New job

After 23 years of teaching Social Studies, English, Geography, and other fun stuff, sometimes with various pull-outs blocks for leadership or support and coordination, I'll be out of the classroom next year, for at least one year.

I will be splitting my time between Pro-D Coordination (managing the local teacher Pro-D fund and organizing Pro-D events and conferences) and Curriculum Support for senior Humanities teachers.  The first job I've had for 5 years, but the second one is new for me.  I'm thrilled to start this -- in some ways it looks like the work I've done off the side of my desk for years, but it will also involve some new roles.  Here is the concept map that I used to prepare for the interview:

I would like to focus some of this "Curriculum Coach" time on our early career and new assignment teachers as they grow into their roles, even those who may not have senior courses next year.  I will be available for mentoring, curriculum & resource suggestions, inquiry & assessment design, co-teaching or classroom visits, and whatever else may be of use. I'm also envisioning a new addition ro our mentoring series in our district where we connect early career secondary teachers with experienced teachers in an interactive seminar setting -- something like a carousel with hands-on activities. The one-to-one and small cohort models have worked quite well for the elementary teachers but we have not drawn out the secondary numbers we hoped for. The goal here is to impact the development of a vibrant classroom, purposeful teaching & learning, and authentic assessment.

Of course, the other side of this is that I won't be at D.P. Todd next year, perhaps never again as I imagine landing at a new school or situation when my current seconded assignment ends.  I have been at this school for 15 years -- two-thirds of my career -- and I leave with mixed emotions. As I survey the vast hoard of books, lesson material, artifacts, and remainders of student projects that have accumulated in my classroom over the years, I am reminded, mainly, of the things I love about teaching. About teaching high school Social Studies students in particular.  There have been frustrating parts, too, but I've disposed of that evidence and generally suppress those memories because, hey, when you're in in for the long haul it has to be about the passion and positive stuff, otherwise it is time to get out.  I have been really fortunate to have some special students in the last few years, students who may not have been at the top academically, but really stepped up to conduct meaningful research and find creative ways to express their learning.  That's the group I have enjoyed teaching the most.

BCSSTA conference and LSA inquiry

Van Tech Secondary

On Oct 21st I attended the BC Social Studies Teachers' Association annual conference at Van Tech Secondary in Vancouver. First of all, what an interesting school -- at the front entrance were annotated photo panels of Van Tech students who went off to WWI and WWII. The building is castle-like, but stark, and has been used as a movie set for a prison show. The vendor displays were interesting -- all related to Social Studies in some way. The keynote speaker was Mohamed Fahmy, the Canadian journalist who was imprisoned in Egypt for over 400 days due to his association with Al Jazeera, a news service based in Qatar and seen to be sympathetic towards the Muslim Brotherhood. I attended most of a session on teaching Economics, and then presented on the topic of Heritage Inquiry.

Last year I was approached by BCSSTA past president Wayne Axford, and also Kim Rutherford (who is also a member-at-large) about whether Prince George was interested in forming a Social Studies LSA (Local Specialist Association). At the time I did not get the sense that it would fulfill a need. There are already opportunities for Social Studies teachers to collaborate at their school and across the district, and our PD events for Socials teachers on PD days are rarely full. Those that have the time belong to various networks, and those that don't have the time quite possibly don't need "one more thing" with which to be affiliated. 

New information may have convinced me otherwise.

While at the BCSSTA conference I attended their AGM. The BCSSTA has funds for chapter support. At present, they have two LSAs that are properly affiliated with the BCSSTA -- North Peace (Ft. St. John) and Central Okanagan (Kelowna). There may be other Social Studies LSAs but they are not formally tied to the BCSSTA, e.g. I know there is one on the Sunshine Coast. Based on the 2015-16 BCSSTA budget, most of their annual allotment for chapter support remains unused. Being a Pro-D-minded fellow, I would love to see some funds support the work of local teachers and perhaps help us bring in great presenters and facilitators from time to time. I also learned that they are launching an academic journal that will require both an editorial board and contributing writers. I have joined their executive as a member-at-large and let them know that I will test the waters for an LSA.

I see the following as the main pros/cons of forming an LSA:

Pros: 

• new funding opportunities for Prince George SS teachers and their professional development
• opportunities to be involved with the activities of the BCSSTA e.g. their new journal
• connection to a broader network of teachers, resources, and ideas
• keep up the multi-year momentum of renewed focus on curriculum
• promote Social Studies Education, the need for the Humanities (i.e. History and other Social Sciences), as well as Physical Geography

Cons:

• we already have opportunities to collaborate (PD days, Learning/Innovation Grants, Pro-D Fund, small networks) and share resources (e.g. Teach BC website), etc.
• LSAs as source of teaching resources kind of faded away in conjunction with the rise of the internet
• there are currently few barriers to PD opportunities other than time (which is always in short supply)
• having an open inclusive group can create multiple agendas, leave the formation of a committed core to chance, and awaken personality dynamics (let's face it, some teachers go to great lengths to avoid each other)

For me, the tipping point is that there is not much to lose in giving this a try. I'm intrigued by the possibilities and think it can be wrapped up each year with a minimum of meetings (1 or 2 annually), a few good PD events (1 or 2 annually) and a greater sense of collegial bonhomie -- "cheerful friendliness, humour, and geniality." I feel that, along with others, I have been working hard on the "Social Studies" file for many years and that we have been doing some of the work of an LSA without actually being an LSA. We have literally provided thousands of hours to provide leadership on curriculum, build and share teaching resources, and mentor new teachers -- so my thinking is that these efforts might just as well be linked to similar work going on elsewhere in the province.

So, if there are any SD57 Social studies teachers that would like to discuss the inauguration of an LSA, perhaps look at a draft constitution and establish some roles, join myself and others at the Black Clover on Friday Nov 25th at 3:45 pm. If we can find support to get this started, we'll schedule a general meeting in the New Year. You can also email me about this.

What's the deal with teacher Pro-D days?

What's the deal with teacher Pro-D days?
...some Q&A related to teacher Professional Development (PD)

What kinds of things do teachers do to develop professionally?

1. Attend a conference/workshop locally.
2. Attend a conference/workshop regionally/provincially/nationally/internationally.
3. Attend a workshop/conference or summer institute/course.
4. Be a sponsor teacher for a student teacher.
5. Become a BCTF PD associate, and carry on the Teachers Teaching Teachers Tradition.
6. Become a BCTF Program Against Racism or Status of Women Program associate, and carry on the Teachers Teaching Teachers Tradition.
7. Become active in your local association.
8. Becoming a facilitator, and give a workshop locally, regionally, or provincially.
9. Begin/continue university studies.
10. Develop innovative programs for use in your classroom.
11. Develop an annual personal PD plan, and maintain a PD portfolio.
12. Explore the possibilities of bringing the BCTF’s Program for Quality Teaching to your local.
13. Form/join a teacher research group.
14. Participate in group planning.
15. Hop on the Internet through BCTF Online or another PD site.
16. Job-shadow in a related work situation.
17. Join a professional organization/network: Provincial specialist association (33 within the BCTF),  Local specialist association/Local Chapter of a PSA, International network (ASCD, MSCD)
18. Mentor a beginning teacher.
19. Observe another teacher, and talk together about the lesson/program.
20. Participate in curriculum development.
21. Pilot curriculum/program.
22. Read professional literature.
23. Reflect, discuss, and research for the purpose of planning individual or group ongoing professional development.
24. Develop the discipline of reflective journal keeping.
25. Serve as your school’s PD representative.
26. Share with colleagues what you found at a conference/workshop.
27. Subscribe to/read professional journals.
28. Watch professional videos.
29. Work on a provincial committee (MoE or BCTF).
30. Work on the Local Ed-Change Committee.
31. Work on your local’s PD committee.
32. Work with a colleague to discuss, observe, and critique a lesson/program (peer coaching).
33. Write professional articles for your local’s newsletter, your PSA’s publications, or Teacher newsmagazine.

Source: Tools for Self-directed Professional Development - http://www.bctf.ca/ProfessionalDevelopment.aspx?id=6380

Do teachers only do PD on PD days?

No.  Teachers have a formal focus on PD during PD days but they continue this work all year long.  Teachers are life-long learners and PD is something that comes with the job along with planning and assessment even when this is above and beyond the working day.  Outside of PD days, almost all PD that teachers do is voluntary and their our own time.

Where do these PD days come from? 

Teachers have 5 PD days per school year -- these were added provincially to the year by mutual agreement (employer/union) a long time ago in recognition of the need for teachers to take the time they need to improve their practice. This is separate from inservice or training that the employer provides for things like learning required software, first aid, discussing district plans or new programs, or getting certified for tasks required by the employer.  It is also different than the yearly "Ministerial Orders day" or "Implementation Day" that is used to study and act on school, district, and provincial goals. Most districts schedule this "Admin Day" at the beginning of the year.  All of the "non-instructional days" are placed in the school calendar by school boards, usually by mutual agreement between the teacher union and school district staff.

