Creating a Culture of Caring

Every single person that I know of has had a bad day. One of those days when all you want to do is be at home by yourself with the sheets over your face. Hopefully we don't have too many of those days, but we all know what it feels like. So we all understand that when you are having a bad day, conflict with another person is magnified because of the state of mind you are in. Now think about this in the classroom.

Each and ever student that walks onto campus each morning has a unique set of experiences that comes with them. Many students have had to overcome hardships that we cannot imagine. Many deal with struggles that may not seem drastic to us, but they are overwhelming to the student. Teachers also come to school with a unique set of experiences when they come to class. These experiences, struggles, and hardships are real to whomever is facing them. A student could be having the best or worst day of his/her life. Likewise, the teacher may be having the worst or best day of his/her life.

There are so many examples of teachers or student not understanding each other and that leading to failure in the classroom. A teacher may feel that the homework was of the utmost importance, but may not realize that the student is facing seemingly insurmountable odds at home. A student may be acting up and not realizing that the teacher is experience hard times.

How in the world do you tackle this reality? How can a teacher possibly understand the context in which the student arrives each day? Well the answer is easy. Schools and the teachers in them must create a culture of caring. Students need to know that the teachers are there because they love them and that there is support in the classroom. The teacher may not know every detail about the struggles of the student, but the respect is there and that means the world. We cannot have success in schools if we do not have relationships in schools. This starts with an enthusiastic hello, compliments, questions about the weekend, humor, showing up to events in which students perform and communication home. If students see this support and love, they will be there for us as well on our bad days. Our most important job starts with caring about kids. If you have that at your core, the rest is just about working hard. Be there for your students on their good days and bad days. Leading is Teaching.

Teaching Innovators and Shifting Learning

If you have been through a college class you have probably gone through this. You find yourself studying all night, pouring over the books, using flash cards, and reading through your sloppy notes that were taken in a hurry as your professor rambled through his/her lecture. Then you woke up the next day (or you just stayed up all night), went to class, took the final (hopefully passing it) and proceeded to forget everything you remembered from the night before. I would say that there was learning going on in those situations but maybe not in the same way that you might think. I would say that you learned that sometimes you have to buckle down and work hard through something that you might not want to. I would say that you learned that you have to meet deadlines to be successful. I would say that you learned the value of finishing something in route to accomplishing something bigger. But I would not say that you genuinely learned a ton about whatever subject you just crammed for. That is not to say that all college classes are like this because I know that many of mine were so much more significant and provided great learning opportunities. However, this scenario brings to mind the notion of learning and the shift that must take place in our education system.

Tony Wagner is a Harvard Professor and author whose research has been focused on American education, how it compares globally, and what we need to do to improve our system to sustain our country's level of success. In his book, "Creating Innovators" Wagner points to the fact that information memorization is not learning in the 21st century. Students can google or easily research any subject they wish. His call to American institutions is to teach our students what to do with the information, how to qualify it, and how to be innovative with our vast amount of resources.

Tony Wagner has spent hours in U.S. schools and Universities studying classrooms that allow for students to be innovative, creative, and independent. He adamantly states that if our schools do not teach students 21st century skills (which include communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking) we will be at a competitive disadvantage globally. Think about the job market today. How many of our service and labor jobs are off shore? That is not to say that those kinds of jobs don't exist in the United States, but in every industry we need to teach our students the skills it takes to be successful in our ever changing economic model.

The United States has not scored incredibly well on international test in the last decade. Our education system has not scored in the top ten in quite sometime (the credibility of these tests are up for debate). However, countries who outscore the United States on these test continue to come and observe classes. The reason is because the United States is home to creativity and innovation. Last year at Minarets we had visitors from China and Singapore. This is what we must continue to do to be competitive and successful. The world has changed and education must continue to evolve to ensure that our students are prepared for the rapidly changing global economy. That does not mean that every student will become an inventor or a scientist. It means that our children will have the skills to work in a variety of fields as the job market changes.

