On one of our snowed in nights this winter I had the opportunity to speak with Daniel Pink, author of  Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Surprisingly he was snowed in at his location in Washington D.C. as well.  For over 45 minutes Daniel, Jodie and I talked about motivation and engagement versus compliance in the educational setting.  His insights into the system of education and the connections to his research for Drive are timely and certainly transferable.

The text below is a record of that conversation presented here with Daniel’s permission.  The conversation has been edited for presentation purposes.  Thanks to Daniel Pink for his interest in sharing his thoughts, ideas and perspectives with educators.

JC: Michael Fullan is an Ontario educator and an international educational leader who works all over the globe to research and reform education. How can we continue to motivate each other by engaging with what Michael Fullan describes as our moral purpose?  We’re faced with difficult challenges and teaching is a hard job. Sometimes recharging staff morale seems to fall on a couple peoples’ shoulders. Sometimes it’s the manager’s or the coach’s shoulders. What can we do to continue to motivate each others’ moral purpose?

DP: Part of it is simply having a conversation about those topics. You very rarely hear, and this is not a slam against teachers or administrators, inside of a school building the phrase moral purpose, or even the concept of moral purpose.  The more people talk about it the more it can become part of the conversation and become salient in people’s lives.  It is also another answer to the question about how you motivate yourself, how do you motivate others?  One thing that often gets lost in the conversation is that we’re always telling teachers how to do it. Here’s what you’re supposed to teach. Here’s how you are supposed to teach it. Here’s when you are supposed to teach it. Here’s where you are supposed to teach it. But we never ask why. Why are we doing this in the first place? The why has to do with that moral purpose and what drives a lot of educators in the profession itself – is that sense of, using Michael Fullan’s phrase, moral purpose. We don’t have enough conversations about why.  That is something that the administrators can do.  Just raise that question. We’ve had a tough day, week, year, what ever – let’s not forget about why we are here in the first place. We’re here because what we do matters in the kids’ lives. We’re here because, in all of us who have chosen this profession rather than something else, we want to make a difference in the world.  It is true in the private sector as well. There is even some interesting academic research on this that shows in one example of university call centres raising money through alumni. What they do is divide people into three groups –one is a control group; one group, each night before they make calls, reads something that explains what they can learn, what the benefits are of working in a call centre. You’re learning communication skills; you’re learning negotiation skills, etc. The third group, each night before they make calls, they hear from people who benefited from the money that has been raised at this call centre. So my name is Fred and I got a scholarship because of this fund and now I’m a neuroscientist, etc. One group controls, one group is reminded of the personal benefit and one group is reminded of the purpose of the exercise. They measure the results with how much money they raise. The third group, with literally just a few minutes of a reminder of why they are doing this, raises twice the amount of money, twice the number of pledges of the other groups.  What you have here is that simply reminding people of the purpose has this profound effect on performance but also on the morale. When you get into a system that doesn’t foster that, but in fact, in some ways actively suppresses that, suffocates that, then some people exit and what’s even worse than people exiting, is that some people who don’t exit stay and become cynical.

JN: The connection and similarities between teachers and students is evident in the complexity of the “task” of learning. How do we maximize engagement across the board for all learners in a school specifically in areas of mastery, autonomy and purpose?

