Who You Know - Julia Freeland Fisher
Fifty percent of job opportunities come from a personal connection. FIFTY.
Most school's mission statements include phrases about "college and career readiness," "achieving personal bests" or "preparing for the future." The way we aim to achieve these missions is by arming our students with as much knowledge and skill as they can hold. We aim to increase what students know by as much as we possibly can before setting them free in the world.
However HALF of their opportunities, when they leave us, will be realized through personal connections; though a network. We don't teach networking. We don't facilitate students reaching out and connecting. We leave 50% of our students' futures up to their inherited networks; that is, the network of connections they will inherit because of their family, geography, extracurricular activities, and parents' occupations. We focus so hard on what they know but almost fully ignore who they know.
In her book, "Who You Know," Julia Freeland Fisher compellingly summarizes her research on the power of student networks and asks deep questions about the role that schools could play in helping students amplify their networks.
Summary
Fisher, like any good teacher, first provides us with the why. Why does 'who you know' matter? Anecdotally, we all know that it does, but Fisher provides compelling research showing just how powerful our social networks are and just how large a gap exists between the social networks of more and less advantaged students. Next comes the what. People's social networks can be imagined as a web around us; dense in the center and thinning as it spreads. The dense center is what sociologists would call "strong ties." Strong ties are people that we lean on daily or weekly to get by. They are our parents, grandparents, mentors, coaches, teachers, close friends, and others with whom we form strong meaningful connections. Without these people, it is nearly impossible to find success. On the outside of the web are "weak ties." Weak ties are those people we've met once or twice. Maybe we have a friend or colleague in common. You wouldn't call them to watch your dog while you're on vacation, but you might contact them if you were applying for a job at the company where they work.
Sociological research shows us, somewhat surprisingly, that our weak ties are very powerful. Our strong ties tend to be "like" us. Our strong ties share our race, income level, education, and neighborhood. Our strong ties are more diverse. Therefore, we are actually more likely to gain new information from our weak ties. Technology can create weak ties between people that would have never existed in the past. Technology can connect people who, in real life, will never meet. However, it usually doesn't.
How many of your Facebook (or Instagram, or .....) friends do you know in-person? The average, according to Fisher, is 93%. Our current social networking tools aren't creating new connections. They are helping us to digitize our existing networks. While this may be useful to us, it is not helping students (or anyone) reach outside of their inherited networks. This is the jumping off point for what Fisher calls the next wave of disruptive innovation in schools. She believes that, to best serve students, schools should be asking questions like:
Most school's mission statements include phrases about "college and career readiness," "achieving personal bests" or "preparing for the future." The way we aim to achieve these missions is by arming our students with as much knowledge and skill as they can hold. We aim to increase what students know by as much as we possibly can before setting them free in the world.
However HALF of their opportunities, when they leave us, will be realized through personal connections; though a network. We don't teach networking. We don't facilitate students reaching out and connecting. We leave 50% of our students' futures up to their inherited networks; that is, the network of connections they will inherit because of their family, geography, extracurricular activities, and parents' occupations. We focus so hard on what they know but almost fully ignore who they know.
In her book, "Who You Know," Julia Freeland Fisher compellingly summarizes her research on the power of student networks and asks deep questions about the role that schools could play in helping students amplify their networks.
Summary
Fisher, like any good teacher, first provides us with the why. Why does 'who you know' matter? Anecdotally, we all know that it does, but Fisher provides compelling research showing just how powerful our social networks are and just how large a gap exists between the social networks of more and less advantaged students. Next comes the what. People's social networks can be imagined as a web around us; dense in the center and thinning as it spreads. The dense center is what sociologists would call "strong ties." Strong ties are people that we lean on daily or weekly to get by. They are our parents, grandparents, mentors, coaches, teachers, close friends, and others with whom we form strong meaningful connections. Without these people, it is nearly impossible to find success. On the outside of the web are "weak ties." Weak ties are those people we've met once or twice. Maybe we have a friend or colleague in common. You wouldn't call them to watch your dog while you're on vacation, but you might contact them if you were applying for a job at the company where they work.
