100 Posts in 100 Days
It was about February or March of 2021 and the world was still navigating pandemic life. I was continuing to work largely from home and leading the development of new approaches to teaching and learning in our school. I was also still thinking about the “word of the year” idea, which is essentially a form of a New Year’s resolution where an individual selects a word to focus on for the year. I frequently thought about the concept of interdependence.
“Dependence” is a reliance on someone or something
and “inter” means between,
so interdependence is a reciprocal relationship between entities.
I was thinking about this concept and it’s mutuality as a result of simultaneously being a member of multiple teams in our school, a common phenomenon for individuals in any school or organization. In this case, 2 teams were were working on the same work, but with different roles and responsibilities.
Our Teaching and Learning team was designing a new form of professional learning in our school. The group of coaches and curriculum coordinators were researching, learning, iterating, and ultimately developing coursework for all of our teachers. The vision for the workt had already been set in our school’s strategic plan work, but this team was charged with articulating the specifics and for carrying out implementation. Naturally, then, they were the team to recommend delivery models and design (which, by the way, is how we came up with our Professional Learning Design Principles outlined in this Edutopia post).
Our Academic Leadership Team (comprised of principals, associate principals, and school directors), was the group that had the responsibility for creating conditions and systems for the professional learning. They needed to approve the delivery design, organize schedules and logistics, understand the content themselves, and prioritize the content in their interactions with faculty and students. They needed to steward and champion the work.
Then and now, our teachers need to experience this professional learning as part of a coherent and connected system. They need to hear the same language from their academic leaders, from our coaches, and from our curriculum coordinators. They need to be using the same language and shared understandings with each other. What they don’t need is to think of our school’s work as “we do that with Teaching and Learning” or “we do that in our own division”. The only way for our teachers and our students to have this experience is for our various teams to operate interdependently.
I started thinking about interdependence in earnest in 2021 and I keep thinking about it. I keep thinking about:
- How individuals and teams in our school can work together mutually beneficial ways.
- How our strategic work can be designed and implemented so that we actually need each other to achieve our goals.
- My unique role in the school as someone who works closely with teacher leaders and with the academic leadership team. I think about the importance of communication, of skill development, and about distributed leadership.
I know I stand in good company with educators and other leaders around the world thinking about these ideas.
Over the next several posts, I intend to think more about interdependence, complex systems, leadership, and implementation. I haven’t stopped thinking about it for 16 months and I don’t think I’ll stop thinking about it any time soon.