Tag Archives: support

Martec’s Law in education

In “Martec’s Law: the greatest management challenge of the 21st century” author Scott Brinker states:

“Three years ago, I described a conundrum that I dubbed Martec’s Law:

Technology changes exponentially, but organizations change logarithmically.

As shown in the graph [below], we know that technology changes at an exponential rate. This is the phenomenon of Moore’s Law— and, more broadly, Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns. But we also know that human organizations don’t change that quickly. Changes in behavior and culture take time. There are only so many changes in people, processes, and technology that an organization can productively absorb at once — at least without a major disruption.

So approximately speaking, organizations change at a logarithmic rate — much slower than exponential technological change.

In my opinion, Martec’s Law encapsulates the greatest management challenge of the 21st century: how do we manage relatively slow-changing organizations in a rapidly changing technological environment? It is a hard problem.”

I think this is something significant to consider in education. Schools tend to change quite slowly. It takes a very long time to change curriculum. Textbooks are a sunk cost on a fixed learning tool. Technology costs money and there are limited funds. And access to technology needs to be safe, and keep student information private.

Training is also a challenge. When a new technology is added to an organization, many employees get on-the-job training to learn how to use the technology appropriately. Often between 25-40% of the cost of a new tool could be put into training. That doesn’t happen in education. Teachers are in front of students daily; The technology itself tends to be 90%+ of the funding cost; and teachers get limited training and professional development.

Martec’s Law: “Technology changes exponentially, but organizations change logarithmically,” is exaggerated in education making adaptation to technology much slower. To appropriately integrate new technology requires systems thinking about how to scale.

I used to think that fearless ‘techie’ teachers, the innovators and early adopters, were the ones who really move education forward. I still see how they play an important role, but they transform classrooms not schools, much less districts. Now I see the value of district-wide initiatives where every teacher is given a minimal amount of access and training… in the same tools. Because tech support can’t be sustained when every teacher wants full access (cost and support) to the newest shiny technologies.

Large organizations with rich budgets only advance logarithmically while technology advances exponentially, so to expect schools to do the same on more limited, government funds is hardly realistic. Yes we need the outliers who will try new tools and share their knowledge, but we also need system wide support and training, on tools that are safe and educationally sound.

This is getting harder because technology today is less about purchasing tools and more about subscriptions. A single overhead projector can last a decade with a bulb change or two. A laptop can last 4 years. But a subscription to a tool that teachers become dependent on will have a yearly cost to it. And if that tool isn’t supported at the district level, then that leads to frustrations for educational leaders, teachers, and students alike.

Schools are not about kids having access to all the newest tech tools, they are places where kids learn to think critically and creatively, and to effectively use the tools available to them. Providing access to technology equitably requires sunk costs in tools, and subscriptions, with some training and support. Recognizing that the newest tech will almost always be out of reach for schools doesn’t mean they are falling behind, when even large high-budget organizations have difficulty keeping up. Rather, it’s districts and schools with vision about how to move forward as an entire organization that will keep up as technology exponentially changes.

You don’t know

One of the challenges of being an educator… Sometimes you don’t know.

You don’t know that the way you say something triggers a kid.

You don’t know that a kid missed breakfast, or that they didn’t have anything in the house they could have for breakfast.

You don’t know that after school they have to fend for themselves, and maybe a younger sibling too.

You don’t know how abusive a parent is.

You don’t know how stupid a kid feels.

You don’t know how crippling perfectionism is.

You don’t know the root cause of misbehaviour.

You don’t know the bullying was happening until it went too far.

You don’t know how important your validation is.

You don’t know how hard the learning challenges really are.

You don’t know that the distracted kids really wants to pay attention but the distractions are too loud in their heads.

Sometimes you don’t know what you needed to know about a kid to be a better teacher for them.

Ah, but then sometimes you don’t know…

How appreciated you are. How much you are looked up to. How valuable your connection is to a kid for whom you are the only caring adult that listens to them.

Sometimes you don’t know that the joke you shared in class was the only smile a kid had that day. That you make a kid feel smart. That you are the only person to give a kid a 4th chance because life isn’t baseball and no kid deserves only 3 strikes.

Sometimes you don’t know how valuable you are to the kids, the families, and the community you serve.

The learning cliff

Whenever I am talking to new or potentially new employees of our online school I share the idea of a learning cliff. We all know about a learning curve… when you are learning something new, there is an effort you have to exert as you gain knowledge and learn how to use new systems and tools available to you. There’s a slow uphill climb to learn the new job. But some jobs have a few too many systems to learn just by doing things once. I call this the learning cliff.

In a new position you’ll inevitably get to a point where you don’t know how to do something and you need to ask for help: This is true for both the learning curve and the learning cliff… With the learning curve , you ask, you learn, and you don’t need to ask again. But in an organization where too many things are new, you try to absorb so much information at once that you don’t actually remember the help you got the next time you have to deal with the same situation… You asked, you got the help you needed, but you didn’t actually learn because your brain was taxed with too much new information to retain one more thing. So a few hours, days, or weeks later you have to ask the same question again.

