Meeting Greg Whitby

After work today I got to spend a few hours with Greg Whitby I was really impressed with Greg’s style, philosophy and passion for education. I left the session feeling very inspired (and that’s not a word I use very often).

Like many others I first came across Greg in this short YouTube video – if you have not seen it is well worth a look:


Since then I have followed his blog and more recently followed Greg on Twitter.

A bit more background on Greg:

Greg Whitby is the pioneering Executive Director of Schools in the Diocese of Parrammatta, in Western Sydney, and leads a system of approximately 80 Catholic schools. He has 30 years combined experience in K-12 schooling and senior system leadership.
 
In recognising the critical link between good teaching practice and student learning outcomes, Greg is working to build the capacity of school leaders and teachers through a whole-of-system approach to professional learning.
 
 As a regular speaker at national and international conferences, Greg talks about the key areas underpinning a new model of schooling for today’s world:  de-privatising teacher practice, personalising student learning and ICTs as enablers to facilitate deep learning.   
 
In 2007, he was named the most innovative educator in Australia by the Bulletin Magazine in its annual SMART 100 awards.  Greg has also been awarded an ACEL Presidential Citation for his contribution to Australian education.   

 

So what was Greg’s message?

Greg spent two hours with a group of us at the LTS offices in Glasgow and we were joined by other practitioners from all over Scotland in a flashmeeting.

I took a number of things from his presentation including:

• Lots of young people are disengaged from their learning

• To overcome disengagement we need to search for relevance

• We have spent the last 20th Century perfecting 19th centaury learning (quoted Stephen Heppell here)

• We need to start asking big questions about learning and the structure of learning. For example why do all children start school at the same age? Does the class you end up in dictate where you end up? How much do school timetables kill creativity?

• The whole next version of the web will be a mash up

• We have good schools but we are victims of the past when it comes to school improvement.

• What’s the point of a classroom of the future or  school of the future? We want a classroom of today!

• If you want success you have to un-lock the timetable.

• I [Greg] expect all of my schools to be extremely diverse.

• We need to develop systems that allow us to take action as things happen.

• Students learning is what makes the biggest difference

• The focus of technology should be on teachers learning as well as students learning

• Good leadership involves the making or courageous decisions

• Use the wisdom of the crowds (teachers, parents and most importantly students) to drive forward school improvement

• All of our children and staff are allowed to use facebook, youtube, my space etc… But it is important to have robust network security and tracking.

• Teachers feel under valued because they are always being told how to improve.

• Our leaders have to be leaders in pedagogy

If you are interested in what Greg had to say – why don’t you listen to his presentation on the flashmeet re-play.

Comments

[Alan Parkinson]

Thanks for this Ollie. Some interesting points here. As for me, we met Karl Kennedy from 'Neighbours' in Wrexham today at a Living Geography conference - he was very interested in the GA's manifesto for geography :)

[Darcy Moore]

Ollie,

I saw Greg present a couple of years ago and he had a slide, one of a little girl starting school, that has really stuck in my memory. Cannot quote the caption but basically it was musing about what she was going to experience on her journey through 'the system'. As an educator, with a daughter about to start school, it is little wonder 'it stuck'.

I admire his work as a leader and like Greg's messages.