It was exactly one year ago today I found out that I would be the next Superintendent of Schools for the West Vancouver School District, a position I will assume this coming January.
It was also one year ago I used the power of my network to help me secure the position. Watching Dean Shareski’s excellent keynote from the K12 Online Conference 2010 really helped to give me a greater context for the support I received – it was part of the early stages of “a sharing revolution.”
While some have heard me tell the story at various events, I wanted to share how I used Twitter to assist me in the process.
On the day of my interview, one hour in-advance of its scheduled start, I was given a question. This is standard fare for many interviews. It is a process I had experienced twice before. I was to take the hour to pull together my thoughts and formulate a presentation I would then share in the first 10 minutes of the one-hour interview.
Time #1 – 2001 – I was given the question, a pen, and some paper. I madly scribbled my thoughts. I used a highlighter to remind myself of the key points. Like doing a timed essay from university, I rushed until the final bell, and emerged to present everything I had pulled from my brain over that hour in those 10 minutes.
Time #2 – 2007 – A very similar process, but this time I was set up at a computer. I took the question and digitized the process I had done six years earlier. I performed an almost identical process except I did it in PowerPoint. Instead of emerging with highlighted notes, I had organized slides.
Last October, my interview for the Superintendent position, was different. As soon as I received the question, the first thing I did was re-post the question to Twitter. Only two years previous, I would have probably considered what I was doing as cheating. I was sharing the question with many of the smartest, most thoughtful people I knew, both locally in West Vancouver, but throughout Canada, as well as around the world.
And over the next hour, 12 people in my 500- (or so) person, Twitter network responded. There were a few quotes, some links to helpful research on the internet and a couple of “good luck” wishes. I took their thinking, blended it with my own, and put together a presentation. I concluded that the Board was not as interested in what I thought, as they were in that I could find the best thinking, synthesize these ideas, contextualize them for our location, and share them in a thoughtful way – all in a timely matter.
My 10 minutes was not about what I knew – it was about the best thinking of my network, personalized for our very unique and specific context. Networks matter. Of course, nobody had any responsibility to share, but they did.
I like (and am challenged by) this quote from Ewan McIntosh:
Sharing, and sharing online specifically, is not in addition to the work of being an educator. It is the work.
I still haven’t come to terms with what exactly the power of our networks mean for concepts like “cheating” – I am sure there are some who might view what I did as dishonest. I like to think it offers insight into what personalized learning could look like and how doing the same old assignments, the same old way, is not good enough.
In the year since my interview, I have only become more reliant on my network – in all its forms – both in the face-to-face and digital worlds. What I saw as a risk a year ago would be an automatic decision now if I was placed in a similar circumstance. I am part of a sharing revolution.
As Dean encourages us in his address, “I’d encourage you to share those stories [of openness] with others and continue to retell them until they resonate with everyone around you.”
Here again is Dean Shareski’s keynote presentation – 25 minutes well spent!
cultureofyes.ca 
What a great story Chris!
I’ve been thinking about the notion of cheating and also plagiarism a bit recently. In Dean’s presentation he gives credit for his presentation to his entire network. If I ever wrote a book, I’d have to include:
http://delicious.com/dtruss/
and
http://www.cocomment.com/comments/datruss
into the bibliography because I’m not sure if I have many (if any) original ideas that have not been greatly influenced by things I’ve read and bookmarked or things I’ve been inspired to comment on (and then track).
I remember seeing a presentation by Peggy Sheehy where she talked about a challenge she posed to students in Second Life where they had limited resources but had to buy supplies for a beach party. All went as planned for her first class, but by her second class an ‘underground’ bartering system had developed as well as advisory comments to help the second class along.
To a teacher:
Doing old things in old ways. [or]
Doing old things in new ways.
(see Prensky: http://www.edutopia.org/adopt-and-adapt )
This is a nightmare… it equates to the first class giving ‘test answers’ to the second class.
But to Peggy,
Doing new things in new ways.
…She saw innovation and creativity. She saw problem solving… Is this something we want to crush or something we want to reward in our schools?
~Dave
ps. I think I’ve added to the conversation here… but as per my point… I’m not sure I adding anything ‘original’.
Thanks Dave for your comment. I think the issue of “cheating” will be a major topic in our schools in the near future (it already is now in many places). So far the conversation has often been about separating work habits from outcomes – e.g. the discusion about whether students can get a zero for late work. The discussion is moving to how we assess work that is created as part of a community – it doesn’t fit well with our traditional system.
What a powerful story! I’ve been following your work for the past few years since you are one of the few supts that are actively using social media. These types of stories does more to enhance your reputation as one who recognizes the power of sharing than any singular act you do as an administrator. Thank you.
Thanks Dean for your presentaiton and for your response to my post. It is reassuring to be part of a community that is thinking about similar issues.
Hi Chris
What a great blog about the impact of social media and the sharing revolution.
Your story provides an inciteful “real world” example to what Gardner calls the “Five Minds of the Future.”
