In my last post, I reviewed the Sony Touch e-reader. The book I chose to read on it was Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody. It seemed like a perfect marriage of medium and message.

Well this marriages got off to a rocky start, but in this case the fault lies more with the e-reader than Shirky’s prose.

The premise of Shirky’s book will not come as a big news to most readers: new technology is changing everything about how groups form, communicate, influence, collaborate, and are managed. Replete with numerous (and sometimes overly-long) examples of how groups have spontaneously or more deliberately formed to address issues ranging from petty theft to child abuse, informal thought experiments to commercial ventures involving millions of people,  Shirks demonstrates the “tetonic shift” that social computing is causing. Shirky writes “The current change, in one sentence, is this: most of the barriers to group action have collapsed, and without those barriers, we are free to explore new ways of gathering together and getting things done.” [Note. I'd cite the page number, but it's different depending on which resolution you have the reader set at. So what are you supposed to do?]

Self-organizing groups hold a special fascination for Shirky. He describes the origin of the organization chart in the early railroad business, and how its hierarchical structure caught on in other industries. [I would have thought the org chart was military in origin.] Hierarchical organization works well for awhile, but “at some point an institution simply cannot grow anymore, and still remain functional, because the cost of managing the business will destroy any profit margin.” But for many social groups on the Internet, the “costs don’t fall moderately…they collapse. Thousands of volunteers contribute and moderate content, for free. Loosely coordinated groups can now achieve things that were previously out of reach for any other organizational structure.”

Shirky uses the metaphor of a ladder to describe the group activities that are more easily facilitated by online tools, with the rungs of the ladder,”in order of difficulty… sharing, cooperation, and collective action.”

News organizations in general, and newspapers in particular, are still reeling from the effect of the internet, bloggers, and the proliferation of amateur news reporters on the viability of their businesses. Shirky reminds us that these amateurs are not professional journalists, that “mass professionalization is an oxymoron.” (This offers little solace to the thousands of professional journalists who have been given their walking papers in the last few years.) Such monumental change (and Shirky likens our period ot that following the invention of the printing press) is messy. “Because social effects lag behind technological ones by decades, real revolutions don’t involve an orderly transition from point A to point B. Rather, they go from A to B through a long period of chaos and only then reach B.” The practical effects of anyone being able to claim journalistic privilege in a court of law is unknown, but sounds a bit scary to me.

Chaotic times lead a lot of people to be be scared, and scared people often react with “fight or flight.” Take the music industry, which is using its own user base. Or any other content provider that goes after those who “mash-up” their original works into new creations.

One of the most memorable phrases from Here Comes Everybody is this: “much of what gets published on any given day is public but not for [emphasis added] the public.”

That explains all the idiotic things I run into.

So with so much stuff out there, Shirky tells us that the only reasonable means to make sense of it is to filter it, and technology, which provides an avenue for so much stuff, can also provide a solutions for getting you just the stuff you are interested in. “Mass amateurization of publishing makes mass amateurization of filtering a forced move.” Communities of practice, such as those that have formed in Flickr and Wikipedia, are two examples of how legions of amateurs can help make sense, and ensure quality, from the legions of stuff.

As an educator, I am passionately interested in what these new tools may mean for today’s students. Shirky asserts:

Communications tools don’t get socially interesting until they get technologically boring. The invention of a tool doesn’t create change; it has to have been around long enough that most of society is using it. It’s when a technology becomes normal, then ubiquitous, and finally so pervasive as to be invisible, that the really profound changes happen, and for young people today, our new social tools have passed normal and are heading to ubiquitous, and invisible is coming.

Then Shirky lets fall the other shoe, claiming: “Our social tools are not an improvement to modern society; they are a challenge to it.”

But in the midst of all of this mess there are signs of hope that society can meet the challenge, and be the better for it. In chapter five, “Personal Motivation Meets Collaborative Production,” Shirky writes at length about Wikipedia, and how its model of collaborative writing and editing demonstrates every day the power and possibility of social tools, where “a Wikipedia article is a process, not a product, and as a result, it is never finished.” He concludes the chapter, with this: “When people care enough, they can come together and accomplish things of scope and longevity that were previously impossible.” And therein lies the hope for making sense out of chaos.