The shift is not easy. Students who have grown up in a system where multiple choice tests rather than skills based assessments determine their success level. That is why we see students getting frustrated when teachers challenge them to find an answer using through inquiry. Students perception of learning is linked to memorization more than creation. Students often feel like they are not "learning" when the teacher is not lecturing but rather moving throughout the classroom as a guide, while the students are producing. Students also run into difficulties transitioning to digital learning at first, because rather than the book guiding their learning, they are challenged to think outside the textbook. However, this shift is happening and it will prove to be more relevant to the world around our students.

Think about your experience in the work world. Ultimately, most of us work in jobs where we were forced to learn on the job. There was no textbook, lecture, or multiple choice test that would have prepared us for it. This is another reason why students need to learn by doing and thinking without being given the answer right away. This gives them a learn on the job mentality and will better prepare them to take that approach in the workplace.

The truth is that there will always be core educational practices that will not change over time. A good teacher could teach with a stick and a rock. We cannot throw out core educational practices for trends . We still need to be rigorous, we still need assessments to measure growth, we still need to teach students how to read and write proficiently, and we still need teachers to be leaders in the classroom. However, teachers and schools must adapt to the world around them by asking the students to be critical thinkers and produce. The world is changing and education must change with it to ensure the success of our students. Leading is Teaching.

Providing Rigor Through Community Service

Schools and students have been active participants in communities since they first began. School is a place in which most families are connected and a place that represents the future of the community in which they are located. So the idea of schools teaching community service is nothing new in the education world. However, using technology to approach real world issues and collaboratively working as a class to solve them is a foreign concept in many classrooms.
 I believe that right now is the perfect time for these two worlds to collide. We are introducing technology into classrooms at an ever increasing rate and the ability to communicate, organize, promote, and research is becoming ridiculously easy. However, teachers and administrators are facing the temptation to do what they have always done, just in digital format. We cannot allow that to happen if we are truly going to prepare our students for the modern world they face.
Two education movements burgeoning right now that will help provide a framework for teachers are challenge based learning and inquiry based learning. Challenge Based Learning is "an engaging multidisciplinary approach to teaching and learning that encourages learners to leverage the technology they use in their daily lives to solve real-world problems (challengebasedlearning.org)". Inquiry Based Learning involves project creation through collaboration, raising question, understanding real world problems, and developing the discipline to work through failures to achieve success. These are ways of teaching that could truly impact the success of our students and communities.
If you look at the US economy and compare it to the global economy, there are some trends that need to be observed by American schools. Jobs that were traditionally available to high school graduates or in some cased even college graduates are being outsourced or replaced by technology. This does not mean the death of the job market. It just means that jobs are changing and we need to change the way we prepare students.
We are preparing students for jobs that don't exist yet. Our students will have multiple careers by the the time they "retire." So our focus should be on skills rather than just on memorizing content. We need to teach them to present, collaborate, solve problems, find multiple solutions, create a digital portfolio, and be adaptable. None of that is taught through memorization of content. Lets face it, memorization and multiple choice is not going to teach our kids to acquire these skills in the immediate future.
So how can we tie the value of the traditional school role in the community with these new ideas? I believe there is an easy connection through service learning. If we want to teach students to solve problems, collaborate, think critically, and present, we need look no further than our own communities. We can create real world education experiences through our local veterans groups, charity associations, churches, sports organizations, and businesses. If there is a high poverty rate in a community, what better place to start solving the problem than in our academic institutions? This will provide students with rigorous curriculum while also giving them a chance to make a difference.
Students can become leaders in movements that they are passionate about while participating in projects that teach them to write, present, research, communicate and collaborate. This type of real world teaching will make a big impact in more ways than one. Leading is Teaching.

Making the Grade?

Lately I have been reading "Drive" by Daniel Pink. The book focuses on what motivates people and how this has an effect on how productive they are. The automatic assumption is that people who have more money as an incentive, will be more productive. In other words, if you offer someone a bonus to be more productive, they will in turn yield higher results. This seems logical and we can probably cite many cases where this is true. However, research show that there is one missing ingredient here: passion for the job and feeling like what you are doing is important. Without these, studies show that people are less productive even when given a financial incentive.