Are all PD days the same? 

One Pro-D day in October is designated as a "provincial day" with many Provincial Specialist Association conferences taking place. Another day is usually set aside for some kind of district or regional conference. The other three are considered "school-focus" days although these can feature individual pro-d as well as mini-conferences or multi-school activities. Some districts have a mid-year "semester turn-around" day for secondary teachers but this, too, is a PD day in which teachers engage in professional learning. On all PD days, there are often a variety of PD events taking place, some planned (small group, school, and district level) and some impromptu (usually individual or small group).

Do teachers have to attend on a Pro-D Day? 

Yes, every teacher must engage in professional development on PD days, but it looks different between teachers and between schools. On all PD days, PD is teacher-directed and voluntary in nature -- teachers decide on their PD and do it. Many schools make specific plans for PD days, and while participation in these school PD events is recommended, it is not mandatory. This ensures that teachers are also free to design their own PD specific to their classroom needs and so they can attend PD events in other schools or districts.

What constitutes acceptable PD on a PD day? 

Simply put, good PD is something deliberate and learning-focused that improves a teacher's practice, makes him or her a better educator, and will benefit students. As a local PD committee chair, I ask teachers to consider the following suggestions: teacher study group, action research (inquiry project or learning team), attending or presenting at a conference, participating with a LSA or PSA (specialist associations), mentoring a new teacher, building curriculum, reading professional journals/books related wither to teaching or your subject area, watching professional videos (e.g. podcasts/online talks), taking a non-credit online course, gathering evidence for your own submission to an educational journal, attending or presenting at a workshop or share session, facilitating a staff or small group discussion on a relevant topic, doing a make-and-take with colleagues for a new lesson idea, visiting another school to inspect programs or review resources, connecting with a district expert in your field, have a teacher do a demo lesson for subject-area teachers, creating a learning resource for use with your students, inviting a guest to speak to a group of colleagues about a relevant topic, conducting an Ed Camp or Open Space meeting (google these), having a Critical Friends or Socratic Dialogue with other teachers (google these). Some teachers find that good PD can be finishing a curriculum or assessment project that was started but never finished, or just sitting down with colleagues to discuss what is happening for them in their classes and seeing where the conversation leads. Other teachers prefer formal activities with specific learning intentions. Teachers use professional judgement and end up with something that is meaningful for them and their students.

What does not constitute acceptable PD on a PD day? 

Teachers know that they should not use PD days for marking, lesson planning for the upcoming week, cleaning and organizing their classrooms, and parent or student meetings. Teachers avoid extra-curricular activities on PD days including coaching and tournament set-up. Teachers that need to give up their PD days (like any other working day) to coach or do something else must submit a leave application and seek a release or lieu day from his/her administrator. Teachers avoid working on school or district improvement plans during PD days because the employer should provide time for this or do it on their "admin day" or in-service time. There are also some grey areas. Teachers working on a Masters Degree, for example, will find that many of their tasks involve professional reading, research, dialogue, writing, and technology. Teachers use their professional judgement to draw the line between coursework-inspired PD that benefits their practice versus specific tasks required in a course (e.g. writing a paper or participating in an online meeting). School or department meetings can also be a grey area -- if they advance the individual professional goals of teachers and have a learning focus, they can be considered PD, but they can also eat up time that teachers might wish to spend doing PD they've designed for yourself. It's an individual teacher's call to make, not the school or department's call.  Principals do not need to approve teacher PD plans, although it is fair for principals to request information about where teachers will be and what they'll be doing, as long as it fits the description of PD. In some districts teachers build and submit PD plans to their principal, but in most districts this is voluntary.

Does PD have to take place in a school? 

It depends. PD usually takes place in schools, but some events are planned for other spots such as a conference centre, rented facility, field location, Native Friendship Centre, museum, college or university, etc. PD can take place outside of a teacher's district, but this goes through an application process with a local PD Committee, School Principal, or Board Office, and requires a leave application. With very few exceptions, PD does not take place at a location that is not intended as either a worksite or a meeting place (e.g. someone's house). Teachers use this Rule of Thumb: If your out-of-school PD activity is not an organized/advertised event within the school district designed primarily as teacher PD, you should be at your school or joining an activity at another school.

What does the BCTF say about PD days? 

See background reading at https://www.bctf.ca/ProfessionalDevelopment.aspx?id=6388

Here is a key bit: 30.A.19 — "That the member, as an autonomous professional, determines, in concert with BCTF colleagues and/or the local union, the content of professional development activities scheduled for professional development days, and further, that professional development days are not used for school goal setting and/or School Improvement Plans, marking accountability assessment tools, or voluntary activities (e.g., sports tournaments, science fairs, music festivals, drama productions.)"

The guiding principle is that PD choices require teachers to think about what's best for their teaching practice and their students, and engage in professional learning that individual teachers have designed to improve their work with students. As professionals, teachers have both autonomy and responsibility to each other to engage in professional development, and as employees they have a duty to complete professional development activities on PD days because they have agreed to use these work days for this purpose.

What are my favourite forms of PD?

1. Use a face-to-face get-together with a familiar circle of colleagues to "unpack, mull, and fuse" -- make sense of the professional learning and teaching stories that have occurred over the last month. Learning to trust other teachers to have a role in my practice gives me a sense of community, that I am not alone but part of a larger effort to help students develop.
2. Use Social Media (like Twitter) to engage with a personal learning network, scan educational links and articles, or join live chats with other educators.  While I like structured workshops or activities when they are well-organized, I often get the most value when my PD time is spontaneous.
3. Map out an educational ecosystem -- lay out a big poster and make lists, webs, and sketches of what's happening in a teaching context (class, dep't, school): values, goals, evidence of progress, schemes, unifying projects, new roles for parents, observations on inclusion and differentiation, etc.  This really helps lay the foundation for course planning and gives me a sense of purpose when I design lessons.

What does a great PD day look like?

Here's one example -- the big annual educational conference in my school district: http://edfling.ca

There and Back Again

I had the pleasure of spending last week in London and Oxford, England. It was formal and informal pro-d for me, and my first time off the continent since 1988. This was covered in part by the PGDTA PD Fund (the committee approved an amount commensurate with a BC-based conference) and the rest from aeroplan points and what I'll have to think of as an advance on my BCTF signing bonus :)

I attended a "Tolkien symposium" in Oxford, focusing on medieval language, literature, modern philology, and Tolkien's connection to all three. I chased down a few of the haunts of the Inkings (the literary circle that developed around C.S. Lewis), found the grave of William Blake among others, and visited every museum and historical site I could get to with the remaining time. Highlights included the Ashmolean, Bodleian Library, the Wallace Collection, Tower of London, and Portobello Road Market.

As a personal and professional learning experience, I am only beginning to realize how this will influence my approach to "what's important" in Social Studies. For the next time my locally developed course Middle Earth 12 runs, I think I have reckoned what needs to be at the centre of it. More practically, I have some good new stories to tell about aspects of history and culture e.g. English Civil War, WWI, colonization & empire, the London Blitz, the Holocaust, and how modern cities preserve the past without being blind to progress.

I took over 1000 pics, and tweeted out some of them with captions. I have archived these at https://storify.com/gthielmann/there-and-back-again for you to see.

interesting turn

Pardon a few acronyms here, but I'll define them as I go. A local professional development (PD) issue in our school district took an interesting turn the other day. Our Prince George District Teachers' Association (PGDTA) has been buzzing with an announcement in March that the school board office (SBO) has proposed cutting support for a district teacher position that I happen to hold at the moment.  This position coordinates support for teacher PD expenditures & travel, organizes one or more conferences, and contributes to local PD, mentorship, professional networks, and what folks like to call "capacity building." Just four years ago we adjusted to a cut in this position from three-quarter time to half-time, so we are used to doing more with less. Our PD Funds are small in SD57 -- with or without the position attached we receive less per teacher than virtually every district in the province outside of the Lower Mainland. A good example is District 27 (Cariboo-Chilcotin). They provide teachers with more then twice the funds per member as we do in District 57, and this includes support of a two-fifths position for a coordinator. Another example is District 73 (Kamloops/Thompson) with similar demographics and geographic challenges to our own; teachers there also receive more than twice the funding for autonomous PD as do our teachers.