Shirky also weighs in on one of my favorite topics, open source software, and how the open source movement has changed the economics of failure. “Most organizations attempt to reduce the effect of failure by reducing its likelihood.” So Microsoft, Apple, and other commercial firms are risk-averse. But “open source doesn’t reduce the likelihood of failure, it reduces the cost [emphasis added] of failure.” More risk, means a greater likelihood of big breakthroughs and innovation. “When a company or indeed any organization [might I suggest schools?—ed] finds a strategy that works, the drive to adopt it and stick with it strong. Even if there is a better strategy out there.” The resulting “systematic bias for continuity creates tolerance for the substandard.”

Towards the end of his book, Shirky poses a question worth pondering by all of us interested in social media. “The most obvious change is that we are going to get into more groups, many more groups, than have ever existed before. Is this a good thing?” Later, he posits “Arguments about whether new forms of sharing or collaboration are, on balance, good or bad reveal more about the speaker than the subject.” But “To ask the question, ‘Should we allow the spread of these social tools?’ presumes that there is something we could do about it were the answer no. This hypothesis is suspect, precisely because of the kinds of changes involved.” So now that the genie has already escaped the bottle, what do we do? Shirky replies that for himself, “In the last fifteen years I’ve had to unlearn a million [things], because they have stopped being true.” Unlearning: the first step in learning.

Shirky can be a bit long-winded for my taste, but there’s no doubt that he has done his homework and he provides a valuable resource to readers interested in the societal effects of new technologies.

The Sony Reader Touch (PRS-600) is the first e-reader I have had the opportunity to use for an extended period of time. It boasts a clean, minimalist style that I like, with clearly marked and unambiguous buttons across the bottom. It’s battery life is acceptable. The required desktop software is available in both Mac and Windows versions, and its puny on-board memory of 512 MB can be upgraded up to 16 GB using the available SD or Memory Stick slots. You can switch the screen orientation from portrait to landscape through a menu, but the unit itself can’t shift its screen orientation automatically.

You add books to the reader via your computer and a USB cable. The Reader does not offer wireless capabilities. I found the software easy to use, and purchasing books from the Sony store to be a breeze. I purchased Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody (featured in an upcoming review) for purposes of testing. You can also load PDF files, which I did in the form of an open content Earth Science textbook from CK12.

The PRS 600 has a solid, well-manufactured feel to it. The screen size is approximately that of a paperback book,  and it weights just over 10 ounces (.28 KG). All of the ports are on either the top or the bottom of the unit, making for a smooth feel along the left and right sides. You can navigate between pages using touch gestures if you wish, but I found the buttons to be more consistently responsive. You can use either the provided stylus or your fingers to navigate on the screen, highlight text, and so on. The touch function I used most frequently was that of highlighting text, for which i found the fingernail of my index finger to be more useful that the stylus. (I’m always afraid of losing a stylus, a hold-over from my days of using Palm handhelds).

The reader can also play DRM free M3 and AAC files. I did not test this function, as I was primarily interested in its ability as a reader.

Bottom line: If you are in the market for an e-reader, keep looking.

The are a number of reasons why this is not the e-reader I need.