One of the best examples that Pink talks about in his book is Wikipedia. Microsoft spent an exuberant amount of money, time, and resources developing "Encarta," their digital encyclopedia. They had experts in all fields contribute and had paid programmers working tirelessly to perfect it. However, just when it seemed that Encarta would "hit its stride" along came something called Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a site that is home to information on any topic imaginable from sports to trees. Is is free to the public and the people who write each page do not get compensated. In 1995, if you told someone that the popularity and effectiveness of Wikipedia would dismantle "Encarta"and help start the free sharing revolution that has happened today, they would not believe you. The same goes for the many websites and programs that followed in its footsteps.

This example is the perfect connection to the concept that people must be intrinsically motivated by what they are doing, to operate at their full potential. To find companies that are using this research to improve their production, you need look no further than Google. Daniel Pink talks about this in "Drive." Google gave its employees what they call "20% time." This was a time period where they are able stop working on day to day projects and focus on projects that are creatively inspiring to them and could be used by the company. In other words, its a time for employees to be passionate and explore their creative side, while potentially helping the company through invention. And it did. This was the birthplace of gmail and google maps, among many others. Google employees felt like what they were doing was meaningful, so they were more productive as a result.

So how does this relate to our students and teachers? Well the connection is easy. We have all been in classrooms whether it be as a student or a teacher. Likewise, we have all seen the variety of students that sit in each class. So we know that not all students are motivated by the grade. You can have two kids who respond completely different to an F. One student may nearly pass out for fear of their parent's reaction, while the other will think nothing of it. As teachers and schools, we must realize this and in the words of Mike Niehoff, "transcend the grade."

We need to provide opportunities for our students to be creative and use their talents. We need our advanced students to work to their own high set of standards rather than just enough to get the A grade. We need students to have the kind of relationship with their teacher that makes them strive to make the teacher proud. We need a classroom environment where students are motivated to be successful despite the letter on their report card. We need kids to feel that what they are doing is relevant and meaningful. This is sometimes a very difficult task, but one we must pursue. I can look at students at our school and point out concrete evidence of success without knowing their current GPA. That doesn't mean that GPA doesn't matter. In fact GPA should be taken seriously by all teachers and students. It just means that GPA isn't the only thing that matters.

Rigor should never be compromised. In my opinion, ideas like 20% time, make a rigorous environment more likely. If we teach kids to work hard for an A, some will do that. If we teach kids to work hard and find meaning in life, that will stick with them for a lifetime. Leading is Teaching.


“Greatness and nearsightedness are incompatible. Meaningful achievement depends on lifting one's sights and pushing toward the horizon.”
-Daniel Pink

Everything I Know I Learned From My Mother

As I prepare to embark on the new school year I feel it is important to remind myself why I am passionate about education. Not only that, but I should remember the roots of my passion. With that being said, I don't have to look any further than my mother.
My mom has been an early education phenomenon for over thirty years. She has poured her heart and soul into the hundreds of kids that have passed through her doors. One of those students was me. So the question is, what did I learn from being a teacher's kid, that has impacted my career in education? Well my initial response would be, what haven't I learned from my mom that has impacted my career as an educator? But for the sake of this blog, I will narrow it down to three.

1) Being an Educator is not a job, it is a lifestyle. I could always find my mom reading the latest research on brain development or speech therapy. I remember her planning through the summer and having conversations with tons of people about what they can do at home to further their child's learning. She always had time for family but she never turned off teaching mode because that's just who she is.

2) Each child is unique and it is our job to meet them where they are. Many teachers struggle with students and say, "they should know this." My mom was never like that. She had kids who were very advanced in the same room as students who didn't speak yet. It didn't matter because she always focused on meeting the students where they were and taking them as far as she could.

3) There are good days and bad, but if your students know that you care about them, learning will always prevail. My mom had some pretty rough stories from her years in the classroom. But she never showed any signs of giving up. No matter how bad the home life was, or how angry the child was, she loved them. That stuck with me so much so that I often find myself choking up when talking about my students.

I say all this as if she were finished but the truth is she is still teaching and working to perfect her craft everyday. I look at kids who graduate from the high school and smile because I know that some of those same students started with her.

So as the year starts, remember those three lessons I learned from mom. Because at the end of the day, we work to improve the lives of kids. Leading is Teaching.