Despite our meager funds, the PGDTA are provincial leaders when it comes to offering PD (from small sessions to a major annual conference), supporting individual PD growth plans for teachers including conference travel and leadership experience, and communicating opportunities for all. We've also had success blending our work with the services and training offered by our SBO, Ab-Ed Department, and other groups in the district. The proposed total cut to this position means either: a) the coordination work undertaken for and by teachers is misunderstood and thus undervalued, or b) the coordination work runs counter to the SBO vision for how teachers grow professionally. If there is another rationale I don't know what it is -- no one from the SBO has talked to me about it and the PGDTA has not been engaged in any meaningful discussion about this position or the value in coordinated, teacher-autonomous PD. Common decency suggests that if an authority is going to cut a position with diverse responsibilities, the courteous thing to do is to actually inform that person and offer an explanation, but that's more about HR practices and not central to this issue. The official reason given for the cut was to help cover the unfunded CUPE raise but this explanation doesn't pass the smell test -- district support for this position goes back 20 years and has been the foundation of teacher-led PD throughout that time. The cost for this position is $39K or $45K depending on how the books are kept; it also generates funds to offset costs via conference fees and alleviates costs at the SBO by reducing pressure on their Finance department. My understanding is that we would not even have known about this cut by now if CUPE hadn't put in a Freedom of Information request to find out where their raise was coming from. So many secrets, so little time!

The full background to the issue is described in this open letter to trustees.  The duties of the position in question are outlined on the PGDTA website.

Back to the "interesting turn."  There has been debate among teachers as to what we should do about this situation.  Dozens of individual teachers and at least three whole school staffs have written to trustees about the value they see in teacher-autonomous, well-coordinated PD.  The trustees tend to stay mum on most matters that are under review, so it is hard to tell if they understand what's at stake. Some teachers have suggested that if the SBO wants to take away the tools that make teacher-autonomous PD work, then maybe we should take away our support for SBO-intiated PD, In-service, and other professional training.  So far, this had been discussed on the union email forum, at the PD Committee, at the Staff Rep Assembly and AGM, and now at the Executive level of the PGDTA. I wasn't sure how far this would go -- teachers tend to give and give and often find it hard to say, no let alone take something away (even in the midst of our current job action!), so I admit being a bit surprised by the strong motion that came out of the last executive meeting:

That should the board make any cut to the Pro D fund administrator position, a motion will be made at the June SRA (Staff Rep Assembly) that our members will not voluntarily participate in any Professional Development or training events planned by the district. (carried unanimously)

This has significant implications. Current district-planned PD and training includes Learning Team Grants, an Early Learning conference, an Assessment Academy, mentorship programs, and a variety of workshops and learning series put on by SBO and elsewhere. If triggered, this June SRA motion would signal a shift in what has been a relatively cooperative relationship between teachers and the SBO on PD. Why would teachers take such a step? They see the cut to PD coordination as a cut to their ability to access teacher-autonomous PD and a reduction in quality to the PD that comes out the use of the PD Funds. The backdrop to this is that the work of the SBO to put on PD, in-service, and training has 10 times the funding and has grown every year since they "right-sized" in 2010. The work they do is admirable, although there are a few positions there that are mysterious and under-utilized. SBO-planned offerings are valuable and often necessary, but they are different from PD that is directed for and by teachers. The impression left is that PD is great, but best it it comes from the SBO and not from teachers -- as such this is appears to be a move to squeeze out professional autonomy. This is the impression that is left when our PD allocation is decreased by a third while another budget (one that could ostensibly fill the gap but is out of teacher control) simultaneously increases by a quarter million. How do teachers respond to this perceived devaluation of their own PD? Well, the PGDTA executive motion suggests one course of action. I see it as a statement that if teacher-autonomous PD is undervalued, perhaps teachers should step away from voluntarily playing ball with the SBO. I'm sure this would be a tough pill for all parties to swallow -- teachers derive benefit from all forms of PD, autonomous or otherwise.

Tonight is a School Board meeting, the first reading of their 2014-15 budget. With this issue front and centre, I am curious to see whether there will be a change in heart. It is surprising how opinions shift and votes change when a matter leaves a closed-door meeting and enters a public forum -- I've found myself doing softening a stance in similar circumstances. To date, the trustees have been publicly quiet on the issue, but the powerful testimonies from teachers about coordinated, autonomous PD, and the motion from the PGDTA Executive may finally move our trustees to realize, as our PGDTA president said, that "three blocks of time is a pittance to keep relationships collaborative and positive."

I really have no clue who reads this blog, but I'd like to thank teachers and other members of the local educational community for supporting the work of the PD Coordinator this year and contributing to high quality, useful, and joyful PD on many occasions. If my position is indeed eliminated as intended by the SBO, I have no regrets as to how I spent my afternoons this year and I look forward to adding to the PD culture of our district next year, albeit in a reduced role and off the side of my desk. My only regret is still to come -- if the position is cut we'll be forced to cancel a New Teachers' Conference for Fall 2014, the Zone Conference for Spring 2015, and attend to the inevitable change in PGDTA policy from a Fund that supports rural travel and conference opportunities out-of-district to a system that simply divvies up money to teachers and does not attempt coordination. We've seen this in other districts and it is not a successful model, especially where the amount per teacher is a low. This year, with the support of the PD Committee, I was able to act on a vision for PD that included more celebration of teacher growth, increased local opportunities for excellent PD, reaching out to more stakeholders for shared projects, notably the Ab-Ed department, and stretching our  dollars as far as possible to support individual and group goals for PD.

So, enough gloomy speculation... we could be in for an interesting turn in the way teachers are supported in our district, but I also believe that trustees have been given excellent rationale by many teachers as to why strong support should be maintained and budget cuts should be sought elsewhere. If nothing else, this experience should give trustees pause to think about how they can lobby the provincial government for sustainable funding. Again, to quote our PGDTA president: "we have been dealing long enough with cuts to Public Education. Teachers have been propping up the system for too long."

open letter PD

Open Letter to SD57 Trustees and Senior Learning Team:

Recently I learned that Senior Admin has recommended a cut in funding for the Pro-D Fund Administrator (PDFA) position in SD57. Trustees need to be aware that this cut will come at significant cost to teacher growth and work with students. For starters, without coordination the Teacher Pro-D Fund will require a new dispersal model that does not pool funding or allow the extensive organization and leadership currently taking place -- an unravelling of years of PGDTA Pro-D policy and a cooperative relationship between teachers and the school district.

This relationship has been positive in the past because each group that contributes to the "suite" of Pro-D in SD57 does their part well. District In-service and professional learning initiatives are focused on implementation of district goals and provincial curriculum -- that's what C&I is for and it does it well. Teacher-led Pro-D is something different -- it is the professional learning that each teacher chooses for themselves to affect learning in their classrooms -- every district in the province recognizes this, and also respects the difference between in-service (implementation of requirements, a board responsibility) and professional development (teachers have autonomy over their Pro-D, their Pro-D Fund, and their Pro-D Days; this is in contract). This also works well in our district, perhaps better than most in the province, because the Board has funded a coordinator position for the last 18 years and this insures accountable and purposeful use of the Pro-D Fund and provides leadership and organization for teacher-led Pro-D. Teacher-directed Pro-D will not go away (this is in contract), but it can certainly become ineffective and less accountable without coordination. Our set-up is the envy of the province not because of the budget (as you'll see below, teacher-led Pro-D is poorly funded in SD57 regardless of whether there is a PDFA position attached to it), but because it works.

Here are some of the main items that will be lost if the PDFA position is not funded:

1. Application process for Conference Travel (approximately 100 teachers travel each year for Pro-D they can't get in the North) 
2. Rural School Travel Subsidies (Mackenzie, McBride, and Valemount would not otherwise be able to access Pro-D events in PG and beyond) 
3. Involvement in Mentorship Programs (including two new programs co-funded and co-created for next year) 
4. Year-long Pro-D Facilitation (e.g. Robson Valley Mini-Conference last Fall, a Northern BC New Teachers conference next Fall) 
5. Communication on Pro-D and Collaboration on Shared Projects (teachers, administrators, C&I, DLC, AbEd, SetBC, CUPE EAs, etc.) 
6. Spring Fling Educational Conference (the organization and aftermath of this multi-district event is a 6-month process that flows from one desk) 

I can expand on these if you wish, but I will assume for now that you have a sense of what each of these involve. You can also learn more about how Teacher Pro-D is structured in our district at http://pgdta.ca/pro-d.

The district spends over $1 million in Pro-D and Travel each year, but only a small portion of this is directed (by contract) towards the Teacher Pro-D Fund.

The current district investment in Teacher Pro-D is around $150,000 -- $107,000 in the Fund and about $43,000 to buy out three blocks of time for a teacher leadership position. This PDFA position is responsible for the careful administration of a fund but beyond that has the "justification of time" to be fully engaged in the professional growth of teachers and their work with students, as evidenced in the weblink provided above. Like other part-time, half-time, and full-time non-enrolling positions in the district, the PDFA supports student learning and building capacity among educators, and in fact reaches and affects more teachers and their practices over the course of the year than most district-released positions. Through shared projects and the Spring Fling, the work of the PDFA also affects other employee groups. This work used to be 0.75 FTE and is now 0.5 FTE but there really has been no reduction of roles or work with teachers.

