In my younger years, before I was a teacher, but knew I was going to become a teacher, I used to dream about my drive to work, which included a quiet countryside, the leaves turning in the fall, and arriving at a nice school.

I distinctly remember, after I had been hired as a middle school teacher in 1984, at some point thereafter, realizing that my drive to work wound through a quiet countryside, with the leaves turning in the fall, and that I arrived at a nice school.  

I was living my dream, and I was able to see it.  Reminds me of a great line…

“And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point,
‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

― Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I wonder how many of us take the time to recognize, among the hustle and bustle of the day, that we may, in fact, be living what we dreamed?

I kind of wonder if, when I start a sentence with, “I just finished reading…” colleagues want to run away.  I get it if they do.  I know more now because of my professional learning via twitter than I ever did as a teacher and principal.  That’s just a fact.  And I’m not shy about sharing and modeling my failures, learning, reading, and growth.  Two steps forward, one back.  The sharing falls under what I used to think when attending a wrestling clinic as a coach.  If I get one good thing out of this clinic, it’s a good use of my time.  If, via sharing and modeling,  I can convince one leader to take a good hard look at his/her own learning and growth, it’s worth my time.  And I know it will be worth hers/his.

In the last 48 hours I’ve read two books by Baruti Kafele.  Prior to 48 hours ago, I had not heard of Principal Kafele.  I read The Principal 50: Critical Leadership Questions for Inspiring Schoolwide Excellence and Is My School a Better School Because I Lead It?

One could certainly wonder, “Geez dude, do you ever work?  How do you have time to read two books over the last 48 hours?  Must be nice.”

Well it is nice, and it’s helpful that the books are 95 and 62 pages respectively.  Don’t let the small page numbers make you think the books don’t pack a punch.  They do. When Principal Kafele says, “Though I have been called a ‘motivational speaker’–my objective is to create discomfort toward inspiring leadership excellence.”  He is not kidding.

Try these ideas on for size.

• Is your school a better school because you are there?
• Would your school be a better school if someone else were leading it instead of you? (Wow!)
• Do staff members feel they have grown in their practice thanks to your instructional leadership? (I LOVE this one)
• Just because principals don’t work in the classroom doesn’t mean they shouldn’t teach!  Leadership itself is a series of lessons that you provide to students, staff, and even parents on how to approach matters big and small.
• Your leadership presence conveys a message to students, staff, parents whether you want it to or not; the question is whether you are in control of that message.
• What’s the one thing over all of my responsibilities that I deem I simply must accomplish?
• Your school cannot afford for you to be the same person next year on this date that you are today.

And this.

• Leaders are readers, and they learn from other leaders. Effective school leaders read regularly despite–or more precisely, to help guide–the long hours that they invest every day toward ensuring student excellence.  They have such an obsession with growth as leaders that they carve out the necessary time.

Here’s my morning so far. I’ve met with our assistant director about some professional learning we’re leading with two groups soon, I’ve spoken with two principals, worked on some of our bond related items, and read a 62 page book, Is My School a Better School Because I Lead It?  And now I’m writing about it.  And I have a meeting in about 10 minutes.  I have an obsession with growth and learning.  I carve out the necessary time to make both happen.  And I share.

Because I just finished reading…..

Our students deserve better.

Just finished reading The Pitfalls of Reform: Its Incompatibility with Actual Improvement by John Tanner.  He concluded his thinking with that line.  “Our students deserve better.”

As with all good books that impact learners, his book has impacted me.  And that line really hit home.  I have been having that specific thought a lot lately.  But the context in which I have been having it has been a little unusual.

Our wonderful communities recently supported a significant capital projects bond so we could build, update, and replace aging and overcrowded facilities.  Last week, during one of our leadership walkthroughs at our middle school, I was walking with our new high school principal.  He had spent little to no time in our middle school.  Our middle school is very old and it shows.  It’s the first building project we’re tackling with our communities’ support.  I said to him, as we were looking at the condition of the building, “Our students deserve better.”

I’m wondering and thinking about what other contexts might produce that idea in one’s head?  Our students deserve better?  Beyond the context of facilities.

Contexts like the kids I had in my math classes so many years ago?  Where my teaching consisted of kids in rows, taking notes, then silently working on assignments?  Students deserve better.

Contexts like classroom management techniques focused on quiet?  Students deserve better.

Contexts like that last time some educators read anything was in college.  Students deserve better.