DP: I think a lot of it goes to autonomy. When we think about engagement, it’s sort of what we were talking about before. We start with a premise that learning goals and performance goals are the same and they are not but if you start with that premise you are going to make mistakes.  We have another premise that is erroneous which has to do with the very nature of engagement. Engagement and compliance are two very different things. And in many ways the whole idea of management, as it’s conducted in business and as it has then been imported into schools, management is about compliance.  No one is ever managed into engagement. No one is ever controlled into engagement. You engage.  I engage. My kids engage.  Human beings engage, not by being manager controlled, but by getting there under their own steam. That engagement depends on self-direction. When students engage, as I’m sure you both have seen in the classroom, they engage when they finally find a way to get there under their own steam.  If we really want engagement, we have to get rid of a lot of these very controlling mechanisms that we have.  We have to give students greater autonomy – not free reign wild kind of autonomy – but dial up some greater autonomy.  We have to give teachers greater autonomy. There are national differences here of course, but, there are policy makers out there saying that, in the States, the ideal education system is if you’re in year three class in Detroit, Michigan and a year three class in Miami Florida and a year three class in Seattle Washington, and its Math class, and its the third day of March, those teachers should be doing the exact same thing.  That’s terrifying.  It’s not giving teachers any kind of autonomy over how to do it their way, how to do the best thing, how to customize and tailor it. It is very alarming where things have gone in the United States. The good news is that the pendulum is swinging back a little bit. There are stories in today’s papers if you go online. The Washington Post has stories about our federal legislation of no child left behind and how much district principals and superintendents are pushing back on that, and you even have legislators who are involved in doing it saying “Oh my God! We made a big mistake. It’s too rigid. It’s too controlling.” The problem in education policy is that we’re looking for the silver bullet, the magic elixir and it doesn’t exist.

The door is still broken 20 years later.  Maybe that is Dad’s reminder of what it is going to take to “teach” his granddaughter Zoe to drive when he gets the chance.  When we work with other humans and we focus simply on compliance instead of engagement we are destined to drive right through the garage door.  If we want to learn we have to listen, to each other.  Motivation is a two way street and the traffic is moving fast.

Learning is a complex process no matter the context.  As Pink illustrates true motivation requires autonomy, mastery and purpose.  When talking about the complexities of learning institutions engaging and motivating the learners, “big people and little people,” cannot possibly be accomplished by a numerical equation, a secret resource or Pink’s magic elixir.  It takes highly skilled, passionate and engaged teachers dedicated to learning first with a drive that comes from a deep sense of moral purpose.

Thanks for your time and insight Daniel.  I assure you that if you are ever lost in Quebec City you’ll find your way.

carrots + sticks < love, “Click” change and Teacher / Learner by Libby Levi for opensource.com

You can follow Daniel (DP), James (JC) and Jodie (JN) on Twitter

@danpink, @cowpernius and @iteachELL

My wife Tricia “failed” her first driver’s test. There, the world knows. Her father had dedicated the previous few months to teach her proper. During the first lesson she, her father and younger brother got into the sky blue ’88 Caprice Classic station wagon that was parked in the two car garage.

“Place the keys in the ignition place your foot on the brake and turn the engine over.” Her father stated in his stoic and serious manner.

“But Dad, shouldn’t I. . .”

“Listen, if you want to learn you have to listen. Do not interrupt and listen. I’ll teach and you listen. Now turn the engine over. Good. Place the car in reverse and slowly take your foot off the brake.”

“Dad, when am I going to . . .”

“Tricia, you have to listen and do what I say. Don’t interrupt. I am trying to tell you, you need to listen.” The electrical engineer inside was getting the better of Dad. Learning about things like driving and electricity was not done through trial and error. This was life or death. Get it right the first time.

Tricia was making every attempt to engage with her teacher. She was instead being told to comply. Let’s face it. From the driver’s perspective learning to drive is an engaging process. From the passenger’s seat compliance seems entirely appropriate.

Until you realize you just instructed your 16 year old daughter to drive through the closed garage door. The 13 year old boy in the back seat stating that “she was trying to tell you Dad,” didn’t help.

On one of our snowed in nights this winter I had the opportunity to speak with Daniel Pink, author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Surprisingly he was snowed in at his location in Washington D.C. as well. For over 45 minutes Daniel, Jodie and I talked about motivation and engagement versus compliance in the educational setting. His insights into the system of education and the connections to his research for Drive are timely and certainly transferrable.

The text below is a record of that conversation presented here with Daniel’s permission. The conversation has been edited for presentation purposes. Thanks to Daniel Pink for his interest in sharing his thoughts, ideas and perspectives with educators.

