New Blog Address

I will like to thank everyone who had visited this blog, especially Stephen with his always timely, thoughtful and encouraging comments.

I have definitely benefitted with this deliberate reflective practice for the past few years and truly think that it is one of the easiest and most effective ways out there to really sharpen one's thinking. The cognitive process of putting our thoughts into words and having the courage to put them out there on the internet affirms and strengthens our own values and beliefs as a person, as well as an independent thinker.

With the benefits I had gained from the blogging exercise, I will continue to do so in my private practice as a visual artist. As the content may no longer be based solely on education, I thought it is more appropriate to set up a new blog for this. For those of you who are interested, you may want to follow me at http://31images.wordpress.com/ and I will be most happy to hear your comments. :)

Thank you for the journey my dear friends, which I have full of fond memories. I wish all of you the very best as you forge ever forward.

How real are the problems?

Designs are proposed solutions to problems. If you want anyone to be convinced that the proposed design is worth spending time and effort on, the problem has got to be real. The more authentic and pressing the problem is, the more reassuring is the ease proposed by the design.

I think that by and large, many people fall too quickly into a reactionary mode when an initiative or new idea is proposed from the top. Almost immediately I can imagine them asking questions like "How do we incorporate that?", "What needs to be done?" Important operations questions of course, but none more critical than knowing the answer to why we are doing it. Having a true understanding of the reasons why we are doing something anchors our inner purpose to our actions, ingredients necessary for self motivation and growth.

When an aide came over very recently to help us out on matters concerning mentoring, I was quite appalled by her stance that one does not need to know the reason behind why they are trying out new ideas or methods. That compliance is actually a preferred route to action.

Will such mentality help us to be more persuasive to motivate our team to adopt new ideas? Come on. Don't go the easy way. From Stephen Covey to Simon Sinek, so much has been mentioned about the critical need for inner congruence. And how are we supposed to do that if we do not ask the right questions?

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Believing that they can

The highlight for me last week was when a pupil texted me over the weekend and told me that he got selected into Ngee Ann Poly's School of Film, Sound and Video via DPA. That pupil who got selected could not believe it was real and I was simply estatic knowing about it. It is his dream place to be, a place where he will be in constant companion to all things film and video.

To boost his confidence prior to the interview, I gave him some NLP pointers to prepare his mental state when facing the interviewers. In such a short encounter to something so important, optimal experiences to the interviewers are crucial. It is all about the selling of certain ideas, the ideas that he is a well deserved candidate that the Poly will not want to miss out, that a person of his talent will be able to soar under the professional guidance of the faculty.

I was curious about what happened after the interview but the pupil was somewhat dejected initially, knowing there were only 3 seats available in the DPA programme and with the number of pupils from the 'elite' schools which he saw, thought that his chances were slim. And to make matters worse, he thought he answered the interviewers' questions inaptly. When I probed about what were the questions asked, I found out that the interviewers did in fact had a sustained interest in finding out more from him, as they saw the short film he had prepared and asked him many industry related questions which he has knowledge or opinion on. And many days later, it proved that it was in fact good enough to impress them to open their doors.

Ahhh... Decisions to act is immensely important, much more so when compared to talent just sitting idle. This is so coincidentally linked to the subject of my previous post. I had a conversation with the pupil in school to congratulate him again and asked him to take time to appreciate his effort. It was only a few years ago when this young man had lots of trouble convincing his parents about what he wants to do in his life. And he had, with persistence, successfully persuaded them that he is serious about this course of action and is ready to work hard for it.

It is just one pupil over here. But his decision to believe what he can do have already altered his life.

Something more important than Talent

I was invited to an ex-student's scholarship presentation ceremony last week. She is going to be reading her Fine Arts degree at the prestigious Goldsmith College in London, Alma mater to many world renowned artists. I am really happy and proud of her achievement, and I am sure the oversea experience in a place packed with the most creative people in the world will deeply enrich her perspective of the art world.

I took the opportunity to have a chat with her parents over tea reception and found out from her mother that the artistic trait in her started when she was very young, where she would enjoy assembling and creating things from home. She is very fortunate to have a supportive mother who had identified and supported her creative talents from a tender age, encouraging her to choose her path based on her inherent strengths, and not be burdened with the 'practical' aspects of life and playing everything 'safe'.

