Transformative Principal

TP MIke DUncan
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[00:00:00] Welcome to Transformative Principal. I am your host, Jethro Jones.

Jethro Jones: You can find me on all the social networks at Jethro Jones. I. Transformative Principal is a proud member of the B Podcast network shows that help you go beyond education, and I'm excited to have on the program today. Mike Duncan. He is the president and CEO of the national nonprofit, Batel for Kids.

Prior to his role, he was one of the longest serving superintendents in the state of Georgia, having been the superintendent at Pike County School since 2005. Before Pike, he was a high school principal, high school, middle school, assistant principal and middle school teacher. Middle school is the best place to be.

As you know,

Mike Duncan: I love it.[00:01:00]

Jethro Jones: he earned a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of Georgia in 2004, and he has been a member of Ed, leader 21, the National Network of Patel for Kids for over a decade, and previously served as the Network's Advisory Vice Chair. Mike, welcome to Transformative Principal.

Thanks so much for being here.

Mike Duncan: Hey J. Thank you for having me.

Jethro Jones: So, we have a great conversation coming. What to you is most valuable from our conversation today?

Mike Duncan: I think Jethro understanding that the portrait is the beginning of a Transformative journey that involves all stakeholders in the community and can be a process that is not only healing, but aspirational.

Jethro Jones: for sure. You draw that line really nicely through our whole conversation. For me the big takeaway is going from a knowing to a doing curriculum and how in the past we focus on just knowing stuff and now we focus on actually doing stuff and how powerful that is when we've got a couple good stories in there about that.

We're gonna get to my interview with [00:02:00] Mike here in just a moment on Transformative Principal. (ad here) Well, Mike, tell us about a portrait of a graduate. I think most people have a pretty good idea of what that is. You know, this is what we want kids to look like when they graduate from our schools, but there's another aspect to that, which is getting the community involved. And so can you just kind of talk about that overall portrait of graduate process, what that looks like, and how to do that more effectively?

Mike Duncan: Yeah, that's a great question. Thank you. The way we see it is our tagline is locally developed, globally positioned. And you know, I, I would encourage districts that are thinking about beginning their portrait of a graduate journey to think about how they can be incredibly intentionally inclusive in their community to make sure that. All of the stakeholders voices are at the table. I, I think that that's what we've seen is, is makes it most powerful. and in this time where so many communities are [00:03:00] divided on so many issues public education and how we educate our young people is, is one way we can bring the community together. And we, we have seen such wonderful stories of communities that. Always didn't agree on much politically in the community, very divided communities. But when it talked about their hopes and dreams and aspirations for their young people, they found that they had more common ground than than not. And so it was a healing process and it left the community stronger and more inclusive and, more of a community. Through the process. So we, we, we love seeing that. You know, one of the things that we, we've also found is really important is, is sometime Jethro, you know, in our, our world, you know, we're always reading the articles about the changes in the workforce and the demands and how many kids are going to college and what degrees they're getting.

But, but, but sometimes we, we've often forget that our parents are community members. They're really busy and they're, they're not. Necessarily staying on top of every bit of that data like you and I are. And [00:04:00] so we found that one of the really important things is coming into a community and, and having them grapple with those big. Changes that are happening in the world, whether it's around technology or workforce or demographics. Just having them see that the world is changing really fast and with the backdrop of, our current model, our schools preparing students for this world and the direction that it's heading. So having the community grapple with facts in, in a, in a nonpolitical way and say, Hey, this is just the reality.

Now let's, let's come together and figure out how we can. Provide a more meaningful education for our young people so they can go and do the things and they want to do and live the life they wanna live. And, and it's just, it, it, and we have seen in a lot of ways be very healing to communities. And so we, we love the process.

Jethro Jones: talk more about that process, but one of the things I wanna underscore is what you said about bringing people together. So many times in, in our lives, we [00:05:00] define ourselves in a certain way. Whether that's political ideology or gender or race or whatever. And we define ourselves too narrowly by those things, so that it seems like that is, you know, if you look at a pie chart, it's like that is 90% of who we are.

I. When really we are so complex and multifaceted, any one of those things is really just a small part of who we are because there's so much more of us and, and we define ourselves so narrowly, we get into trouble thinking that, that that's who we really are. But then when you ask parents and community members like what they want from the young people, they all want them to be better than they are.

