tests

The ethics of simplicity

Some years ago I was writing about complexity. It seemed to me mostly a question of efficiency. I now think it is also an ethical issue. When our programs are too complex, and our communications are too confusing, who is impacted? – The most vulnerable amongst our students. Those include the first generation in college, or unlucky enough to live in a wrong neighborhood and attend a wrong high school. Students who have not had enough exposure to official language and complicated procedures tend to be intimidated and less likely to pursue a teaching career or even stay in college.  

It is often attributed to Mark Twain (although it probably belongs to Blaise Pascal), - "If I Had More Time I Would Write a Shorter Letter." This is not a joke; effective communication requires substantial time. To edit handbooks, websites, and guides takes much time, which we do not usually have. What seems a trivial matter, - where should admission requirements to FSEHD be posted?, - actually takes much thought. But this goes beyond communications. Adding requirements, forms, checklists, assessments, and procedures is not always done with the organizational ecology in mind. In other words, people who make a decision to introduce one of these are not always the same people who get to implement it. Moreover, they do not know how the new thing interacts with all other requirements, forms, checklists, assessments, and procedures, and how a student can navigate all of those. And because procedures evolve over years, they tend to accumulate. And we tend to get used to the complexity we create as we learn to navigate through it.  However, our students are always new; this is something Hannah Arendt called the human condition of natality. If I am lost in the School’s website, imagine an 18 year old, with no knowledge of college systems, of teacher education conventions and no parent to call on for help.

And because we make things more complicated than necessary, and then fail to explain them clearly, we end up with an enormous burden of academic advising. Some administrators have a romantic notion of advising: deep conversations about meaning of student’s life and career, mentoring about life and professional choices. But most of us know that 99% of advising encounters consist of explaining the same thing over and over again, - simply because students failed to grasp the meaning of it through catalogs and websites, or did not understand how to complete a form. And then we get irritated at them for being so… young?

I am not being critical here; this is just a reflection on how things work, and how we can understand and resist the flow of complexity. This is just a plea to treat simplicity as a moral imperative. 

The Organization Animal

People often personalize organizations; they think a company or a school can have feelings, preferences, thinking and decision making processes similar to those of individual people. That is a misconception. I find it useful to think of an organization as a very large animal, like a behemoth in which we all live, but none of us can see the whole thing. As a whole, it is only partially self-aware, although it has many intelligent parts. The organization does have its logic; it operates and changes according to some rules and certain clock, but those do not resemble anything like you and I operate as individuals or as small groups. Certain practices that may appear as absurd, stupid and even evil, in fact may be artifacts of the internal logic of the organization animal. This is not to say that absurd, stupid or evil things do not exist; they are just much rarer than some people imagine.

An example may help to illustrate my point. Just a couple of weeks ago we discovered that the proposal for the new practicum pay developed late last Spring actually has no funding attached to it. Implementing it fully would put the School some two hundred thousand dollars in the red. We cannot allow this by law; RIC’s budget must balance. Why the fiscal analysis was not done at the time? Very simply, the organizations did not have a clear rule on who and when would check the cost of such a policy change. Several people involved were all assuming that other parties are responsible for checking and as a result, no one did. It’s like an animal without the sense of smell cannot be blamed for missing a stinky warning. Of course now after this experience, it will grow a nose for the future. Just as an aside, adding more organs does not necessarily improve the beast’s agility. Too many checks and balances can be as bad as too few. Simplicity of operations has its own value and its own cost.

Now, the proposal was approved, so department chairs have done the incredibly complex work load assignments under the new set of rules. Then the new Dean came in, and he is a bit jittery. Understandably, he does not want to screw things up in his first year, so he starts running some spreadsheets, and discovers the lack of funds. Here we have a typical organizational dilemma: on one side, there is a legitimate (and mostly fair) decision, on the other side, it is impossible to implement. The easiest thing to do would be to find money to honor what was agreed on. However, the organization has its cycles and rhythms, which, I remind you, are nothing like the human clock. The new budget year has begun, and to increase one unit’s budget would mean literally cutting someone else’s budgets. It could be done with advanced warning, but doing it in a matter of a week is impossible. It is like expecting an elephant to climb trees: perhaps an elephant would like to, but it is not an issue of will.

The solution we finally found is neither perfect, nor is it generous, nor inexpensive. It is a compromise, which still carries a considerable risk of overspending our budget. If you just see it, it may make little sense. For example, we had to take into consideration the exact title of the course as it shows in the catalog. Titles have little to do with the amount of work and therefore, with the expected compensation. Yet the animal has a set of organs related to the contractual obligations. Just think of it as high pitch sound; you cannot hear it, but your dog can. So, your dog’s behavior may make little sense to you, but the dog knows what it’s doing.

I am not writing this to somehow ridicule organizations and this organization in particular. To the contrary, I grew to respect the organization animal. Some are more evolved than others, but in the end, they remain a species profoundly different from their human creators. Our ancestors had to learn to cope with their natural and social environments; sometimes they tried to curse or bribe rain or sun, but it usually did not work. Adapting worked better. For example, living in a desert with a small band of hunters and gatherers is very different than living in a traditional village or a city; you just need to know how those settings work. Organizations are an important part of our environment, too. If you want to improve them, you need to understand how they work, where their strengths and limits are, and what kinds of things they can and cannot deliver. I am not calling for passivity or accepting things as they are. There is no great mystery to an organization. This was just a case against the anthropomorphic bias. Don’t like how your organization works? Don’t get mad, figure out how it can work better. 

Knowing what we have

It is very easy to see the threats to RIC. The policy winds are a-changing. Undergraduate enrollments will decrease because of the push for selectivity. Graduate enrollments react to lack of incentives for educators to get a masters degree. The national climate is also unfriendly to schools of ed, and the word “alternative” seems to indicate something good, regardless of its actual quality. The pressures are real, and tangible.

It is very important though to not overlook what we have. A sober and critical inventory of assets is crucial in any sort of transformation. It’s the set of card we are dealt with; important to know the weak ones, but even more important to see your trumps. One is the large base of loyal customers, if you pardon the business expression. Our students, current and alums, seem to genuinely like RIC, and their experience here. They are treated well, learn from competent faculty, and remember their years here fondly. It is huge, and not very easy for anyone else in the State to match. If we can come up with very attractive, well packaged graduate degrees and professional development ideas, and they will buy. An outsider, for example, will have a hard time selling on-line and hybrid programs to Rhode Islanders, but RIC is the name many of them trust. Of course, we don’t have a particularly strong expertise in that area, but it can be built – there is no secret in how to do it.

It is the same with professional development. Only if we learn to present and package the expertise we have to offer, school districts will use us. Why? Because we can do it at lower cost than out-of-the state consultants, and because many of the people in school district offices are our graduates.

Of course, we’re not popular with everyone. I suspect a portion of educators, especially those in top leadership positions, may not be our graduates, and may not think much of us. They think RIC is a bit old-fashioned, and is not offering the cutting edge education anymore. Some of this maybe well deserved, while some is just innuendo based on myths and no facts. Some examples where it may be deserved: we do need to teach our graduates how to work with data, and how to interpret contemporary assessments the professions actually use. We do need to catch up with the K-12 accountability reforms and methods. Examples of innuendo: your faculty are out of touch with schools; you should do more field experiences. We do not always present our best side to the public, and may not support high-visibility and high-risk initiatives. But that can be reversed in a relatively short time. And let’s be realistic, some people will never ever like teacher education, just because our very existence is contrary to their narrow ideological point of view. However, most people are not like that; most are pragmatic. If we offer something of value to them, they will come to appreciate us.

