President Philip Harding summed it up perfectly. In his conference closing speech, he said, ‘One of the most outstanding features of this conference has been the unique southern hospitality from being met at the airport, to being served toprate Southland cuisine and just feeling included in everything.’ I would take those comments further and say that the DNA of all Southlanders has an extra string called ‘hospitality’. The mayor has it, taxi drivers and hotel staff have it, strangers on the street and the school kids have it. Hospitality and helpfulness is endemic to the region. A curmudgeon might say the warmth extended by the people is intended to distract visitors from the chilly outdoor temperatures. If that’s the case, it works. We shall speak no more of the Southland weather! Conference 2014 opened with a spectacular performance by the taiaha warrior who laid down the wero (challenge) to the 350 visitors. Keynote speaker Richard Gerver from the U.K took
up the challenge on behalf of the visitors. A powhiri, including a spirited action song by a concert party of local school students, followed. It was a moving and respectful display of welcome, warmth and fellowship as local iwi received their guests. NZPF’s Kaumatua, Tauri Morgan delivered the whaikōrero on behalf of the manuhiri (visitors) which we learned later would be his last. We acknowledge the way Tauri has guided us with integrity and humility since 1999 and how the status and respect with which he is regarded has brought mana to the NZPF as an organisation representing school principals. We thank him for his wisdom, his stories and his teachings which have sustained the NZPF executive and its members through good times and through challenging times for the past 15 years. A cup of tea and platefuls of generous-sized scones marked the conclusion of the official welcome, after which Paul Ego, comedian, and television’s ‘Seven Days’ star assumed the MC role.
The audience becomes engrossed in the address of Keynote presenter Richard Gerver
hland Extravaganza
Keynote speaker Richard Gerver proved engaging witty and provocative
President Philip Harding delivers his address
Ego quickly engaged his audience as he quipped, ‘After a month of politics and the general election it is great to have some genuine principles in front of us!’ He acknowledged the political pressures that principals have endured in recent years and again scratched the humour hub of his audience with the comment, ‘You can pick the new principals. They are the ones that still have hope in their eyes.’ Ego’s wit and relaxed style proved a winner and set a warm, friendly tone for the duration of the conference. Complementing Ego’s efforts was another uplifting ritual. Music and dance performances from Southland school children warmed the delegates up before 9:00am every morning. There were some fantastically talented displays from Māori concert groups, including action songs, poi dances and spirited hakas to ukulele choirs and traditional Pacific Island dances. Children and their teachers are to be congratulated for their enthusiastic preparation work which resulted in outstanding entertainment for the visitors. Ka pai Southland tamariki! Pre-dinner drinks in the Southland Stadium Velodrome created
a fun interlude before the conference dinner. Delegates gathered in their provincial groupings, dressed in their appropriate colours, to cheer on their cycle teams as they competed for supremacy on the track. It was an effervescent and good natured event as delegates out-shouted each other, urging their teams to reach ever faster speeds and cross the finish line first. The theme ‘navigating new pathways’ with its three strands of creativity, leadership and cultural awareness provided a solid platform from which keynote and workshop speakers launched their presentations. Richard Gerver Richard Gerver was a conference draw card, presenting two keynotes and leading a very popular workshop. In an earlier article entitled ‘The New Politics and Education’, published in Public Servant Magazine June 2010, Gerver had written that although the past thirteen years had seen marked increases in Education funding in the UK he was quick to add, ‘We have also, however, seen huge levels of wastage; often borne out of
mistrust and a central government obsessed with micro levels of accountability and control. This has led to an over complex and confused system that has seen millions of pounds, that could have been spent on schools and children, being spent on systems of control and accountability.’ His observations of what was going on in his own country closely mirrored what New Zealand educators have been experiencing for the past six years. First up on the programme, the lively, charismatic leader opened
Gerver advised that the links between education and the world of work needed strengthening and that ‘our moral purpose is to prepare our children for their future.’ This, he said, meant that leaders must ‘find the moral courage to do what we know is the right thing for our kids now.’ He counselled the attentive audience to treat their schools as hubs of collaboration, to involve parents and build relationships with businesses in the local area. He further advised not to be
Children entertain with their ukeleles
Auckland principals enjoy a drink from the velodrome stands as they barrack for their team