Like, nobody is like, oh, you know, I hope these kids make less money than us, and I hope that they're worse off than us. Nobody wants that. Everybody wants them to grow up and be more successful than they are. And, and there's nobody who's like, [00:06:00] let's, let's keep these kids down. Nobody says that. Everybody thinks the rising generation is the best and they're the greatest, and they're, they, they have so much potential and so much they can accomplish.

And when you start having those conversations. It changes the relationship among the other people in the room and they're like, yeah, we do want this. We do want kids who are moral responsible, good human beings and all that kind of stuff. Can, do you wanna talk a little bit about any of those things?

Mike Duncan: Yeah, I appreciate it. You know, one of the things that we've seen as we've gone in communities and, and helped them grapple with those big issues and start to identify the portrait of graduate competencies that are gonna be most important to their community. It. Before the Covid pandemic we saw empathy being, you know, maybe out of the top 10 after the pandemic empathy shot up to being in like the top five or six. And in communities are making sense of what do we mean by empathy? And I think, you know, we've seen. Community [00:07:00] members and parents come into that space, seeing the things that we're, we're all experiencing in our society and saying, you know, we, we really do need to have a citizenry that is more empathetic, higher degrees of critical thinking, better communication skills.

I. You know, our democracy depends on it. And, and so we, we are seeing a lot of communities position this portrait in, in really profound ways. Not only about just workforce development, which a lot of districts take that, that angle, and then that's a very appropriate angle, but a lot of them are talking about, I. Being good people and being a good citizen and being a good neighbor and being a good person and being independent and having choices and being able to think critically for yourself and being able to have hope and resilience. And so we, we've, we've seen districts grapple this in ways that are, are just really beautiful.

And, and, and I really mean it when I say that it is beautiful to see communities that politically are very divided. Come in and find common ground around the children and move [00:08:00] forward in positive ways. It's I mean, yeah, it's, I mean, it's just the, the, the great, just, I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to be in this space working with an organization and districts that wanna do this

Jethro Jones: Yeah. Yeah. That's really powerful. So what, what does it look like to be able to have those conversations in a productive and healthy way? How do you facilitate that? Because that's a key to this also, is you can't just send out a survey and say, okay, we've done our work. Right. You've gotta actually have conversations.

You've gotta make tough decisions about what competencies actually do matter enough that they. Become part of the portrait because if you put everything on there that everybody wants, then you get nothing. Right? So how do you narrow it down? How many are there? What are, like, what are the steps to do this in a, in the most effective way?

Mike Duncan: It really varies by district. It varies by community and, and we, we certainly partner with the local school board and the superintendent and, and you know, our, our, our job is to come [00:09:00] in and be the, be the facilitators, they're the conveners, and, and then help provide that. I. That safe space for people to come in and let their, put their perspectives on the table, put their ideas on the table. But, but what's been so powerful is, is as we present these significant changes in our world, the, the facts as they are, you start to see there's so much common ground and they're very rarely. Is it difficult to get to communities to agree on five to seven of these portrait competencies that they see as being the most powerful?

And I think that's one of the things I would say is there are a lot of things that are important, but the thing that we have to remember is in this moment, I. In our community, in our context, what's most important in our region. And once again, they take angles. Some take angles around citizenship, some take angles around workforce development.

You know, so there's different ways. And [00:10:00] what I love about Patel for kids processes is we don't come in and, and just say. Do it our way, but we want to come in and engage and understand the local context. We want to co-construct that process with you, and then we want to empower you as a community to do what's best for you. And we're, we're currently in Maine right now. We currently have a couple of our team members that are in Maine, and I believe it's a couple dozen statewide. Portrait workshops they're doing all around the state to make sure that we're getting voices from every corner of the state and being intentionally inclusive in making sure that everyone's voice is heard and yeah.

Jethro Jones: Yeah. Well, and this, this is so important because it's easy, you know, especially if you're talking statewide, which, which changes it because. The states have different regions and different things. Like I live in Washington state and Spokane is a very different place than Seattle. Opposite ends of the state, opposite ways of looking at a lot of different things.

And so [00:11:00] to, to meet the needs of every single community within the, the state is challenging for sure, but there's also a lot around rural versus urban situations and things like that. Some of our districts have like. 200 kids and others have 10, 30, 40,000 kids in them. And so, you know, balancing all that out is, is really important.

