"Community"; "Education"

Today I ran a conference on behalf of the Yorkshire & Humber Professional Development Consortium (of schools, universities, local authorities) about collaboration. However, the hot issue was community.

What is community? What is the role of a school within the community? How is a head teacher accountable to its community? Why do young drug-dealers not attend school? Why do deprived areas have higher drop-out rates?

Are we imposing white middle-class ideals and morals onto communities? How much talent is untapped as we do not listen to communities? How often do the professionals (the teachers) even visit the streets where their students live, work and play?

Are schools attempting to create a "safe-haven" of a place that will never exist or are they an integrated and respected part of the local community?

There is no doubt that the British education system has largely being a "one size fits all" approach aimed at efficiency.

Listening to the delegates today it really might be that we start to build education and learning around community needs. Time will tell.

Verena & Dean Dine

Verena & Dean Dine
Originally uploaded by johnstonedean.

Verena visted me twice in Leeds now (cool) and of course like all gentlemen I cooked a meal (English food is good for all those who give it a bad image!!).

flat lounge

flat lounge
Originally uploaded by johnstonedean.

Life in Leeds

So far so good! (To any @ers out there, the life after @ is better than you imagine, which is what you’d hope).

Highlights –
• My own flat (see image), with dishwasher, hot shower and bath, double bed, wireless internet etc. (its scary how soon you get used to such luxaries!).
• Hosting my family and Verena here.
• Travelling around Yorkshire and meeting headteachers and education officials with my work.
• Going to the free gym and sports centre (even though I am a novice).
• My job overall: great people, well supported & equiped (free laptop etc.), access to university services, excellent work-life balance (35hr weeks!).

The Partnership I work for (it’s a little confusing, this morning the hairdresser could not understand what I did when I attempted to tell her) is focused on Leadership in Education.

The UK believes that good teachers are not enough, but schools and pupils need leaders in their classrooms and management. I have attended several training days (for headteachers, for leaders of “children’s Centres” and others) and looking at the content I realised that if people had an @XP when younger there would be no need for their “leadership Development” now.

Examples of some the issues headteachers and others look at –
• The benefits of reflection and how to be a reflective learner.
• The ability and need to coach others to performance.
• Mentorship (all have to undergo a long mentorship experience).
• Self analysis (indivdual SWOT or similar).
• Goal and career planning.
• The difference between leadership and management.

The list goes on, the short of it is that 90% of what is discussed is generic to leadership (and hence the aims of an @XP). I sit there as the UK government invests £100,000,000’s (and hence indirectly pays my salary) to offer leadership development to teachers in schools. I wonder how much missed potential has gone untapped in the years that such teachers have been in their schools before they started to look at developing their leadership.

Its really good to be in a job which in many ways is so familiar and aligned to my passions (developing leadership so you can impact society, i.e. impact their school), but also challenging to adaopt to a new context (educationalists certainly have their own methods and culture!). Its also exciting to be involved in the changes that are underway. Currently the UK is facing a hugh shortage of headteachers (with the worst to be in 2009) and so creative ways are being thought of to ensure we have good leaders in schools in the next few years.

A big part of this discussion is “the search for talent” as the authorities undertake national and international research to “spot and develop the best talent for leadership development”….

And so it starts to sound familiar again!

Job search & Find

Upon returning home, as I mentioned, my top priority was to seek employment. I decided to live from my savings and not to take a part-time job, so as to ensure I did really get a "good" job as quickly as possible.

A few tips / messages:
British people who work hard do not receive any government assistance (thanks to the social security department for giving me a total of £0.00p during my 3 months of unemployment and job search).
Access to careers advisors is limited and you have to smile nicely to be seen (if I was unemployed for 18 months I would have got better access... again a policy towards supporting only the mostdesperatee). Lucky for me it was the summer holidays so I managed to meet aunobservedy advisor.
But when you show passion the careers advisors get very excited... probably because it makes a difference from the majority of their customers.
Job searching takes hours, research and applying takes longer still. A letter from the employer to say they have rejected your application would take 5mins, but they cannot due that due to "work load".
Family issues can start to emerge.

My work was split between my Brothers flat and my Grandparents, with visits to Denmark, my Sister and others. Limited internet access made it difficult.

But... I got a job!
Note for the future: a job search is a professional 9-5 job. Do not start watching day time TV. Do excercise daily and take up a mental challenge (I started learning German). Reward yourself with special events every few weeks. Take a system-like approach and only apply for jobs you will enjoy doing.

In total I applied for 5 jobs and got an offer at the end of September (less than 8 weeks of my passport being stamped at UK customs) still it felt longer, despite the diversity of things.

Job Search - limbo, not knowing where to live, what will happen, if you will go to an interview etc. A steep reintegration into the UK and an attempt to break the UK labour market.