$150,000 is a small amount for a district our size and a shoe-string budget for the amount of professional development we support. It is a lower investment per teacher than virtually every district outside of the Lower Mainland and Southern Vancouver Island -- they typically pay less because travel costs for conference are very low. For comparison SD27 (Cariboo-Chilcotin), with less than half as many teachers as SD57, has a Teacher Pro-D Fund valued at $172,000 (budget, TTOC time, and 0.4 FTE position for a coordinator). Incidentally, this is the only other district in the province with a similar level of PD Coordinator release paid for with district funds -- they use their district-supplied Funds to release 2 days per week for their Teacher PD person. Some districts have smaller release arrangements (but do not attempt the roles that we see in our district such as conference travel approval and conference organization) and some large districts have attached a "Pro-D portfolio" to union-released table officers. SD57 is somewhat unique, and as a result we have a better Pro-D set-up than most other districts in the province -- it is a recognized drawing card for new teachers despite the low overall investment from the district.

Cutting a third of this investment in teacher professional development will have lasting harm on the positive relationship and momentum for professional learning that has developed in our school district. Our district may have its challenges, but one thing we do well is professional development. This cut would also send a chilling message to teachers from senior admin and the board about the value they placed on teacher-led professional development.

I have very much enjoyed the experience of working with teachers this year on their designs for professional growth and improving student success. I have also enjoyed working with others in the school district on shared projects, including plans for next year that are now in limbo: organization of a Northern BC New Teachers' Conference, funding and support for a Math Conference, and involvement in two new programs for mid-career teacher mentorship ("Learning Alongside" to address areas of challenge, and "Fresh Air Days" to allow teachers to observe and collaborate with teachers working on similar problems).

Within the "suite" of Pro-D in SD57 we have diverse and complex district, school, cross-school, and group/individual teacher-directed goals for professional development. Each is different -- by contract they have to be different -- e.g. the difference between BC Edplan implementation (in-service on paid time, board responsibility) and teacher Pro-D (autonomous, can take place on PD Days and teachers' own time). The first three are very well funded in our district, and have in fact grown substantially in each of the last four years (e.g. C&I is now up to 23 members at various levels of release). The last area, teacher-directed pro-d, has done very well on a limited budget for many years, and could soon be cut by a third with the loss of the PDFA position. A very minor shift in the way Pro-D is funded among these four areas is all it would take to keep the PDFA position. I encourage the trustees to include a recommendation to make this shift as part of their budget amendment directives that result from ECOW (Budget Consulation).

Feel free to get in touch or respond with questions. This should not be a decision that is made without discussing "what next" with the affected partner group. In the very least I urge you to fund the position for another year in order to allow time for discussion on "what next." If the position does disappear, there are layers of policy to unwind and many actions to consider. Disengaging from district involvements or shared projects, and transitioning to any new form of Pro-D Fund dispersion, record management, and travel application, etc. will take time. This needs to be done respectfully and carefully as will the explanation to teachers, conference presenters & vendors, and other contacts from our educational community and elsewhere who have become accustomed to the excellent Pro-D relationships and opportunities over the years.

Best regards,
Glen Thielmann

Professional Development has changed

Professional Development (PD) has changed in the last 15 years. For those of you who taught in the 80s and 90s, think back to a time before pervasive email, a comprehensive internet, and widespread social media. PD happened in trickles throughout the year and with singular emphasis on designated days — these were one of the few times when teachers “received” PD in the form of a workshop, presentation, or group conversation. They tended to be high-stakes in the sense that there were few other formal opportunities for teachers to orient themselves to the new ideas that circulated in the education world. My first few years of teaching was like this: hit-and-miss presenters, and random professional conversations around shared subject areas. The boundary between that and the outside world was pretty narrow and virtually unexplored. Other colleagues tell me this was a "golden age" --lots of organized PD (in the form of guest presenters) and he rest was quiet and unassuming. Now, for better or worse, we are saturated in educational ideas, competing paradigms, "must-read" professional articles, layers of jargon (each one "scaffolding" the next), intriguing links, and cures for what ails us in education — professional learning materials, ideas, and networks are available 24/7. In short, we are connected.

Much of the "ubiquitous PD" buzz has been facilitated by technology and the mobile devices that few of us are far from. For example, a brief foray into educational hashtags on Twitter reveals a river of PD that teachers can draw from sparingly or jump into with both feet. More than one teacher-tweeter has referred to twitter as a "firehose of PD." Thousands of BC educators contribute daily; it is hard not to be humbled by the sheer volume of earnest inquiry.

The buzz extends past social media. In many of our schools we have built in collaborative time or similar structures and release grants to continue the learning that used to take place in hallways between class. The last few years has also seen the rise of EdCamps, Open Space, and Unconferencing — all of which are recognition that teachers want to compare notes and challenge or support each other far more than they want to be passive recipients of expert conclusions, no matter how brilliant. These trends also speak to the power of informal learning. This is accompanied by a growing reluctance to spend our PD time alone — we get enough isolation from adults in our daily teaching, and social media leaves us craving something more embodied.

As we adjust to the ubiquitous nature of PD, it becomes more important that official PD days offer these opportunities to unpack or take stock of recent learning, to mull over and reflect on what this means for coming months, and to fuse or synthesize the ideas in the room into something useful or inspirational for ourselves and our students. For many, professional learning is a life-long habit, particularly for those who have made the digital PD leap and are rarely unconnected from other educators. Among the "connected" there is an awareness that formal PD time isn't about taking in new information or having PD “done to you.” Whether our handful of PD days each school year are spent as individual teacher inquiry or a co-creative process among colleagues, the customs are undergoing a significant shift and our administrative leaders, teacher leaders and associations need to change the way we frame, organize, and seek accountability for our PD time. Meetings of any kind — PD, staff, committee, boards — need to realize that assembling simply to hear information is no longer necessary (even offensive in some ways). Just as we're learning to shift our classrooms from content delivery to more dynamic, interactive practice, so to our meetings need to shift to acknowledge that solid communication is more than just passing on information; it requires conversation.

I have been very fortunate to have spent much of my PD time in the last few years with members of my personal learning network — they have challenged me to examine the ultimate implications of my actions on the social and intellectual development of my students, and we have kept each other accountable for high standards as educators. Most of this is done face-to-face, but we've left some space in our collective inquiry for social media — subtle, ongoing infusion of new ideas into our own conversations, all of us richer for the experience. We have come as close as we can to a common understanding that PD days are the teachers' assessment time for the professional learning that happens all year — a chance to unpack, to mull, and to fuse.

How do you spend your PD time?

Effective Professional Development

Our School District 57 Superintendent Brian Pepper recently posted a blog about Effective Professional Development. While his blog does not currently allow comments, he notes in an earlier post that "this blog, if you can even call it that... will not be interactive. I just don’t have time to read, respond and monitor the interactive comments... I am confident you will be able to make your views known in other locations!" I'm not exactly sure if this refers to views about what he has posted or just views in general, but I thought I'd go with the former and take up the challenge to respond to some of the observations in his recent post on Professional Development.

Brian discusses Helen Timperley's book Realizing the Power of Professional Learning and the knowledge-building cycle of inquiry that promotes valued teaching and student outcomes:

Timperley’s book certainly adds credibility to the process our district has been using for some time: learning team grants. The grants’ primary purpose is to support teams of educators working together on inquiry-based learning that will be utilized in the participants’ classrooms. In addition, the grants create opportunities for teachers to work together, to learn from each other, to create and to innovate. The rich discussion and sharing of successful practice is motivating, deepens understanding about the process of learning, heightens awareness regarding the critical nature of assessment, and often leads to improved results for students and improvement in teaching practice. This year over 150 of our teachers are working on learning team grants, in the areas of curriculum and instruction, technology, aboriginal education, play-based learning and assessment.

We need to celebrate and share this important work in a more effective manner moving forward. We need to direct more funding into inquiry-based learning initiatives. We need to expand the circle of involvement and influence beyond the school and district and into a province-wide professional learning conversation and interconnected professional learning initiatives that benefit our most important resource: children!

