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It seemed a good idea at the time. A three-fold January series in the newsletter for ITRT new year resolutions was a simple, seemingly-innocuous theme. As a man with a scientific world view, punctuated equilibrium might seem an appealing concept for living year to year: everything stays the same eleventh months, thirty days, and twenty-three hours out of the year, and then for a brief glimmering moment every January 1, a stout round of "I'm gonna do (blank) this year!" all around would be consistent with the fits-and-starts of human behavior.

However, it's simply not how I live. It's not how I teach, and I can't, fair reader, pound out a quick article to fulfill my monthly obligation and lie to you. Some time ago I accepted, as a maxim, that blowing smoke with colleagues is never productive in the end.

I don't make new year resolutions. I think they're silly. The notion of an epiphanic instant producing substantive change in one's performance and perceptions is, to me, patently ridiculous. I don't think it's cute or "just something people do." As well you know by now, doing something because "everybody does it" is a poor excuse for a rationale in my book. However, if this January's newsletter theme is to be one of what we're doing differently this coming year, some material alteration that we undertake within our own spheres to improve our lot and that of our school, then let's resolve to evolve together, and put this punctuation nonsense behind us.

I absolve you of your resolutions - Requiem aeternam dona eis praeceptor etcetera etcetera - and ask only in return for this gracious indulgence that you do this year what we all say we'll do each January: look back, reflect, and try to do something a little different, a little better.

You have the power to change.
You have the power to change your school.
You have the power to change your school for the better.

If you're not going to be an agent of change, why are you here?

Fine, label me as the radical nut job up at Battlefield who shows up to the meetings full of vim and vinegar ready to take on the world, and chalk up my losing my head to the bureaucratic guillotine as "par for the course," but don't for a minute think that it's a futile enterprise to advocate change. If you honestly believe that your school, that your system, that "those people" that are forever positioning themselves as blockades in the causeway of progress are insurmountable obstacles that will forever define who you are and what you're capable of, your new year resolution should be to find another line of work.

We have tools at our disposal to advance the cause of progressive, constructivist, formative, integrative practices on the ground, in the classroom, right now. Here, in this place, in our time, despite the obstacles, we have the capacity as full time instructional designers to get in and get it done.

Do we have all the tools we need? No.
Do we have all the time we need? Not even close.
Do we have all the support we need? Not a chance.
Do we see these things changing in the immediate future? Probably not.

So what? Close up shop, lock ourselves in the computer lab, and pout? Absolve yourself of the need to change the world instantly and forever. Having been accused, rightly so, of being a crusader, I had to accept long ago that the War Against Obstinacy isn't won in a single battle, and the Quest For True Learning requires strategy as well as tactic.

If you're going to make a new year resolution, you're really engaging in goal-setting. Good for you, but your goals need to follow the basic rules for a quality goal. It needs to be attainable, realistic, and directed. Of course my natural impetus is to make a grandiose proclamation like "I will institute rigorous formative assessment practices in every classroom in my school this year!"

That would be consistent with the crazy-person persona many of you already perceive from me.

However, that's not my style. Those are my strategies, not my tactics. My goals are often day-by-day, sometimes even appearing defeatist to the outside observer. I'm willing to take a couple of backtracks if I think it serves my ultimate goals. So accept that you're human, but also in that same acknowledgement accept that your human condition is your greatest asset in our ITRT quest. Set small goals, use sound tactics, be thoughtful, be reflective... and move towards change.

Of course, that requires leaving your comfort zone, and that takes new resolve, not a new year resolution.

You have the power to change your school for the better.
You have the power to change your school.
You have the power to change.

10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... Your turn.

Copyright

© 2006-2008, Keith David Reeves. All rights reserved. Reproduction and/or distribution not permitted without the express written consent of the author.

MLA Citation

Reeves, Keith David. "The Way Up: Leadership, Awareness, and Data in Integrated Education." 1 Jan 2008. KDReeves.com. . <http://www.kdreeves.com/art_wayup.html>.