Welcome to Day #2 of the #60DayChallenge! See this post if you need to be brought up to speed!
Thanks and welcome to everyone who is accepting the challenge to engage in this group and the conversation. I loved engaging with everyone on post #1!
OK…let’s dive in…🌊🌊🌊
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Two different scenarios…notice the two levels of agency.
An administrator comes into my office, describing an incident with a parent that could result in teacher discipline. The question I get: “What do you want me to do?” 🤷🏻♂️
Another administrator drops a phone call to say that a couple teachers have a brainstorm for a pretty innovative project and they need a central office perspective on the way to a decision for implementation. 🤝🤝
It took a good pause and some thought for me to think about my response in each of these situations…about the impact of my response through the lens of agency. 🧐
Let’s zoom to the classroom level: So in a human-centered learning environment we want teachers to create conditions for the agency in the learner to be released. All of us in this group can (I think) agree to this. (BTW…excellent article from Jennifer Poon on framing student agency..and it’s even based on research. #RabbitHole🐰🐰🐰)
If we agree on a vision of agency for learners, shouldn’t the same vision apply to adults as well? Should leaders design for agency just as teachers do?
This excerpt from the Shift Your Paradigm podcast and a conversation with Trace Pickering (Executive Director of Iowa BIG) and Shawn Cornally (Co-Founder and Lead Teacher) on adult agency resonates with me:
Trace: I would say just from a systems leadership perspective, if you’re not willing to give agency to your staff, they can’t possibly know how to create it for their students. And so, what you would see here is, like Shawn said, we very purposely got rid of all the control mechanisms and we also said we’re going to challenge each and every assumption we have about schools and we’re going to initially reject them all so that we have the freedom.
Shawn and the team, they make the decisions on what they’re going to do. They develop their inquiries. They identify what professional development they need individually and collectively. And then my job is just to find those resources and remove barriers. And they don’t wait for me to make decisions.
They know when a decision does have to involve me because it affects the larger system. But I’ve learned as a leader in this team that if I don’t show up, decisions get made and just like them, I have to live with whatever they decided because I chose not to be a part of that decision.
If we want to lead a learner-centered, or human-centered, environment, where we see evidence of agency up and down the organization, we ALL need to be creating the conditions for our learners and for each other to own the conversations and own the decisions–to own the learning. To exercise agency.
As a leader it’s really easy to give someone the answer. Just like it’s really easy for teachers to do more work than the learners or provide the answer. To solve the problem.
But when we give an answer to learners–young and old–we rob the other of agency–of the opportunity to learn, grow and take increasing ownership and direction over their work and lives.
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❓ Provocation:
Is it just a mindset shift, or are there other barriers to extending agency up and down the organization? If there are other barriers, what are they?
💎 Resource:
Shift Your Paradigm Podcast: Episode 5 – Interview with Trace Pickering, Shawn Cornally and Jemar Lee (Iowa BIG)
🧠 Mindset:
Agency (young and old learners!)
💡 Area:
Leadership
📣 Drop your thoughts in the comments or in the Facebook group. 🔥🔥🔥
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