JC: Variations of the carrot and stick can be seen in classrooms all over the world, certainly in North America. How can we unlearn some of these practices, practices of – to be kind of flippant about it–candy and detentions, so that kids can be motivated to learn more?

DP: For adults unlearning things is far more difficult than learning things so it’s a very tall order. One of the things that‘s happened is that we essentially created a set of assumptions that the way people, whether they are big people or little people, perform better is if you offer a reward or threaten them with a punishment. What’s disconcerting is that this is true some of the time. The danger with our kids is that if we treat them in a way that suggests that the only reason to do something is to get a good grade or to avoid a punishment we essentially sacrifice an enormous amount of talent and capability. When learning is open-ended, collaborative, when it’s about the strategy rather than the right answer then the approach is valuable in terms of helping kids think.
JC: In Ontario we have had a recent change to our report card system driven by a document called Growing Success: Assessment Practices from K-12. Learning skills are at the forefront of a child’s progress. The rest of the report card uses the traditional letter grades to rate a student’s performance. What are your thoughts on assessment, evaluation and reporting processes that happen in schools?

DP: You have to know how kids are doing. The problem is that often the assessment ends up driving everything. It basically becomes the purpose rather than feedback on the purpose and that is incredibly distorting. When you focus entirely on the performance goals, you often have a very thin, fleeting mastery of the material. It could actually be doing kids a disservice. You want to measure learning skills and you need a measure of performance. What concerns me is less grades per se than when grades basically become the goal rather than learning as the goal. If grades are the goal then people will go for the grades and may miss out on the learning. Again, I don’t think you necessarily have to get rid of grades but you have to put it into context. I don’t think there is an ideal evaluation system but before you get to the ideal evaluation system you have to go to the first principles. We are evaluating things because we want to give people feedback so that they can learn. We are not evaluating things as the end in itself.
There’s a difference between a learning goal and a performance goal. They are not the same. Our schools, especially in the States, are focused entirely on performance goals because they think that learning goals and performance goals are the same. Policy makers, even parents, haven’t reckoned with the fact that they are two very different things. I’ll give you the best example of this I can an example that you can relate to in Canada. I took French in secondary school and in university for six years. Every marking period of every semester I got an A in French. I can’t speak French. Why? The reason is I didn’t learn French; what I did is I performed on tests and quizzes. But if you throw me on the streets of Quebec City, in a French speaking part, and I get lost, I’m not going to find my way back home. If I had focused in those six years on actually trying to learn French maybe I would have gotten a B but I would probably be able to speak French. We’re obsessed over performance goals and we’re sort of thinking that if the performance goals are right then the learning goals will follow and that’s just not true. In fact, the opposite might be true. That is, if we focus on the learning goals then the performance will end up taking care of itself.

<img class=”alignnone size-full wp-image-582″ title=”carrots + sticks

JN: How do we change the minds of the students who have been going for that grade all along?

DP: It is really difficult because as an individual you are taking on an incredibly heroic and daunting task. You’re saying how can I deprogram and reprogram my 25 students, and then all the students in the school, and then all the students in Ontario. It’s a very daunting task because every other message they are getting, whether from parents, from policy makers, from the design and architecture of the school’s evaluation system itself, is telling something opposite. So you’re going up against really ferocious headwinds. The way I look at this is you’ve got to start small. Try to reach one or two kids. If you can do that, that is progress – you’ve made a difference in one or two kids’ lives. Try to reach one or two parents. Find one or two fellow educators who are with you and you have a little alliance and that’s how institutions change. That’s how society changes. We all want to be able to say “Whoa! Here we go – we’re going to change it all.” And it doesn’t work that way. It’s slow and it’s one by one. What keeps teachers going is the opportunity to affect one or two kids and to have those kids be better human beings because of their presence

To Be Continued . . .

carrots + sticks < love, “Click” change and Teacher / Learner by Libby Levi for opensource.com

You can follow Daniel (DP), James (JC) and Jodie (JN) on Twitter

@danpink, @cowpernius and @iteachELL

Laura asked about wine the same way I had asked her about fear and ego one year earlier, beside a tree, crying.

