Tag Archives: responsibility

Too quick to ban

2 Replies

Laws create outlaws. The moment you’ve banned cell phones in schools is the moment you admit that you’d prefer teachers to police student rather than teach them.

15 years ago I was living in China and tried to share some sites where student reporters were reporting on the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, but the Great Filter Wall of China blocked the site. I wrote this, and created a little poster to go with it:

Now here is the thing… I chose to move to a country where a lot of sites get blocked. I can’t imagine what it’s like for teachers in the ‘free world’ that have their own school districts do this to them!

If you are in a school where filters filter learning, here is a little poster for you to hang up in your front entrance:

That was a different time, when people thought they could shield students from social media sites just by filtering them at school. But how far have we really progressed if what we are trying to do now is ban phones? Are we going to ban their smart watches too? Their smart glasses? Are we going to make classrooms electronic free zones? Oh, wait, why don’t we just ban their laptops too?

Gary Stager recently shared this on LinkedIn:

“Every media outlet and social media feed blames screens for all societal ills.(1) Go ahead, get the screens out of schools just like you did with books, musical instruments, & play. Just keep standardized testing and football! We have entered edtech winter. #discuss
(1) real or imagined”

I commented: “Come to Luddite High, where we prepare you for the previous century.”

I find it hard to believe we are here again. Going back to 15 years ago, I wrote, ‘Choose Your Battle‘, where I said,

Filters that also filter learning -or- High expectations about appropriate use?

Banning POD’s -or- High expectations about appropriate use?

Teaching without technology -or- High expectations about appropriate use?

And

So which battle will it be? Do we make classrooms a war zone? A battle zone to keep technology out? Or do we make it a learning zone? A place where we close the gap between digital distractions and digital classroom tools?

And shared this image:

Sarcasm aside, the point is that filtering and banning are not the solutions we need to be considering. What we need to teach is that there is a time and a place for tools in schools.

More recently I shared:

“With great responsibility comes great power”… that’s the reverse of the Spiderman quote, “With great power comes great responsibility”, and a teacher, John Sarte at Inquiry Hub, uses this to explain to students that while we give them a lot of time to work independently (a lot of responsibility) that comes with a lot of power.“

This applies to technology in the classroom too. We expect students to be responsible with their technology use. We give them the power to choose when it’s appropriate, we put the power in their hands… but when they show they are not responsible, when the abuse the power, we then become more responsible and take away their power.

When a Grade 9 student is working independently and I walk by them scrolling on their phone, I have a conversation with them about how they could be using their time more effectively and and ask them to put their phone away. When a I see a Grade 11 or 12 doing the same thing, I might or might not have the same conversation. If a kid hands everything in on time, shows pride in all their work, contributes well in class and in groups, and is not using their phone during a lesson or presentation… well then so what if when I walk by they happen to be taking a break? But if it’s a student who still hasn’t figured out how to get good work done on time, I’m definitely having the same conversation I had with the Grade 9. 

It’s a whole other story when a class is in session. At that point their needs to be a culture and expectation that the phone is either something being used for learning, as permitted by the teacher, or it’s put away. But to ban it… to remove it from schools… to have to police keeping them out of classrooms altogether, is a luddite style draconian policy that sets us back years if not decades. Schools need to be, “A place where we close the gap between digital distractions and digital classroom tools.” Not a place where we shelter students from tools they will be using everywhere else in their lives. 

The meaning of your communication

One of my favourite sayings, almost a mantra for me, is:

The meaning of your communication is the response that you get.

This message has two important parts:

1. It puts the responsibility of good communication on me as a communicator.

2. It focuses on the result of my communication.

If someone doesn’t understand my message (2 – result), then I didn’t communicate the message well enough (1 – responsibility).

It reminds me to be clear and concise. It reminds me to check for understanding. It reminds me to bite my tongue, and listen so that I understand the perspective of the other person. And it harshly reminds me that I’m imperfect at doing these things when I’m not understood and when I don’t take ownership of the miscommunication.

This is most important when dealing with difficult conversations.

I’m reminded of this coaching advice about verbal jujitsu:

It’s easy to blame someone else for poor communication, much harder to accept that we can control the narrative when we recognize that we are accountable and responsible for our good communication… And that in the end it’s the result matters. Not winning a point. Not blaming someone else for misunderstanding. Not getting the last word in.