• No color. While the lack of color is not a problem with many texts, it’s an absolute show-stopper when it comes to textboosk, such as the beautifully illustrated Earth Science text mentioned above. The monochrome screen does its best to provide shades of gray, which look nice for the sample photos, but as an iPhone user I love its color display, and won’t accept anything less in an e-reader.
• While reading text, you can access the tool bar located at the top of the screen which allows you to highlight or annotate text, or on the bottom of the screen you a dictionary can appear to provide definitions of words. But you can have both available at the same time. I would like both.
• I would like the option to display black on white AND white on black text. Only the former is available.
• When flipping from one screen to the next, the screen briefly flips to white on black text of the next page before it is displayed. I found the page flipping to be a distracting animation.
• Shirky’s book contains several graphics and figures, which the e-readers renders as virtually unreadable. Zooming in magnifies the text, but did nothing for the figures. I still don’t know what they contain. (see screen shot, below)
• Another anomaly was that throughout Shirky’s book a number of WORDS could not be rendered correctly. (See circled ares in screen shot below.) What’s with that! This is simply unacceptable.
• The Sony Touch allows you to enter notes using an on-board screen keyboard. In this case I did resort to using the stylus. However, the performance of the keyboard is poor, often lagging several seconds behind the typing.
• Reading the PDF Earth science text book I found that paragraphs were often breaking in strange places when I increased the text size. Whether this is a problem with the PDF formatting or the reader I don’t know.
• The Sony Touch does not have a back lit screen, and reading it in even a dimly lit room can be difficult. You will need a brightly lit room or reading lamp to use it effectively.
• Forget about making useful marginal notes while using the Touch. You do have access to free form note making with the stylus. If you like writing your signature at the grocery store on touch-sensitive pad, you’ll like this experience. If you handwriting looks illegible, don’t expect the Touch to improve it or try to convert it to typewritten text. Additionally, margins are irritatingly small for such notations. What I want is the ability to put a pen at an insertion point, type or write a note, and then hide it. But the clincher for me is that when you make a note, and then change the type size, the note moves location on the screen. It’s no longer associated with its position on the screen adjacent to the text you wrote it next to.  As currently implemented, this is a useless “feature.”
• While I am on the topic of making marginal notations, if I had my way there would be a mechanism to toggle them on and off, so that a subsequent reader could choose between a pristine or annotated version of the book.
• Finally, what should happen when you hold down a right or left key to advance or reverse the text. The logical thing, I would think, would be for the key to automatically repeat, to allow you to flip forward to back several pages at a time. Not so with the touch. Want to go forward 10 pages, ten gestures or ten presses of the forward button.

Sony makes several version of the Reader, and the Touch may not be representative of the features and capabilities of the other models.

I so wanted to like this e-reader but, alas, I don’t. YMMV

I have no idea what this graph is supposed to depict.

There are dozens of examples of missing text in the book similar to this one.

After reading Robert Evans’ the Human Side of School Change, it is quite possible to conclude that with so many things making school change difficult, one might as well throw in the towel. Evans acknowledges as much in his final chapter, Reach and Realism, Experience and Hope,” when he writes: “…I may have seemed to some too sympathetic to resistance and too pessimistic about the potential for school improvement.” When I read this, I wanted to yell:

Ya think?

Evans goes on to say “Of all the factors vital to improving schools, none is more essential—or vulnerable—than hope.”

Yes. Especially the “vulnerability” part. Like the evil spirit cartoonists depict sitting on our shoulder and whispering FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt)  in our ear, many educators are constantly on the cusp of giving up.

Evans closes his book with sage advice about how to maintain hope among “the key members and red hots who have  been pouring themselves into school reform.”Let me attempt to summarize:

• How far, and how fast? With so many things that one can add to the “change plate,” it is far better to do “fewer innovations better, than more innovations worse.” He cites research that suggests five years is required for a significant organizational change. If you’re not in for the long haul, best not get on the bus.
• Evolution, not revolution. Consensus, not fiat. Accountability, not micromanagement.
• In an eerily familiar sounding section entitled “The Triumph of Hope,” Evans includes a beautiful quote from Vaclav Havel, a portion of which I include below:

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not a conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. It is this hope, above all, that gives u the strength to live and to continually try new things, even in conditions that seem…hopeless.

Robert Evans has given me much to think about, but I do not look to him for hope. For that, I look to my own convictions about the nature of humankind, and to my friends and colleagues. I encourage you to do the same, read Evans wonderful book, think about it, and then talk with others about it. Schools can and will change. I hold no illusions that they will change as much or as rapidly as I may like. that aspect of my youthful optimism has been eroded. But I am also at a more peaceful place. I do not mean to suggest that I am content with what is, or unmindful of how much is left to be done. But a place where I can strive for what I think is right without undue attachment to the outcome.

Continuing with my blog series on change and schools inspired by Robert Evans The Human Side of School Change, I want to dive into two aspects of schools which I think can sometimes make it very difficult for them to change.