Can you talk. Going back to those five to seven most powerful, what are the things that you're looking at to say this is the most powerful? Is it that it is a like a flywheel, that it enables other things to happen? Is it that it is a key functionality that when that key piece is there than it makes other things easier in a different way than like a flywheel?

How do you describe that and articulate that so that people can wrap their heads around it and say, okay. I choose this characteristic over this one over here.

Mike Duncan: It's a catalyst. And the portrait is the [00:12:00] very beginning of that journey. A lot of districts, they adopt the portrait and like, okay, we got it. It's what happens after the portrait. That's even more important than the portrait process because now it's those, those portrait regress competencies, those skills and mindset disposition.

So now it's. How do we leverage rigorous academic content to create experiences for students to develop these skills that are transferable and portable throughout their life to different careers, different industries, different civic situations, different family obligations? How, how are we creating a learning environment? by hope and resilience in which students are developing the, not only the content knowledge, but the skills to apply 'em. And I'll go back and, and, and, and emphasize something I said earlier. It's about moving from valuing, knowing to valuing doing. And, and I think that's what what we're seeing in [00:13:00] communities is now communities are elevating what young people can do with what they know. Not just some arbitrary number of what they know and, and that's what employers want. Show me what you can do. You know, I'm not as concerned about what you know, until you show me. You can apply what you know in new and novel situations, be independent, be persistent, problem solve, and you, and even that's what we're hearing around the country for employers is that we, we have a generation of young people that lack the ability to initiate and problem solve and be independent and.

And so the portrait is a catalyst to create that learning environment that is often, we often see, not always, but we often see characterized by three fundamental, significant changes in the instructional environment, inquiry-based learning a high degree of self-direction that result in products and performances that have value beyond school. And so the, the portrait is a catalyst to [00:14:00] that end.

Jethro Jones: Well, and I, I think that idea of creating something that has value beyond the school, one of the things I, I told my students all the time. Time was if I am the only one who reads what you write, 'cause I was an English teacher, if I'm the only one who reads what you write, then that's pretty much a waste.

Like you need to have a real audience and if, if it's just me, sure, I'll do that for you. But that, that's no good. Like that is the bare minimum. That is like, that's you just saying I just gotta get this thing done and turned in. But really you should be writing to someone. Else, someone specific to an audience that you're trying to reach.

And when I was doing this in the early two thousands with seventh and ninth grade students, they were like, what do you mean have an audience? Like they don't even get it. And now with how social media has come about, everybody gets it because they 'cause audiences are real and they see that, but, but that having applicability beyond.

What [00:15:00] just happens inside the walls of school, I think is incredibly valuable. And, and you talked about this being the beginning and so many times in the past, you know, companies or whatever have come in and, and helped create something. And you make this plan, do all this work on it, and then you put it on the shelf and you never look at it again.

How do you help districts make. The portrait of a graduate or anything else you're doing with them, make that the, the starting point rather than the the end point. The, we, we did it, we put on the shelf. What do we do next? I.

Mike Duncan: Yeah, a big part of that is about building that coalition of support around the portrait. And so for local business and industries, it's now you've had a voice in developing this portrait. And so these are some portrait competencies, durable skills that we, we are gonna foster and measure inside our school district.

Now, what opportunities can you provide our [00:16:00] young people in. local business and industry, and I'm, I'm very fortunate. My wife is a work-based learning coordinator for a, for a very large metropolitan school district here in Atlanta, Georgia. And she, she gets to place students in work-based learning experiences, and, and she sees those portrait competencies coming to life in those students when they have those experiences.

So a lot of it's is about building the, that coalition and those partnerships to get students. Those great experiences to demonstrate those skills. But even inside, inside the school, inside the classroom, we have seen districts and partner with districts to help them develop performance tasks, unit performance tasks, year end cornerstone task or an oft oftentimes transitional grade capstone experiences that allow them to have a more inquiry based experience, be more self-directed, and the product of that is then demonstrated.

Publicly. Jeff, I, I'll tell you a quick story. My, [00:17:00] my last year as a school superintendent we, we were having a learning expo for the primary school, K one two, the parking lot was packed. And, and the principal was incredibly courageous. She said, you know, we're, we're not, we're not gonna have awards nights and pick winners and losers.