“Why do people smell it? What is the difference between red and white? What food does this wine go with?” I answered her questions with the knowledge that I was afforded from my wine drinking family and from the cultural community I was born and raised in. Being from a Canadian grape region helped. But none of those reasons were as expicit for explaining my privilege as the fact that I was white and born and raised in a predominantly white community. I watched Laura hold her glass of Grand Callia (Bodegas Callia Reserve 2006) by the bowl. I described the quality of the glasses we were holding and their ability to make the taste of the wine reach its potential. I told her to hold her glass by the stem so that her body temperature would not change the quality of the flavour. I felt terribly snooty doing this. She asked me to tell her everything. “The stem gives you perspective on colour, clarity, sugar content and nose, without the stem the wine changes by your observations instead of simply by it’s exposure to air. Fingers move faster on a warm bowl for example.” And then she stated.

“You are the first white person to tell me these things. You are the first white person I have asked. Knowing these things gives me access James, access I would not have otherwise. Holding the glass here is easier but I am only going to hold these glasses by the stem from now on.” Paulo calls these cultural norms the dominant syntax.**

Culturally (by societies’ standards) Laura and I are different all the way around. Spiritually we are the same. We ask each other questions and answer without any fear of judgement simply to learn about and from each other. I recall seeing this kind of interaction between my daughter and an African Canadian boy at daycare years ago. I watched and listened as they explored each others differences. They recognized and silently honoured one anothers’ skin and hair and eyes and then played with dolls.

There is a catch though. All the dolls looked like my daughter. Access.

This experience translated to the PLC table for me. I have been surfacing and challenging our teams’ assumptions and beliefs about education and access. It was early the next morning when I woke up and recorded a rough blog entry about how we must respect the time spent together at the PLC table and the role of access and culture. We must hold it by the stem I thought. Our cultural experience with discourse, discussion, argument must be fully understood for the full flavour and complexity of human interaction and learning to take place. As the leader, principal, coach, facilitator I can’t take the easier way out, try to control it all. I have to hold the glass by the stem instead of the bowl. I have to make sure others at the table hold it the same. If we do we stand to learn a great deal about each other and our work together.

I have been privileged my whole life. Privileged because of my skin. I am trying to replace the kind I have been born into with the incredible learning privilege I have been afforded by folks like Greg and Laura and certainly the staffs I have worked with. I have learned powerful lessons from Laura and Greg in just a few meetings over 2 1/2 years. Why? Because I am privileged to have met them by chance. Thank you friends. Keep holding your glass by the stem (unless there isn’t one).

(The Pedegogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire.)

After trying a couple I decided to bite the bullet and pay the whopping $4.99 (pricey in the App world!) to run Feeddler. By far it was the most bang for my buck. Complete with folders and multiple reposting applets this tool is user friendly and makes sharing an absolute breeze.

I love staying in touch with blogs like Connected Principals. Even better is that after reading an entry sharing is done with two touches.

Try it out! If you need help…tweet me!

“How does your behaviour with technology integration impact what students in your building do and learn?”

The tech worked seamlessly and we even skyped in @gcouros for the session!  It was a special treat to see a friend in the audience and invite him up to be the “donkey” in a shared reading of Its A Book! Thanks to Chad and thanks to all for the welcome and rising to the challenge of “powering up!” (Dr. Howitt) and engaging our kids in critical thinking through creation and adding content.  Thanks also for adding to the Indigo Love of Reading Grant through your gift of books!