The first is that schools are often very full of smart adults. Smart leaders recognize that “tapping into the wisdom of the group” is a wonderful way to generate superior ideas, leverage creative problem solving, uncover hidden barriers and unintended consequences, enlist group buy-in and support… The list of positives goes on and on. As Evans says, “Most educational reformers see traditional school leadership, epitomized by the administrative bureaucracy, as disenfranchising teachers…, forcing them into conformity and isolation, depriving the school of their wisdom and creativity, and denying them the chance for professional growth.”

Analysis-Paralysis

So the definite trend in schools is towards more participator decision-making. But here’s the rub. Sometimes the decisions don’t get made, they just get talked about. It’s the well-known enemy of change: analysis-paralysis, or AP. (I recognize the irony of calling this AP. See a previous post on the other type of APs!)

Faculty put the “independent” in independent schools. They are smart, opinionated, articulate, and ready to argue the merits of a proposal. Sometimes these arguments take place in a meeting, but too often they take place in “other” meetings—hallway conversations, over lunch, or outside of school. Which brings us to a second challenge in schools:

Most teachers don’t know how to constructively confront one another.

Teachers tend to be harmonizers, the like things running smoothly, with public conflict kept to a minimum. Conflict is seen by some as an act of disloyalty to the unstated code of conduct that says that we all need to get along with one another, and that means not disagreeing with one another. At least not in public, or very strongly, or emotionally. Arguing with one another is bad. Raised voices are a source of shame.

In the 1970’s, assertiveness training was all the rage. People learned about passive behavior, aggressive behavior, and assertive behavior. I don’t think the lesson stuck for many of us. I find that many teachers are passive/aggressive: not voicing complaint about changes publicly, but sabotaging efforts to change covertly. Sometime I suspect that certain people will use the tendency to want to over analyze a situation to by time to keep the change from happening, hoping it will simply go away as proponents lose steam or get put on other projects. And you know what? Sometimes it works.

Evans quotes a middle school principal as saying “Our collegiality train has left the station, but it has many cabooses.” I love that phrase, even as I hate that reality.

On those occasions when conflict comes into the open, school leaders tend to look for win-win scenarios. Evans extols the virtues of “principled bargaining” (attributed to Fisher and Ury),  “which separates the people from the problem…, focuses on interests, not positions,… invents options for mutual gain…, and insists on objective criteria.” Very difficult to pull off, in my view, unless a school invests time in what Peter Senge calls “personal mastery” skills, skills which start with people knowing who they are, being comfortable (but not smugly so) in their skin. This requires a level of maturity and self-knowing that many adults struggle to consistently manifest, especially when certain issues touch a “hot button.”

Evans concludes his chapter, “Participation—Without Paralysis” with a powerful section on what I think of as “followership.” We spend a great deal of time talking about leadership theory, but who are leaders without followers? Not lemming-like followers, but engaged colleagues who understand their roles and that of the leader. As Evans says, “…organizations ne3ed and like to be led–not bossed, led.” He continues to describe six ways to build optimal participation:

1. Clarity in decision-making. Is the decision already made? Are we looking for consensus? Input only? Are we taking a vote? Who is doing what?
2. Informal outreach instead of formal structure. Why create a committee when a few conversations will do?
3. Distributing leadership skills throughout the organization. Not simply insurance in case the leader is hit by a bus, but a way to help everyone become better leaders and followers as the need may be.
4. Adaptable improvement plans. Whoever had an ide that was perfect from the get-go?
5. Understanding and accepting that change means conflict. Conflict is normal. Get over it, then get with it.
6. Regularly checking in with stake holders and asking “how are we doing,” thereby building collaboration between the leader and followers.

Next post will likely wrap up my thoughts about Evans and The Human Side of School Change.

In today’s post, I pick-up theme from a previous post based on Robert Evan’s (The Human Side of School Change) regarding age and the reluctance to change. Evans goes into this in much greater detail in his chapter entitled “Understanding Reluctant Faculty,” and having now passed the age-mark where I qualify (at least among those under the age of thirty) as a bona fide old fart, I can’t resist weighing in on this.

I don’t recall specifically where I saw a particular poster or what the image on it was, but I remember the words on it:

If you don’t think ageism is relevant to you, just wait awhile.