We also have a full-blown clinical model of professional education. AACTE is trying to toot is as something new, but it is not, at least not new for RIC. All our programs have very significant and rigorous field components. What is most important, practically all our faculty members spend significant time in the field. They can never be accused of being out of touch with their respective professions. We have thousands of personal and professional connections with practitioners. The social networks are a highly valuable asset. Private companies spend millions and millions trying to get the kind of informal networks. I wonder if there is a way to use technology to help those networks to connect with each other. But even as is, let’s not forget we have that in our possession. When we’re ready to market something, I will ask all faculty to give a few phone calls to their teacher and principal friends. It works much better than an ad in a newspaper.

As far as I can tell, we also have a good work ethic centered on students. That is an important asset, which really is the main source of the other. We need to preserve it by recognizing great teachers and advisors, by creating intolerable conditions for slackers, and by just taking pride in being there for our students. We need to protect people from burn-out, create spaces for informal conversation, creativity, and scholarship.

To review, our major assets are four: a loyal customer base, the clinical model, social networks, and the work ethic.

There are other things: we have about the right size, an OK physical plant (I know, needs sprucing up, but believe it or not, the bones are not bad). We have good people in charge, both on the administration and on the union side; competent support staff, and no major conflict on campus. Let us also remember that RI is not defunding us at the same pace as some other states do. It looks like we still have some public support and friends in the General Assembly.  

So, let’s start with laying out our weapons and ammunition, like in that archetypal American action movie scene. We’re definitely well stocked; just need a plan. Remember how they always design a clever plan and it is not disclosed till the battle scene? That’s what we need. 

Simple Math and the Curriculum Creep

Formula Load Hours (FLH) seems to be the currency of this realm. The union has negotiated 12 FLH for all faculty, plus “other professional responsibilities” such as service, advising, etc. In addition, just our School reassigns the total of 309.5 FLH in the next academic year from teaching to other things, such as research, coordination, and various worthy projects. In a series of very interesting conversations, I was trying to figure out the logic behind the reassigned time and FLH we attribute to various courses. At RIC, we often give students 3 credits, but pay faculty 4 or more FLH for teaching the course. How do you know what project or course is worth in terms of time? I was looking for some underlying simple math that makes those things fair and equitable. What I am trying to avoid is the individual bargaining – I will do this for X FLH, but not forY FLH. Why? - Because in academia, everyone without exception is working harder than the next person. This is just how it is; we all are acutely aware of our own work, because we’re doing it. The other people’s work seems to be much smaller, no matter what. It is one of those existential biases we have by the virtue of being human.

Anyway, several people, quite independently of each other, have proposed this underlying math: a regular course is about 3 hours a week, for 15 weeks. So reassigned time, or more demanding field hours courses should be measured like that, too. If you can show 45 hours of work over the semester, it is equal 1 FLH. Makes sense? Not really. One thing about simple math – it runs in all directions. For example, the total load is defined at 12. Let’s just assume for the sake of argument, “the other responsibilities” amount to another 3 FLH. If you equate the FLH with 15 clock hours (one hour per week), this mean you’re only expected to work 15 hours a week. Imagine a headline in ProJo: “RIC faculty members admit their work week does not exceed 15 hours!” And then try to fight the public perception. Of course, it is not true, and everyone works much, much more than that. In fact, an average faulty member works 50-52 hours per week, with tenure-track but not tenured people working 52.5 hours. I would not be surprised is RIC faculty actually worked more than the average, because we’re a teaching-intensive institution, with very dedicated faculty. Each hour in class needs at least a couple of hours outside of classroom: developing syllabi, assessments, and teaching tools, grading, communicating with students, individual work, collecting data for accountability, etc., etc. There is no end to it, especially for someone new to the job, or someone developing new courses.

So the simple math should go more like this: my teaching takes at least four full days a week, and the other responsibilities take the fifth day. 15 FLH a week mean I work about 8 hours on each 3 FLH. Therefore, to be reassigned for 3 FLH, I will have a project worth about 15 full days, or 120 hours.

What we do is very hard to measure accurately. And the last thing faculty want to do is to become card-punching, log-keeping been counters. But some kind of a simple math underlying our reasoning is helpful I am not saying my math above is good or workable. The point is more basic: we do need some basic rationale for all these negotiations. One reason I enjoy working in higher education is that rational argument usually wins. I like to be persuaded by reason, and I like to persuade others the same way.

We also need to make sure our programs are sustainable. For each little bit of faculty work, there should be a clear revenue stream. There are two reasons for that.

1. We cannot pile more and more work on students without having their currency of the realm – the credit hour – reflect the actual work load. That is what I would call the Curriculum Creep. Everyone thinks students need to know more in one’s subject, so we add and add. But then students cannot do the work, because their week is too full. As a result, the general quality of their training dilutes, and we achieve the opposite realm. Does anyone still expect two hours of home work for each credit hour in class? Really? The real solution should be like with the Federal Budget: pay as you go: a. no extra work is added without extra credit hours; and b. no credit hour is added without cutting it somewhere else. If this means a little turf war, fight the war, and find a rational argument to convince faculty in other parts of the program that your course is more valuable.
2. We cannot kill the College’s budget by the death of a thousand small cuts. We make many small deals, and bargain for getting paid a little more, because of the curriculum creep. We start doing it on our own, because we care about students. But then at some point, it becomes simply unbearable, and we revolt and demand more pay – we forget that we created the situation, and just crave for justice. But then at the end of a year, those people who are responsible for the entire budget, take a look at the numbers and realize, there is no room for salary raises, and we do need to raise tuition. So, students who we were going to protect by not charging them enough, end up paying anyway. By haggling over a tiny pay increase for a small group of faculty, we may damage the chances of real increases. In the end, higher education is not exempt from the larger economic trends. Either we figure out a way of controlling our cost of doing business, or taxpayers will revolt.

I use the first person plural, because I have done all those things, and did not see them till I went to the Dark Side. So, this is the Darth Vader speaking; can you hear the heavy breathing behind the mask? And by the way, don't take this as a sign that I don't support the revision of our compensation for practicum courses. I really do and have been spending a significant portion of my time (I'd say about 1.25 FLH) trying to figure out that puzzle. I am very hopeful we can announce something next week.

How do you know what you want?

 It was a third meeting with various techies people today on how we can have a direct control over the School’s web site. what do you want to be on the site, -- I was asked once again. That reminded me one of those long and interesting conversations people have at conferences. My friend Bing and I were thinking about the connection between desire and cognition: How do you know what you want? How do you learn about your own wants and preferences? It is not really that simple; we are not born with a set of preferences; we both discover and define them from experiences.

As I am trying to figure out ways to work at RIC, the question comes up in many interesting forms. For example, what I really want is not having to express my preferences to the web master. I want us to change things quickly, to experiment, and to collaborate. By putting forth a specific web site structure, I would limit the ability to change it later. This is true for every choice we make: choosing one door closes many others. Another example: I needed some data exported from PeopleSoft. It was something simple, like a report on faculty loads over a few years. While the data was provided to me quickly (beautifully presented and formatted) I really wanted more – an ability design and run this and other queries on my own, whenever I needed. Ideally, we should be able to pull some numbers while talking to someone on the phone. In other words, what I want is to want many different things in the future.

But of course, it is not so simple. We have a centralized way of publishing the College’s web site for very good reasons. Such a site looks professional, consistent, and is quite accurate; it was designed in response to a chaotic situation in the past. If you let everyone run with their own sections of it, the site gradually deteriorates and will include dead links and inaccurate information. I don’t want that to happen either. The complication with our desires and preferences is that we have conflicting ones. Moreover, we very often want things that are bad for us, because we cannot imagine consequences of our choices. This is why the social world is full of tension: we must constantly check and balance each other’s desires. To put it simply, we cannot always get what we want. I am not someone who easily takes a no for an answer; I will keep pressing the issue until the reason for the no is very clear, rational, and considers all possible solutions. However, it is very important to not miss that point where a tentative and ephemeral no becomes a substantial no with which one must agree because it is consistent with other things one wants. Just want to let you know – we’re not there yet with the web. I still want the direct editing privileges; just don’t know how it could be done. 