I'll respond specifically to the use of Learning Team Grants (LTGs) and the need to celebrate and share this work. Our district's use of LTGs started about 10 years ago with what were called Action Initiative Grants, essentially release time for teachers who wanted to work on shared inquiry. We also had something called Technology Innovation Grants that offered funding and release time for teachers who wanted to employ some new technology-informed practices with their students. The LTGs succeeded these grants and are now the default means for teachers to get time away from class to work on curriculum & instruction projects. The other means available are to seek release or lieu time from a principal or the Curriculum & Instruction department directly, or to seek an Inquiry Project grant from the Pro-D fund administered by the teacher's union. This idea of taking a bit of time to sort out pedagogy and hone our craft is not new, it has been going on for decades but has often been arbitrary... "please sir, can I have a day off" kind of thing. I think a more formal process like the LTGs is a good move, it provides the potential for accountability, collaboration, and student-centered action.

The part where LTGs are not working, as Brian suggests, is the celebrate and share part. I've informally polled a few elementary and many secondary teachers; there are clearly some misgivings about the quality and quantity of work being done. The majority of these LTGs appear to be secrets within their own schools, let alone the district level, and we have no established means of communicating either their presence or the results. Our staff email system, primitive locked-down websites, and limited social media presence are not up to the communication task, and as a result the LTGs live and die in small pockets of usefulness. A colleague recently told me that he thinks he is part of a Math LTG but is not quite sure. Is he one of the 150? The "best-kept-secret" problem reminds me of the S.A.L.T. group we used to have at our school. I think the S stood for Secondary but it became known as the "Secret Assessment Learning Team" because most staff had not heard of it, did not know what the acronym stood for, did not know how it was formed, or what it involved. Why are we so shy about professional learning? We do have an "All Around Our Schools" feature in the local paper; this gets into some of the fun events and student activities, but is not really scaled to delve into the "province-wide professional learning conversation." More deliberate and interactive tools are needed to make the connection. My wife had a good suggestion -- a searchable database that would allow teachers and others to scan past and present LTGs and other professional learning to find good matches for their own needs. Something between a list on a website and a wiki perhaps. In the olden days, educators working on curriculum projects would type up their reports and photocopy their resources into a booklet that would be stored at the District Resource Centre and at schools. My classroom bookshelf still has some of these now-dusty publications: local history, enrichment, critical thinking in Social Studies, student questioning techniques, etc. with names on them like Garvin Moles, Calvin Cosh, Keith Gordon, and my dad Walter. What astounds me is that 30 years later, in our hyper-connected digital world, we're still having issues archiving and sharing our professional learning.

Two further complications are the LTG criteria and format. The LTGs are limited to release time and won't cover other costs such as professional materials or technology, so the only way to take advantage is to prepare for a substitute and dodge class (which many teachers are loathe to do). One of our district LTG groups was surprised to find that their agreement to meet on their own time in exchange for some software related to their inquiry would not be met. That LTG, then, had a financial value of $0; a definite challenge in the "celebration" department -- might as well have stuck with twitter. The dilemma is that enrolling teachers (that have kids in seats everyday) have to incur substitute teacher costs every time they want to interact. 150 teachers using three release days costs the district about $135,000, more than the entire Professional Development Fund for the district's 900 teachers. How do we turn face-to-face professional learning from something one needs to escape their class to do into something embedded in our day-to-day routines? How do we schedule and fund that? Many schools have tried various schemes over the last 10 years to build "collaborative time" into the weekly schedule, but a variety of issues have made this divisive, especially at the secondary level. How might we listen and learn from the schools where formal collaborative models have resulted in "buy-in?" How do we remove the coercive elements (and major source of division) from collaborative models and shore up our capacity for mutual (peer) accountability?  Is there a role for the board to examine timetable/calendar adjustments to afford more paid time for professional learning?

The format can also be an issue -- it seems that all it takes to be approved for an LTG is that one frames a project idea in the form of a question... this apparently makes it an inquiry. Teachers and educational leaders often have the bad habit of confusing asking a question about work that is already firmly established and classic inquiry-based learning, where the outcome is less certain. Perhaps we've developed this habit from 10 years of writing school growth plans that muddle this process. We play a lot with data without a clear understanding of correlation versus cause, and almost none of what we write down in school or district plans would withstand statistical analysis. That's a problem outside LTGs, but I wonder if our notion of academic inquiry and action research is related to our lack of training and leadership in these areas (spoken by someone who failed a first-year stats course!). One way the district could improve the quality of inquiry is to provide facilitators, curricular specialists, or mentor teachers (different roles) that are available to meet with LTG participants. I have seen the value of this recently at Pro-D Rep training with a BCTF facilitator Teresa Fry (and our Pro-D chair Kim Rutherford) who guided us through the Inquiry Project model and a basic EdCamp. Adding experts to the groups would, of course, require an investment in more release time, part-time or full-time secondments, or other arrangements and appointments.

These LTGs provide nice little breaks for teachers to "work on stuff" and as a result are greatly appreciated, but do we know much more about them? A more thorough sharing of how they turn out is crucial for providing accountability for these projects; having a public audience for one's work is a very effective way of kicking up the quality of reporting and amount of professional pride invested in the work -- and helps ensure that the focus is on students success. If one digs around on the district website it is possible to find a list of the LTGs from the 2011-12 school year. To be blunt, many of them appear to be release time for teachers to do lesson planning, project design, and other work they would or should do anyways.  I can understand why that appeals to busy teachers -- this is a chance to work creatively with others and build some student activities that would be arduous without the collaboration and extra time... I've used release time for this "relief" before, so I am not condemning the process. We should be careful, though, to mistake this for innovation. Some of the LTGs appear to be replacements of district committees and ad hoc leadership groups that used to exist -- district-wide professional development and meeting time for core interests like literacy and numeracy. Among the LTGs from last year, there are a few that were probably innovative, but we have no way of knowing without the sharing and celebration part -- the lists do not contain detailed project descriptions or links to their work.  I also do not know of any formal invitations to share their work, although anyone can host a session at our annual Professional Development Conference (next one March 8, 2013). The LTGs will become less invisible as we make sharing habitual and not accidental. The tools and even the provincial network are already in place; many of our teachers and educational leaders are engaged at the district and provincial level through Social Media and their own channels of communication -- increasingly educational leaders in other parts of the province are interconnected and accessible. Our district has a lot of ground to make up -- an uncontroversial place to start is a concerted effort to bring the hidden success stories into the conversation. Much needed and more provocative work can follow.

This is also a great opportunity to forge a positive culture, to reverse some of the malaise that afflicts true partnership between the various employee groups in the district. We need to break the cycle with a few positive habits and narratives around professional learning that serve as a common "hearth" for us to hear each other and set new directions. To start, the innovative stories from among these 150 teachers should be profiled, posted, and praised -- tweet, blog, web, news media -- there has got to be at least one great story a month of how district-supported teachers are innovating and bringing benefit to students. I had a chance to drop in on a LTG group that was using a "critical friends" approach to review each other's designs for project-based learning. It was well facilitated, exciting for the participants, and had as an outcome the subtle turning of familiar designs for learning into innovative plans. I also had some lingering doubts and questions addressed about the value of the "project tuning process." This is what we hope for out of "co-creative" collaboration. How could this group's success be shared with others? How could we speed up the rate of "contagion" related to their excitement? We seem to be doing a good job with Timperley's knowledge-building cycle at the classroom level and likely within these LTGs, but are we serious about trying this openly at the organizational level? How often do our staff meetings capture this cycle?

Brian relays a good question: “What will it take for what we know to change what we do?” I would suggest that what we know is that some of our systems of communication and collaboration are broken and that we've known this for many years. The "sustainability" process of 2010 and last year's labour dispute exposed some wounds across all employee groups that have been long untended (or even unexamined) and as a result we deal with a high level of distrust and reluctance to engage at the organizational level. Knowing this has been a keen push for many teachers and parents to change what we do. I've seen the board of trustees (that includes my wife Kate!) and others make some strides here, but much of the change that needs to happen takes place outside of the board's usual gaze. The realization of broken systems and seeing the potential for positive change has spurred me to get more involved with educational advocacy and professional discussions over the last five years. Thankfully I am not alone in this. It has also been the impetus for thinking about what my own professional growth plan should look like and to consider how I can step up my approach to professional learning and leadership at the district and provincial level.  The "need to celebrate and share this important work in a more effective manner" also poses a challenge to the work of our district teacher's Professional Development Committee. We try to do a lot with limited funds, and much of the work is done in isolation of the LTGs even though the focus is very much the same.

I have seen plenty of vibrant "interconnected professional learning" in our district and elsewhere -- learning teams, personal learning networks, and individuals that keep being awesome regardless of what goes on around them. Maybe the informality of this work is what makes it work? But if we want to turn these into "interconnected professional learning initiatives" that are part of the "province-wide professional learning conversation" we first need to get out LTGs out of the closet, or look at other means of supporting and communicating professional learning. Too much of the best work in our district happens "underground" -- we need to be more deliberate about coaxing educators out of their bunkers. There are barriers that need to come down (I've blogged about that ad naseam), but more than that we need coaxing that is welcoming and progressive -- more freedom and means to speak freely about our issues and successes, more freedom and means to experiment wildly with improvements to teaching and learning conditions, and sometimes simply to temper wild ideas with actual research and planning. How do we do this? What does that look like? Where's the best return on our effort or bang for the district buck?