For more information on involving tech-integration, using a PLN and engaging in the education conversation for improved student achievement see also:

My delicious account:

http://www.delicious.com/Cowpernicus

My school blog:

eastwoodeagles.wordpress.com

Connected Principals:

www.connectedprincipals.com

The Prezi of our conversation:

“The Slow Hunch”:  PLN’s and The Principal http://prezi.com/arenycn478my/the-slow-hunch-plns-and-the-principal/

I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Ontario’s own Michael Fullan late last summer.  He responded to an invitation I sent politely asking for some time to share his ideas and thoughts with a group of Principals in our district at the annual conference Vision to Practice.  The Principals are engaging in a Professional Learning Network using Motion Leadership as our mentor text and PD360, from The School Improvement Network, as our online environment.  After some initial scheduling challenges, he was flying to and from Finland, I was elated that Michael (as he asked me to call him) accepted and answered my questions regarding the role of the Principal in our learning institutions.  Michael and I had a great conversation.  I felt like I was sharing a coffee with him at a Starbuck’s while discussing some of the intricacies of the change process.  He was off the cuff, candid and as pleasant as he always is.  Using Adobe Connect I was able to record our entire conversation.  The following is a paraphrased version of that conversation shared with you with his kind permission.

Q:  21st Century Principal, leading learner or learning leader?  What are your insights?

A:  There is one factor that is twice as important as any other factor that the Principal can do to impact teachers’ and student learning and that is the degree to which the Principal participates as a learner in moving the school forward.  This phrase means that the principal is the lead learner, that is the way I would express it but both of the connotations of the phrase you are using are applicable.  The principal must participate as a learner, be at the workshops, isn’t the best teacher in the building but has to be the pivotal person that is there, knows what is going on and what’s happening, has great insights, should not be dominating the conversation but instead helping the group focus.

Q:  Time is always an issue.  What are some of the solutions of time, as you see it, in order to stretch our networks and our reach?

A:  One of the partial solutions to time is to focus on a small number of priorities and keep at them consistently, stay the course so to speak.  So at the elementary level that is typically literacy and numeracy and in high school that is the student success work that all of us have been working on.  So it helps to alleviate the time problem when we aren’t focusing on 12 or more priorities equally intensely.  The second thing we are finding is when broadening the 21st century social network using technology we must make sure the work is focused.  Douglas Reeves, in his latest work Finding Your Focus, talks about the importance of avoiding innovation fatigue.  He further more says we must focus on a small number of goals, the data about what students are learning and the instructional practises that will promote better learning.  Any exchange using technology has to avoid the general talk of just using technology and instead has to use it for particular purposes.  This means that we have to be working on specific things in between sessions and then when people come together there is structure to the exchange.  Application is done and the focus is on particular things when there is an exchange.  From my work Motion Leadership the emphasis is on practise driving practise.  So, instead of going to the research right away to find the answer we want to go to each other and see who is doing what, who is getting good results and learn from that.  Consequently we would use the research to firm it up, test it out and get additional ideas.  Practice first, theory and research second is the emphasis.

Q:  Using your earlier work The 6 Secrets of Change we learn of love, trust and resistance in the school-house.  How can we respond to resistance to change as a learning leader?

A:  Motion Leadership has morphed from The Six Secrets for the particular reason that has to do with your question around loving your employees.  I think of Motion Leadership in three chunks:  One– ready, fire, aim or understanding the change dynamic and getting to action sooner that is.  Two–the instructional core, which are also represented by the four middle secrets in The 6 Secrets of Change. And three– love, trust and resistance.  In reference to love, trust and resistance instructional leaders have three priorities.   Number one they need to give people respect before people have earned it.  Number two is to create working conditions that you do everything to make people more lovable.  Number three is to deal firmly with the left over resistance.  Let me try to be succinct here.  We have done some work in looking at “turnaround schools.”  Usually a school that is not doing well has a lot of conflict, low morale or even a toxic culture.  Put another way, people are often not acting in respectful ways.  In order to break that cycle the Principal has to be giving respect to teachers, the same applies to students, before the teachers have earned it.  This is theory “Y” in my book, similar to McGregor’s theory about the assumptions you make about people before you meet them so to speak.   A habit of respect must be built into the way you relate to people.  Success becomes more possible in conditions of a pleasant working environment, when we invest in professional learning communities and when we invest in peoples’ capacity to get better.  Teachers then become more satisfied with the impact they have in working together on the things that matter the most like moral purpose.  When these two things are done well most of the resistance gets preempted or incorporated.  Principals then can be much more assertive.  They have earned the right to because of the previous two habits they have been employing.  The number of people who are not on board becomes quite small.  Be patient and persistent, do the right things and be prepared to act assertive when you need to.  Put colloquially, you need to be as assertive as you can get away with.  The conditions required for this assertiveness are to have earned trust, to participate as a learner bringing good ideas to the team and empowering people in the process.  These conditions give people the legitimacy to be assertive as leaders.