his address by acknowledging the world-wide growth in obsession with the education ‘testing culture’. He singled out the OECD’s PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) for particular criticism saying ‘PISA is about learning how to pass tests’. He noted the negative and ultimately senseless culture of competition that PISA engendered. ‘Finland led the world league table once so we all flocked to find out what Finland did so we could be like them,’ he said. ‘Now China’s at the top, so forget Finland, we must all now be like China,’ he exclaimed. He then described how being at the top of a global testing regime had not helped China’s economic development in the slightest. China, he told his audience, had now produced a ‘white paper’ intended to address the fact that the country ranked 57th on the World Entrepreneurial Index. China had forgotten what the world of work requires and instead had become fixated on making it in education’s global league tables. The ‘white paper’ recommended that all homework be banned, that ability streaming be banned and that needless external testing be banned. China’s reaction to being placed top of the world’s education league table was hardly an endorsement of the OECD’s PISA testing regime. Gerver then turned the long held belief that ‘higher qualifications lead to greater employment opportunities’ on its head. He surprised the 300-strong audience of principals by telling them that countries struggling to find employment for their young people are those fixated on formal qualifications. He warned those present not to be obsessed with data and statistics but to first develop students as human beings because it was human qualities that the world of work needed most. He then told his audience that when 200 of the world’s most powerful companies were asked what skills they want in future employees, test results did not feature. First on the list were cognitive skills, the ability to listen and distil information and apply thinking. These skills, Gerver explained, are not tested of course, so tend not to be taught at least in the UK. Next were interpersonal skills and the ability to adapt and change. ‘Where are they in the curriculum?’ he questioned his audience.
captured by ‘new initiatives’. ‘How many new initiatives have you had to deal with in your lives as teachers?’ he asked. ‘In the U.K. we’ve had many including ‘Excellence and Enjoyment’ and ‘Every Child Matters’ . . . thank goodness they told me,’ he said with more than a hint of sarcasm. ‘Just how insulting is that?’ he asked. Such initiatives are often seen as ‘silver bullets’ or the miracle that will fix everything. Gerver was adamant there are no such things. Education, he said, is about human beings and about passion, strengths, beliefs, purposes and achieving dreams. This led him to discuss marketing and branding. He noted that brands like Nike are now so powerfully embedded in lifestyle that you no longer need to advertise a Nike product you just have a celebrity wearing it. Schools too have to become part of children’s lifestyle. Instead of being stuck in the 1950s, we need to ask some important questions, challenged Gerver. Questions like ‘What do we want to stand for in the eyes of our children?’ ‘What’s it like to be part of this school?’ ‘How do you sell education as a lifestyle to our children?’ Education, he said, should be a celebration of life, of living, learning and laughing. Learning is not, he cautioned, something we do for later. It’s for doing now. ‘Kids should be the first thing we think about in our schools but too often it’s about what is good or easier for teachers, not children,’ he said. He was also quick to criticise the emphasis on changing structures, as if this would transform a school from being unsuccessful to successful. ‘Systems and structures change nothing,’ he said. ‘It’s people who make changes.’
Grange School UK At his well-attended workshop Gerver addressed transformational leadership. The workshop segued seamlessly from his keynote address which had explored learning and teaching that is meaningful to students. He told the story of Grange School in the UK and how he, or rather his teachers and students, transformed it from a failing
school to become a school of choice. He believes that at the heart of transformation is a particular kind of leadership. ‘Transformational leadership,’ he said, ‘is the ability to nurture the people and provide the environment for them to truly thrive.’ There are obstacles to successful transformation, Gerver warned, then launched into a discourse about the dangers of being too ‘outcome-focussed’. He cautioned his audience saying that it is wrong to view assessment results as an outcome or
create an environment where there was fun and laughter as much as learning. He conceived of a ‘Disneyland’ School, a place where people were prepared to queue for hours just to experience that fun ride and then do it all over again. He wanted kids so excited that they would ‘queue up’ to experience the fun of learning at Grange School. His second consideration was couched in the question ‘what do we want our kids to look like as human beings when they
Plenty of determination from the NZPF team of Kevin Bush and Graeme Barber
School children perform an action song for the visitors
measure of a school’s success. Assessment, he said, is to help find out students’ next learning steps. A successful school is a place that teachers and students want to attend, he insisted and his vision for Grange School was to
leave us?’ This question implied a shift from the school focussing on academic achievement alone to integrating values and competencies required for life and living.