This is not a prelude to my accusing Evans of being ageist. And the research he cites is indeed troubling. Here’s what he has to say:

• “No innovation can succeed unless it attends to the realities of people and place.” Right on, Robert!
• “Looming behind every aspect of the [change] debate about schools is a profound demographic shift among educators: almost en masse, they have become a veteran, middle-aged, immobile group.” (The average age of an American teacher is 45.)
• This veteran group is furthermore much less mobile, tending to stay within a few school systems and a geographic area compared to other professionals.
• “…teachers’ dissatisfaction is broad and deep but it is closer to passive resignation than to active indignation, closer to dejection that deflates energy than to anger that inspires action.” These feelings of inconsequentiality often lead to burnout.
• Yet another problem that may confront older teachers is that of being “underchallenged.” Bingo! Dr. Evans. Some teachers are indeed simply bored. They have taught the same subject, perhaps exceptionally well, for a number of years and it no longer holds the same challenge for them.
• Evans further asserts, and here is where we begin to disagree more fundamentally, “Crisis is not inevitable in our middle years, but ambivalence is.” This ambivalence about our careers as we approach our maximum effectiveness and earning potential, while at the same time starting some physical decline, can lead to a kind of fixed mentality that he calls the “‘help-rejecting complainer’—someone who is chronically dissatisfied but resists all assistance and advice.”

Given that much of our teaching workforce is mid-career, and that indeed there are useful generalizations to be made about mid-career professionals that can inform the change-agents strategies (such as boredom and the resulting leveling-off of performance, a greater focus on material job rewards, the reduction in challenge, and growing isolation among colleagues), it is possible that for some teachers, they will end up in a no-growth zone, something that Carol Dwek would call a “fixed mindset.”

Evans’ produces a wonderful continuum, which he labels the “Midcareer Continuum of Growth and Performance.” How interesting it might be for each teacher, and her or his supervisor and colleagues, to place herself or himself on this continuum.

Evans is eloquent in his description of each of these stages.

So this if the above arguments about the effect of age on ease of change is the “what,” what is the “so what?” and “now what?”

In a word, “revitalize.” Evans says that the job of the school agent is “not just to reform schools, but to revitalize staff.” To return to a previous metaphor he uses, to “unfreeze” their thinking.

Herein lies my bone to pick with Evans, and admittedly it is based on my own limited experience and current situation. I find no correlation between time in service or age an willingness to change or adapt to new ideas. If the teachers in my school were to “act their age” according to what national norms are for mid-career teachers, we would not be the forward thinking, dynamic organization that we are.

Perhaps the exception proves the rule.

What do you think?

There is little doubt that schools are being pressed to change, and to change in very many ways. Administrators, faculty, and staff sometimes feel beset from many constituents asking for or demanding change in practically every aspect of schooling. Many educators are tired, dispirited, and fed-up with it all and just want to close the classroom door and “teach.” They are, like the characters depicted in one of my favorite scenes from Monthy Python and the Holy Grail, “dead, but not dead yet.”

Imagine the following issues being simultaneously confronted in many schools:

• 21st century learning and teaching
• funding
• authentic assessment
• interdisciplinary learning
• co-curricular activities
• professional development
• STEM
• social justice
• environmental sustainability
• learning differences
• technology
• student stress

and the list goes on and on.

Robert Evans (see previous posts), points out that schools “routinely find themselves undertaking more program than they can manage or fund and are unable to eliminate some so as to concentrate on others.” He opines that “In my experience, this tendency used to be more common in wealthier schools that make strong claims to excellence, as if advancing on all fronts at once were a way to confirm superior quality, but it is now ubiquitous.” These multiple demands may lead to greater administrative overhead (program leads, coordinators, and the like) but little lasting change.

As Evans asserts, “teaching is an unusually draining activity, one marked by the sharp disparity between giving and getting.” And while many teachers are used to this, the cumulative effect over many years can be exhausting. On top of this, Evans points out that “Norms for professional growth and innovation in education have never been high.” Constrained by time, money, and energy, professional development activities at most schools pale when compared to those offered, or required, in other professions. Evans says that such experiences have contributed toward “what is sometimes called a ‘union mentality’—that is, a militant antimanagement [sic] posture, a to-the-minute definition of the work day, and a reflexive, legalistic opposition to virtually any innovation that might impinge on contractual agreements.” And while I am personally far from anti-union, I can appreciate his depiction of the worst-side of some organizations.