Learning the ropes

As any good constructivist knows, the best way to learn about something is by changing it. By change I don’t necessarily mean reform or improvement – just making something work is already changing it. For example, you can read about how a new phone works, or you can just try to call someone. I want to defend all those people who get criticized by their domestic partners for not reading directions before assembling that IKEA furniture puzzle. Sometimes it backfires, and you need to take the darn thing apart and reassemble. But the approach itself is definitely sound. We learn about the world by manipulating it. That has been my approach to learning about RIC. For example, as I mentioned in my previous blog, we need to gain some clarity on our budget situation. That’s a perfect excuse to learn about the financial part of PeopleSoft. It became clear to me, for example, that we need another reporting tool, and I need access to another account. Some of it is quite confusing (for example, the info is kept in different ledgers, and their names make very little sense to me), but because there is a real problem to be solved, I have the motivation to make it work.

Another example: Kim, Eileen, Charley and I spend two hours today reviewing the current student teaching application process, and designing its next on-line version. In the meanwhile, I have learned from them about the technology on campus, about our accounting procedures, relationships with partner districts, and about the academic programs we have. If I spent same two hours reading the catalog and manuals, the result would have been much smaller, and easily forgettable.

There is still much to learn, of course. I attended a freshmen parent dinner last night, and could not answer many most basic questions. What are the meal plans? When do we learn about the dorm assignments? Trying to represent the institution, but saying “I don’t know” is not a very comfortable position. Thankfully, those people were really nice and gave me a break.

Being a new kid on the block (yet again!) is helping me to think about the nature of learning. Why do we learn, and how do we learn best; what are the existential implications of knowing and not knowing – everyone who is an educator should be reminded about these fundamental questions. I am greatful to this opportunity. 

The first three days

It’s Friday morning, my fourth days on the job. The moving in and organization took very little time, thanks to an incredibly efficient support by Paula McKeon and people from HR and  IT. I spent the entire three days learning about this fine institution. The best way to do it is to meet with people face to face and ask them a lot of questions, so my thanks go to all those who took and will take their time to educate the rookie Dean on the intricacies of the School’s operation: so far, Paula, Karen, Eileen, Ron, Kim, Monica, Ellen, Pat Cordeiro and Pat Hays, Dottie, Bettie - all have been victims of my questioning and probing. How much do I really know? Don’t overestimate the level of my knowledge, especially if asking for a quick decision. However, it is amazing how many subtle trends are similar to those in the other four institutions I have worked before. There are parallel limits and challenges for all education professional preparation schools, so people independently come to similar solutions. Without that background, I would have been completely lost.

I managed to learn some of the alphabet soup, RIC style (FLH, DLC, PEC) and enough about our programs and operations to be impressed. This looks like a thriving, and a competent institution. The problems and issues also start to pop up, because different people bring them up independently. For example, the new practicum compensation scheme clearly landed on the top of my list. It needs to be addressed quickly, but I am still struggling to understand the financial implications of the move. The last thing this new Dean wants to do is to finish his first financial year in the deep red. It is interesting though, that I helped to devise similar pay-per-student schemes at my old institution – not because of the union contracts, but simply for the sake of transparency and fairness. People should get paid for the work they do, because money, besides its obvious value, also has an important symbolic function. From my experience, people do not mind working very hard, but faculty and staff want to be recognized by being fairly compensated.

Another list of projects I am trying to identify as a first priority has to do with operations. We will need to switch quickly to on-line applications to the School, and to practicum and student teaching. RIC has a powerful tool – PeopleSoft, but right now, it’s like driving a Jaguar in the school zone. IT and our staff here have done great work already, we just need to eliminate as much of manual data input and hard copy paperwork as possible. This will free time for Kim, Paula, Dottie, and Rose, so they can help us with the next line of projects that have to do with NCATE accreditation.  One small but real achievement: I asked Kim to call to our partner school district to ask if they still require the TB test. Guess what – the absolute majority do not, and neither does the Health Department. We can kill that requirement right now, with DLC’s blessing. This means less hassle for students, less boring work for us!  

I am also trying to set up more meetings, as I realize which other key people in and outside of RIC may help me learn. There are smaller projects, which most of the people will probably have little interest in. For example, I realized we need a faculty database to monitor and report on workloads and tenure/promotion/sabbatical processes. We need to develop a way to scan all the archival files, so we don’t run out of room in the office.

That’s my first three days. Am I missing a big iceberg ahead? Please do let me know! In the next week, I will put out a faculty and staff survey to get a more systematic input from all of you. Please think what you think are our priorities, which way we should move, and how we can help each other to have meaningful and enjoyable work lives. 

On nostalgia

As Svetlana and I hit the road a week ago, our nostalgic road trip began. Revisiting old places wakes up memories one did not think one had. It brings up little details, random segments of your life, and makes it richer, just a little more textured and nuanced. My entire life in America is connected to I-80/I-90 corridor. Along the desert roads of Colorado and Wyoming, giant insects - field sprinklers –look at a passerby with their mechanical eyes, wondering, wandering, watering. They greeted me as I drove another truck from Ohio to Colorado four years ago. Now we were leaving friends behind; their voices slowly fading, their faces turning into memories.

Around Chicago, I-80 merges with I-90; turn west on I-90 and you can get to Seattle. Almost 20 years ago, my two friends (one Kenyan and the other Sri Lankan) drove a drive-away white convertible that way. We had about $100 and one driver’s license among us. That was the city where we rented our first apartment, where both of my children went to their first American school and promptly turned into Americans. A warm, wet, hip, welcoming city, Seattle gave us home and many friends. This is the town my daughter still calls home, because she graduated from high school there. We did not want to leave it.

Then, on the third day, we could not resist stopping by the University of Notre Dame, just a minute from the highway. In 1991, I rode a bus from the O’Hara airport to South Bend with my two friends, a Latvian and a Ukrainian. We were still from the same country, the Soviet Union, only to leave the place citizens of three different ones. An intense flood of delicious and painful memories passed through me as we walked on campus. Notre Dame is very beautiful; it always looked somewhat otherworldly for me. I had to struggle very hard here to learn the language and this new country. I had to claw through the cotton of incomprehension and misunderstanding. ND is a special scar on my psyche.

Later the same day, we passed through Ohio. Hwy 75 would take us to Bowling Green in no time. BGSU gave me my first professional job; I started there as an assistant professor at $36,000. That is where I learned how to teach and what a university is all about. We spent seven years there, amongst corn and soy bean fields, friends and colleagues. That is where we bought our first house, a war box fixer-upper. That is where my son’s high school is. We were now driving on the stretch of highway by which I took him to college in New York. On this road, I drove through the entire night to Kennedy airport to make it to my father’s funeral in Russia six years ago.

For me, highways are the best part of America. The rest stops, the beef jerky, tired truckers, messy family vans, “you are here” maps, gas stations in small towns, local radio stations; all of these and more, many more, make the stuff that feeds my memory.

Saying goodbyes

Well, it’s down to less than two weeks. My last day at UNC will be June 24 and I have been saying many goodbyes, to many people. My thinking is about what I have learned from all of them. It is not that people gave me some explicit lessons. But everyone taught me something. Just to learn how someone may think and feel; how one prefers to work and interact, what people value and dislikes – those are all great bits of knowledge, collectively called “experience.”

For example, I learned how to be careful. Once you get in a position that exposes you to many people, with their various interests, quirks, and histories, controlling your impulses, and your ego becomes a critical skill. Don’t send that furious e-mail, keep that comment to yourself, and pick your fights sparingly. Those skills are largely invisible to most people, but the lack thereof becomes quickly apparent. Thanks, Eugene, for teaching me that. I don’t think most of the College appreciates how much you keep them all out of trouble.