You’ve left the learning curve and hit the learning cliff. I tell my new employees that with so many new systems to learn, we have all hit those cliffs and every one of us knows you will too. So, ask again. Ask a third time. We won’t judge. We remember hitting the cliff ourselves. We know you feel bad having to ask again when you feel you should know. We know you can’t, just like we couldn’t, remember everything and need to ask again. We expect it and want to assist you.

A learning cliff is not a scalable slope without help, so let us help you over the edge, and when you come back to the same issue, or a new one, and it’s still not a traversable slope… ask again. We are expecting it and happy to help.

Lack of Resourcefulness

Working with kids, I sometimes see a pattern where students who struggle would avoid their own struggles by trying to help others. They can’t get their own struggles in order so they try to become the helper and healers of others. It’s easier to be the saviour than the person needing saving. The endorphins from being needed masks the depressed feelings of needing help and feeling helpless.

But when this happens, the kid doing the helping and avoiding their own work that needs to be done is not resourceful enough to actually help the other kid. They are just helpful enough to create a dependency, to build a mutual reliance on each other, with the co-dependent relationship being the only real benefit.

Now you’ve got two kids that both need help, but they look to each other for that help, rather than looking to someone that can really help them. Furthermore they are now both avoiding the work they need to do for themselves.

This is why students having at least one adult on the building that they have a positive relationship with is so important. Because kids don’t always have the resourcefulness to help other kids, and adults need to intervene when students are hindering growth by trying to help each other. But an intervening adult who doesn’t have a good relationship with the kid or both kids can actually embolden the unhealthy relationship between the kids.

This is one of the most challenging things to deal with in a school, when un-resourceful kids are trying to help each other in order to avoid doing the things they need to do to become more resourceful. It’s a cycle that needs to be broken or it can spread to even more kids. In the end, it’s about providing support and helping build resourcefulness rather than allowing un-resourceful kids try to help each other.

My first year teaching

The school changed designations from a junior high to a middle school and that change allowed all the teachers at that school to have priority moves… and move they did. 17 teachers left out of about 30, mostly choosing to get a high school job. That departure of teachers opened the door for me and about 12 or 13 other brand new teachers (as well as a few with less than a year’s experience) to join the school.

Imagine working in a school where more than half the teachers were new… it was amazing. I was arriving at school before 7:30 every morning to get my day ready, and I was seldom the only teacher there that early. I’d still be in my room between 4:30 and 5pm and so would other teachers. I’d visit a teacher around that time, see what they were planning, and they’d share their plans and resources with me. I’d do the same for them… often even if we were teaching different grades. Teachers with experience were even more helpful providing leadership, resources, and time to help anyone who asked.

We’d meet each other at after school professional development presentations. We’d socialize together, we’d organize amazing opportunities for students at the school. We all coached, we ran spirit assemblies, we dressed up in costumes for any reason at all to get students excited about school. It was absolutely exhausting, and absolutely wonderful.

I couldn’t imagine starting my career at a better place… and the teachers that were there are still some of my closest friends today. I got together with a few ‘originals’ that were at our school that year, and I was reminded of all the good times. I was also reminded of how challenging the kids were that year, the most challenging in our careers. And yet the memories that linger are so positive. It was such an amazing place to be.

Amazing Support

Isn’t it strange how we take the people around us for granted sometimes? It’s not intentional or hurtful. It’s not that we are taking advantage of them. We simply don’t recognize how the people around us support us, lift us up, nurture us, look out for us, and most importantly care for us. They are just there, doing what they do as a part of our work or family, and they make us better, make our jobs easier, and show kindness when we need it.

Remember to show your appreciation once in a while. Not because they went out of their way to support you… rather, just for consistently being there.

Kids will rise

We held iHub Annual last night. It’s our combined grad and award ceremony. Being a small school, we combined these two things so that our grads would have a larger audience. We’ve grown a bit and this year we decided that our grad families would be the only ones invited to watch live, and we hosted YouTube Live video show as well for the rest of our students and families.

Overall the event ran very well. I’m so often impressed by the students who run these shows in the background, the presenters, and the performers. There’s a certain feel these shows have when they are student run. Kids aren’t perfect, but the step up, they rise up to the occasion… and frankly, they often do so better than the adults. Case in point, I had the biggest flub of the night, not any of the kids.

One of the things about our award ceremony that I like is that we focus the awards on how students contribute to the community. Using our motto of ‘Dream, Create, Learn’ we title the awards under those words, looking at: how students Dream up ways to make the school and world a better place; how students Create outstanding projects; and, how they demonstrate their Learning.

Looking at a school with just 81 students, it’s great that we had 24 of them nominated for awards. Seeing the kinds of things they do in school is nothing short of amazing. These kids really put efforts into their projects and their passions. They are all on journeys to do great work and share their accomplishments.