Challenge: What would you change about how our district celebrates and shares the work of teachers? What would be the most effective use of district funds to support professional learning among teachers and other educators that results in a benefit to students? Feel free to comment, share the success of your LTG, or relate your own experience if you are from another jurisdiction.

Mumbleypeg

Got about to some "mumbling of the peg" yesterday and today with some friends and fellow Social Studies teachers at our Pacific Slope Consortium retreat at Purden Lake.

Mumbling the peg, you say? It's a variation on an old game where some folks stand around and flip a pocketknife into a stump using a variety of techniques: off the elbow, off the tip of the thumb, off the top of the head, and so on. Mumbleypeg. In the original game the loser has to pull a peg out the ground with his teeth, but we don't usually get that far. In fact, we didn't even get to the knife-tossing bit this year.

We did however, mumble the peg in the more pedagogic sense. The "socratic circle" version involves revery by the fire combined with no-holds barred conversation on the educational issues that are on our minds. We hold ourselves and ideas open to intense scrutiny, four lakeside inquirists tossing notions up to be deconstructed, laughed at/with, and cheered. Some ideas missed the mark, some landed with grace and perfect balance, others stuck to the mark through fierce rhetoric and chance accuracy. In some ways it was like chucking knives about, but in a softer, "mumbley" way we also were free to trade barbs and challenge each others' thinking because of a large amount of trust and good humour.

Here are sample of the big and small ideas that we set in play and sent to the stump one way or another, midst the feast and fire:

• teacher mediocrity - can we expect system change when we are often our own worst enemies? What can we do to improve our lot? Failing that, what can we do to step around the dysfunction and do some stuff that is not mediocre?
• admin mediocrity - is it even reasonable to expect more from our admin? do we actually want the best teachers to become the best admin, like in the olden days? would teacher self-reliance allow admin to focus on more important roles than the mall-cop ones we've made for them? and maybe require less of them? what can we do to model leadership for our leaders?
• student mediocrity - what are the long term implications of the way our system ignores (and even rewards) poor performance, how can we tastefully let our students know we care and will also hold them to high standards?
• if you want to send the message that it matters, don't brush off the activity, e.g. the critical thinking value of a research essay and work necessary to get students to take it seriously, being persistent about skills and seeing the content as a way to successively develop skills, importance of an ongoing teacher narrative to explain that to students that this is what is actually happening
• pros and cons of PD on twitter - some things we've learned, some repetitive jargon-filled stuff we're tired of learning about, laughed at some apparent dorkiness, wondered whether it justified the time invested, compared our district leaders' use of social media and blogs to what we see in other districts
• technology comedies - looked at recent attempts to coax a dialogue on tech with district decision-makers, agreed that if leaders (of any kind) ignore teacher passion and planning regarding "learning enhanced by technology" they might want to wear bags on their heads when promoting 21st Century Learning and the BC Edplan
• celebrated the timeless possibilities of low-tech teaching - give us 11x17 paper, some pencils, internet connection, a heated & well-lit room and we'll figure out the rest, if anyone wants to actually talk tech or figure out why smartboards are not all they're cracked up to be, they know where to find us in our hobbit holes
• grad requirement changes - digested some of the implications for our craft, and cranked up the settings on our respective crap detectors, debated use of letter grades in Gr 8 and 9, imagined alternatives, speculated on what a two-tiered education system would look like
• deconstructing competencies - what do we actually want our SS students to demonstrate to us? how can we get this without bogus mark-counting and what do we value re skills/processes vs big themes vs content?
• debunk the effort/learning myth - why do educators still engage in the bizarro debate about "no zeros" assuming that learning is some pure measurable product (deserving a %) and that everything else is behaviour (not deserving a %). The most painful suggestion is that learning = content familiarity or work completion. If Marcy and Liam both work on maps, and Marcy never turns in her map, but Liam does and gets a mark, we are essentially rewarding Liam for good work habits, it may not even matter what he learned from the map. 
• from effort/learning split to wholistic assessment - how does this change when we base assessment on performance, on what students can actually demonstrate of what they learned? this is obviously not new, but (remarkably) teachers drift away from this far too often, and allow the "just assess the learning" tagline to push student responsibility and skill-buidling off the assessment radar
• performance based assessment - worked through what a matrix might look like that matched up competencies with focus questions, beyond averaging and assigning percentages, how can we produce an evaluation that students can be real clear about
• ways of communicating student performance to parents - some old tricks (the folder full of exemplars) and new ones like the video clip of students' binders, which teacher shares with parents, or have student take a pic of an impromptu portfolio (e.g. spread out on desk) showing what they're working on and text it to parents
• intervention models and "getting kids through" - are we doing more harm than good, shared some models that appear to be working, compared models and asked whether LIF funds were being squandered
• blended learning and what do we do for the gifted - planted some seeds here, more than that wondered about little ways to build in our own intrinsic rewards because hell will freeze over before we actually get paid to be good at our jobs
• deconstructing decolonization - what we observe in/from our First Nations students, some challenges to the notion that our FN kids come knowledgeable about their own supposed ways of approaching learning (although they come with many other challenges to overcome), and that we already place a high value on the notion that learning is embedded in memory, history, and story; still, we would like to learn more about how our FN kids can dial in
• field trip to Vimy Ridge 2017 - light a bit of a fire here to talk about who and how big

Did I miss any?

open letter on professional development

To the staff at D.P. Todd:

Thank-you for accepting me in the voluntary position of Professional Development (PD) Representative for the 2012-2013 year. I filled this position previously from 2005-2010, and was part of the school’s PD committee (when we had one) from 2003-2009. I should also point out that I currently serve on the PGDTA PD Committee, which is tasked with oversight of the PD Fund and facilitating PD events in the district on behalf of teachers.

My own understanding and relationship with PD has changed over the years. For about 8 of my first 12 years as a teacher I think I participated, hosted, organized, or facilitated a school-based or district-based workshop or PD event on almost every PD day, much of that related to educational technology. During the last 5 years I have tried to work with different groups of teachers and educationists while backing away from formal school and district based offerings, excepting the Zone Conference. This is, in large part, because many of the technology topics I once championed have become old habit or usurped by excellent online resources. It is also because of the phenomenal growth of informal PD, much of it spurred by social media and the interactive web. Finally, this shift is, in smaller part, because I find many of the PD offerings for school staffs expect some kind of groupthink as a key part of the process, and often seem more like time-fillers than something useful. This is why I was so eager to run PD in the past -- so that I couldn't complain if it was stodgy. Most of the other topics in which I am personally interested (e.g. heritage inquiry, performance-based assessment, or identity-based curriculum ecology) seldom generate a large audience, so I find myself not so much the joiner or leader that I might have been from 2000-2008.

That’s all past and present. The future is yet to be written, so I am keen to see how PD changes in the coming years and how our staff, as individuals or groups, take on meaningful projects or ideas to better their teaching practice and work with students. I would like to describe what I see as my responsibilities for this position, all of which are open to your feedback.

1. This position is a voluntary PGDTA role, working alongside our Staff Rep (BCTF union representative) to ensure that high quality, contractually sound, teacher-directed professional development is understood by staff and administration and promoted within the school.
2. The PD rep has a simple yet important task of communicating various PD opportunities that exist in the school, district, province, and online. I will use some conventional means of communication, such as our 57Online ystem, and also social media to promote PD, including the use of twitter hashtags #sd57 and/or #dpts for dialogue on local PD.
3. I am not a PD planner for the staff, someone who will coordinate PD activities, or bring donuts on NIDs. The fact that PD has been defended so rigorously as an issue of teacher autonomy means that teachers should not be eager for anyone to plan out their PD for them. The PD rep is not the same as a PD committee chair or School PD plan writer, although these roles have sometimes been combined in the past.
4. I am more interested in the ongoing PD that takes place throughout the year and not fixated on the five PD days for which most teachers already have (or should have) an active plan. I believe most teachers have come to understand that PD is a regular extension of their practice, and not just something for the five precious PD days.
5. I am excited to work with staff that want help developing their PD plans, want to know more about how PD can shape their practice, or willingly invite participation or accountability in their professional growth. I won’t monitor staff PD activities or try to justify eccentric choices by others, although I will give feedback and offer dialogue from a variety of perspectives, including a BCTF point of view.
6. I will advocate at every level for the foundations on which dynamic PD is built, the autonomy necessary for teachers to actually step beyond requirements or expectations and pursue PD that engages their passions and needs, and high standards for PD to at least allow excellence and creativity in the door. I will see no irony in modeling both self reliance and mutual accountability.