Here is a much abbreviated list of thanks. If you’re not on the list - it is not because I am ungrateful. I am just trying to be brief, which is a trick I learned from one of you. Or else, you taught me something we should keep just between us J.

• Carolyn, for teaching me how to love reports
• Karon, for always telling the truth
• Vicky, for always doing the right thing
• Marita, for embracing change
• Lynette, for pushing her own limits
• Jon, for his practical jokes
• Susan, for teaching me how to be interested in other people
• Rick, for showing the power of joy in everyday life
• Gary, for his quiet wisdom
• Fred, for constantly reinventing himself
• Mike, for his incredible work ethic
• Jim, for his weirdness and normality
• Madeline, for always speaking up her mind
• Val, for just doing what needs to be done
• Marsha, for having a real smile
• Irv, for doing good without asking permissions
• All the rest of you, for four best years of my life  

I am going to take a break with this blog until early July, but then restart it. My intent is to keep the same name, at least for a while. The Rhode Island College’s mascot is the Anchor Man. I am certain it is a great team, but The Russian Anchor’s Diaries just does not have the same ring. Once a bear…

Winding down

Winding things down is a whole new experience; it definitely puts things into a different perspective.

For example, I have abandoned pursuing any new major projects – on improving operations, or creating new programs, etc. It is somewhat liberating and only now I realize how much time change takes, as opposed to playing defense and just maintaining things. And of course, this is Summer, so the defense play is reduced, too. My time goes into writing down policies, proposals, memos, etc.  Those are meant to document what we have been doing. As always, I can see what we can improve, but then I realize someone else has to do it now. Or, it is more likely, the next person may have a different set of priorities. As one of my colleagues commented, “The new person will change everything again.” I thought there was a hint of irony in his voice, and started to worry – are the changes I proposed and made were all for the good, or some were just for the sake of change? One hopes it is the former, but hmm, maybe other people think differently? I could not find any single change I thought was unnecessary (although there is definitely a short but painful list of failed projects). But how can I be certain?  

I also discarded a lot of paper documents and books. The documents are destroyed because we either have electronic copies, or they are very unlikely to be used by anyone. With books, it is a different story. Somehow, at this point of my life, I lost the reverential attitude towards books. I used to treasure them all, just because they were books. But now, I look at a book, and ask myself – am I going to ever re-read it? And if the answer is no, it goes to the recycling bin. It is amazing how many bad, uninteresting books one can accumulate. I am irritated by ugly, uninspiring, or just outdated books. Not sure why, perhaps it is because in the middle age, one can see the end of one’s life, and is more realistic about what one can and cannot do. The illusions about finding a bunch of time and re-reading some dusty books are all gone. Vicky found my trips to the recycling bin depressing, and asked me to do it after hours or on weekends. But I must say, throwing things away does feel liberating. Here is where Svetlana and I are different. For an artist, an object may have a lot of potential – as a material for a future project, or just an object with a great shape or color or texture – it can inspire and be drawn. So, I don’t get to throw a lot of stuff at home. But it is my belief that purging one’s possessions is a good thing; it clears our minds, drawers, and hard drives. 

Letter # 3: The expectations of civility

Expectations are powerful. When people expect each other to behave well, most do. When we expect each other to behave badly, things go wrong. How does it work? - Very simply. We all sometimes have trouble controlling our emotions and thinking carefully. It is a given people will say silly things, and judge each other harshly. Such things will happen. However, once a thoughtless word is spoken, it is what happens next that is really important. A community that thinks of itself highly will treat a mistake as such – as an aberration to be sanctioned and then corrected. It won’t necessarily obsess about a mistake, or dwell on it; rather, it will be quickly dismissed and corrected as a mistake. A community that perceives itself as unstable, as prone to disintegration, will perceive each mistake as a normal action, as a further confirmation of its own negative self-perception. The expectations of civility do not simply reflect the norm, they create the norm. Therefore, if enough people go around and worry how things will deteriorate, they create the very condition about which they worry in the first place.

While the expectations of civility are a product of collective behavior, not all people in a social group have equal influence. Some are much more influential; they are opinion-makers and conveyors of social norms. They are the most important nodes of social networks. When these people’s expectations deteriorate, it may disproportionally affect the entire community. From my experience, most of these people do not realize the extent of influence over the community they actually have. Power is such a strange thing: everyone denies having it, and no one has ever admitted having too much of it.

To maintain high expectations of civility, the opinion-makers must recognize the extent of their influence. They do not have to be personally saintly; it is just a matter of articulating and upholding high standards of civility in dealing with each other. The expectations will be violated, but they still need to remain unchanged. 

The Lame Duck’s Letter # 2

The environment in which we work is changing rapidly; to thrive, you need to keep running and not hope the challenges will pass. Just over the four years I was at UNC, we have moved almost all graduate programs off campus, many of us acquired on-line and hybrid teaching skills, we redesigned largest teacher preparation programs, created several new ones, and moved most of operations and assessment into the digital world. This should not be an exception; the School needs to change and adapt. Change is the new normal. You should keep one eye on competition, the other on legislation, and the third on population and economic trends. Among the biggest challenges that I see on the horizon are:

1.       Colorado is still a growing state, with a significant need for new teachers. However, it cannot continue indefinitely, and UNC can start overproducing teachers. That would prompt the state regulators to raise requirements, or to limit the size of teacher education programs in some other ways. So, STE needs to figure out a way of expanding its in-service education business. You need to hassle the partner school districts until you can figure out what they want and what you can provide in terms of services. This is the only way to compensate for the shrinking demand for pre-service undergraduate teacher prep. We need to get back to the professional development business.

2.       All three Postbaccalaureate programs need to be revised to become smaller and less expensive, a lot more convenient and accommodating for working students, and more focused on field training. Those are areas of growth; UNC has a good name and good experience running those programs – you just need to maintain this position. But is cannot be done by doing the same thing over and over again. The elementary postbac, for example, has not been revised in 15 years – it has to be done soon.

3.       And finally, the biggest challenge is the growth of alternative licensure programs (which is really an expression of public’s dissatisfaction with us – only partially deserved, but real nevertheless). Instead of fighting them head-to-head by political means, UNC would do much better by radically redesigning its own model of teacher preparation. Strike the middle road; borrow what’s best in traditional and alternative programs. I imagine cohorts of students, with two mentors: one a university professor, and another a master teacher.  They follow closely a real K-12 classroom – both in person and via webcams. The mentor teacher explains what is going on and why, the university professors brings theory and research into the conversation. They do not take courses, but shorter, tailored modules taught by experts on specific topics: methods, assessment, child development, learning theory, classroom management, etc. Each of the experts will have to demonstrate the theory with clips from the classroom everyone is following. It is the “show and tell” model rather than just the “tell and hope they see it” model of instruction. I don’t know if this makes any sense, but one thing I know for sure: teacher preparation should find a way of linking theory to practice in a systematic manner. 

The Lame Duck’s Letter 1

Now that I am almost gone, some thoughts about what I have learned, and what I believe the School should do to thrive and flourish.

I’d stress the importance of institutions over personal politics. As I figured out quite a long time ago, there are two types of politics: one is based on personal favors, and another on some sort of an institutional authority. Every time I made a decision, I tried to treat it as a precedent. Many of my colleagues will recall my question: what is the story I can tell others justifying this decision? This is not just about our Charter (which may need some tweaks or revisions), but about a culture of appealing to the rules, to rational justification, and of demand for transparency. Looking back, I wish my decisions would be challenged more, and that people would read and use the Charter, the BOT Policy and other documents more often. Directors come and go, but the collective will and determination of faculty and staff must be institutionalized to maintain good political culture. The other option is to reduce the internal politics to that of personal favors and trade offs, of blocks and petty squabbling.

