Generative Professional Learning
At NSDC’s 2005 Annual Conference keynoter Beverly Daniel Tatum told participants, “We teach who we are,” a reminder of the importance of educators’ inner development as well as their acquisition of “external” knowledge and skills. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, another keynoter at that conference, pointed out that teaching is a “deeply relational activity” and emphasized the importance of respect in teaching and all other human interactions. In her speech, Lawrence-Lightfoot used the phrase “generative professional learning,” a term that resonated with me. My notes from the conference indicate that once back home I consulted my dictionary and added in the margins that “generative” means “having the power or function of generating, originating, producing, or reproducing” and that “generate” means “to bring into existence.”
I was motivated to retrieve my 2005 conference notes when I recently reread Thich Nhat Hanh’s No Death, No Fear. Hanh, a Buddhist monk, points out that “Just because we do not see something does not mean that it doesn’t exist.” To illustrate he offers the example of a room without a TV or radio in which one might reasonably claim that TV and radio signals do not exist. “But all of us,” he observes, “know that the space in the room is full of signals. The signals are filling the air everywhere. We need only one more condition, a radio or a television set, and many forms, colors, and sounds will appear. It would have been wrong to say that the signals do not exist because we did not have a radio or television to receive and manifest them.” Hahn uses the term “manifest” to describe the processes through which latent and invisible forces becomes visible and active.
Schools, I believe, possess latent and often recognized potential—which could be thought of as invisible signals—for improved performance. Professional learning designed to release this potential would recognize and tap the talents and strengths that already reside in the school community rather than produce dependence on outside expertise, an unintended but not uncommon byproduct of traditional forms of staff development. (See my JSD interview with Jerry Sternin, who pioneered the Amplifying Positive Deviance approach to reform.) Such professional learning would also develop and refine, through intellectually rigorous, team-based activities, the otherwise unarticulated forms of “craft knowledge,” wisdom, and professional judgment that are essential to successful teaching and school leadership.
Viewing professional learning as manifesting that which is present but not apparent is a significant change in perspective from a conveying-the-information-through-presentations approach to staff development that continues to pervade our field. Skillful school and system leaders will manifest generative professional learning as they create school cultures that are appreciative, respectful, and oriented toward continuous improvements in teaching, learning, and relationships among all members of the school community.
As always, I invite your responses to the ideas I pose.
I was motivated to retrieve my 2005 conference notes when I recently reread Thich Nhat Hanh’s No Death, No Fear. Hanh, a Buddhist monk, points out that “Just because we do not see something does not mean that it doesn’t exist.” To illustrate he offers the example of a room without a TV or radio in which one might reasonably claim that TV and radio signals do not exist. “But all of us,” he observes, “know that the space in the room is full of signals. The signals are filling the air everywhere. We need only one more condition, a radio or a television set, and many forms, colors, and sounds will appear. It would have been wrong to say that the signals do not exist because we did not have a radio or television to receive and manifest them.” Hahn uses the term “manifest” to describe the processes through which latent and invisible forces becomes visible and active.
Schools, I believe, possess latent and often recognized potential—which could be thought of as invisible signals—for improved performance. Professional learning designed to release this potential would recognize and tap the talents and strengths that already reside in the school community rather than produce dependence on outside expertise, an unintended but not uncommon byproduct of traditional forms of staff development. (See my JSD interview with Jerry Sternin, who pioneered the Amplifying Positive Deviance approach to reform.) Such professional learning would also develop and refine, through intellectually rigorous, team-based activities, the otherwise unarticulated forms of “craft knowledge,” wisdom, and professional judgment that are essential to successful teaching and school leadership.
Viewing professional learning as manifesting that which is present but not apparent is a significant change in perspective from a conveying-the-information-through-presentations approach to staff development that continues to pervade our field. Skillful school and system leaders will manifest generative professional learning as they create school cultures that are appreciative, respectful, and oriented toward continuous improvements in teaching, learning, and relationships among all members of the school community.
As always, I invite your responses to the ideas I pose.
posted by Dennis Sparks at 10:16 AM
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