I first wrote about Andy Hargreaves and the 4th Way back in October, (with an important update added to the bottom of the post in early November). The pyramid below is updated from that post, taking feedback from Hargreaves himself.

Administrators from our district met and discussed The 4th Way last Thursday and we were guided through some activities to encourage us to explore the text and to examine which of Hargreaves’ principles we are doing well, and which ones we need to focus on.

I like the recommendation of putting ‘Teaching and Learning’ at the top of the pyramid. I think that puts the role of both educators, (as a teacher and a learner), and students where they belong at the focal point of what is both important in education and meaningful in educational change.

We need to have a common, clear, inclusive and inspiring vision.

We need to collaborate at all levels of community… it really does take a village to raise a child.

We need to be active learners taking part in lively learning communities, networked with effective role models.

We need to be responsible and effective teaching professionals, lead learners fostering meaningful learning.

During our session, we got to see some exclusive video interviews that Hargreaves gave, and I realized that embedded, but not explicitly mentioned, in my pyramid is the idea of professionalism… This is where ‘Responsibility’ comes from. To me Hargreaves’ notion of “Responsibility before Accountability” is key to the 4th Way. The following was completed on a little reflection card we filled out and handed in, (I’m glad I took a photo of it first).

I wrote:

We need to be unified and collaborative.

Not unions, but professional organizations.

Not corporations, but community leaders.

Not top-down, but shared leadership.

Not teachers, but co-learners.

Not standardization, but a process of inquiry.

Looking at this list, it unintentionally follows the patter of: Not accountability, but responsibility.

The key here it to recognize that there is a coexistence between the two and that this isn’t a dichotomy, but rather a priority: “Responsibility before Accountability”.  This is where schools and school districts have the greatest opportunity to change.

In The 4th Way, Hargreaves says,

“Unions have missed an opportunity to raise professional standards among all their members and increase their credibility and transparency among the public. Government, meanwhile, has kept an iron grip on defining and controlling professional standards. This is professionalism without power—and teachers know it.”

Professionalism, and the ensuing responsibility that comes with it, empowers educators at all levels. In the end, we need to be accountable, but not to governments, or unions, or corporations. We need to be accountable to ourselves as professionals and educators, and we need to be accountable to the student in our schools.

Professionals acting responsibly and holding themselves, and others, accountable in the interest of teaching and learning.

Sometimes that means that we let corporations into our schools but we dictate the conditions and we expect them to be there as community leaders, not advertisers, (and we hold them accountable to this if they don’t do it responsibly). Sometimes we need to let parents and community members share their expertise and not worry that they are doing something that is defined as a union job. Sometimes, (dare I say often), we need to let students dictate what they want to learn, because they are passionate about an area of interest, and let go of the curriculum.

Maureen Dockendorf said at the end of the session about Hargreaves’ 4th Way, “It’s not a program, it is a set of principles”.

This is a great point, as The 4th Way is not prescriptive. Expanding on this idea in a discussion with Dave Sands later he said, “It’s not steps or even a set of principles, it is a philosophy or a way of being.”

Dave continued, “This is how an organization, a society, and a world moves to a greater state of consciousness. This is how we take responsibility and ultimately move to accountability.”

On a final note look at what I highlighted above:

Professionals acting responsibly and holding themselves, and others, accountable in the interest of teaching and learning.

Do you notice where the power lies is in that statement?

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When my grandfather was a teenager in the Ukraine, he played his accordion for the ‘moving pictures’. He was a member of the band that would play scripted music as damsels in distress were first tied to train tracks by villains, then rescued by heroes.

The music the band played added life to the moving pictures and helped to set the mood or build suspense. Essentially another channel of meaningful information was added to these silent moving pictures… the new channel improved this form of media and created something greater than what was there before.

For his services, my grandfather received two paid entries to these same movies, 20 cents worth of tickets. He would watch movies again and again, and he would charge friends 5 cents (half price) for his second ticket, to earn some pocket change. But never would he sell both tickets, he loved the movies too much. Eventually he would own a cinema, and his fascination and appreciation for movies stuck with him his entire life.

The idea of moving pictures marveled people in these early days! Today we can be momentarily entertained by movies such as this, but not unexpectedly, we expect more from a movie today.

Just as we expect more from our movies and our entertainment, I think our students expect (or at least should expect) more from their classroom experiences today. On a very simple level, how is a poster board different than Glogster or Museum Box? How is an encyclopedia different than wikipedia?