Further thoughts (from my Professional Growth Plan)

What is my understanding of Professional Development (PD)?

One of the neat things about being a teacher is the chance to be deliberately engaged in life-long learning. This happens during the work day, on my own time, on non-instructional days, and in summer. Personal and professional learning are part of an “ecology,” a connected cycle of theory-making, reflective practice, and action-research. This “pro-d” or PD takes many forms for me:

• conducting research and reflecting on how, what, and why students learn, and understanding the educational landscape in which this takes place 
• learning more about my subject area as I plan for lessons, read and write on topics like democracy, citizenship, environment, sustainability, and history, and focus on what students do/can’t do/could do/should do 
• participating with other educators in collaborative discussions and projects on topics like heritage research, identity & inquiry, analyzing trends in current events, authentic balanced practice, critical thinking, meaningful assessment, and educational technology 
• independent study, course design, textbook review/writing, advocacy for public education, and follow-up on all the powerful questions raised by colleagues and students. 

My classroom is about student learning and student achievement, as is the planning, instruction, assessment, and humanity I put into my time as a teacher. Reflecting on my professional development is a step back (or a pause, at least), centered on what I am up to, but it is ultimately about the same thing... the social, intellectual, cultural growth of the students I meet. Regardless of the theme or focus, PD is ultimately about what I am learning, and what others are learning around me.

There is a special role in my reflection (and thus this document) for interrogating the structures that accompany public education, for celebrating the emergence (in any form or context) of cultural attributes that signal a new attitude towards community development, environmental sustainability, total cost economies, and perhaps some other “cultural” values that reckon with my own. The BC public education system is rife with dysfunctional structures, shallow thinking, and misunderstood paradigms, but it is also filled with creative ideas, caring educators, curious students, and committed parents who are making moves towards new cultures of being that are good for people and the planet. When we see formal learning as a relationship between real people in community, more like a guild and less like a factory, the bizarre eduspeak and various social and political agendas attending our system can be broken down and allowed to find their appropriate place. A central irony in my practice is that I seek some form of disruption, not unlike the calls for education reform from our own government, and yet the approach reformers take is almost always at odds with both my way of thinking and what I believe to be sound politics, discourse, and progress. I suppose I am fated to dwell midst the irony, and do so as a polemic loner.

I have also come to realize that in order to remain caring, hopeful, and optimistic as an educator, I have to own my trajectory and work towards my dreams with or without the support or understanding of structures and people around me, while at the same time working to improve the structures and listen to others. This hit home for me while listening to Stephen Lewis’ eulogy for Jack Layton. The basic idea that caring public service starts with a desire for fairness and mutual aid is a deep conviction and compelling goal.

What are some of my primary PD goals and interests as an educator?

My work with students and educators focuses on the emergent identity of learners, the social, geographical, metaphoric, and curricular lenses by which this can be examined, and an assessment of the transformative experiential and technological tools by which this emergence can be realized. In short, I’m interested in contexts.

While modern Canadian History and is compelling and occupies most of the curriculum within my teaching assignment, I have a particular interest in regional British Columbia history and geography, and Canadian immigration stories from the 18th to early 20th century. My approach to all subjects is to engage student and educator identity (a product of both heritage and culture) in the exploration of significant and useful learning. This is supported with a reliance on authentic inquiry and assessment. One example of the boundary between my interests and the work I ask of students is the use of project-based learning in the area of heritage research, a combination of critical thinking and personal reconstruction of history through interviews and analysis of personal sources and modalities.

Underpinning my beliefs and values is a notion that a new culture is needed in our society, one that can be (should be) influenced by what happens in my classroom -- a culture of active citizens pursuing creative, intelligent, and connected pathways towards a sustainable future; grounded individuals who challenge the dominant culture on issues of relevance and who seek out new ways for values of community, heritage, and ecologically resilient adaptations to emerge.

What are some of the educational values that inform my teaching practice and my personal and professional growth?

• fair and reasonable assessment, a key part of a just practice 
• balance of skills, knowledge, habits, means (process/path), and ends (outcome/goal) 
• strong orientation towards development of student identity and narrative self-inquiry 
• building self-governance, self-reliance, and responsibility in students 
• building community without coercion, seeking interdependence not dependence 
• rigorous learning related to relevant and meaningful learning outcomes 
• respect for simple and direct student inquiry and constructivist learning 
• strategic, thoughtful, narrational, and transformative use of digital technology 
• creativity and diversity (multiple modes of seeing, knowing, expressing) 
• learning that is embodied, holistic, and well-rounded 
• curriculum design that looks for connections to citizenship and environmental sustainability 
• work-life balance, importance of student and teacher personal time 

What are some criteria I use to determine whether to join in a PD offering?

• event appeals to at least some of the values expressed above 
• event is the result of an open, intelligent, and inclusive process of planning 
• planning addresses a thoughtful question, relevant issue, or obvious need in the wider context(s) of my teaching practice
• the topics are fresh, applicable, and somewhat original (I don’t want to repeat the same idea over and over unless I have some new role to play as a participant) 
• I won’t feel dumbed down, talked down to, or subjected to rudimentary skills, ideas, or practices 
• pro-d allows for a stress-free and learning-focused application of teacher contract considerations (peaceful, practical, related to what I teach)

Email Blues

An open letter to BC School District 57 teachers on self-reliant communication.

Teachers in our school district have been having lively discussions about the use of our ubiquitous FirstClass 57Online email system (FC). In the wake of Bill 22 and reports that our employer was playing Big Brother with teacher email, the union local encouraged teachers to create internal bounceback messages to administration expressing concerns over the the labour and communication climate. This followed 7 months of job action that included teachers refusing all email communication with administration. As was the case with so many other topics this year, the job action highlighted problems that have existed in our district and school system for years. In some ways this has been great as the problems are being talked about (by teachers, anyways), and in some cases we see altered and adapted behaviour aimed at restoring balance to the way we communicate and collaborate online.

Our employer insists that full and regular use of their email system is an unwritten expectation, while our union's position is that our use of email is a courtesy and can be reserved for such uses as booking labs or accessing paystubs. I suspect the truth (or the resolution) is somewhere in the middle, but while this is being sorted out, the employer has threatened discipline over the use of bouncebacks. I guess they think it is really important for us to receive duplicate (if well-meaning) announcements about report card due dates, locker clean-outs, which room the meeting is in, how to book a sub, field trips, travel discounts, product recall health alerts, reminders to submit forms, and the like. Of course, our inboxes are also filled with more serious exchanges, challenges, inquiries, ultimatums, rhetoric. Then there is classic spam that slips through the filters, almost refreshing because you know right away it is spam.

Slowly, teachers are starting to remove their "political" bounceback messages, in some cases replacing them with more humorous offerings, like: 

"Your message has been received and will be queued for response."

"Please note, this user no longer has a bounceback message regarding adjusted use of the 57Online system."

"I am currently working or otherwise away from my computer. If this message is urgent please contact the office at ___."

Fun aside, it may seem cathartic in the short term to mess with our email as an post-Bill 22 aggravation to admin, but I think it's important that we eventually take a different and more productive fork in the road.

Not much of a news flash, but we have a generally dysfunctional relationship between teachers and our school/district administration. This doesn't mean we don't get along, but it means that getting along involves overcoming substantial institutional barriers. It can be seen in the email games, the micro-management of teacher time, erosion of support structures like tech plans and district committees, the end of key dialogues in the wake of the 2010 "right-sizing," rejection of 21st century learning proposals, creation of plans and programs without teacher input, and the reverberations of this year's job action and Bill 22. We have our action plan to deal with some of that last bit, but the invasive nature of email will not go away without a change in behaviour. I believe we should be the first to make that change.

The FirstClass system has become pervasive because we have allowed it, even encouraged it to be that way. Teacher "pioneers," usually the same ones that introduced networked computers and school servers, fostered FC school by school in the 1990s, provided us with training, and convinced admin to adopt it. Teachers promoted its use as a solution to the stuffing of mailboxes with memos and a way to exchange all of the interesting information that accompanied the dawn of the internet. It was a great tool for that job. Fifteen years later FC has become a time-killer and a tool for admin and other colleagues to reach into areas of our practice that used to be sane, balanced, and responsive to etiquette. The new acceptable use policy contains a variety of gag orders and minor contradictions that, if taken seriously, would make anyone nervous to use FC. Ironically, they've added a social network function visible only to employees; to even use it as one regularly uses social media would be counterintuitive and a clear violation of the acceptable use policy.

