Lead Culture with Video Communication
It has been 10 months since my last post. In that time, the world has changed!
My last post centred on the revolution that gripped Lebanon in October/November of 2019 and the challenges it created for leading a secondary school. The school was forced to close for three weeks at the time of writing. Now, on September 28 of 2020, it has been closed for nearly 7 months.
COVID-19 has changed the world as a whole, and more specifically, it has changed the world of education. Many educational commentators have been spruiking up this moment in history as one that will forever change the face of education as we know it, and as these voices rose I will admit I was sceptical. Demanding change is rarely successful!
And yet...
As I am about to enter the eighth month of leading an 800-student-strong secondary school in a fully online format, I am noticing that the significant educational changes "demanded" by a worldwide and local pandemic are not dissolving. Instead, if anything, they are becoming embedded. It has taken a unique and unprecedented set of circumstances to prompt these changes. Embedding those pedagogical changes in everyday instructional practice to the point where they have become normal has forced me to rethink the role of school leadership in that process. Maybe not so much the role, but rather the actions of a school leadership group within this new context. One major communication change has had fantastic results.
The words leaders choose to use are critical.
Within a large school, you can have a school "division" or a school "section". One word suggests apartness and one word suggests togetherness. If the leader is trying to bring the whole school together then using the word division to describe parts of the school is self-defeating.
When asking teachers about their role in a school you can ask what they teach or you can ask who they teach. By choosing to ask who a teacher teaches, the teacher is forced to consider students. Ask what they teach and they think about their subject.
The switch from face-to-face teaching and learning to online teaching and learning amidst a country-wide lockdown demanded that I rethink the words I used to talk about school leadership and the way in which I transmit those words. In that reflection I realised I needed to change the words I used to describe my role and the medium of description.
I needed to stop talking about leading a school. I needed to start talking about leading the people within the school. Changing those words led me to changing my actions.
When the lockdown and online teaching and learning began in March of 2020, I switched all my communication from email to video. I wanted to lead the people within the school and needed to be present and maintain as much connection with the community as possible.
On a daily basis, I recorded and edited a short "Morning Update" video for all faculty and staff. I filmed and edited messages of encouragement to students. I created informational videos about new approaches to assessment and grading within the school. I developed tutorial videos teaching teachers how to use a particular online tool. I packaged up recordings of online webinars for parents. Over the course of five months I developed 96 video messages!
A message to students, encouraging them to keep on doing their best at school!
A video explaining the new approaches to grading and assessment at the Secondary School.
A video describing the anatomy of an online lesson.
The final Morning Update for the 2019-2020 school year for teachers and staff.
A video of a webinar for parents with a guest speaker talking about risk-taking in teenagers.
The response was dramatic.
Teacher after teacher and parent after parent and student after student commented on how positive it was to receive communication in video form. Not only did it make the message more personal and understandable, but it helped them feel connected and a part of the community. It helped reduce the feeling of disconnection and remoteness.
It is helping to build our school culture.
Leadership of people is the leadership of culture
The culture of a school is created by the people within it. It is the sum of all their interactions. Leaders with teachers. Teachers with students. Students with students. Parents with teachers. Teachers with parents. Parents with leaders. Leaders with students.
Everything in a school is accomplished through relationships. The nature of those relationships determines how things are done. How things are done is the culture. By definition, the relationships within a school create culture. In this context, the leader's interactions with others are critical.
When I communicate with the secondary school community (800 students, 1500 parents and 150 employees) I used to use email or face-to-face interactions. When COVID took out the option for face-to-face it left me with email. A wise associate of mine once told me he never writes emails longer than two sentences. If the message needs to be longer than that he finds the person or phones them, arguing it is quicker. While not intuitively making sense (finding the person may not be quicker!), what he meant to say was that the meaning of the message is much more effectively delivered by voice or in person. Words with a voice will always beat words alone.
Email is just words. No tone. No body language. Words without emotional context. Video is words and tone and body language and facial expression all together. We hear the words and read the expression and tone and gain a much fuller understanding of the message.
The new school year has begun and we are still in fully online mode. I have continued the practice of the daily morning update video, video messages to parents and video messages to students. Some teachers within the school have taken up the idea and have begun doing the same for their students. Some teachers from other schools in the city have been inspired to begin the practice in their schools.
It's not revolutionary. In fact, some might say that the focus of this post is not new at all. Using videos at school certainly won't win any innovation awards any time soon. This we all know. But using video as a communication tool and recognising the positive impact this approach has on a school culture is an important realisation.
The physical closure of schools due to COVID has demanded education critically examine the HOW and WHY of schooling. As I reflect upon the changes that have occurred in my school as a result, I know that the way I communicate with the school community is never going to be the same.
While a picture may be worth 1000 words, video is proving to be worth so much more!