Sociological research shows us, somewhat surprisingly, that our weak ties are very powerful. Our strong ties tend to be "like" us. Our strong ties share our race, income level, education, and neighborhood. Our strong ties are more diverse. Therefore, we are actually more likely to gain new information from our weak ties. Technology can create weak ties between people that would have never existed in the past. Technology can connect people who, in real life, will never meet. However, it usually doesn't.
How many of your Facebook (or Instagram, or .....) friends do you know in-person? The average, according to Fisher, is 93%. Our current social networking tools aren't creating new connections. They are helping us to digitize our existing networks. While this may be useful to us, it is not helping students (or anyone) reach outside of their inherited networks. This is the jumping off point for what Fisher calls the next wave of disruptive innovation in schools. She believes that, to best serve students, schools should be asking questions like:
How can we leverage technology to enhance students' existing networks and help them expand beyond their inherited network?
What social capital resources do we have in our own community that we aren't tapping?
What are the emerging technologies that shore up students’ existing networks or expand their networks to increase their social capital?
Reflection
At first glance, it may not seem like my students in Cumberland suffer from a lack of social capital. Many of them don't. At all. Many of them have exactly the types of family connections and opportunities that Fisher describes at the top of the gap, not the bottom. BUT, not all of them. With such a privileged community around them, the less privileged students are highlighted. It becomes very clear who is connected; and who is not.
In her SXSW EDU talk (available on YouTube), Julia focuses on a smaller section of her research that she calls "EdTech that connects." She envisions schools as hubs for connections. She envisions schools that can create facilitated networks for students or even schools that can become open platforms that serve both students and industry professionals who wish to connect with them. In this vein, she has created a list of resources and entrepreneurs who are creating tools for school and classroom use.
One of these, Nepris, now 7 years old, is mature enough to be a somewhat widely used resource. It just so happens that now, during the pandemic shutdown, they are opening the doors to their industry chats and sessions to all students, for free. It's the perfect opportunity for me to dip my toe into "ed-tech that connects."
Earlier in this course, EDT 520, I admitted that I'd tried leveraging technology to get my kids outside of the classroom walls. Beyond two small successes (a couple of ultra-marathoner friends agreed to some FaceTime calls with my students during our human body and endurance unit) I was generally unsuccessful. Usually this was either due to the logistics of a bell schedule or my unwillingness to ask "weak ties" for big favors like spending large chunks of time answering my students' questions. Now that our schools is learning and teaching remotely, AND Nepris is free, I can easily offer these sessions to my students.
Plan
I don't want to do it cold though. If they are anything like me, parents are getting barraged with emails full of resources. I've seen the "drinking from a firehouse" analogy used a lot over the past month and I fully agree. If somebody sent me an email asking me to use Nepris, I probably wouldn't.
So, the plan is to use the last few weeks of school as a personal exploration project. I won't go into the details here, but, in short, students will choose a science related topic of choice, complete some personal research, create something of interest to share what they've learned, and connect with industry professionals through Nepris or other channels.
In the long term, I would especially like to explore Fisher's question: What social capital resources do we have in our own community that we aren't tapping? In a community so rich with experience and opportunity, how can I make those opportunities open to all my students? I imagine some sort of clearinghouse where community members could share who they are, what they know, and what level of commitment they are interested in. Students could maybe do the same and then either side could search/browse to find people they want to connect with. The teacher could facilitate the connection. In Fisher's book, she describes something like this called CommunityShare. Right now, this is only available is Tucson, but on their website they include a link for folks interested in starting something in their own community. While I don't have the bandwith for that now, it's definitely something to bookmark for later.
To end; exploring Fisher's extensively well researched book and SXSW talk inspired me to take a few short steps towards answering the question "How can we leverage technology to enhance students' networks." Hopefully, students will be able to use Nepris, or other forms of social media to connect with at least one person they maybe would not have met otherwise. If I can get 80% of my students to do this, I will have facilitated about 60 new connections. If even one of those 60 connections turns into a college, career, or other opportunity for a student, I will consider the effort a success.
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