Our Charter and other university policy do cuments allow for a great flexibility, yet they spell out principles. For example, the Director has the power to assign people to classes. In addition, we have a pecking order of priorities AND the principle of rotating all perks and burdens (no seniority in class assignments). These three things balance each other. For example, when I assign someone to teach out of the pecking order, it is not an exercise in arbitrary power, not at all – I must have a good rationale for the decision. Not necessarily published or spelled out, but always ready if and when someone asks. My point is – people should ask; it is good for the system, and keeps the Director in shape. The same goes to all other decision makers. When a program coordinator says “I don’t want so and so to teach in my program,” there has to be a plausible rationale, some body of evidence, not just an arbitrary opinion. And was my job to ask for that. Many of these conversations remained invisible, mainly to protect someone’s privacy. However, all business should be conducted as if it could become public at any time. It is what Eugene calls the newspaper headlines test: would you like the story to appear in a newspaper, and would it still be defensible?

I am recommending one addition to out governing system: the Executive Committee consisting of all full professors, with advisory powers to the School Director, and with the charge to monitor fairness and transparency of major decisions. Some other schools have that, and I believe it would be good for STE, too. The committee would not have any actual decision-making power, but could help the new Director to get a sense of our history, traditions, and rules of conduct. It could be called as needed by the Director or any of the members. 

Leaving

Yesterday, have accepted the position of Dean, Feinstein School of Education and Human Development, Rhode Island College. The major attractions are: this is very close to both of our children, and this is a bigger job at an institution that I really liked when I visited.

It was not an easy decision. I realized how much I love UNC and my friends and colleagues here. UNC is exceptionally open to people and open to change; from day one, I felt welcome here. I learned a lot about work, about people, and about myself. I could see something grow from a simple idea to a real program or project. This is probably the most satisfying experience: seeing ideas become reality. It is magical, really. Hopefully, I am leaving the place in a little better shape than what I found it in. And I will always remain the Russian Bear, remembering my years here with fondness. Thank you all for giving me this wonderful chance, for supporting me, for disagreeing with me, for driving me nuts and for giving me such joy. Thanks for everything.

The NCATE report will be turned in tomorrow; immediately after I will start working on an orderly transition, writing up things I know, making plans, and helping whoever will be appointed an Interim Director. It’s going to be just fine. We have good processes in place, good policies and traditions; we have great faculty and staff; things will be get done and get better. In the next few weeks, I will write about what I believe should be done next to keep the School moving ahead. 

To build and to maintain

In most cases, building and maintaining relationships are closely linked abilities. However, I know just a few people who are reasonably good at the former, but are terrible at the latter. Let's call them achilleids, after Achilles who was famously refusing to forgive Agamemnon. It is a rare and a tragic flaw of character; it is incorrigible if the one does not know this about oneself.

Achilleids can be cordial and charming; they can be good friends, selfless and hard working. They get along with others just fine, until the moment the other person does something wrong to them. Most people have a series of strategies to overcome the conflict and get past it. We learn to forget and forgive, pretend bad things did not happen; we find excuses for others as we find them for ourselves; we make up and go on. Why? Because we figure that the benefits of maintaining a relationship outweighs the temptation of ending it. After all, our relational network (sometimes called the social capital), is crucial for our well-being; it is indispensable for jobs like ours.

The achilleids simply cannot do that. They measure relationships in stark black and white terms.Their imagination is easily taken over by fantasies of conspiracy and revenge. They find it difficult to imagine alternative - and more generous - explanations for other people's actions. They seek constant proofs of their friends loyalty, and insist on exclusive relationships. When such exclusiveness does not materialize, they become jealous, and impulsively rewrite their list of friends, scratching one person after another, until almost everyone is gone. Once an achilleid builds a cadre of enemies, he will see any relationship between his friends and his enemies ad a hostile act. If you are my friend, you may not be friendly with my enemies.

If this sounds like a case of fifth-grade logic of friendship, it is probably because it is. Achilleids are just immature in the ways of human relationships; they may get the strength of Achilles in many areas, but also inherit his vulnerable heel. They see the social world in starkly egocentric (not egotistical) terms. It all becomes about me - is this good for me or bad for me? Is this done to help me or to hurt me? The higher calculus of human relationships is just inaccessible to them, because they simply cannot see beyond the immediate circle of relationships between them and other people.

As it is the case with all human flaws, some achilleids find a compensatory strategy, if they are aware of their problem. Those moderate achileids will occasionally blow up, build a conspiracy theory, but then recognize their error (even without understanding it), and get to normal. The stubborn and entrenched achilleids do not know about their problem, and have no choice but construct elaborate conspiracy theories. Because if my friends fall away from me one by one, there must be a conspiracy against me, right? And one thing about conspiracy thinking - it manufactures a lot of proof. The stronger the belief, the more clear evidence our brain produces out of every day life to support that belief. Life is very hard for them, because no one can measure up to their expectations, and because reality provides a lot of proof of other people's evil intention.

The knowledge of one's own shortcomings is of the most useful kind. Denying or projecting one's weaknesses onto others is a recipe for a very unhappy life. I certainly have a list of my own demons, but the inability to forget and forgive is certainly not one of them.

The Netflix Effect

When you log in to Netflix, it will remember who you are, who your friends are, all movies you saw in the past, and the movies your friends saw and recommended. It will take all of these factors into consideration, and offer you a movie you're will like; quite accurately, I must add. How is it possible that when a student walks into a classroom, the professor does not know her name, her academic history, her strengths and weaknesses – virtually nothing? Most importantly, we almost never know what the student already knows, exactly, and what she needs to learn.

The problem is that differential education, developmental portfolios, and other such worthy educational idea just never had the technology to make them workable and economical to use. Remember the buzz about electronic portfolios? Universities spent a lot of time and money on them, imagining how we will be able to track each student's learning journey. And it all failed miserably, because no one has the time to grade papers in one's own class, not to mention going back and reading each student's academic journey. Even looking up 25-30 transcripts is an ordeal no one has the time for. The same is true for pre-assessments. They are often crude, fragmentary, and give more of a snapshot than any real tool for individualizing instruction. The latter is impossible to do, because… you've guessed right, time.

The truth is, we need the same level of sophisticated data analysis tool the netflixes and the googles of the world just recently mastered. Their computers manage to learn from every search, every purchase, and every click you make. Learning from users, and then selling back to users what they have learned is the secret. Their algorithms analyze and store that information, and convert it into more helpful helpful information. That is what we really need to borrow from them. Every time a student looks for information, registers for classes, asks a question in class, writes a paper, completes a quiz – every time a computer will record, remember, digest, and spit it out for the students and for her instructor.

I imagine working on a new class a few weeks before semester begins. I pull up not just a list of names, but a set of graphics, of easy to read profiles, which assemble themselves into the whole class profile, recommend me content and strategies, assignments and assessments that will move these particular students forward the farthest. All of this would be matched with what I can offer – my strengths, my background, my research, and classroom experience. The Teachflix will even suggest who should teach a class, picking the best instructor for a group profile of students not by what department we happen to be in, or what expertise we happen to claim, but by what we actually know and can deliver. It will also write a professional development program for me as an instructor, scrutinizing what I did the last time around and mercilessly disrobing my weaknesses and gaps, the opportunities missed. And you know what? It is no more difficult or scary than the Netflix; the same algorithms can probably be used. All we need is some imagination, a lot of money, and people to do it. Looks like something a private company might pull off?

Nudging and Sasha’s challenge

Subtle economic pressures often have large consequences. For example, the high cost of healthcare is, in part, a result of incentive for doctors to deliver more treatments. Individual doctors may not be aware of succumbing to such pressures, yet the aggregate effect is real. A book called Nudge
is about influences on our choices.