In the 21st century, Gardner argues and you have shown, that the most valued mind will be the synthesizinig mind:
“the mind that can survey a wide range of sources; decide what is important and worth paying attention to [in your case, ‘thanks for the good luck wishes but I’ve only got an hour!’]; and then put this information together in ways that make sense to oneself and, ultimately, to other persons as well.” Searchlight intelligence and shrewd triage!
What I really appreciate from your story is that we have to determine how to nurture synthesizing capacities more widely but, more importantly, we need to extend synthesis into creation, go beyond what is known and create new ‘meaning.’
Discipline/depth – the fact you’re ‘at the table’
Synthesis/breadth – putting it all together in one hour
Creating/stretch – sharing revolution/thinking for change
I’ll quote Gardner as my congratulations to you:
“Those who can synthesize well for themselves will rise to the top of the pack; those whose syntheses make sense to others will become invaluable teachers, communicators, and leaders.”
Thanks for sharing your story
Wow – I love this context of Gardner. Thanks for the kind words and for connecting. I appreciate how the work you are doing in Vancouver, through your blog, is helping influence our work in West Vancouver.
And I always thought you learned everything you knew from us here in Coquitlam, your old District!
I was talking to a teacher leader today at the gym while cycling. He’s doing his masters, has taught for 20 years, and is finding it challenging to think like a student, to practice what he teachers. Anyway, we got onto the topic of networking, connecting, etc. He was wondering why teacher associations didn’t make this happen or why teachers have difficulty sharing and networking. I referred to Dean Shareski’s talk, said I send him the link. I talked about how my network online has become my goto place to connect, question outloud, discuss, share. A year or so ago, I didn’t get it either. But once people get over the what for, why, it’s too hard, etc. the lights come on. I hope it happens for this teacher – I offered to help show him the way. He might take me up on it.
I think many of us are “coming of age” in this online networking era. It’s exciting. Your example Chris is startling. I would have never thought to do that to prepare for an interview – I’ve always thought of that as a private affair. But next time, I might cheat, er tap into my digital colleagues to succeed!
I shared with our new teachers that one of the best things they could do was to begin to find a Twitter network. Many were skeptical that this was an add-on to their work and not core to their work. It is interesting that there are stages of development when people engage in social media – some abandon it without giving it a fair shot.
While you didn’t respond to that particular tweet, be assured that your thinking was reflected in my answer I gave that day.
Chris – what a great story.
I hope you don’t mind a non-teacher weighing in on your blog. I have nearly 20 years experience in workplace learning, so feel as though I share some perspective.
I think that we have been conditioned to hoard knowledge and we are assessed on what we know in the school system. And, it is also about individual performance.
The shift you have made is to one that is not about knowing, it is about doing.
And, who among us is able to single-handedly solve problems? No one.
The analogy that springs to my mind when I ponder if this is cheating, is medical research and the benefits that could be made if research was a collaborative affair not a competitive one. Big world challenges need many brains to fix them, if you ask me.
We have an opportunity to model to kids that knowing is not enough, doing is better. Good for you to do so.
Holly
Thanks Holly for the response – as to the first point, my goal in this blog is that the conversation is larger than just like-minded educators. I am trying to find ways in for parents and others in the community.
It will be interesting to see how we reconcile our commitment to individual evaluation with our growing commitment to collaboration.
[…] Chris Kennedy. Chris is a rare breed. A superintendent who is doing some great writing, sharing and tweeting. Start here. […]
I have a similar story about how I used Twitter to help me produce a presentation on “Myths of Homework”. If I had to do the presentation entirely on my own, it would have been titled “The 5 Myths of Homework”.
With a little bit of a help from my PLN in a shared Google Doc, 15 minutes later the presentation is titled “The 25 Myths of Homework”.
This is a great example of how important it is to build a lot of really smart people into your personal learning network. You also need to participate in reciprocity so that when you need their help, you can count on it, and visa versa.
I’m excited about the future of the Vancouver School District with someone like you as part of the upper level management team. I was telling someone today that every time I’m worried that Canadian education will follow the same standardized path our neighbours to the South have followed that there are people like you standing in the way.
Thanks David. I am very encouraged about the future of education in Canada. I think we have largely been able to avoid the high stakes testing that has consumed many U.S. jurisdictions, and if the bloggers from B.C. like yourself and others are in any way representative of our profession, we are going the right direction.
You are only as smart as your network.
Hi Chris,
That’s a very interesting reflection on the shift you experienced in the interview process at different points in your career. I wonder how many other BC educators working at your level are connected in such a way? I wonder how many teachers even? I know in my little district that there aren’t that many, a much smaller percentage than I would hope, anyway.
One last comment – I’m doing the last year of my MEd (I finished a grad diploma in 2008) and for the first time I’m experiencing research, etc. with the help of social media. It’s amazing! To be able to ask people from all over the world who are more knowledgeable than me for help and to have them offer it so happily and so immediately – powerful, and humbling, too.
Thanks Errin – I am probably still in the small minority, but it is a growing minority. I find through this blog, and twitter, that there are more and more educators looking to connectin new ways. Nice connect with you – I appreciate connecting via Twitter and your blog.
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