CORE INVESTIGATION

I am interested in the personal mastery levels of students.

Can we measure their engagement, their enthusiasm, and their capacity to make things happen?

In every classroom there will be a variety of levels yet perhaps there are some school designs that impact students more favorably.

Today I reflected on my progress- I wrote out a new illustration and had some good time to brainstorm potential questions.

But I am still overwhelmed thinking about all the adjustments I have to make to my chapters.

New Focus

This morning I woke up with some thoughts. My professors felt my dissertation was really bigger than one dissertation. They felt I needed to focus on one aspect of Personal Mastery from a student's perspective. They felt that this is an area of need since there is not a lot out there.

I thought focusing in on Personal Mastery was focused until I decomposed this construct into the elements of Awareness of Current Reality, Vision, Trust and Drive. So I want to focus on Drive. It is the key element that turns vision from wishful thinking to reality.

But I can't focus on just DRIVE because when you decompose this (it goes beyond Daniel Pink's work) there is a lot to study. So I will take the professors other suggestion and examine the student's perspective. Ultimately I believe the student possess vital information school leaders need in order to create the conditions that meet their needs. BUT we want more than to meet needs in our schools- we want students to THRIVE. To THRIVE it takes DRIVE.

So here is my newest attempt at a title:

FROM DRIVE TO THRIVE: How students perceive the educational system that surrounds them.

Here is my newest attempt at research questions:

1. What do students find engages them in schools?
2. Do students experience authentic, purposeful, and mastery in schools?
3. Do students trust schools?
4. Do students have hope?
5. Do students have internal locus of control

Well- Today I am going to study other research questions I found yesterday and I am going to read a dissertation about Covey's work and a Dissertation about the 5 Disciplines today.

Work Stoppage

I met with my dissertation committee a couple of weeks ago. It was a good meeting- lots of constructive criticism. I again must trim down the work in order to make it realistic. What was hard was the trimming seems to have an impact on my passion. It has been two weeks since I worked on this. I apologize for the sad tone- when I left the meeting they suggested that I trim out the autobiography section, the mathematical model section, the illustrations of the school system, the Covey/Baldrige section, and 3 out of the 4 elements of Personal Mastery (Trust/Vision/Awareness of Current Reality/Drive).

So I am going to attempt to pick up the work today. I will get some outlines to the committee and see what they think before I begin writing chapters 1-3 again. They would like a strong research question followed by a plan for the research.
So here are some thoughts from this morning:

How does a retained 3rd grader become an academic star?
How does the dumbest kid in class become a world renowned brain
surgeon?

The student in these stories took on more responsibility- their systems
changed because someone developed structures that required more. Someone
intentionally designed more responsibility for these students within their
systems. One at school while the other at home.

Today our country is looking at generations of African-American students
who are suffocating in our systems.

The problem is that our systems are not agile enough to meet the needs of
our children. We expect to have a zoo filled with penguins and can't figure out
why the giraffe's are dying.

How can we design systems that are more responsive to our students? Seek
first to understand. If we listen to them, maybe we can find out what is
missing- maybe we can find out what makes them flourish and thrive.

THRIVE- that is a word I want
to contemplate for a while. This is the essence of my passion. What does it take
to create conditions in which our children thrive...

There are systems that have promise because they intentionally design
systems that give voice to their students. Tools like issue bins, data
notebooks, and PDSA's are all means by which students gain power in educational
systems. These tools were used in business models for years to increase
productivity and ownership. This shift of responsibility is taking place in
schools that use Covey or Baldrige.

So my latest attempt at a research question is:
How do quality tools impact student engagement?

Executive Skills

It is exciting to read professional literature! Although the literature review process has been a little tough going because there is so much to learn, the discoveries I am making are inspiring. The September issue of Educational Leadership is filled with connections to this dissertation. In an article titled, Solving Problems that Count, author Dana Maloney writes about Pink and Senge within two paragraphs of each other! In the Responsibility Breakthrough ReLeah Cossett Lent writes about how a system that puts more responsibility for learning in the student's hands has given dramatic improvements in motivation and achievement! And there was another piece by Peg Dawson on Executive Skills for children. This work ties directly into the literature review section where I am writing about a child's capacity to plan, organize, and act influences their level of personal mastery. Here are some quotations that I like from the first chapter:

"Executive skills are what your child needs to make any of your hopes and dreams for his future- or his own hopes and dreams- come true." p, 13.

"you can't talk children into using skills they don't have... these are the fundamental brain-based skills required to execute tasks: getting organized, planning, initiating work, staying on task, controlling impulses, regulating emotions, being adaptable and resilient..."

"Thinking and doing go hand in hand. Very often we are teaching kids how to use their thoughts to control their behaviors."

"The thinking skills help children create a picture of a goal (vision) and a path to that goal (drive), and they give them the resources they'll need to access along the way to achieve that goal."

