The why on why.

 I took a leap this week...I participated in #ldrchatnz for the first time. I know i'm my own worst enemy at times choosing to exclude myself from groups that i feel are concerned about matters that i feel I know very little about. This week I chose not to limit myself by listening to this habit.
As a teacher I am seen as a leader, and as a teacher I encourage my students to explore, learn and practice leadership skills, therefore not to challenge myself as I challenge my learners is contradicting a deeply embedded value i have as a person.

Leading has been in the forefront of my mind for most of my 5 yrs of teaching. During my time at Te Karaka Area School, under the guidance of Karyn Gray, leadership became in my mind less about status and more about action. Here learning to lead was nurtured through a culture of inquiry, reflective practice and trust and as I result i feel excited about sharing and nurturing leadership in those around me. It is an amazing legacy I know many others in Karyn's new kura (Haeata) will have the opportunity to experience.

In my new and exciting role as educator at Lytton High School, I am surrounded and supported by a team of educators that are exciting, experienced and engaging in a substantial transformation in the education experience. Wiremu Elliot (our Principal) said that many people likened this transformation to trying to upgrade a plane while its flying.. I liked this following response.. "we're not upgrading... we're completely redesigning our plane into the USS Enterprise! We need a system that will meet our learners needs in more than just  the environment we are familiar to... they are entering something that is unknown..we need to think multi-dimensionally."

Yeah.. I know I am exactly where I am meant to be.

A question came up during #ldrchatnz about resources and experiences. I saw this as an opportunity to think deeply about my initial weeks here at Lytton. I wanted to best articulate why I devoted almost 2 weeks towards talking about learning to learn, skills and thinking as opposed to content, achievement standards and credits. I felt  our learners understood enough what I was attempting to communicate. I know this because of the positive response i have received and continue to see from our Lytton learners and fellow staff. But until this morning I believe I hadn't accurately captured the ability articulate the connection between the what, the how and the why. 

Simon Sinek's ted talk about the golden circle has helped me to better understand the dynamics not just between the what and the why but also helped me to connect the apparent disconnect between the two halves or our New Zealand Curriculum document.

This Golden circle concept of action/ engagement is an insight that I want to share with others around me to nurture leadership as it has been with me. 

First and foremost I thought of my learners. We are currently developing sustainability projects based on the design thinking process. As an essential part of this process we use our empathy though connecting with our friends, whanau, and community members about what environmental issues are having an impact on our community? This is then followed by the ever important why do you feel this is? or why do you feel it is important? questions for the deeper sharing.  I liked how Simon explained the what zone in our brain. To me i saw a link to this and learning at a superficial level while the why results in action/behaviour... and no wonder why we at times struggle with articulating why they do what they do!! haha... 

As I learned about the golden circle I knew our learners would immediate see the value in this knowledge. In learning about our learners both in LHS and TKAS, I know many want to understand more about the why instead of the what. Perhaps is is a universal need for all learners. This is an example of the type of knowledge that is in my opinion transformative... perhaps even threshold concept quality of knowledge. This has been a profound insight for me.

I've also seen a link between the the Golden circle concept and our use of the NZC.

There are teachers that see the document from the what zone first (in my opinion these are the teachers that open the NZC from the back..) and those who see the document from the why. I'll het back to this... I see how our NZC needs to be understood better by all of us involved in education. I feel that i am now better equipped as an educator and leader to connect with those around me in an authentic, genuine way and that's awesome... 

Following this video I watched a spoken word poem by Prince Ea. Im adding this to the blog as an opportunity to explore the golden circle concept to the labels we place on people in our society.

Ive learned that many of our learners admire the messages this poet shares therefore well worth using for developing discussions in learning and very relevant to the why on why.