The original FC trade-off was supposed to be about giving up some face-to-face contact and paper memos for a wider and more interdependent educational network. I think the summit for that goal has been reached and the torch has been passed off to 3rd party social media. The employer-monitored social network add-on has been used by only a handful of the 1600+ employees in the district, and least of all by teachers and administrators. FC now seems more like numb dependency on administrivia with a veneer of interactivity (or is it a patina of civility?). Even in its most basic function as a school communication tool, it proved itself largely unnecessary during Phase 1 job action. As a parent communication tool it works quite well, but then so do the alternate email addressed supplied by many teachers. In its current use, FC does not seen to be able to fulfill the role of universal bulletin board and place for meaningful discussion at the same time. Our (collective) approach relies on 1990s thinking, the assumption that technology, however nifty, is just a tool; we need to get with the new century and realize that technology is an extension of identity and must be subject to the same self-reflection and discipline that one applies to identity work.  Rather than rely on cumbersome employer-built services that remove control from educators, we need our leaders to model and highlight the ever-changing use of twitter, facebook, wikis, nings, google tools, and other communication mediums. We also need our leaders to come around more often and actually engage teachers and students where they're at.  Like bodily. Like no email.

As many local teachers have shown us this year, it is time to rethink how we use email at work, to set the patterns and habits we want for ourselves with the next three or more years in mind. We need to design our FC presence, and all of our interactions with others, around an idea of what we want it to look like all the time. For me, that means cutting back on my FC time and deleting or ignoring anything with a subject line that does not appear relevant (which won't leave me with much left). Eventually, admin and colleagues will learn not to spam each other or read stuff that aggravates them. We can relearn some heritage skills like using a phone or having a conversation in the hall, and use our email-time for talking with kids or being with our families. From an HR perspective, it is insane to expect employees to wade through hundreds of emails looking for something of lasting value -- that's what twitter is for. Of course, most of our sensible teachers have never allowed FC to invade their lives, and have found a balance in its use.

Additionally, these arguments could all be made about engagement with admin over pro-d, meetings, and collaboration. If it is insidious, dull, or unproductive, stop doing it. If it is intelligent and benefits your students, and the originators are willing to demonstrate change with their own example first, that's a different story. Until our district leadership is willing to take ed reform and functional relationships seriously by actually engaging in dialogue with teachers (as they do in many other districts), we need to say "no, thanks." Collect yourselves instead around big ideas and like-minded educators and cut the school district and province out of the loop. Why shouldn't we model for them what a careful use of email looks like, what cool pro-d looks like, what real collaboration looks like. I think when we've acted with self-reliance ("personalized" the nature of our discourse), the polarity starts to disappear -- administrators will step out from behind the email (just as we need to), and come alongside our efforts and talk about how much they enjoy doing so. Just as teachers once pioneered email and ICT, we should now take the fork in the road towards more elegant communication, interdependent professional learning, authentic theory-building, and creative practice. In clearing this path, it will make it much easier for progressive administrators to know what to do next. In my mind, it is the only realistic way to get past the "us and them" mentality. I think our administrators are just as hungry for inspired leadership as we are, and that inspiration can be modeled by anyone.

Feedback welcome; I'd especially like to hear how other districts' teachers are responding to post-Bill 22 communication challenges.

Candidate Statement

Candidate Statement for PGDTA position of SD57 Pro-D Fund Administrator

We face a challenging year ahead in which our professional autonomy and ability to direct our own professional development will be items of public discussion and contract drama. Maybe this is the year that the School Board and DTA will re-imagine what a healthy relationship looks like, and where we can facilitate points of contact. It's time to start some new traditions and set teacher-built examples to follow.

As a pro-d fund administrator, I would:

• advocate for teacher autonomy in regards to professional development
• continue the tradition of coordinating a high quality annual Zone Conference 
• promote new face-to-face and online opportunities for professional learning throughout the year 
• connect teachers to others for resources, coursework, and mentorship
• allocate the district’s teacher pro-d funds according to principles of fairness, transparency, demonstration of need and relevance to student learning
• model and visibly share successful practices for teacher research, growth plans, session facilitation
• provide resources and support for teachers challenging and navigating the BC Ed Plan
• work alongside the pro-d committee and PGDTA membership in all these things 

I have been a career-long district leader and contributor to teacher education through workshops, advocacy, and curricular projects on teaching with technology, assessment practice, organizational change, unpacking 21st Century Learning, citizenship and heritage. I’ve been a secondary teacher for 16 years, staff rep (briefly), member of the District Tech Team and two Leadership Teams (technology and literacy), TLITE mentor, school PD rep at D.P. Todd (2005-2010), and presenter at six Zone Conferences.

...........................
More information can be found in my professional growth plan: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/68985044/thielmann_turningstones.pdf

You can also scroll through this blog or my twitter feed or website to get a sense of my professional stance and commitment to public education.

Staff Meeting Blues

As BC school administrators and teachers consider what will happen in the wake of Bill 22 and the better part of a year in "Phase 1" job action, it's time to take a closer look at the eventual return to staff meetings.

One of the most common quips heard during job action was "it's been real nice not having to go to staff meetings." That's dreadful -- if the meetings are that bad, why have them?

If your school staff is excited to return to the meeting table, then you really have cause to celebrate. But if you're with most schools and you are looking for ways to make staff meetings more effective, purposeful, engaging and generally less mind-numbing, you may want to read on for resources and challenges to your thinking.

Professional tools for administrators
This staff meeting assessment tool is from the Pacific Slope Consortium (critical thinking initiative, local/BC focus). It is intended to provoke some thought around what's working, what's not, and what's next. The discussion questions focus on the effort that takes place before a staff meeting begins.

First chance for new start
The stakes are high for the first get-together after job action. Local teachers have formally expressed their reticence to engage in email communications and professional development that is directed by administration, so the attention to detail at staff meetings is one of the most significant short-term actions an administrator can take towards positive patterns and intentions towards staff development. The "post-Bill 22" landscape may seem to have a chilly climate, but administrators are encouraged to see this as an opportunity to model a collaborative vision for their schools or even to make a fresh start on school culture.

Administrators have had ten months to plan for the "next" staff meeting; teachers will want to know what their team has prepared. Will we sort out how decisions are made? Revisit plans and projects that have been put on hold? How is the agenda set? How much "learning" or staff development can we expect, how much is just information, how will we be involved and valued? When we are unsure about process, do we establish some norms, use Robert's Rules, or make it up as we go along? Who gets left out when the process is in doubt? What value is placed on inclusion, on rigorous discourse? How much time should elapse between the introduction of an idea, a proposed action, and a staff decision? How unique is our experience at staff meetings? What other "elephants in the room" will we acknowledge and address? Each staff has a glut of questions and expectations, built up over months if not years, many of which they are reluctant to express.

Context for staff meeting success
As with most school-wide endeavours, the whole staff should own the success or failure of staff meetings, but the meeting at its most basic level is a chance for administration to involve staff in a collective effort for improvement of student learning and stakeholder satisfaction. The principal or his/her designate has a captive audience, sets the scope & tone of the meeting and usually the agenda. With that in mind, here some resources for

1. Developing a positive school improvement culture:
http://www.smallschoolsproject.org/pdfs/culture.pdf
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/reports/sihande.pdf
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/26095/
http://www.realjustice.org/pdf/IIRP-Improving-School-Climate.pdf
http://www.saskschoolboards.ca/research/leadership/95-14.htm
http://www.bcpvpa.bc.ca/downloads/pdf/Standardsfinal.pdf

2. Exploring ideas on fixing staff meetings:
http://thelearningnation.blogspot.ca/2012/04/communication-isnt-everything.html
http://justintarte.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-can-we-improve-pd-and-faculty.html
http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin/admin277.shtml
http://www.shift2future.com/2012/10/technology-influenced-leadership.html

3. Professional growth plans with a focus on dynamic standards and staff development:
http://valkilbey.blogspot.ca/
http://pgp4cbirk.blogspot.ca/

4. Factors affecting staff motivation:
http://vodpod.com/watch/3461870-rsa-animate-drive
http://iel.immix.ca/storage/6/1307461574/seven-claims-about-successful-school-leadership.pdf (see claims 4-6)

New Expectations
The BCED plan highlights innovation, accountability, collaboration, flexibility, and use of technology. BCPSEA, the government's negotiator, aims to give more oversight for these things to administrators, so teachers are naturally wondering what this look like and whether their administrators will lead with something creative, accountable, collaborative, flexible, and digitally adept. At the same time, the current contract mediation raises issues of where the locus of control resides on job suitability, professional autonomy, and class/composition issues. Staff are looking for some concise and thoughtful reflections on how their administrators will approach these issues in their school context. Will these items come up at your next staff meeting? How important is the "reassurance" factor? What kind of meeting do you envision when the status quo has been dissociated? What are your other staff meeting issues or goals? How do you plan to take them on, either as leaders or as a whole? If you have the time -- administrators, teachers, or others -- I'm interested in your responses; please leave a comment below.