Here is an example from our little corner of the world. Teacher education institutions rely on part-time instructors for a significant part of their instruction. UNC actually relies less than many other schools, and we tend to have long-term, proven adjuncts. The existence of full-time and part-time faculty nudges us to use more part-timers for student teaching supervision, and rely more on full-time faculty for teaching other classes. Why? – it is partly a function of the cost: part-timers cost less, and every semester, we have a large cohort of student teachers. It is partly a matter of qualification: many former teachers and principals make very good supervisors, but teaching classes requires narrower, deeper expertise. It is partly a matter of flexibility: student teaching supervision is easy to break into smaller pieces (we pay $400 for supervising one student teacher), while full-time faculty's workload is normally expressed in 3-credit chunks.

In many ways, the division of labor is quite natural. However, it creates some unintended consequences. Some full-time faculty members have little opportunity to get out to the field, and to check how much their classroom teaching is still connected to the reality of K-12 schools. The strength of a teacher education program critically depends on the level of constant interaction of theory and practice. And although each individual instructor swears to know everything there is to know about real schools, the aggregated and accumulated effect of the disconnect may be larger than one person can notice. See our students in action on a regular basis may just spur more innovation in our own teaching.

As long as we notice and understand the negative nudging, it can be remedied with conscious counter-nudging. Here is my challenge: let's commit every faculty member, full time and part-time, to supervising at least one student teacher every semester. The School can pay a small overload (the same $400) per each student teacher, so the scheme remains cost-neutral. If we agree to this as a matter of policy, no immediate results may be apparent. However, in the long run, we would create a significant factor to keep our programs healthy. I will definitely joint the others, and supervise a one student teacher each semester.

Just to make it clear: the proposal does not save us any money; none at all. It is not a matter of cost saving, but simply a matter of counter-acting a negative nudge. We don't have to be passive in the face of economic pressures.

What is easy and what is hard

As I was writing my annual report for faculty and for the Dean, I thought about things that are easy and difficult for me to do, and why they are simple or complicated.

Organizing information flows is easy. Perhaps I have a particular gift for visualizing how information flows from people to documents to computers. I usually can see right away where there is too much information, and too little; where it is not converted into another form properly, and what can be cut or collected/processed automatically. As much as NCATE report writing is a chore, I really had fun playing with all the data flows, data presentation formats, files, folders, websites. It's like a puzzle, which is not that hard to solve.

Making personnel decisions is difficult. Hiring, firing, evaluating, praising, reprimanding – I don't know if anyone is born with the natural ability like that, but it is hard for me. First, because the information is never objective or complete. It comes to me already strongly colored with human emotions, people's webs of relationships, past grudges and deals. I am always so acutely aware of my own imperfections when I have to pass a judgment on someone else. Not just a passing remark, but a serious, consequential decision that can affect someone's life, hurt one's feelings, or make someone happy. I am always torn between what I believe are the interests of the School and the college, and those of individual people.

Computers are easy. They have a hard, predictable logic. If something does not work, it is not because the machine is mad at me, or that I am stupid. I know there is a solution, even if I have to ask an expert. If it is really screwed up, you just kill the computer and create an exact clone of the old one minus the bugs. People are difficult: their hard drives cannot be reformatted; it is never clear what drives them anyway. They are all different, so each needs a different kind of work and enjoyment. The redeeming quality of people that they have the amazing capacity to self-repair. They adapt, they think, they are able to make peace, to forgive and forget. But there are no solutions, and no experts to call.

Doing things myself is easy; delegating is difficult. To delegate, I need to first see if a task is repeatable, and will likely be re-occurring again and again in the future. Otherwise, the investment in training someone else to do it won't pay off. Then I need to see if I myself understand the process, because teaching someone requires more than intuitive knowledge. Third, delegating implies asking someone to add it to his or her responsibilities, which is not always possible, and sometimes may backfire. Then I need to figure out if the new task is within the person's general level of skills, or slightly above. If it is too difficult, training may take too long, and be frustrating for both of us.

Structural changes are easy: changing or adding courses, reformatting courses, reshuffling coursework, improving individual assignments, instruments, data collection processes. Deep curriculum and pedagogy reforms are difficult. We don't really have an abundance of new ideas, we disagree on what should work. The institutional assumptions are very strong (try to avoid using concepts such as credit hour, a class, a field of expertise, the distinction between liberal arts core and major, and pedagogy areas; the distinction between class work, field work, and home work).

Easy things are pliable like clay; they usually require nothing but an idea, willingness to get your hands dirty, and to work. Hard things are hard like stone; you need to chisel away at them, have patience and right tools. But if you let your clay to dry, and if it get fired in the oven of human conflict, it becomes hard like a stone.

Genchi Genbutsu

Genchi Genbutsu is a Japanese management technique. It roughly translates as "go and see for yourself." It addresses the simple fact that when a problem is reported to the management, it is by necessity simplified, and made abstract. When a manager who has not been on the factory floor for a long time develops a solution, it does not work. The Genchi Gembutsu principle invites them to go on site and see the problem and potential solutions in context.

We sometimes have solutions offered to us from above that show little knowledge of what is going on closer to the ground. For example, the problem is we have too many changes in schedule; those are hard to track and errors slip in. A solution is to document every change in schedule, with someone responsible signing on every change. But that just shows that whoever thought of it does not know the context in which schedules are developed, and why they change. It is not only top managers that manage to misunderstand the Gemba (the Japanese term for "the place" in this case 'the place where it actually happens' - Wikipedia). Faculty often create rules and programs that are very hard to implement for the academic support staff. Most faculty members never "go and see" what is going on in the world of the support staff. The financial services think they know how to fix the problems on the academic side of the house, and the feeling is mutual. I am probably also guilty of imagining Gemba rather than actually knowing it. Solutions for someone else always look more obvious and easier to come by. One's own world always look more complicated and somehow more nuanced.

This is where our reliance on assessment may be flawed. Classroom assessment is always a form of abstraction; data is only possible when much of context is ignored. Anything with a number is an abstraction. My talks with students always bring different kind of information that the numerous surveys and assessment data we collect. It is not necessarily more complete information; it is biased and skewed by the sample. However, when you just see or talk with someone, many hidden complexities are always revealed. If you want to improve and move forward – yes, collect the data, but don't forget Genchi Genbutsu.

What’s moving us?

I am an unsentimental guy, or at least trying to act like one. But all said and done, only a few things are really moving. And the English expression "this is so moving" has a wonderful double meaning. To move somewhere, one needs to be moved emotionally.

Last December, our students and faculty collected and wrapped some 1000 gifts, I packages of 3-4 items. I was told yesterday that many parents who picked the gifts up to give to their children broke down crying. What were they crying about? If you are a parent and had not been able to afford a little gift for your child, you'd know. We have no fewer than 500 homeless children in Greeley, and about 10,000 on free lunch – not on reduced lunch, on free lunch. In comparison, the imperfections of curriculum, or inadequacy of faculty evaluation system all look… not small, but not very moving. That we also collected some food for homeless kids to take home in backpacks is moving – it is moving me to try to do more, for it was really a drop in a bucket.

A few month ago, a student came to me and said that her program changed her life – and not only because it is designed for working adults like her, and because all instructors have been knowledgeable and kind. It also so happened that she did not have a room to stay for a couple of weeks, and an anonymous donor paid for her motel. The donor did want to be named, and simply said he was helped in a similar way many years ago, and now is simply returning the debt. This story also moves – moves me to remember the debts I owe to many people.

I am also moved by small, almost invisible things – a kind word to a student beyond the job duties, by a question asked of a colleague about his family, by all small acts of kindness, but also by the acts of ingenuity, humor, persistence, and just an effort to do one's best within the given circumstances. Oh, man, that was really syrupy. Sorry about that; this is the last sentimental thing you'll hear from me ever.

My ideal community

In my ideal community, every person, of every size and shape, with whatever strengths and deficiencies, is able to find a place fitting his talents and needs. The ideal community creates a special place for every member, which fits her shape perfectly, like a cocoon. The person's rough edges are met with softness; his baby spots are protected by harder covers. The community does not stop looking until such a place is found. If someone is hurting, or unhappy, it does not seek to expel; it is busy looking for a new place within itself where one is happy, and is not hurting others. The ideal community does not expel; it is endlessly accommodating. It looks for all the good things each member may have, and wonders how they can be put to a good use.

