During Boot Camp last week, Sheryl turned me on to Phillip Schlechty’s newish book “Leading for Learning: How to Transform Schools into Learning Organizations” and I had a chance to get through a chunk of it on the cramped, smelly plane(s) to Melbourne. In it, he makes a pretty compelling case that “reform” is really not going to cut it in the face of the disruptions social Web technologies are creating and that we really do have to think more about “transform” when it comes to talking about schools. There are echoes of Sir Ken Robinson here, and I’ve still got Scott McLeod’s NECC presentation riff on Christensen’s “Disrupting Class” on my brain as well, especially the “the disruption isn’t online learning; it’s personalized learning” quote. And while there are others who I could cite here who are trumpeting the idea that this isn’t business as usual, I think Schlechty does as good a job as I’ve seen of breaking down why schools in their current form as “bureaucratic” structures will end up on the “ash heap of history” if we don’t get our brains around what’s happening. In a sentence:
在上周训练营中，Sheryl用Phillip Schlechty的新书《领导学习：如何将学校转变为学习组织》打动了我，在飞往墨尔本空气恶劣的飞机上，我有幸读了该书的一大部分。其中，他讲了一个非常引人入胜的案例，面临社会性网络技术所创造的破坏，“改革”其实并不能将其切除，还有，关于学校，我们必须对“转变”进行更多思考。对此，Ken Robinson爵士进行了回应，而Scott McLeod的NECC演讲，对Christensen的“瓦解课堂”的评论仍萦绕在我脑海中，尤其是“破坏并非来自在线学习；而是个性化学习”这句话。还有很多宣称这并非传统事务的观点可以引用，不过我想就我所见，在分析为什么我们若不理解目前在所发生的情况，当前“官僚主义”结构下的学校终将淹没在“历史尘埃”中，Schlechty分析得非常到位。一言以蔽之：
Schools must be transformed from platforms for instruction to platforms for learning, from bureaucracies bent on control to learning organizations aimed at encouraging disciplined inquiry and creativity.
学校必须从教导平台转向学习平台，从一心想要控制的官僚机构转为以鼓励有序提问和创造力为目标的学习组织。
To that end, Schlechty refers to past efforts at reform as “tinkering toward utopia” and says that if we continue to introduce change at the edges, we’ll continue to spin our wheels. He says that schools are made up primarily of two types of systems, operating systems and social systems, and makes the point that up to now, most efforts to improve schools have centered on changing the former, not the latter. Here’s a key snip in that case:
因此，Schlechty将过去的改革努力称为“修补乌托邦”，还说，如果我们继续在边缘地带进行变化，那么我们将继续劳而无获。他说，学校主要由两种体系构成，运作体系和社会体系，他还指出，截止目前，大多数改善学校的努力都侧重于改变前者而非后者。在那个例子中，关键在于：
As long as any innovations that are introduced can be absorbed by the existing operating systems without violating the limits of the social systems in which they are embedded, change in schools is more a matter of good management than one of leadership. Such changes can, in fact, be introduced through programs and projects and managed quite well by technically competent people who are familiar with the new routines required by the innovations and skilled in communicating to others what they know.
只要引入的创新可以被现有运作系统吸收而不违反它们所处社会制度的极限，学校改变的本质，与其说是领导，不如说是良好的管理。实际上，这些改变可以通过计划和项目引入，由胜任的技术人才妥善管理，这些人才熟悉创新所要求的新规定，也善于与他人交流自己掌握的东西。
In these cases, while it is sometimes difficult to break old habits, usually after a brief period of resistance, old certanties are abandoned and new certainties are embraced. For example, teachers now routinely use PowerPoint slide shows where once they used overhead projectors and slate boards. The reason this transition was relatively easy to accomplish is that it did not change the role of the teacher. Indeed, PowerPoint makes it easier for teachers to do what they have always done, just as a DVD player is easier to use than a 16 millimeter projector. Moreover, the technical skills required to use a PowerPoint slide show are easily learned and communicated, making the process of diffusion relatively simple.
在这些情况下，虽然难以打破旧习惯，通常在短暂的抵抗之后，旧的确定性被放弃，新的确定性受到欢迎。比如，现在老师们都用PowerPoint幻灯，而从前都用投影仪和黑板。这个转变相对容易，原因在于它没有改变老师的角色。实际上，PowerPoint让老师一直所做的事情变得更简单，就好像DVD播放机比16毫米的投影仪好用。还有，使用PowerPoint幻灯所需要的技能比较容易学习沟通，让传播过程相对简单。
But when innovations threaten the nature and sources of knowledge to be used or the way power and authority are currently used and distributed–in other words, when they require changes in social systems as well as operating systems–innovation becomes more difficult. This is so because such changes are disruptive in inflexible social systems.