Finances are often, perhaps even always, a problem in schools who wish to innovate. Evans cites the example of the Alpena, Michigan school system—a school system in which I actually taught for two years—which had to close its doors for months due to a budget shortfall. Living where I do now in California, Evans’ comments about the disastrous effects of Prop 13 on per-pupil spending in our state public schools rings true. But lack of funds alone are not an excuse for failure to innovate.

An organization’s capacity for change is further constrained by the lack of time for professional development activities and deep discussions of pedagogy and curriculum matters. In a previous post I wrote about one approach to year-round- schooling that I think would go far to address time concerns.

Addressing the capacity of a school to change will take an investment of time, money, and energy, as well as a laser-like focus on a one or two major change initiatives per year rather than a laundry list that results in little being done. “Better to go deep, than wide” is my mantra for the classroom—and for changing our schools.

As mentioned in my previous post, I am quite taken by Robert Evan’s, The Human Side of School Change. One of the reasons for this is that I consider myself to be both a kind, compassionate person and a change agent and mild-mannered provocateur. In Evan’s chapter on “The Meaning of Change,” he asserts that change “encourages resistance… provokes loss, challenges competence, creates confusion, and causes conflict.”

Me? Afflicting the comfortable instead of comforting the afflicted?

Your's Truly at Our Minnesota Going Away Party

Among my treasured possessions when I moved from Minnesota to California in 1997 was a Dilbert t-shirt given to me by my Minnesota colleagues. On it is a picture of Dilbert, with the caption “Change is good. You go first.” This perfectly encapsulates Evan’s notion that when it comes to change, “we exalt it in principle, [but] we oppose it in practice.” Our daily lives, he asserts, are built around predictability and continuity, and anything that threatens those will be resisted. As Jean Piaget postulated regarding learning, we desire to assimilate new knowledge into existing mental schemas rather than create new schemas, new accommodations. In other words, we want new experience to fit into our view of the world, not to challenge it.

As a technologist, I am given to rational explanation and argument. But I also recognize the power that emotion has over us, and Evans persuasively argues that we need to understand the emotional component of change to be effective leaders. Let me summarize some of his thoughts on the nature of change:

• Change represents loss. We must take into account people’s attachment to the status quo, and give them time to grieve its diminution.
• Because the meaning we have constructed about our current world is cumulative and grows more fixed over time, “change is less welcome to the old than to the young.” (more on this in a future post)
• The logic of the change agent is not enough to win the day. People must “discover their own meaning in… changes before they can accept them.”
• The bad situation, as untenable as it may be, may not be enough to spur people to change. “The pattern we construct builds its meaning by continuity, not happiness.” [emphasis added] Another way of saying this is reflected in the old adage “better the devil you know, than the devil you don’t’.”
• “Change challenges competence,” Evans asserts. By proposing change there is an implicit charge that what we are currently doing is no longer adequate, we’re not cutting the mustard. The simple act of endorsing a new approach throws doubt on those using the current method.
• Of course we know that change creates confusion. Evans did not surprise me here. Even those who “pressed for the change—experience the stress of uncertainty.”
• Finally, Evans describes how change causes conflict. I think that change actually reveals conflict that is already present within the organization but underground, hidden within the shadows of hallway conversations, passive resistance, and snarky comments over coffee. From this point of view change can be a healthy way of surfacing the unspoken tensions within an organization, as long as leaders are willing to address those tensions head-on before working on the change itself.

As someone who has worked in both schools and industry, as has Evans, I appreciate his description that within schools “there is a strong tradition of conflict avoidance.” Amen, to that, brother Evans.

As a newly-minted teacher in the 1970’s, I came out of college full of piss and vinegar, ready to change the world. After getting slapped around a bit, I learned a the hard way about the need for patience in the change process. And indeed, when an idea that I am pressing for is put down by others, I have faith that the idea (if it is a good idea) will surface again in organizations comprised of smart, well-meaning people. When it does, the idea may even be claimed by someone else as theirs. So be it. The important thing is that something good may ultimately happen.