What we're gonna do is we're gonna bring you in and we're parents. We're gonna let you see what your kids can do. And so they had this learning expos and it, and it took like over a week. It was so crowded, you could barely move. did an amazing job of, of creating a very interactive experience where parents were interacting with young people about what they learned and giving them feedback, but also learning from them. And so I'm standing beside the principal and I'm out at the bus loop and, you know, watching people kind of file out. And this little boy named Ethan comes up and Ethan has. The greatest mullet you have ever seen in your life. Like he is rocking this mullet and it's amazing. And he comes up and he, he tugs on the principal skirt [00:18:00] and she said, Hey baby boy, what's going on? And he said, can't wait for tomorrow. she said, well, what's happening tomorrow? Second grader? Tomorrow? I get my feedback.

Jethro Jones: Wow.

Mike Duncan: And she and I are just like, okay, this is amazing. Like we the, like this is the moment as an educator that you dream of having. And then she said, and I mean I was just so I didn't have words, I was so proud. But she had the wherewithal to say, well, what are you gonna do when you get your feedback? Then he said, well, I don't know, but I'm gonna have a lot of work to do and I'm gonna make it even better.

Jethro Jones: I.

Mike Duncan: And it's like, that's a second grader, so what's that young man gonna be like in 10 years? I wanna hire that guy. I wanna hire that guy. You know? So.

Jethro Jones: I, I love that story, [00:19:00] and, and having seen so much of that myself, I, I know how powerful that is and what that means to kids when they take the ownership of their work that they, I. That they just may not have had in the past. And certainly it's much harder to have ownership. I mean, I, I remember my my first year teaching.

I didn't know what I was doing and I would give, I would write all this feedback on students' papers. They'd find what the grade was, and then throw the thing in the trash. And I was like, wait, why did I do that? And that was when I understood, oh. I'm the only audience they have. They don't care. The only purpose they're getting from me is what's my grade on this?

So I started having students write on a blog and back before blogs were really even out there and I. And I got in trouble for that, by the way. But,

Mike Duncan: Of course, of

Jethro Jones: but what was so cool is these kids were like really taking it seriously. And I'd have [00:20:00] to tell them multiple kids who would not engage at all before, I would have to tell them, okay, you need to hit publish on this, because like, there's a timeline.

You gotta get something out the door. You can't not publish anything. You've gotta. Publishing is important. And it just took them a long time to do it. And I was like, why didn't you ever rewrite before I did this blogging thing? And they're like, well, 'cause it didn't matter. Like I just need to get it done.

Turned in and, and that ownership is just so incredible. And that is what it's really about. Going from a knowing curriculum to a doing curriculum is that you care about the outcome and these student expos are, are a great example of that. How do you. How do you make that happen more often? How do you make that happen in a more natural way that these things come about?

And I think you said it before, that you start with a portrait of a graduate, and I think that that's fantastic. You've been doing some work with North [00:21:00] Carolina on their portrait of a graduate doing some statewide design studios with them. Tell me about that and what that is looking like.

Mike Duncan: Well, I think the beautiful part of that process has been, once again, us as facilitators, but leveraging the. Great talented core they have in North Carolina to create a set of design principles for those performance tasks and those teachers developing their capacity to build those. And so, our role was to come in and, and help them settle on a, a design framework and then to, to help them begin to build it.

So for us. The beautiful part about the way we approach the work is it's about empowerment. So we're co-creating the process with you and we're empowering you to continue to do the work long after we've gone. And if, if you, if you need us after, if you still need us after that, we didn't do a good job.

You know, so we, so it's about creating that empowerment because it, it's, it's built by [00:22:00] them for them, and it's not something that's being put on them. And that's where I have to give Superintendent Katherine Truett in North Carolina, just, she's such an exceptional leader and. Just really el elevating her in that she wanted to build the capacity of the teachers to do this work and for it not to be a quote unquote program that was put on them, but to build it with the leaders and the teachers in North Carolina, and, and that's where the power is.

And, and that was what we're seeing across the country, even in some of the smallest districts. It, it's about co-creation and empowerment. With the local teaching staff, and once again, they have ownership. They experience productive struggle, they experience iteration. They experience all of the things that we want their young people to experience, and they're experiencing it.

So now they get to model that. So they know that productive struggle is okay. Not being perfect the first time is okay. Iteration is a [00:23:00] part of life. Failure is an opportunity to learn and, and it just creates a much different culture within the district when the teaching staff and the leaders experience what they want the young people to experience.