But so often when we make such comparisons, there is the notion of ‘out with the old and in with the new’… this very notion seems to set people off about how we can’t replace the classics or ‘I can do that without technology’. Both of these views miss the point.

We may not be captivated by the ‘damsel in distress’ movies of the past, but we can marvel at the comedic social commentary of Charlie Chaplin; We can study and learn from the the visual story telling of Orson Wells.

We can find value in old black and white films and likewise we can find value in using some important lessons learned in education. We can appreciate quality and learn from what works… BUT… we can’t pretend that times haven’t changed. We can’t hold on to a black and white world.

In one of the most compelling podcasts I’ve heard in a while, Michael Wesch says:

In these rooms… that we are teaching there is literally something in the air that is changing the game completely, and that something in the air is nothing less than 1.5 billion people connecting all around the world… we need to learn how to educate in this media-scape.

If you look at all futurists, all predictions, they all agree on one trend, and that is that we are moving towards… Ubiquitous networks, ubiquitous computing, ubiquitous information, at unlimited speed, about everything, everywhere, from anywhere, on all kinds of devices.

…and meanwhile… scantrons are still happening in our schools where we are testing people for whether or not they are knowledgeable. What I am going to argue is that we have to move from being knowledgeable to actually creating students that are knowledge-able, that is able to critique and analyze and find and share and evaluate information.

It is less about leaving old ways in the dust and more about using the resources available to us. We have always wanted students to think for themselves, to be able to critique and analyze and evaluate what they’ve learned… we just have to do so using a current model. Wesch continues with a question, and his 3-part answer:

How can we create students who can create meaningful connections?

1. Engage in real problems that actually matter to students,
2. Do it with students, and
3. Do this recognizing and harnessing the existing media environment… (including libraries!)

It goes back to this simple realization:

How many channels of information do our students experience outside of our classes? How many in our classes?

We can still watch an old black and white movie, but we don’t go out and buy a black & white tv that limits our ability to see what is available to us in colour. Yet we place unnecessary limits on what can happen in our schools and classrooms, “we need to learn how to educate in this media-scape”.

Educators new to twitter, here is a little walk down memory lane…

Remember your first days of university? You weren’t sure what to expect and you had to put yourself ‘out there’ to connect to new people?

Do you remember going to a class and not knowing anyone?

Imagine for a moment that you enter, for the first time, a small class and the teacher is trying to start a conversation. When you say something in that class you aren’t really sure who is paying attention… (That’s a Tweet). Someone says something and you respond… (that’s an @reply). The person next to you likes what you said and leans over to quietly tell you so… (that’s a Direct Message). Soon you have the confidence to share your ideas in a bigger classroom… (that’s how you build a following).

You jumped into a new learning environment and made it interesting. You can do that on Twitter too, but just like your new experience at university, you’ve got to put yourself out there, you’ve got to be willing to meet new people, and you’ve got to put some time into making new relationships that can be lasting and meaningful.

It doesn’t work if you don’t try.

It doesn’t work if you aren’t doing it for the right reasons.

But if you are willing to make the effort, you are going to find a community of learners that want to connect to you, and learn from you, and give you more than you could possibly give back.

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A little over a month ago, a few of us started a conversation and it grew into Gr8Tweets. For the month of March, we would promote the use of a hashtag (#gr8t) in order to collectively share some of our favourite Tweets in one place. When we came across something we considered GREAT, we would retweet it with #gr8t.

I really enjoyed planning and launching this with Laura Deacs, Darren Kuropatwa, Sue Waters, Liz B. Davis, Heidi Hass Gable and Bud Hunt. Special thanks as well goes to the many wonderful -people - who - jumped - on - board - with - blog - posts - to – help - promote - the - idea. And even more thank you’s to those that contributed Tweets to #gr8t.

I think this was a great way to synthesize some of the links and ideas that people share on Twitter every day, and for me it highlighted why Twitter has become such a special part of my PLN. I plan to continue using the hashtag when I find something really worth sharing.

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So for those of you that may still be struggling to ‘get’ twitter, check out the resource page on the Gr8tweets wiki. And remember your first days of university. Remember that it takes work and effort to build a meaningful community of friends… and when you decide to join in, put yourself ‘out there’ and give it a fair chance. Once things get rolling, the effort fades and the benefits soar!