My EdCamp Experience

By Monique Darrisaw-Akil, Ed.D.

                 Last week I experienced my first EdCamp and the way I view conferences will never be the same. I had heard about EdCamp a few times before and even visited the website in an attempt to understand what EdCamp really is, but nothing could have adequately described this unique learning experience. EdCamp is built on the notion that if we empower  people to be in charge of their own learning they will work harder and invest more in it than in anything the “experts” can come up with. As a veteran educator I have attended lots of conferences, I have even presented at a few but this was nothing like any other conference. When I first arrived at Riverhead High School I was ushered through registration and then all eyes were on “the board.” The board is where veterans and neophytes alike meet to determine what will be the focus of the day. The board simply contains blank pieces of 8 x 11 sheets of paper waiting for someone to claim them. Waiting at the board is like hanging out at the basketball court contemplating whether or not you should ask the guys to let you play. Should I just lay low and just watch this time or jump all in with both feet? As people began putting their session topics on the board I stood back and then I decided to go for it. I added a topic for the third session, “District Leadership: Effective Support for Principals.” The third session seemed like the safest option because it would give me a chance to participate and observe two sessions first before I attempted to lead my own session. Some workshop leaders had pre-planned their sessions and came equipped with materials and bookmarked sites. My session was decidedly low-tech and driven by my driving questions of the year:

“How can districts give principals the support they need to improve their practice?”

“How do we maximize monthly leadership meetings so they focus on student outcomes?”

“How can we effectively differentiate support for aspiring, new and veteran leaders?”

This is the work I care about and really struggle with in my role as an assistant superintendent. Every day I have to find balance between the endless compliance tasks demanded of my office and the desire to facilitate deep and transformative learning experiences for our leaders. I hoped other people would indulge me in this conversation and that we could all leave with a deeper understanding of the issue and possibly come up with some new strategies

                After a brief and energetic opening session in the auditorium where we were welcomed by our hosts and told about the rules of EdCamp we all headed to our various first sessions. Participants walked around to find their sessions by looking them up on an app or on their phones, I walked back to the board. I chose to attend a session on Google Classroom because even though our district has access to Google Classroom, I don’t ’t think  we are getting maximizing its potential it can offer. I checked out the session and even though I didn’t get any tech smarter, I did enjoy the conversation about district internet safety policies. Next, I joined a session facilitated by Dr. Sheilah Jefferson-Isaaac, a woman I met online and then at a conference in Kansas City, Missouri and we have been tweeting at each other with the occasional live interactions ever since. Doc Sheilah , as she is known in the twitterverse, has been my online ambassador and she has been advocating for more educators of color to engage in the edtech space. So I followed her lead when she said we should have a session devoted to discussing the recent racial unrest in our country caused by the deaths of Black men by the hands of the police and then the murder of five policemen in Texas. What ensued was a thoughtful conversation that acknowledged not only the pain that we feel but the confusion about the role of educators in tackling this topic in the classroom. We debated what we should discuss with students; who is responsible for vetting the message? How much of our beliefs do we share? How do we make sure teachers who talk about race feel supported if there is a backlash from parents? We also shared resources like www.facinghistory.org and www.tolerance.org and the recent articles from Chalkbeat, https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2016/07/08/great-teachers-are-experts-at-difficult-conversations-heres-their-advice-to-america-on-talking-about-race/#.V4OsHlcUUqP and the Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/07/11/teaching-about-race-racism-and-police-violence-resources-for-educators-and-parents/.   Additionally, participants, who were teachers, assistant principals, principals and assistant superintendents, talked about what we needed from our leaders.

            Finally, it was time for the third session, my session. I found my assigned room and rounded up my co-facilitators. During the day I met two other central administrators, Nicholas Sterling, Superintendent of Valley Stream 30 and Jennifer Bradshaw, Assistant Superintendent for Instruction at Smithtown School District and recruited them to be co-facilitators. At first they were hesitant but after about a 20 second deliberation they agreed to help lead the conversation. As someone who prides herself on being prepared, I was a little unnerved by the informality of our session but then I remembered that I was surrounded by some of the smartest and thoughtful teachers and principals in Long Island and realized this was going to be a great conversation. Besides, Nicholas and Jennifer were just as committed as I was to hosting a great session. I scribbled some questions to guide the conversation but the participants, mostly principals, had plenty to contribute to the dialogue; it was almost as though they had been waiting to be heard. Some of things they shared confirmed my suspicions that districts have fallen short in prioritizing principal learning; other comments challenged me to scrap my own over-packed monthly agendas and carve out space for principals to learn from each other. The dynamic leaders in the room shared all of the ways they were carving out their own learning spaces through Voxer and EdCamps, but I still wondered about the role of central office in supporting principal learning. What can we do to facilitate reflective practice for school leaders? One principal stated that principals need central office to provide a vision for leadership so that schools could align themselves to the district vision. They also want district offices to help principals set a vision and then support them as they implement their vision. These principals craved meaningful feedback but had little interest in central office checklists. When asked about the value of school walkthroughs, Alejandro Rivera, principal in Valley Stream 30, said he welcomed walkthroughs as long as those who are conducting the walkthroughs “are living the work.” What a profound challenge to all of district leaders to connect rhetoric to practice! In the end we enjoyed a great dialogue about how district offices and principals can work together to ensure their learning is relevant, useful and focused on student learning.

         I can’t say enough about how much I gained from day I spent at EdCamp, the unconference that democratizes learning for all. So here is the real question: do we have the willpower to turn this one day experience into the “new normal” of professional development? That means giving people choice, creating feedback loops, and transforming adult learning in our districts. I’m going to use what I have learned to lead the shift in my district and I don’t know how successful I will be but I will definitely be ready to share our successes and challenges at the next EdCamp!

The Co-Facilitators: Jennifer Bradshaw, Assistant Superintendent for Instruction at Smithtown School District, Nicholas Sterling, Superintendent of Valley Stream 30 and me