It does not judge, but rather is amused by the weird things people do sometimes. It marvels at wonderful things people do all the time. The weirdoes are collected like rare stamps or coins – if they were printed with an error, so much better! The ideal community can take any amount of anger; it is eternally patient and endlessly forgiving. It may correct and guide, but will not try to alter anyone's inner being. People are just what they are. The ideal community does not believe in evil – it does not have a use for such a category. It admits the limits of mutual understanding – people are sometimes enigmatic, even to themselves. It embraces ignorance about each other's intentions or motives. Yet it is generous with interpretations; it always assumes benign intentions, even when consequences are disastrous.

The ideal community does not like pride and arrogance, no matter how justified. It does not support righteousness, but rather treats it like any other human folly – tolerated, but not cherished; a cause for amusement, not for admiration. The strongest must share their strength with the weakest as a matter of course, without asking. The strong are graceful, while the weak are grateful. It knows no pariahs and no outsiders. With each new member, it reshapes itself to make room for the new people. It values neither its identity, nor its ideals. People are more important than both.

It speaks with a thousand voices, which are not harmonious, not merging into one, but still recognizing each other as different and distinct. It does not seek agreement; it merely strives to hear the polyphony of human voices. To hear is more important than to be heard. It is a connoisseur of the human drama; it follows twists and turns of people's stories, and abhors clean, logical endings. It finds pleasure in stories, and likes to hear new variations of the same story. It knows how to forget and likes to keep many versions of its history. The ideal community is suspicious of agreement, it does not believe in consensus. Its members agree to act together if necessary, without agreeing to think the same thing. They all try to take in other voices; to internalize the discord of the larger discourse.

The community is not preoccupied with itself – it is open to the world, and has a purpose larger than itself, and its own happiness. It treats change as just another story, like a chrysalis enjoys becoming a butterfly: hurts a little, but it gives it a new life.

Such an ideal community is a utopian dream; it simply does not exist. It cannot exist, nor should it exist. Yet dreaming has huge health benefit. Research definitely shows that much (Source: none). In real life, communities cannot be too tolerant, for excessive tolerance hurts its members and its purpose. It cannot be endlessly forgiving, because it consists of real people who may or may not be able to forgive and forget. People's weaknesses may become too much of a burden for the rest to carry. Real communities have a specific purpose, and cannot afford be endlessly flexible. With dreaming, it is important to wake up.

Asking for the impossible

I had to apologize to Eugene today about asking him to do something that was impossible to do. It did sound reasonable when I asked; and I used all the right reasons – the interest of our students, the big picture, the right thing, etc. However, one glitch: it was impossible for him to do. Had I pushed myself a little further, I could have realized that myself, and avoid putting him in a position where he has to reject a reasonable request.

I find myself in his shoes quite often, and should have known better. Often one of my colleagues is completely right about something, knows she or he is right, and is asking me to do something – something that affects a third party. And sometimes I simply cannot do it. Why not? – usually, there is no good way of making a decision without hurting someone. Often, there is no way of saying what I want to say – the norms of collegiality, the relationships, may make it impossible; literally unpronounceable. What I have learned (partly from experience, and partly from Eugene), is to ask "OK, you're right, but what do you want me to do about it, exactly?" Or, "Give me a good line with which I can approach your colleague 'A' to say what you want me to say."

We all have to stop asking for the impossible. It is easy to say that someone else must keep their promises, be fired, dismissed, replaced, limited, or reprimanded – say it behind one's back. But how would you say it to one's face? How would you do it, exactly? How do you think the other party is going to react? Does the person you're asking to do something capable, or equipped to do what you ask? Would you be able to do what you're asking for? And if you think yes – why do you think other people are as capable and resourceful as you believe you are?

Just being right or righteous does not give you the right to insist something should be done the way you see it. The world is way too complex for that. People who are in the wrong must always have a face-saving option. No one should be humiliated. Everyone should be given a second and a third chance. Everyone can be forgiven and helped. We have to keep in mind the long-term consequences of our actions. We must keep in mind precedents we set.

NCATE worries

Carolyn and I sat down to review the NCATE report we need to produce by May1. Even though the new process we're piloting seems to be simpler, there is a long list of documents and materials we need to produce. How long? - Exactly 54 categories, some if which require a few different documents; see below. Some of it we have, some we know where to get, and a few need work. And of course, there is the report itself, which runs about 45 pages and addresses the six NCATE standards.

Is this a useful exercise? Perhaps it did force us to collect and consider data. However, we used to collect a lot of useless data, just for the sake of compliance. We have a much better, cleaner system now. I just with NCATE, the national organization, would be more logical in their accreditation approach. For example, it has a standard on candidate's knowledge, skills, and dispositions, and then another one on the assessment system. But the only way to know your candidates know anything is to show some assessment instruments and data – exactly the same you need to show that you have an assessment system. Then they have the standard on field experiences – but those are also ways of ensuring our candidates learn, and we assess those as a part of the assessment system. Then there is a separate standard on diversity – which should really be an integral part of the standard on knowledge, skills, and dispositions. It just makes very little sense. Compare, for example, exhibits #7, 26, and 29. They ask for the catalog twice, etc. etc.

Anyway, we will produce the stuff; and we will get the national recognition. It probably will take a little more work than we expected. I will have to take some significant time away from running the everyday business of the School to do that. This is fine. I just wish the effort would be a little more meaningful in terms of the actual outcome. My worry is not about the amount of work, or the possible outcome; it is more about the usefulness of it all.

1. Links to unit catalogs and other printed documents describing general education, specialty/content studies, and professional studies
   
2. Syllabi for professional education courses
   
3. Conceptual framework(s)
   
4. Findings of other national accreditation associations related to the preparation of education professionals (e.g., ASHA, NASM, APA, CACREP)
   
5. State program review documents and state findings. (Some of these documents may be available in AIMS.)
   
6. Title II reports submitted to the state for the previous three years (Beginning with the 2010 annual report, Title II reports should be attached to Part C of the annual report and will be available to BOE teams in AIMS.)
   
7. Key assessments and scoring guides used by faculty to assess candidate learning against standards and the outcomes identified in the unit's conceptual framework for programs not included in the national program review process or a similar state process
   
8. Data tables and summaries that show how teacher candidates (both initial and advanced) have performed on key assessments over the past three years for programs not included in the national program review process or a similar state process
   
9. Samples of candidate work (e.g., portfolios at different proficiency levels)
   
10. Follow-up studies of graduates and data tables of results
    
11. Employer feedback on graduates and summaries of the results
    
12. List of candidate dispositions, including fairness and the belief that all students can learn, and related assessments, scoring guides, and data
    
13. Description of the unit's assessment system in detail including the requirements and key assessments used at transition points
    
14. Data from key assessments used at entry to programs
    
15. Procedures for ensuring that key assessments of candidate performance and evaluations of unit operations are fair, accurate, consistent, and free of bias
    
16. Policies and procedures that ensure that data are regularly collected, compiled, aggregated, summarized, analyzed, and used to make improvements
    
17. Samples of candidate assessment data disaggregated by alternate route, off-campus, and distance learning programs
    
18. Policies for handling student complaints
    
19. File of student complaints and the unit's response (This information should be available during the onsite visit.)
    
20. Examples of changes made to courses, programs, and the unit in response to data gathered from the assessment system
    
21. Memoranda of understanding, contracts, and/or other documents that demonstrate partnerships with schools
    
22. Criteria for the selection of school faculty (e.g., cooperating teachers, internship supervisors)
    
23. Documentation of the preparation of school faculty for their roles (e.g., orientation and other meetings)
    
24. Descriptions of field experiences and clinical practice requirements in programs for initial and advanced teacher candidates and other school professionals
    
25. Guidelines for student teaching and internships
    
26. Assessments and scoring rubrics/criteria used in field experiences and clinical practice for initial and advanced teacher candidates and other school professionals (These assessments may be included in program review documents or the exhibits for Standard 1. Cross reference as appropriate.)
    