Q:  Do you have any other insights for Principals as they engage in professional learning networks outside of the school-house or professional learning communities inside the school-house?

A:  Yes I have been working on two specific insights for school leaders and I would like to share them with you.  Number one, what really motivates educators is realized moral purpose with emphasis on the word realized.  This is not the huge moral exhortation or research data that shows it can be done but  actually experiencing success.  It is the Principal’s job to promote this success as it is the energizer that motivates people to go further.  The second point has to do with the collaborative work of schools.  We noticed that two good things happen when schools or individuals collaborate.  Mutual allegiance is created across the district for starters and then a sense of collaborative competition begins.  This seems to be a new phenomena.  People start to say I can be better than I was last year, inside a family atmosphere it turns into a “moral olympics” of sorts.  Playing off of each other helps the whole system get better, district and province wide.  In the provincial context the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat and the Premier continue to promote strategies that recognize what is happening that get partnerships going and schools and Principals working together.

The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz

The interesting piece here is the result.  Prior to working together the teacher, very honestly, articulated that she was quite intimidated by the thought that I was making qualitative judgements about her teaching along the way and that I may not respect her as a teacher when the lesson is through.  I expressed the very same fear and was able to recognize that it was our ego talking.  Post teaching the exact opposite was quite clear.  I, very honestly, articulated the exact opposite of her initial fear.  I respected and valued the work this teacher was doing 10 fold now that I had got into the trenches with her.  Her willingness to team with the Principal, her ability to voice concern, her ability to reflect and her acceptance of coaching along the way all worked together to strengthen my qualitative judgements of her abilities as a “Learn Maker”.

Something did come out of this for me.  I realized, with her help, that I ask a great deal of questions.  I have reflected on this much.  Many of my colleagues and teachers alike would suggest that was my job!  ”You are supposed to ask the questions!  If you don’t who will?”  I can hear them say.  This idea has not helped me reflect on why I ask the questions.   Ah-Ha moment!  Instead a fellow teacher hearing our debrief after the day was through commented, “Sir, you ask questions like a Gatling Gun!”  We all laughed.  I reflected.  Do I ask questions to get them where I want them?  Do I ask questions to get them to think deeper?  Do I ask questions as a tacit effort to move them?  or…….Do I ask questions to allow them to find their own way.

Print Your Own Gatling Gun Colouring Page if you too are reflecting on your questioning technique!

I followed my experience up with a Skype call to a genius.  A member of my larger PLN is a facilitation leader and thought leader on Protocols and Critical Friends Groups.  I needed help.  I understand that just by virtue of exploring my questioning techniques and motives I am headed up the right path.  I have two resources that I can put into my “arsenal” to help me gain insight on my practise.  I have a protocol that I will use in a PLC setting with my instructional coach to help my learning become more public (Focus Point-School Reform Initiative) and The Pocket Guide to Probing Questions is a reference that I will use to guide my reflection on my “Gatling Gun” like questioning quality.

The experience was a rich one.  The follow-up plan for the student work and achievement has already begun with the teacher I worked with.  My continued work on providing teachers valuable feedback through a coaching stance is causing serious self-reflection about what school administrators can do to take the focus teacher instructional improvements for student achievement improvements to the next level.