"When all goes as planned, we come up with ideas for things we need or want to do, plan or organize the task, squelch thoughts or feelings that interfere with our plans, cheer ourselves on, keep the goal in mind even when obstaclesm distractions, or temptations arise, change course as the situation requires, and persist with our efforts until the goal is achieved." p, 18.

"The frontal brain systems play a key role in the development of executive skills... kids who practice executive skills are not only learning self-management- independence- but in the process developing brain structures that will support their exectutive skills into later adolescence."

"[to teachers and parents] The work you do will always have two components: structuring the environment and directly supervising your child."

"As is the case with almost any set of skills, children have strengths and weaknesses that fall along a continuum."

I tie this into my contruct because I am arguing that peronal mastery depends on skills- and that these skills are at varying levels in our students. Schools can nurture and strenthen these skills.

Finally- the road from vision to reality includes a students capacity to plan, organize and act...

Sergiovanni Weighs In

I can't express how fortunate I am to have had a professor like Thomas Sergiovanni. I remember his passionate lessons on school culture. I remember him climbing up on a desk and pretending to surf- teaching us that sometimes all we can do is ride a school culture and not wipe out. It takes craftiness and wisdom- it takes compassion and honor. He taught us about moral leadership.

As I was reading through files for my dissertation yesterday I came across an article that completely astounded me. It is like the preface to my dissertation. I am so excited because this means his voice will echo in my work. I have been told his health is failing him these days- so this is one way I can honor him.

The article is called, The Virtues of Leadership. In this article he discusses hope, piety, faith and trust. In my work the thoughts around trust and hope are crucial. Earlier in my research I came across an article by Jeffrey M R Duncan-Andrade titles, note to Teachers: Hope Required When Growing Roses in Concrete. In which he distinguishes between hope that is hokey- or false and hope that is audacious or powerful. Dr. Sergiovanni explains how hope is crucial to the construct of personal mastery. Here are some of my favorite quotes:

Perhaps the most important, yet neglected leadership virtue is hope.

Hope can change things for the better.

Facing reality rather than relying on hope is to accept reality. Relying on hope rather than facing reality is to change reality.

He quotes the research of Menninger, Mayman, and Pruyser:

Realistic hope... is based on the attempt to understand the concrete conditions of reality, to see one's own role in it realistically, and to engage in such efforts of thoughtful action as might be expected to bring about hoped-for change. The affect of hope, in this case, has an activating effect. It helps mobilize the energies needed for activity.

The activating effect of hope makes the difference.

Wishful leaders ... take no deliberate action. Hopeful leaders react actively to what they hope for and deliberately strive to turn hopefulness into reality.

WOW- The construct I am working from today involves Personal Mastery being made up of a TRUST a person has in the system connected with a person's AWARENESS of their current academic reality that is different from a person's VISION of what could be all acted upon by a person's DRIVE to move from the current reality towards their vision.
Sergiovanni is arguing that hope is a crucial factor. Although I can see hope fitting in with the Trust section and the Vision section, I believe hope will fit best in the Drive section because that is where efficacy and action capacity factor in. His later thoughts also tie into the Drive section:

Turning hope into reality is a deliberate process that requires answering the following questions:
-What are your goals? Goals are what we hope for.
-What are your pathways? Pathways are the routes we take to realize our hopes.
-How committed are we to agency- to actually doing something to realize our hopes? Agency is the determined and persistent efforts to travel the pathways.
-Is efficacy present in sufficient strength? Efficacy gauges the extent to which we believe that we can make a difference- that our efforts will be successful.

Sergiovanni writes about a commitment to responsibility. Students have choices to make about their levels of commitment. He writes about their confidence in their capabilities. He writes about their ability to set goals and plan action steps. These are all integral parts of the work I have been doing with Senge's personal mastery.

I want to investigate how schools are inspiring hope and personal mastery.

This is getting good people, this is really getting good!

AHA!- Self-Determinedness

Two nights ago I had this AHA moment... I have been reflecting on how Covey's work and Senge's work are around the same construct... being self-determined. My current school has focused on this construct so it was probably on my brain when I began researching this week.

Covey's first three habits are about a person taking responsibility for their lives. The habits teach you how to reflect and develop a personal vision, create a plan for that vision, and prioritize your life to reach that vision. Senge's personal mastery construct are about being aware of where you currently are and being able to develop a vision for where you would like to be. The final piece is moving towards the vision with action.

Update

Though the blog has been quiet, I have been pooring over literature as I build chapter 2. In the past month I have:
- Corresponded with a mathematical modeling expert
- Interviewed the Project Voyce founder (I adjusted my construct after that)
- Met Ben Carson and thought about how his story fits in
- Developed a diagram
- Organized my Literature Review around it
- Reviewed numerous files and research articles for the Literature Review
- Rewrote Chapter 1 and partailly chapter 2
- Found a Sergiovanni article that aligns perfectly (I am adding hope to the construct after that)

I will share more detail in the next blog- just wanted you to update you!