Talent is important but it is already there, something which we just have to take time to acknowledge and affirm. Something which is more important than talent is decision. The ability and courage to act upon an idea, rooted in a clear belief in what it means.

As Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, shared in a commencement speech in Princeton recently, it is us who will have to answer the quiet voice in our heads when we are late in our lives, about what we have done with the time that was given to us. That our lives are essentially a collection of decisions we have chosen to make.


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Videos taking off

Quite happy that a couple of colleagues approached me about the mechanisms behind video analysis of classroom teaching. One was trying to introduce this manner of feedback to the rest of her team while the other was trying to coach a more junior officer under his guidance. I was more than happy to share the video analysis template with both of them and was delighted to find out from one that the mechanism was useful in guiding some self directed changes.

I believe the real change can only happen when it had been internalized. A reflection of what actually happened, not masked by any indirect modes of communication nor interpretation, revealed right as it is. Grasping a sense of reality which prompts one to ask questions, questions which will probably create a change in one's decision to do things differently in the hope of gaining a different, and more desirable outcome.

Video analysis is a mirror test that we must have the professional courage to face, with good confidence that it will help us align what we expect ourselves to be with what it actually meant in reality.


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The Nike+ in Education

The wave of success brought about by the Nike+ fitness system has brought about significant changes in the manner sports enthusiasts take ownership in how they see and track their own growth. May it that they are seeking to increase their workout frequency, or that they are trying to improve their personal best in their next 10K race, it had been widely acknowledged that such ways of monitoring personal measurements have been instrumental in boosting individual performance and motivation.

Distances covered, heart rates, pace, timing and calories spent etc are all part of the pool of information wearers of Nike+ have easy reference to. Feedback information as detailed as these which used to be the privileged access of elite Olympic-class athletes, is now in the hands of the common man. How empowering technology is when it is widespread.

So what happens when the concept of Nike+ is adapted in schools? A series of measurements meant for it's people (both pupils and staff) to make meaning of so as to proper growth. What these measurements should be require deep discussion and thought. The roles and functions of a school is far more complex than the demands on any sporting activity. We are basically building a habitat. People are central to the 'prosperity' of our business.

Though a parallel comparison is unrealistic, there are many things which we can learn from the Nike+ success. The manner in which goals (few but highly focused) are so clearly decided, the ease in which information can be so easily made sense of, and the near invisibility of the system (almost no work is needed by the participants to make use of the data) at play. It is a good example of the mindfulness applied in the art and science of measurement.

When properly applied, collective information can be used as a credible reference behind a desire to succeed.


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ROWE in Schools

I came across a human resource management strategy called ROWE (Result-Only Work Environment) when reading Daniel Pink's international bestseller Drive. It challenges the effectiveness of the traditional carrot-and-stick notion of performance management in our current knowledge economy and proposes one where the emphasis is based purely on results. Employees in ROWE enjoy high degrees of autonomy in deciding on how they should be contributing to reach their objectives. The concept celebrates the trust in the diversity of strengths in human resources and sees each individual to be best apt in choosing his/her own course of action in dealing with the demands of their tasks.

There are numerous success stories in the corporate world where ROWE has proven significant performance gains, while also driving up employee satisfaction, a win-win situation that the carrot and stick model has proven not to be able to deliver.

I can immediately see the advantages of implementing ROWE in schools, and saw a parallel in concepts when reading about MET (Measures of Effective Teaching). MET at the moment studies 6 areas of information:

1) Videotaped classroom lessons

2) Teachers' reflections on their videotaped lessons

3) Student Feedback

4) Supplemental Student Assessments

5) Assessment of Teachers' Ability to Recognise and Diagnose Student Misconceptions

6) Teacher Surveys

Should we borrow the main concept behind MET and localise the set of measures in the context of our schools, we can actually devise a composite index which represents teacher effectiveness, the single most important factor that governs pupils' learning experience and performance in schools.

These clearly communicated goals can be the primary focus that teachers can have autonomy in deciding their courses of action and be fully accountable for in delivering the results. Growth patterns can be easily seen and the effects on pupils directly measured.