27. Proficiencies related to diversity that candidates are expected to develop
    
28. Curriculum components that address diversity proficiencies (This might be a matrix that shows diversity components in required courses.)
    
29. Assessment instruments, scoring guides, and data related to diversity (These assessments may be included in program review documents or the exhibits for Standard 1. Cross reference as appropriate.)
    
30. Data table on faculty demographics (see example attached to NCATE's list of exhibits)
    
31. Policies and practices for recruiting and retaining a diverse faculty
    
32. Data table on student demographics (see example attached to NCATE's list of exhibits)
    
33. Policies and practices for recruiting and retaining diverse candidates
    
34. Data table on demographics of P-12 students in schools used for clinical practice (see example attached to NCATE's list of exhibits)
    
35. Policies, practices, and/or procedures that facilitate candidate experiences with students from diverse groups
    
36. Data table on faculty qualifications (This table can be compiled in the online template from data submitted for national program reviews or compiled in Excel, Word, or another format and uploaded as an exhibit. The information requested for this table is attached to NCATE's list of exhibits.)
    
37. Licensure information on school faculty (e.g., cooperating teachers, internship supervisors)
    
38. Samples of faculty scholarly activities
    
39. Summary of service and collaborative activities engaged in by faculty with the professional community (e.g., grants, evaluations, task force participation, provision of professional development, offering courses, etc.)
    
40. Promotion and tenure policies and procedures
    
41. Samples of forms used in faculty evaluation and summaries of the results
    
42. Opportunities for professional development activities provided by the unit
    
43. Policies on governance and operations of the unit
    
44. Organizational chart or description of the unit governance structure
    
45. Unit policies on student services such as counseling and advising
    
46. Recruiting and admission policies for candidates
    
47. Academic calendars, catalogs, unit publications, grading policies, and unit advertising
    
48. Unit budget, with provisions for assessment, technology, and professional development
    
49. Budgets of comparable units with clinical components on campus or similar units at other campuses
    
50. Faculty workload policies
    
51. Summary of faculty workloads
    
52. List of facilities, including computer labs and curriculum resource centers
    
53. Description of library resources
    
54. Description of resources for distance learning, if applicable

Rank and File

The Academia has a tension between its strong egalitarian instinct and the academic rank. On one hand, once you're hooded, you join a community of equals; you have proven your worth. On the other hand, just like with any other job, it takes years and years to learn how to be a good university professor. And because those jobs are not trivial, and demand a lot of effort and experience, the hood itself does not guarantee one is good at it yet. It does not guarantee one knows one's limits.

In some universities, rank is very important – full professors run the show and often enjoy tangible privileges, such as better schedules, easier loads, etc. Our School is a lot more egalitarian place – we agreed that seniority should not create privilege, and we are supposed to rotate all burdens and perks. The UNC's policy is also quite egalitarian: assistant professors can vote on promotion to full professor. It is a real strength, because we are more inclusive, and junior faculty are less likely to feel alienated or excluded from decision-making (That's my hope anyway, and junior faculty may feel differently). However, I now realize there is also a weakness to this system. We don't have a good mechanism of making qualification decisions: who can and who cannot teach certain courses; who should start advising doctoral students when; who can define what a program's philosophy should be? I am certainly not in a position to make many of those decisions. We have a pecking order spelled out in our Charter, but it does not always work as we have more inter-disciplinary programs, and as course prefixes make less and less sense as turf markers.

I think we make reasonably good decisions most of the time. But sometimes I hear people questioning each other's qualifications – in private, of course. And regardless of whether I agree or disagree with those judgments, there does not seem to be a clear way of resolving such conflicting claims. It looks like more senior faculty should have more say in it, but how do we make it a reasonably fair and reasonably transparent process without hurting each other's feelings needlessly? Do we create a committee? Do I solicit informal opinions? How do we resolve disagreements? How do we remain rational, and above personal likes-dislikes? How do we help people grow, rather than create permanent divisions between more and less powerful?

Perhaps we should have adjudicating committees, consisting of at least three people: the program coordinator, and the two most senior professors with the appropriate expertise? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Appreciation

I lack the opportunity, and maybe skills to tell how much I appreciate and value every one of my colleagues. But I do appreciate, and notice a lot of good things, even though I sometimes fail to acknowledge every one. When I walk the hallways and look into someone's classroom, I am overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude to all of you who stand there and teach all these students, day in and a day out. When students trickle in with their problems, and I see one of our staff members talking to them, helping figure out problems, listening to each individual story – I have the same feeling. You all are really needed, and I am very much humbled by what you all can accomplish. When someone steps in quietly, and picks up a task, just because it is needed to be done – I know I am in the right place, and with the right people.

No profound truths this time, just a report on the internal life of your Director.

Perpetual tweaking

Here is quote from a preview of an interesting study by Steven Farr on effective teachers:

[Great teachers are] perpetually looking for ways to improve their effectiveness. For example, when Farr called up teachers who were making remarkable gains and asked to visit their classrooms, he noticed he'd get a similar response from all of them: "They'd say, 'You're welcome to come, but I have to warn you—I am in the middle of just blowing up my classroom structure and changing my reading workshop because I think it's not working as well as it could.' When you hear that over and over, and you don't hear that from other teachers, you start to form a hypothesis." Great teachers, he concluded, constantly reevaluate what they are doing (Ripley, 2009)

This is very true. Many of my colleagues are excellent teachers, and I know they are tweaking their courses all the time. On the other hand, when someone has the same syllabus as ten years ago, I get really suspicious about the quality of that person's teaching. It is not a perfect indicator, but is a very good proxy. It takes years to get one particular course just right, and by the time you get it right, either students change, or the content needs updating, or you just get bored doing the same thing over and over again. The one negative side effect of it is the organizational and curricular drift. But it is a different issue, and no one should ever feel embarrassed at constant tweaking of one's classes. It is not an implicit admission that you failed before. You just learned something new and are refusing to settle on something less than your best.

It also occurred to me the same principle works in management. We have been changing a lot of things around here for a long time, in some cases again and again. At the beginning, I thought naively that there will be a point when we clean up all the inefficiencies, waste of time, and boring work. Well, it is not happening. As soon as we solve one problem, we either have to struggle with a new one we created, or suddenly someone sees an even better way of doing the same thing. Just for one example: When I came here first three and half years ago, almost the first thing I did was to cut down the number of paper forms, and put them all on-line. It makes sense: if a student needs to come and get a form, and then bring it back – that's two trips rather than one. If we have a form that has no consequences, it should not exist at all. Then we converted many of those forms into on-line surveys, so that the data can be just downloaded as a spreadsheet. No trips to us for the student, and no keying in the data for us. Now I stumbled on a way of sending these forms directly to someone's computer as an e-mail but with all required information already included (here is an example). This eliminates the downloading step. And there does not seem to be an end to it. Our wonderful staff is very patient with me, and they have to learn something new all the time – sometimes only to switch to something else again. I guess this blog is an attempt to justify myself (aren't they all?), to show that I am not a moron who cannot make up his mind about office processes. It is what we have to do. OK, we revised some programs three times in two years (you all know which), so what?

But back to teaching: How do we cultivate that urge for perpetual tweaking in our own students? It is probably only possible when you do it yourself, and are open and intentional about it. We need to invite students into our teaching labs, so they not only see how we teach, but also how we think about our teaching, and how often one needs to tweak. Let's go tweaking! But don't forget that sometimes we need radical change, too. That involves a different kind of learning, needs to be done carefully and for a good reason.