Contexts like building leaders simply managing buildings rather than being open learners, willing to try things and fail publicly.  Students deserve better.

One could keep going, but here’s the suggestion, for all of us in the education world.  As you go through your day,  as you do your work with teachers and/or kids, does that work, action, interaction, comment, idea, practice, or whatever compel you think, “Student deserve better”?

You might be surprised at the impact of the answer.  The impact can be pretty moving and poignant.  What one does next is the big question.

Context matters.  Students deserve better.

Our superintendent, Kevin Alfano, recently returned from a meeting with a group of superintendents.  He was telling us about the focus of the learning: school organizations as bureaucracies vs. learning organizations.  Our intention is to well live and work in the latter.  In the conversation, he mentioned an author, John Tanner.  Turns out that John Tanner has written a book called The Pitfalls of Reform: Its Incompatibility with Actual Improvement.  The description of the book and its author caught my attention…so I bought the book and have nearly finished reading it.  It’s an amazing discussion about standardized testing, what it can do, and what it definitely can’t do.  And how it has zero to do with actual improvement for kids and teachers.

Here are a few booming quotes/ideas that hit home:

What do good educators do with research that will improve learning for kids? 

Before that question can be addressed, there’s a more important question.  Do teachers, after college (or even in college given my experience), connect with research as their careers are rolling along?

In our district, we try to keep our educators apprised of research.  For example, we have shared Hattie’s work, especially the finding regarding ‘Collective Teacher Efficacy’.  At one of our kick off days several years ago, we introduced them to Jenni Donohoo, the author of Collective Efficacy: How Educators’ Beliefs Impact Student Learning.  We literally had Jenni onsite, working directly with our teachers.  That pretty much made the research come to life.  Collective teacher efficacy continues to this day to be a topic of conversation, planning, and action in our schools.

One of the main reasons it’s easy for educators to get behind Collective Teacher Efficacy?  It just flat makes sense.  When educators share the belief that, through their collective actions, they can influence student outcomes and increase achievement. Educators with high efficacy show greater effort and persistence, willingness to try new teaching approaches, and attend more closely to struggling students’ needs.  Common sense.

Here’s another common sense idea with the power of research behind it.

Greeting kids at the door.  Yep.  That simple idea.  Makes a whopping difference for kids.  Here’s the actual research.  Common sense.  I know teachers who were doing this before they knew about the research.

From the research article, “In practical terms, students in the PGD (Positive Greetings at the Door) classes evidenced a 20% gain in AET (Academic Engaged Time), which corresponds to an extra 12 min of on-task behavior per instructional hour or an additional hour of engagement over the course of a 5-hr instructional day. On a larger scale, use of the PGD strategy could potentially result in gains of several more hours of additional academic engagement over the course of the academic year, which could produce significant improvements in actual academic achievement.”

Back to the original question.  What do good educators do with research that will improve the learning for kids?   When they know about it, do they act upon it?

Our great teachers do both.  They know about it.  They act upon it.

Boom!

“So when kids come to your class, are they learning math or math class?”

There’s a question for you.  Are kids learning math or math class?  Ignore the content area.  The question remains the same.  Not something I had contemplated before.  But it really rocked me back when I heard the line.  So I started thinking back to the math classes I taught.  Or the language arts classes.  Or the social studies classes.

Did the kids learn math…or math class?

I tweeted this line out a while ago.  One of the replies came from the twitter account of Teacher2Teacher.

They asked a fair question:

My answer was, “I guess I think about what kids are doing. Are they DOING math? Or have they simply figured out how to do your math class? Are they up to their eyeballs in math or up to their eyeballs in the math class routine. And I know one doesn’t automatically exclude the other.”

That answer is fine.  It’s close to what I could express within the limits of twitter. A better answer would focus on of what constitutes the majority of the kids’ learning?  Do they primarily learn math?  With joy, creativity, challenge, open ended thinking, collaboration?  Or do they primarily learn math class?

I know the kids learned math class because I had my routine. Get out your homework while I take attendance. Maybe a bell ringer activity.  Any questions from last night’s homework?  No?  Ok, switch papers.  Correct.  Turn them in.  Get out your notes.  I give some notes about the next thing in the math book.  Any questions?  No.  Ok, the assignment is page 48, 2-40 even.  Go ahead and get to work.

Ugh.  As goes the old saying, if I only knew then what I know now.  That model would be blown up.  Way less teacher.  Way more kid.  Way more interaction among kids.  Way more talk, questions, strategies, collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking.