(ad here) I. That is so true. Now, you may have already answered this question, but I'm gonna ask it anyway because I think that it's important. Why do they need. You to come in and help them. Why can't they just create that themselves? What are the barriers that educators have that prevent them from doing this work on their own?

Jethro Jones: 'cause they're certainly capable. They're CODOing it with you, right?

Mike Duncan: Absolutely.

Jethro Jones: So it's not that they're not capable of doing it, but what's the benefit of having this external agency come in and provide that support?

Mike Duncan: Well, it, it's about time, right? A lot of it is about time, and the nice thing is, is with Patel for kids, we have hundreds and hundreds of reps doing this, and so we're, we're able to streamline the process, [00:24:00] make it efficient. Get them to their outcomes as quickly as they want to get there. And so certainly within a state department, within a district, certainly the talent is there.

But once again, it, it's about time, it's about context, it's about expertise. And, and that's one of the really beautiful things is, is our team has had hundreds of reps at unpacking competencies, helping write, learning progressions, designing assessment design principles, helping create quality control. As backstops to performance task. And so I would just say it helps build capacity in, in a, in a much quicker way. And the part in the way that we approach the work is, is really beautiful in that it it is building capacity and empowerment.

Jethro Jones: Yeah. I, I think that's so important to note. And, and like you said before, the, the value of being able to have, have someone else guide you through that process so you can experience what you want the learners [00:25:00] to experience is, is a really powerful thing as well. So, as we close out here, my last question is, what is one thing that a principal can do this week to be a Transformative leader like you?

Mike?

Mike Duncan: Create psychological safety for their teachers to experiment. And fail dramatically. Give them the, give them the freedom. Give them the autonomy. them the encouragement to try something that could epically fail and let them know that. It's the process. It's about learning. It's about growing, we've, we have, we have to break the system we can't just play around the edges, do something big, do something bold, empower them, support them, create safe space for them to do that and [00:26:00] encourage their growth and experimentation. It's about an innovator's mindset, and we need every teacher in this country to embrace an innovator's mindset, and we need every principal to reduce the friction in, in the process and allow teachers to do the great things they want to do. I've always said at Jethro, I've, I've never met a teacher that gets up in the morning and they're brushing their teeth.

They look in the. and they say, I really hope I can move that test score

Jethro Jones: Yeah,

Mike Duncan: today.

Jethro Jones: saying that.

Mike Duncan: they, they don't do that, you know, and so it's in our teachers, it's in our leaders, and it's about permissioning and it's about building a collective vision in the community that supports that experimentation.

Jethro Jones: I love it, Mike. That's so fantastic. How would you like people to get in touch with you or with Patel for kids? How, what's the best thing?

Mike Duncan: Yeah, yeah. You can check out our website@bfk.org. I would love to mention that we, we just launched a portrait of a graduate future cast 10 years of the portrait of a graduate. What's next? And we have [00:27:00] some great case studies of the impact of the portrait and. The, the, some of the portrait competencies that we're seeing around the country and got a wonderful group of, of people that have participated such as Bill Daggett and Tim Taylor with America Succeeds that contribute to the publication.

It, it's wonderfully done. It's very informative for any districts that's thinking about embarking on a portrait journey. I, I think I would start with going to our website, downloading the, the portrait, future cast, checking that out, and then reaching out. We would, you know, of course we, we would, we would love to partner and we would love to point you in the right direction for other districts that are, that are doing great work.

I would also mention that. As part of Patel for Kids, we also run a national network called Ed Leader. And Ed Leader is, is a national network. We, we have districts in over 30 states that are focusing on the PORs River graduate and implementation. So we are, we're talking a lot in our world right now about portrait to practice and practice to impact and how we take the portrait, operationalize it for [00:28:00] every kid, every, every child, every day. And, and what's the impact of that? For local communities, so we, we would love to, we'd love to be a thought partner in the

Jethro Jones: Awesome. Very good stuff. You can find links to that, that he just talked about at Transformative Principal dot org. There's, there'll be stuff there. And if you're interested in Bill Daggett, he was on this show in 2015, if you can believe it. Long time ago. Been a big fan of his for a while. So, Mike, thank you so much for being part of Transformative principle today and for taking the time.

It was great having you on.

Mike Duncan: Yeah. Thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity to share the great work.