This isn’t a school where kids spend all day following their teacher’s assignments and handing in work that looks like everyone else’s work. This is a school where students get to explore interesting self-chosen projects, and the results show that this is what’s valued at our school.

I was originally against the idea of holding an award ceremony. They are often just about highlighting the already successful kids that get recognized by their marks, and everyone knows who will get an award. But last night, and at our previous award events, there were students mentioned that normally wouldn’t be recognized in a traditional award ceremony. Students who have been given the freedom to explore their interests and students who step up to make the school great… even if they don’t shine academically.

By showcasing that contributions to our community matter we get kids wanting to contribute to our community. By sharing how important that is to us, other students see that we value it, and they too rise up.

I was worried that after 2 years of pandemic mode, and keeping kids separate in individual classes, that we’d lost the community feel of the school. But a couple weeks ago we had a cross-grade project that all our students participated in. Then last night seeing the students work together to run the event, and seeing the student projects shared, and the performers giving their all, I realized that we still have a strong community. And, our students are still stepping up and contributing to be creative and do good work.

If you create the time, space, and expectation for students to be creative and do great work, they will. I can’t wait to see what’s possible next year, when things go further back to normal. I suspect that next year the kinds of things we’ll see from our students will be far from normal… they will be exceptional.

Homework (again)

I wrote this about Homework, 11 years ago today.

“I question the value of most homework.”

The post shared a scenario where a Math teacher gives homework out and only 30% of the class gains from the practice. Do the math… That’s 21 out of 30 kids not getting much value out of the assigned the work.

The post also talks about how ‘equal’ is not equal to ‘fair’, and giving the same homework to every student isn’t fair when one student can do it unassisted in minutes, and for another the same homework would take an hour with help.

In August of last year I shared another post on homework and imbedded a Tiktok where a parent basically says the purpose of homework is to condition students to do unpaid overtime at home. And then I list: “When is homework a valuable use of a child’s time?”

My first response on the list: It usually isn’t.

It usually isn’t. 11 years later I still question the value of most homework. Let kids be kids at home. Want them to do homework, create something they actually want to do at home. Otherwise, teach them what they need to learn at school.

Teach them how to manage their time well. Teach them it’s ok to ask questions when they don’t understand something. Teach them to focus on something for a concentrated amount of time and then to take a brain break. Teach them to teach something in order to learn it. Teach them habits that help them get work done when it needs to get done. And then let them be kids at home.

Just show up

I shared this in an email home to parents recently:

While I know this has been a challenging year for many students and families, I think it’s important this time of year, as we head into a report card next week, to remind families of how important attendance is at our school. Students with significant absences tend to fall into a very unhealthy loop that includes:
Falling behind in work; Telling parents they work better at home, but missing key instructions to help them at home; Not getting the support they need; Not feeling good about being behind and finding reasons to avoid school.

Ultimately, we can’t help students that aren’t here at school, and the best ‘medicine’ for a student with too many absences is a dedication to getting to school as long as health conditions don’t prevent it. This isn’t a problem we can find a solution for without parent support. Please contact us if you’d like to discuss attendance further. I, or one of our team, will be contacting some of you after report cards go out.

—-

Report cards have now gone out and I will be calling a few parents to talk about concerns we have around poor attendance.

We live in a society now where there is so much pressure to do well; to be your best; to shine. It’s not easy. But sometimes the message doesn’t have to be ‘you are awesome’, ‘you have so much potential’, or ‘push yourself’. Sometimes the message of ‘just show up’ is all we need to hear.

  • Don’t plan an hour workout, just show up at the gym.
  • Don’t worry about how much you have to do, just start.
  • Don’t create a huge ‘to do’ list, pick 2-3 things you know you can get done and check those off… even if showing up is one of those things!

It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking, than thinking your way into a new way of acting. ~Richard Pascale

Just show up!

Good kid, bad choices

Sometimes good kids make bad choices. They do things they shouldn’t, and when they are caught they have to face some consequences. But when they do, it’s a lot easier to work with them, to come to an agreement about how behaviours need to change, when dealing with a good kid. It’s easier to work on what wrongs have to be righted, when you know they are good kids. It’s not hard to deal with good kids when they make bad choices, the bad choices don’t make them a bad kid.

The thing is… all kids are good kids. When you start with the premise that every kid is inherently good, then the important thing becomes dealing with the issue. The focus becomes restitution and not punishment. The discipline becomes logical consequences. The issues and circumstances that led the good kid to make bad choices becomes the thing being dealt with.

Making things right might include the student doing something they don’t want to do. It might include challenging consequences, this isn’t about giving a good kid a break. It’s about seeing the good in someone and asking ‘how can I help this kid see that they are good and help them realize they made a bad choice?’ It’s about making the situation better, then laying the groundwork for the student to make better choices the next time.

Good kid, bad choices. If that’s where the conversation begins, if that’s what you see, then the work done to make things better feels authentic, and is more likely to foster better behaviour in the future… Because you expect good things from good kids, and good kids learn to do good things when they believe they are good.