Data and Assessment

Benchmarks, Data, Standards, Teacher Observations. Somewhere along the way these terms have been related to the death of creativity and independence in the teaching profession. Although we are professionals, we also like to think of ourselves as artists in a way. After all, isn't the "art of teaching" the definition of pedagogy? When we think of good teachers, we can easily consider them artists or entertainers in their own right. The teachers I remember most were charismatic, funny, exciting, and generally enthused about their line of work. So the question is, in the age of high stakes testing and standards based instruction, can we still be artists while maintaining professional practices in the classroom? I believe the answer is yes.

Now think of any professional that is considerably "high profile." For the sake of brevity lets just examine surgeons, lawyers, and professional athletes. Now, in all three of these careers one could easily come to the conclusion that there have to be some inherent characteristics for a person to be successful in each specific career. There is no arguing that you can't be a professional athlete without some key ingredients. I would say that successful teachers also match that description. Not everyone will be a successful classroom teacher in their life's calling. However, talent alone is not what makes surgeons, lawyers, athletes or teachers successful. There is a lot of practice, data review, professional development, and collaboration that goes along with success in these careers.

Does a surgeon not consult other surgeons in his field when he or she is confronted with a new experience? Does a professional athlete not review film to see how he or she can improve? Does a lawyer (please release your mind of stereotypes) not look at precedence from other cases before standing in front of the judge? I believe we all know the answers to these questions. That brings me to how this relates to teachers.

As educators we are professionals who have a clear goal of providing a quality education to all students who walk through that door. Some can argue that this is THE most important profession because it directly relates to the future of our planet. This is why it is so important for us to understand that in order to perform at the highest level, we need to hold true to professional practices. Notice that I did not say we have to because it is mandated by the state or federal government. We need to evaluate, research, and collaborate on a regular basis to make our schools more successful.

In everything that we do we should be able to show proof of effectiveness and be able to determine strengths and weaknesses. This is just as true for  project based learning. We should be given feedback from teacher observations. We should have some sort of benchmark regularly to see if we are growing and if we are effective. We should have guidelines of what we are teaching and I am not necessarily talking about state standards. This will not destroy "the art of teaching" as we know it. Instead, it will improve our ability to be true artists.

As this year is ready to begin, keep in mind that it is not against our creative nature to embrace the aforementioned practices. We need to balance our professional practices with our artistic practices. So when your administrator or department chair is pushing for benchmarks and data, make sure that you let them know that you will not compromise your art, but you will be accountable through professional practices. Because in the end, our sole objective is to provide our kids with an excellent education. Leading is Teaching.

New Beginnings

As I cleaned out my classroom and moved my items into a tiny office, the memories of teaching hit me. All of those moments in class that have shaped me as an adult more than my students will ever know. The moments when students inspired me, when they made me crack up, and even when they made me angry. All of those moments are what mold educators into the strange, but passionate people they are. Here we are working so hard to positively influence students and set them up for a successful tomorrow, all the while being impacted by them just as much as they are by us.

In many ways it will be difficult for me to move on from such a great experience. It is hard to wrap my mind around the fact that I won't have that everyday face to face with the same group of kids over time. Now, my replacement will have all of those opportunities to connect on a deep level with each student that passes through his door. However, as sad as it makes me to leave that chapter of my career behind, I have to look at what makes my new opportunity so exciting.

All of that work in establishing my positive classroom environment will be applied towards establishing a collaborative environment for my teachers and an inspiring atmosphere for the student body. All of that work planning the projects my students would create will now be dedicated to supporting my staff in becoming the best teachers that they can be. All of that work looking for resources and funds for projects in my class will now be applied towards providing more opportunities school wide for all of the students.  All of the personal connections with students will be applied to the whole student body whether it be through the teachers or myself.

When I think about my new role in these terms, I am thrilled to take on the challenge. I want to treat every student just like the student who I connected with so well in the classroom. I will put my full energy into doing what is best for kids and working towards providing seemingly impossible opportunities for students and staff. Because in the end, the passion that makes good teachers, also makes good leaders. Leading is teaching.