With this in mind, I will hopefully become more understanding of the resistance to change I see all around me and, if I look closely, in me as well.

But I must confess that my understanding and patience does wear thin, and having recently entered that decade of life where people like me are supposed to be planning for retirement, I fear that some changes will tarry too long for me to fully enjoy and experience personally. So while Evans has it right that some “older” folks may be less open to change than the young, there is also a cadre of us who are impatient to see a lifetime of work and hope for change further delayed.

It took me a weeks longer than my usual pace of a book per week to read Robert Evan’s The Human Side of School Change: Reform, Resistance, and the Real-Life Problems of Innovation (Amazon citation). This was not because the book is hard to read, or uninteresting, or because I think the author’s premises are wrong. Quite the opposite in fact. It took me a long time to read because it caused me to really think and to reflect on my many years of experience in schools, universities, and the education industry.

Evans had me from the Introduction, where he states: “…the futility of school change is legendary. Perhaps no American institution has been reformed more often, with less apparent effect, than the school.” Harsh words perhaps, but resonant in me.

For 14 chapters Evans cites research from education, psychology, and business to describe how difficult it is for people and institutions in general to change, and how many of these difficulties are magnified within the school community. Despite millions of dollars and millions of person hours invested in change, “never have so many teachers and administrators worked so hard or so long and felt less rewarded or alone.”

Evans divides his book into three major sections:

1. The Nature of Change
2. Dimensions of Change
3. Leading Innovation

Each section is replete with examples of how difficult change is to manage. One could easily come away from this book feeling that the situation in schools is, at the end of the day, hopeless. But in his final chapter, entitled “Reach and Realism, Experience and Hope,” Evans brings those of us who are trying to affect change in schools to a better place. In a section that perhaps the Obama campaign subconsciously noted entitled “The Triumph of Hope,” Evans acknowledges that the pace of change in schools  can be discouraging, taking a generation or longer. A generation of hard, often thankless labor and persistence. He upends Samuel Johnson’s jest about remarriage by suggesting that such a triumph of hope over experience is precisely what we do need, and ends with a moving quotation from Vaclav Havel:

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It’s not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how if turns out. It is this hope, above all, that gives us the strength to love and to continually try new thing, even in conditions that seem hopeless.

Evan’s book has given me much to think about, and perhaps much to write about. I am more committed than ever to change and innovation, but more clear-eyed about what can be accomplished under even the best of circumstances. Discouraged, no. Better equipped, absolutely!

Among the books on this year’s summer reading list was Carol S. Dweck’s Mindset: A New Psychology of Success (Amazon citation.) Dweck, currently a cognitive psychologist at Stanford University, reports on her years of research and practice in helping people recast their thoughts from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. In so doing, people can live more productive, enriched, challenging, and satisfying lives.

The core of Dweck’s arguments about the superiority of the growth mindset versus the fixed mindset may be summarized in the following table:

Dweck’s book is long on examples of how famous and non-famous people have been held captive by fixed mindsets. Such people may find success, but such success is often short-lived and comes at the expense of other people and their own personal growth.

But for each example of the downsides of fixed mindsets, Dweck counters with even more examples of how the growth mindset can and does lead to success in the classroom, in the corporate board room, or in the sports arena.

Long on examples, as I said, but short on how to make such a change. Indeed, her examples of “research” are replete with too-good-to-be-true anecdotes of how various groups were put into a certain mindset with a simple set of directions and then, when asked to solve problems, predictably behave in ways that reinforce the superiority of the growth mindset. But if we know anything about personal change it is that it is hard. One cannot simply start thinking happy thoughts and snap out of depression, nor can one easily change a mindset.