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Southland Kaumatua, Michael Skerrett enjoys a korero with NZPF Kaumatua Tauri Morgan
MC Paul Ego interviews NZPF Gold business partners from Konica Minolta, Photolife, ASB and Crest Clean
A change in thinking about the purpose of schooling was required and if that change was to be successfully achieved, there would have to be total buy-in to the new vision. ‘Change has to be about hearts and minds,’ said Gerver, ‘or it won’t happen.’ Hearts and minds are exactly what Gerver got as he involved his teachers in creating a ‘pupil profile’ which was not about the curriculum but about kids as human beings. The ‘Grange Guarantee’ slowly emerged. It was a cycle of learning. It was about living, learning and laughing, developing skills and competencies, applying learning in authentic contexts, developing aspirations and values and learning to live. At the very centre of this cycle was the student. Expectations for Grange School teachers changed too. They quickly embraced the idea of making learning exciting and relevant for their students which in turn empowered the students to thirst for more. ‘Change takes time,’ said Gerver. ‘It is a dynamic process and it is important that you don’t set some pre-determined pathway with a set time-frame because that defeats the purpose of everyone having a stake in the change process,’ he said. Something Gerver had not envisaged at the start was that Grange School would become ‘Grange Town’, with its own television studio, its own mayor, shop keepers, museum and (foreign) language café. ‘We trusted the evolution of our own journey,’ said Gerver proudly, ‘and I wanted the staff and students to create an environment which was relevant and empowering to them.’ With ‘Grange Town’ established, the landscape changed. No
longer were subjects taught individually ‘in silos’. Teachers and students talked of competencies needed in the real world and to be a success in their own town. Thus developed four main ‘strands of learning’. Of course the curriculum still had to be taught but in an innovative and far more integrated way. The first strand related to confidence and competency in communication. Second was enterprise followed by culture and finally sense of well-being. The strands fitted comfortably in the Grange Town context and it was possible to integrate all aspects of the curriculum into them. The town concept was such a success that through further conversations the idea of establishing a ‘university’ for Grange Town emerged. The ‘university’ would become a centre for creativity. Everything that happened at the university would be a new experience for the students. ‘University classes’ took place once a week and covered a broad range including fashion design, money management, first aid, cricket, contemporary dance, craft work, hairdressing, pet care, pop music, art history, beauty therapy, chess, constructing power point presentations, learning French or Spanish, cookery and even cheer leading. Resources and expertise were drawn from the local business community and parent community to support these classes. The transformation of Grange School was achieved within two years. It is a compelling and inspirational story. In the end the school was turned around through the motivation, passion and enthusiasm of every child and every teacher. The role of the Head Teacher, Richard Gerver, was to provide the vision and the conditions to let it happen.