Sub Rosa

Sometimes the hardest part of my job is not over-sharing. When I was a principal in China my wife was on my staff. Another staff member told me in confidence that she was pregnant. When she finally told everyone, my wife was the last to know. My pregnant staff member assumed I told my wife, but my wife was her colleague and so I kept the confidential announcement confidential.

Keeping things confidential is part of the job. While my wife understands this, not everyone does. Some people expect explanations, and when I can’t share it can then reflect poorly, or seem like I’m not making choices or decisions that would be expected. There is no easy or polite way to say, “None of your business.”

But there are times when the most prudent thing I can do is keep private information private, and speak only to those who have or need relevant information. It may not be popular, but necessary.

___

Postscript: This was written quite a while ago, but I chose not to share it at that time because the subject matter that inspired this post would have been obvious, and this is a public space that I choose to write in.

Can you drive me home?

I don’t pretend to be a perfect dad, but let me tell you one thing that I do that I’m pretty sure I’ve got right. Whenever one of my kids asks me to pick them up at the end of the night, my default answer is always ‘yes’.

My oldest shared this with me one night when I picked her and three friends up from a club… We just dropped the 3rd one home and my oldest said about the kids me we dropped off second, “You know what she said to me before you picked us up? She said, ‘I think you dad actually likes dropping us home’.” We had a good chuckle.

Yes, I do.

I want to be asked. I want to know they are getting home safe. I want them to plan ahead and ask me. I want them to know that I’m the backup if things don’t go as planned.

The fact is if I’m part of the plan, I know the plan is good. I know they aren’t driving with a designated driver that still had drinks, or left the party early. I know that my kids will call me if they feel stuck, or uncomfortable, or decide to leave before the person driving.

And I want them to know that I’m not rolling my eyes, or judging them, or doing it begrudgingly. As they get older, they aren’t going to come to you for the big things if they don’t feel like they can come to you for smaller things… And playing chauffeur for them every now and then in their late teens and early 20’s isn’t half the work that being chauffeur to sports and dance and musical theatre and singing lessons were when they were younger.

“Hey Dad, can you drive me and a couple friends home at midnight tonight?”

“Of course.”

The tightrope balance of parenting

Yesterday I recorded a podcast with Dave Sands and we discussed 7 PARENTING TIPS to help navigate the challenges of students LEARNING AT HOME during the Covid-19 pandemic. This got me thinking about how different kids are, and how hard it is to be the perfect parent for a kid.

Parents hold an imbalance of power over kids, who are in a constant state of growth. With growing up comes both more responsibility and more expectation of freedom. These things do not develop at the same speed, and our expectations will often be mismatched with our kids expectations. When it comes to how much choice and freedom kids are given versus how much of that choice and freedom they feel they deserve, parents will often think of the child they were dealing with a few months ago, while kids feel like they’ve grown up since then.

Some parents navigate this well, but many struggle. Some hold on to power over their kids to keep them safe. In doing so, they can create resentment because they are being too strict. Some parents give too much power to kids too soon, and kids tend to take advantage of that power and make poor decisions. Some parents get it right with respect to some expectations, and totally wrong with others. This can relate to chores, use of money, curfews and bedtimes, use of technology, eating habits, manners, homework, and all sorts of household rules and expectations.

The thing is, that some kids need more structure and more guidelines, and some kids need more freedom and choice, an it’s a tightrope balancing act not just to figure this out for a kid, but also to recognize that what works for one kid might not work for another… even in the same household with the same parents! To give a concrete example, one kid might need parameters around getting homework done, because without that support they won’t get it done, while an older or younger sibling might be able to do homework completely independently, without any parent supervision or support. Having different rules for these kids can create tension and so can having the same rules and not providing the freedom and responsibility that the more responsible kid deserves (especially if the one that deserves more freedom is the younger of the two).

So parenting tips are something that will always be tricky to give. What works for some, doesn’t work for all. That said, I really think Dave Sands and go over some ideas that are not prescriptive, but rather they are things to think about when trying to deal with kids learning at home… no matter how you currently parent or how good or challenging your kids might be. Here are the tips:

1. Manage Expectations
2. Make a Schedule
3. Minimize Distractions
4. Learning occurs everywhere
5. Set daily and weekly goals
6. All screen time is not created equal
7. Model learning.

I think there is something of value here for every parent. Please check the podcast out, and let me know what you think.