Perhaps I am being a bit unfair. In her chapter on “Changing Mindsets,” Dweck acknowledges that “old beliefs aren’t just removed like a worn-out hip or knee and replaced with better ones.” But nonetheless I was disappointed in the relatively short-shrift paid to the really important work of how to change your mindset, or those of your students. This is the book that needs to be written. In the absence of a discussion that is at least as prolonged as Dweck’s hundreds of mindset examples, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success is just another feel good, cognitive psychology text for the masses that, like Professor Harold Hill’s band in The Music Man, relies more one’s imagination than on the hard personal work of change.

Those interested in hearing Dweck discuss her work will find the short interview (below) of interest.

<-Actual Book Cover!

It’s fortunate for Andy Zucker that you can’t judge a book by its cover. One wonders what the otherwise very smart people at Harvard Education Press were thinking when they designed the cover of Zucker’s new book, Transforming Schools with Technology: How Smart Use of Digital Tools Helps Achieve Six Key Education Goals. Is there something subliminal going on such as “schools are beyond hope, they have no future.” Or perhaps it was a flash of retro inspiration like “Readers’s haven’t seen a cover like this since Dickens!” Maybe Dr. Zucker had just pissed off the wrong person in the print shop. In any event, the image to the left is really the book cover and so much for marketing.

Let me say from the outset that this is an optimistic book, despite its cover. Indeed, only two lines into the Preface Zucker asserts “By using computers, the Internet, and other digital technologies in smart ways, schools are beginning to transform themselves into the more modern, effective, responsive institutions that our society needs.”

But there are some “tensions” about what institutions are society needs. Certain goals-focused bureaucrats don’t realize simply realities such as testing doesn’t really reveal what we need to know, that keeping dropouts in school can lower test averages, and the a focus on core subjects alone is shortsighted. And don’t get me started on NCLB.

Zucker asserts that technology can help, but a healthy skepticism of technology is warranted. “The thesis of this book is that digital technology has enabled schools to change the way they operate in significant ways; that technology is an essential component of the transformation of schools that most people believe is necessary; and, that the impacts of technology will depend partly on technical factors but also, importantly, on the choices many people make about how to use technology.”

Zucker makes ample two of many of the provocative works of the past few years to illustrate or provide counterpoint to his thesis: Friedman’s The World is Flat, and Cuban’s Oversold and Underused, but his forte is in ferreting out academic studies to help his prove his point. Zucker is most comfortable within the genre of educational research, though he doesn’t hesitate to pepper his book with anecdotal stories that support his thesis.

(Zucker rankled my feathers when he writes: “…there is little evidence to show that attending private schools results in higher achievement.” He obviously has not spent much time in top tier pirvate schools such as my own, but I’ll forgive him this misstep.)

Zucker organizes much of his book around the pursuite of six goals:

1. Increasing student achievement in academic subjects
2. Make schools more engaging and relevant
3. Achieve a high-quality education for all
4. Prepare, attract, and retain more highly qualified teachers
5. Increase support for children by parents and communities
6. Greater accountability by schools

He then devotes a chapter to discussing each of these goals in depth, describing the forces working for and against realization of each of these goals, and the role that technology might play in helping to achieve these goals. Each chapter is filled with examples and case studies wherein technology has proven itself to be a fundamental ingredient in change.

Zucker ends the book with two chapters on innovation and transforming schools. He rightly talks about the role his current employer, the Concord Consortium, has had and continues to have in creating innovative programs in technology, especially science education. Other think-tanks such as SRI and the National Science Foundation also get their due.

Transforming Schools with Technology makes a nice companion-piece to Christensen’s  bestselling Disrupting Class (previous review). Where Christensen talks about the need for schools to embrace technology to keep from being swept aside as irrelevance institutions, Zucker cheerily believes that “…schools have already reached a tipping point in using technology to reform age-old ways of operating, the pace of change has been so fast that the modifications schools are making are not yet widely known or understood.”

Readers interested in hearing Zucker talk about his book, and his take on Distrupting Class, should listen to this interview from EdTechTalk.com. http://www.edtechtalk.com/21cl_100

UPDATE: I was kindly informed by Jeffrey Perkins, Director of Marketing and Sales for the Harvard Education Publishing Group that the cover I show at the beginning of this post is for the library edition, and not widely available to the general public. A much more attractive cover is, indeed, what most people will get when they order this book. I both regret the error and express astonishment that people actually read my blog!