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Change in Education In his second keynote address, Gerver talked about the concept of change. He conceded that in education teachers and leaders were constantly responding to a parade of policy initiatives and changes being imposed on them and as a result were feeling more and more burdened, anxious and stressed. Yet humans, he said are naturally curious creatures who love change. ‘We learn 70–75 per cent of all we know in a lifetime before we are five years old,’ he said. That requires a great deal of change in a very short time and we don’t hear babies and toddlers telling us that change brings them stress and anxiety. So where does it all go so wrong? ‘It’s all about the perception of change,’ says Gerver. ‘If we feel change is being forced on us or we are being ‘done to’, then change will not be welcome,’ he said. ‘Instead we will resist the changes,’ he said. To be successful, change, according to Gerver, has to be proactive not reactive. In the case of policy announcements teachers are expected to make changes in reaction to the policy initiatives, rather than generating new ideas alongside the policy makers. That is why so many government policy initiatives are not successfully implemented. Gerver went on to describe the conditions that make change not only possible but constant because the process is subtle and organic. It’s about developing a culture of action research where we are continuously questioning each other’s practice, where creativity flourishes and everyone is encouraged to think that ‘anything’s possible’. It is a culture in which the leader courageously holds firm to the vision, has high trust in the staff and empowers others to own and manage their own ideas and develop their own innovations. A successful culture for change has three key elements, according to Gerver. These are clarity or knowing what you stand for, coherence or ensuring that the internal and external behaviours match what you stand for and leadership which symbolises your values. In such a culture, Gerver told his audience, there is no room for an attitude of always ‘getting things right’ and being ‘scared of getting things wrong’. We have to reimagine the ‘currency of clever’, he said, and recognise that learning is at the point of error, not at the point we get it right. Self-management is at the heart of creating this culture of organic, indecipherable, subtle change and Gerver used the example of one of the world’s most illustrious entrepreneurs Steven Jobs to illustrate his point. Jobs famously once said ‘If
Children entertaining with a Pasifika flavour
Mo Fox getting ‘wicked’
we’re to be developers, inventors and innovators, we can never employ anyone who needs managing.’ So if we aspire to produce distinguished entrepreneurs our schools need to adopt a culture of change where both staff and students have the freedom to practise self-management. Mo Fox The queen of creative strategizing and problem solving, Mo Fox was the second key note speaker of the conference. Problem solving is not a new concept to the teaching profession. It is what teachers and principals do every day and it is a process commonly taught to our school children. The novelty Mo Fox presented was
Conference Dinner wouldn’t be complete without executive member Gavin Beere’s vocals
her concept of the ‘wicked’ problem and how to solve it. Problems, she said, come as three types. They are simple, complex or ‘wicked’. Simple and complex problems are objective and rational whilst ‘wicked’ problems are subjective, social and need a different approach. A simple problem, said Fox, is easy to solve, because it is predictable and obvious. It is like following a recipe to bake a cake. A complex problem is a bit more resistant to solving because it may be difficult at first to understand the problem. Complex problems are very rational but non-linear and may have many moving parts and hidden causes. An example of a complex problem is building a car or perhaps a skyscraper, she said, where you have to nut out functions and details, sort out a rational plan and action each component in a logical fashion. ‘Wicked’ problems depart from the objective rational and logical and resist definition, she said. They are subjective and as such are ambiguous, chaotic, continually shifting social problems. They might include the personal view points of many stakeholders, have no precedent, be non-quantifiable and there is no right or wrong answer to a ‘wicked’ problem. They can become very difficult to deal with, especially if we try to treat them as simple or complex problems because they simply are not rational or logical and will not respond to those thought processes. So what does a ‘wicked’ problem look like? Examples include culture, changing beliefs, values and behaviour, innovation, engagement and leadership. An example of a ‘wicked’ problem might be educating children. It’s one thing to engage with an individual child, said Fox, but how do you scale it up to a classroom, a school, a region? she asked. For many the answer lay in forming a system but Fox quickly discounted that option saying that systems had a high failure rate at 80–90 per cent. Mo Fox explained that with simple problems you just ask what the solution is and apply it. With complex problems you apply deductive, logical and analytical reasoning called systematic problem solving. ‘Wicked’ problems require a different approach. You have to define what the problem actually means. It requires you to ask what you want to create not what you want to solve. To deal to a ‘wicked’ problem you have to ask questions and listen. You have to pull the problem apart and remember that you can’t solve a ‘wicked’ problem, only make it better or worse. Fox offered a series of questions that you might ask in trying to establish whether or not your problem was of the ‘wicked’ variety. The audience however was more interested in moving on to the creative process. The process itself was difficult to define. You have to create a path she said. That means watching how things are shifting step by step and adapting accordingly. One thing, she insisted, was that you cannot do ‘wicked’ alone. Rather you do it with people. You work it out together, she said. Early steps might include asking what you want to create, with whom and for whom and what the next step might be. She used words like play, be curious, experiment, empathise and observe, envision the desired state, generate ideas and go beyond the usual. She suggested thinking about where else in your life you might be ‘doing wicked’ and transferring that experience to the new situation. It’s about acting, not analyzing, she said, where all you can take is the next step, ask if it makes the situation better and if so, take another step in the same direction. If it makes things worse you do something different. Remember, she said, your situation is unique. There is no standard process to apply to it. So you have to take a creative approach to reach an outcome. She concluded her address saying ‘It’s much like surfing.’