但是，当创新危及所用知识的本质和来源时，或者目前能力和权力使用及分布的方式——换言之，当它们要求社会体系和运作体系都变化时——创新变得愈加困难。之所以如此，是因为在毫不灵活的社会体系中，这些变化具有破坏性。
So, from the social media standpoint, the message here is clear. This isn’t about doing what you’ve always done as a teacher or as a school. It challenges those social constructs in the classroom and in the system, and therefore, these shifts are going to be much harder to embrace. Channeling Christensen, he says that existing organizations seldom successfully adopt truly disruptive innovations, and that it’s easier to build something new than to change the old. And if you listened to Scott’s presentation, you get the idea that the time is ripe for those innovative systems to form and flourish in education. (My question is whether commercial interests will be at the heart of those efforts.)
所以，从社会媒体的立场看，此处的信息很清楚。这不是做你作为老师或者学校一直做的事情。它挑战教室和系统中的这些社会结构，因此，这些改变难以得到拥护。按照Christensen的说法，现有组织很少成功地采用真正毁灭性的创新，创建新事物比挑战旧事物更容易。如果你听了Scott的演讲，你就会明白，这些创新体制形成繁荣的时机已经成熟。（我的问题是这些努力的核心是否是商业利益。）
What I really like about this argument so far, however, is that while the thinking is rooted in the affordances of the technologies, Schlechty also makes the case in the context of citizenship in a democracy as well as a moral imperative that we create citizens who “have discoverd how to learn independent of teachers and schools.”
不过，这个论点真正让我喜欢的地方是，虽然这种观点的根源在于我们能够负担得起各种技术，Schlechty还将其放在我们培养“已经发现如何独立于老师和学校学习”的公民这一迫切的民主道德要求下的公民身份背景之中。
Many Americans fear that an inadequate system of education will compromise America’s ability to compete in a global economy [hearing Friedman here]. In fact, they have more to fear from the possibility that young people who graduate will lack the skills and understandings needed to function well as citizens in a democracy. Americans have more to fear from the prospect that the IT revolution will so overwhelm citizens with competing facts and opinions that they will give up their freedom in order to gain some degree of certainty than they have to fear from economic competition around the world. Leaders should be far more concerned that Americans will cease to know enough to preserve freedom and value liberty, equity, and excellence than they are with how well American students compare on international tests. As numerous scholars have shown, authoritarian leaders and charlatans thrive in a world where ordinary citizens are overwhelmed with facts and competing opinions and lack the ideas and tools to discipline thier thinking without appealing to some authority figure for direction and support. [Emphasis mine.]
很多美国人担心教育体制不充分会危及美国在全球经济中的竞争能力[点此听弗里德曼的演讲]。其实，他们更应担心毕业的年轻人缺乏民主社会合格公民所需的技能和认识。比起担心全球经济竞争，美国人更应该担心，IT革命会以充满竞争的事实和观点使公民受到如此冲击，以至于他们将放弃自由以获得某种程度的确定性。领导们应该更关心保护自由、重视自由、平等和卓越，而不像现在这样关注美国学生在国际竞赛中表现如何。如无数的学者都表明，在普通公民被事实和相互竞争的观点所压倒，缺乏理念和工具来训练自己的思想不向某个权威人士求助指引和支持的世界中，独裁的领导及其鼓吹者大行其道。
That resonates with me on so many different levels, on trying to navigate the arguments about global warming, for instance, or in attempting to explain the nuances of the world to my kids who more and more are coming to me with questions inspired by their interactions with online media. The key to this all, to me at least, and a piece that I don’t think Schlechty gets, is that much of that now is dependent on our “network literacy” in terms of building our own personal systems of filters and sources that are balanced and open.
这在各个层面都让我产生共鸣，比如探讨全球变暖的问题，比如尝试向我的孩子们解释这个世界的微妙之处——他们越来越多地跟我探讨他们受在线媒体互动所激发的问题。所有这一切的答案，至少我认为，也是我认为Schlechty未提及之处，就是在建造我们平衡开放的个人过滤和资源体系中，很多都取决于我们的“网络文化程度”。
The idea that schools become “learning organizations” is compelling in the way that Schlechty describes the shift.
学校变成“学习组织”的想法之所以吸引人，在于Schlechty表述变化的方式。
Schools will be places where intellectual work is designed that cause students to want to be instructed and will become platforms that support students in making wise choices among a wide range of sources of instruction available rather than platforms that control and limit the instruction available to them.
学校应该是这样的地方，学术工作的设计吸引学生想受教，学校应该成为支持学生在众多教学资源当中作出明智选择的平台，而不是支配限制可用教学的平台。
That “vision” started me thinking again about what our expectations are for teacher “learning” and the ways in which we might move toward a culture that celebrates and models and makes transparent learning in every corner. One thing that I constantly hear from Sheryl is the idea that we need to see teachers as leaders and as learners, not just teachers. That’s such a huge shift here, one that we talked a lot about and struggled with in Boot Camp. And it all makes me wonder what the next decade or two will bring.
此“愿景”让我再次思考我们对教师“学习”期望如何，对于在每个角落里迎接、打造、形成透明学习的文化的接近方法又期望如何。我经常听Sheryl提及的一个想法是，我们需要把老师当成领导和学习者，而不仅仅是教书匠。这是一个巨大转变，我们在新兵营就此谈论了很多，而且也有很多争论。而这一切都让我思考未来一二十年会有什么变化。
