His website is available
 WATCH IT HERE |
This is a small blog with a very simple, but relevant message ... The 21st Century is ours to embrace and if we don't jump into the game, our kids will suffer the consequences of our ineptness and stubborness. We should start soon ... we're 14% into the 21st Century! Click the link below:  Reflecting on What I Know |
Paul Tough (who wrote How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character ) said we've long focussed on cognitive skills as the most important key to success. But Tough said researchers have started to identify other skills that matter - "grit," curiosity, conscienctiousness, self-control. Some call these "character traits," the business world calls them "executive functions"
Self-directed learning (SDL) involves initiating personally challenging activities and developing personal knowledge and skills to pursue the challenges successfully (Gibbons, 2002).
For students engaged in self-directed learning, there will be:
 Self-Directed Learning with ICT Theory Practice and Assessment.pdf |
Learning is the most important thing that living creatures do. As far as any living creature is concerned, any action that does not involve learning is pretty much a waste of time. This is especially so for a human one. An organism cannot properly animate itself without first learning how to. Humans, before they can satisfy their own needs, first have to learn how to do it. Although the difference between a baby at birth and a fully grow adult human, is thought of as growth, most of that growth would be entirely useless without accompanying learning. In his book "Brain Rules" John Medina points out that how the brain grows is entirely dependent on what is learned. It seems fairly safe to say, "No learning, no brain growth". Yet despite the seeming essentiality of learning to life, the fact is that most adult humans tend to learn less and less as they get older. 
It is suggested herein, that learning is that which enables living things to grow, survive and realize their potential. It is further suggested, that learning is accommodating our view of the world to be consonant with contradictions of that view as they occur. Or to put it another way, it is the revision of our theories about the world to conform to an objective reality as presented by events that refute those theories. It is as Piaget might say, the assimilation of non contradictory data into our model of reality, adding to it, and the accommodation of contradictory data into our model of reality, thus changing it. From an evolutionary perspective learning is change in us, for the betterment of ourselves and our species. Ultimately learning is how we can better both ourselves and humanity generally.
The KEY opens the door to the success - in our case, the success of a school and consequently of its inhabitants ... Without a KEY, all you have are a vision\prophecy, a budget, a title, a pedestal\forum, and if you're lucky, you've got a small cozy office with a little window with a street view. With all this, the Principal needs a KEY ... one KEY to begin to unlock it all in hopes that others will follow through the doorway that is unlocked and become themselves keys to learning. 
No matter how much those above tell me or documents tell me, I know in the current state of public education, I am no longer an instructional leader - no leader can lead without a flock to follow. What a Principal can do is set the conditions for the instructional leadership to take hold. Someday, I may become a true teacher again - and I see areas in education where this can come to fruition and I will need to explore this in the upcoming years (there are flocks out there, but not as a Principal in public
Instructional Prophets are leaders - Principals are leaders - They are either followed (whereby a member of the flock is motivated and decides to lead) or they are gone (i.e., transferred, forced out, asks to be moved, burned at the stake). Don't get me wrong, the Principal can be a teacher and they can be leaders - but a true instructional leader has an audience and his\her words are put into action by the "grasshoppers" - your flock. The Principal's grasshoppers march to a different drummer called CBA. The good part is some members of the flock have strayed and are beginning to lead, and one or two could be enough to engage the flock. The Instructional Prophet must have all the by-products of a growth mindset just to make any progress (inspire a leader among the flock to step up; someone to see the good in the message; take the message ... be a Moses or a Joshua). 
We are all on a journey along a path with many twists, turns, and diverse people along the way - we criss-cross with other paths and other journeymen (sorry women), and sometimes we appear off course. But, that's okay. In the end, I think we'll get there, but I don't know where "there" is anymore as I've seen much more than I anticipated and done more than I thought I could (and sometimes done less than I thought I could) - So, I'm staying open to where I'm going, who I'll meet, and what I'll find. All that I do know is that we have essentially our inner selves to guide us - our principles, our moral compass, and last but not least, we have the innocence of "wonder" that no amount of education can eliminate or keep down. 
I only wish I could implement what I dream to do ... Right now I have imagination, but my creativity is suppressed. Watch Sir Ken's talk ... As educational leaders we need to make the "alternative schools" the norm. I only wish I could open my "LAB" school .... Click the link below and view "How to Escape Education's Death Valley"
At Epiphany of Our Lord Catholic Academy (TCDSB) the students have a Student Computer Lounge (SCL) ... The SCL was a vision, a plan, and an undertaking, but now it's a place that the students, teachers, and families helped to plan and create. It's a small, but significant effort we can look to as we continue to shift deeper into the 21st Century. The room went from an old, unused computer room (where old stuff just piled up and computers were archaic) to a "purposefully functional" room where the older students meet to collaborate, create, communicate, and think critically about their work. The room continues to be used in a very positive manner and the students want to be there ... now the reality needs to be reflected upon and taken to the next level! 
Now, one-year later, the youngest students want a similar room they can call their own ... and it's coming! The Primary Common Room (PCR) will be the cool and fun place to be for our youngest students - computers, laptops, a few meeting tables, a few desks, some chairs with wheels, bean bags, stools to sit on, comfy lounging chairs to read in, a meeting place for clubs (i.e., Board games, Chess, Structures) ... and generally, another purposeful room that kids love to be in. At the end of the day education is and always will be about STUDENT SUCCESS! That should be the bottom line.
Balanced School Day Timetable 2013-2014.pdf