Patti Dobrowolski asks what sort of reality principals are after
Yes, everything is very fluid in the ‘wicked’ world of Mo Fox. Patti Dobrowolski Change and transformation were common key themes for conference speakers and business consultant Patti Dobrowolski presented her own version of creating change through pictures. She told her audience that traditional methods of making change were less likely to work because even when facing a life threatening illness, the odds of someone changing were 1:9. Assuming that you want to shift from your current state to some other, Dobrowolski outlined a way, through artistic expression, to facilitate the change. First, she said, you have to see it, then you have to believe it and finally you have to train your brain to execute the vision. ‘Drawing your current reality calms you down, changes your chemistry and turns this part of you into history,’ announced an energetic Dobrowolski. ‘Drawing your desired new reality tricks your brain, opens you up and fills you with optimism.’ The audience was invited to draw their own current school reality including what is going well, what is challenging, what makes them feel uncomfortable and to think about how collaborators might describe the current state of their school. Participants shared some of their realities including being time poor and having poor work/life balance. They were then instructed to imagine how they would like to see their school situation one year down the track. This time the drawings were of retirement activities, golf courses, world travel, freedom, happy and healthy families, schools leading the Ministry of Education, everyone reading the ERO report and smiling, creating a partnership and being sponsored by Samsung, spending more
time at the beach, creating ‘Disneyland’ schools where kids want to come to have fun. It was not difficult for the audience to ‘get the picture’. What was more difficult was sorting out the ‘bold’ steps to make the shift. Dobrowolski engaged her audience to list the steps which included committing to excellence, having a financial plan, taking risks, having clarity of purpose, having honest conversations with a selected few, decluttering, learning to say ‘no’ and having trust, for example, in the Ministry of Education’s stance. Action planning came next which involved taking each bold step and brainstorming a few smaller actions for each; choosing the top two bold steps and completing them immediately; revisiting the map each week, celebrating progress and identifying the next two actions. Because the imagined future reality is in pictorial form, Dobrowolski suggested that it be positioned where you could see it every day. When pressed, the pictorial genius could not explain why the pictures worked, only that they did. Brendan Spillane Brendan Spillane, of Irish heritage, residing in Australia, has had an extensive career in education as both practitioner and academic. He currently works as a consultant with high performing leaders in business, education and elite sports. Spillane explained that he expected high performers would all have superior will and discipline. Instead he found that they all had superior habits. The logic is they establish the habits so they are free to focus on the more important aspects of their performance. ‘They all have a bias for action,’ said Spillane, as he flashed a Guy Kawasaki quote across the stage screen which read, ‘You have to sit by the side of the river a very long time before a roast duck will fly into your mouth.’ Like Kawasaki, high performers are out there making their own success not waiting around for something to happen. Spillane then outlined some of the characteristics of high performers. They are driven by ownership, acceptance and responsibility. Blame, excuses and denial are completely foreign concepts in their lives, he said. These drivers shape the foundation of his own perspective on successful leadership. As other speakers before him, Spillane placed ‘vision’ and mental models at the top of his list of responsibilities for leaders. He warned his listeners not to be led into management detail and not to have an incessant focus on events and patterns of behavior because to be everywhere is to be nowhere. He counselled his audience to pay attention to six activities: 1. Connect with yourself and let your life speak. Find your joy, he said. When who you are is close to what you do, you know you have succeeded 2. Write down your vision and purpose. People with written goals are 39 per cent more likely to reach them. 3. Share your goals with a few people. Don’t locate yourself solely in your inner circle. People who report progress to others are 76 per cent more likely to achieve their goals 4. Prioritise and diarise. Design simple systems and structures that align with your vision and values and review your progress regularly. Be sure your diary reflects your strategy. Always remember the 80:20 principle which says a minority (20 per cent) of causes, inputs
Brendan Spillane warns of the technological invasion
or effort usually leads to a majority (80 per cent) of the results, outputs or rewards 5. Help those you lead to do the same. Be intentional about this and constantly ask ‘who will I be mentor to?’ ‘What will work for them?’ 6. Professionalise your health and be intentional about this too. Challenge your principals’ organisation to take up this issue on your behalf. Given the way modern technology dominates leaders’ lives, Spillane felt impelled to allocate a section of his address to technological issues. He had some harsh criticisms to share with his audience. ‘Technology’, he said, ‘speeds us up. We live in a frenzy of technology which threatens to entrench itself everywhere. What information consumes is the attention of its recipients. Thus wealth of information creates poverty of attention.’ He referred to this lack of attention as ‘the juggler’s brain’ where ‘there is no time to see the sunset because you are too busy keeping the balls in the air.’ Multi-tasking also came in for criticism with his comments ‘Multi-tasking equates with mediocrity. Not everything matters equally, he said, and if you care about something, never do it with other things.’ He then related the advance of technology to human relationships. ‘There is a global cooling going on,’ he said, ‘an iceage of the human heart.’ He said every new technology challenges us to ask whether it serves our human purposes. We are social animals, Spillane said, and haven’t survived
Keynote speaker Brendan Spillane enjoys breakfast with President Philip Harding
present members of the NZPF executive and insisted ‘I want to work with you.’ ‘We are a small, smart and sassy country of migrants,’ she said proudly, and proceeded to explain that here in New Zealand we have good values, skills and a great education system. She added that we are also a diverse and culturally aware country and we are moving across a continuum from awareness towards responsiveness. We have self-determination, she added and our education system has great architecture. She listed five education leadership positives: Principals are responsible for the multiple challenges and expectations and they bring strength, passion and energy to meeting them. ‘You are the spice’ she said. ■■ Principals provide programmes from a rich and broad curriculum to engage every one of our young people ■■ Principals have embraced information and inquiry through data and information ■■ Principals embrace change every day including the fear of change and get shifts in achievement, engagement and attendance ■■ Principals engage with their communities who have high expectations ■■
Minister Parata addresses the audience
because of a competitive gene but rather because we are collaborative. Without the social connections there is not much for us. In Spillane’s view it is therefore relationships that count and face to face communication with people will never be surpassed by technological alternatives. He outlined five exemplary practices which support good leadership. They included modelling the way, inspiring through a shared purpose, challenging the process, enabling others and encouraging from the heart. These practices are also based on the establishment of sound open and honest relationships, consistent with the principles he initially expounded including encouraging ownership and being responsible. He concluded his address with a reading list which he recommended to his audience: Nicholas Carr, ‘The Shallows – What the internet is doing to our brains’ Sherry Turkle, Alone together – Why we expect more from technology and less from each other Simon Sinek, Leaders eat last – Why some teams pull together and some don’t Brené Brown, Daring Greatly – How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent and lead No conference is complete without a word or two from the Minister of Education and Minister Parata did not disappoint Minister of Education Hekia Parata Given the proximity of the conference to the general election the Minister was not about to drop any bombshell policy announcements. Instead she chose to focus on the positives, opening her address with an acknowledgement of the past and
‘Thank you to you all,’ she said generously. She then outlined a couple of aspirations of her own. ‘We want to connect chapters of kids’ learning, from Early Childhood Education to Tertiary. To do this we will have to ‘Navigate new pathways,’ she said, invoking the theme of the conference. We want to be nation-builders,’ she concluded, ‘and you play an important part in that.’ The 2014 conference was not thronging with the tens of hundreds of principals that some conferences attract. The three hundred odd visitors experienced a unique warm southern welcome and over the three days, had the opportunity to connect with many of the delegates and speakers. It was a friendly, unrushed and inclusive conference where many took the opportunity to form groups and explore the region’s natural features including Bluff, Stewart Island, the Catlins and more. Few will forget the regional team cycle races in the velodrome or the exquisite food, the blue cod, oysters, venison, wild duck and of course the uniquely Southland cheese rolls. Thank you Southland for a great conference.
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