(Back when I didn’t know what I know now)

The line also made the me think about ‘classroom management’.  Such an awkward phrase.  Like teachers are managing a classroom.  They’re not.  The classroom is fine.  It’s a room.  The ‘management’ is of students.  Kids.  And usually the ‘management’ is focused solely on behavior.  And more specifically, sadly, kids being quiet and orderly.  Again, the old saying.  I’d rework the entire classroom management conversation. Something more along the lines of, “How to we maximize our learning time together everyday?”  “What does it look like and feel like in here when we’re learning?”  And 5 bucks says the answers wouldn’t all focus on quiet.

One little line disrupted my thinking.  That’s a darn good thing.

Sometimes when we’re out and about and people ask us what our roles are, we tell them we work in in the TLI department in Fife.  And of course we’re asked what the heck TLI stands for.  Teaching-Learning-Innovation.  Most people get the Teaching-Learning part.  In our little shed down here, we define learning thusly, “Learning results in a permanent change in thinking or behavior.”  So…one has learned something when a permanent change in thinking or behavior occurs.  Turns out, for example, I never actually learned about photosynthesis.  I held the information for a while, until the test, then gave the information back, and went my merry way. No permanent change in thinking or behavior.  And of course teaching is everything that great educators do with/for kids to create learning.  And everything that great educators do create learning for themselves.

How about the innovation part?  Well we get our definition for innovation from an educator named George Couros.  He wrote a book called The Innovator’s Mindset.  I’ve probably mentioned over 1000 times that this is simply the best book about the learning world I’ve ever read.  A career changing mind blower.  Couros on innovation, “I’m defining innovation as a way of thinking that creates something new and better. Innovation can come from either “invention” (something totally new) or “iteration” (a change of something that already exists), but if it does not meet the idea of “new and better,” it is not innovative. That means that change for the sake of change is never good enough. Neither is using innovation as a buzzword, as many organizations do, to appear current or relevant.”

Something is innovative if it creates something new and better.

We have examples of innovation all over the place in our district!  One of the questions we encourage ourselves and our educator colleagues to consider is, “When was the last time I did something for the first time?”  That’s a decent place to start thinking about something new.  But not new for the sake of new.  That’s dumb. New and making something better.

Here’s a perfect example.  Mr. Beddes, SLMS principal, wanted to focus on the educators at SLMS and improve communication to our community.  So, he decided to give podcasting a try.  Podcasts, in and of themselves, aren’t new.  But Mr. Beddes made them innovative in how he used them, and in doing so, made communication about SLMS better.  New and better.

Here’s his latest podcast, where he interviews Mr. Kratzig.  It’s a remarkable and insightful interview.

Way to model innovation gentlemen!

“Oh Jeff loves twitter.  He’s the twitter guy.  It must be nice to have all that time to be on twitter.”

I hear this sometimes.  It bothers me.  Or it did until I figured out two things.  Well I figured out one thing and reminded myself of another thing.

The thing I figured out was….it’s not about twitter.  Just like when we introduce Chromebooks into the classroom.  It’s not about the device.  It’s about what kids and teachers do with them.  They’re just Chromebooks.  Twitter is the same. It’s not about twitter for me.

Here’s what it’s about. It’s about how I choose to connect myself to ongoing, personal, professional learning.  And twitter makes it so easy.  So easy.  Twitter isn’t the point.  The learning and growth is the point.  So when I’m sharing what I’ve learned, I’m not sharing twitter.  I’m sharing the learning.  And I hope I’m encouraging others to find ways to continue to grow and learn, twitter or not.

I did not know about this when I was a teacher or a principal.  I figured it out when I moved to a leadership role that, by its definition and title, is focused on Teaching-Learning-Innovation.

Which brings me to the reminder part.  The ever present comment about time.  The most common answer/excuse for not doing something in the history of education.  It’s not about time!  It’s about what we choose to do with the time we have.  I have blogged about this idea a lot.

If we decide that to continue to grown and learn is important, we’ll find the time and the vehicle to make it happen.  If we don’t decide it’s important to continue to grow and learn, we will say we don’t have time.

Last Saturday I joined in an edchat with colleagues around the world, using the hashtag #LeadLAP.  Lead Like a Pirate.  I try to hit this edchat every weekend if I can.  It kicks off at 7:30 a.m., each Saturday, hosted by different educational leaders.

This weekend’s chat was hosted by Dr. Lynell Powell.  The topic was focused on supporting students with challenging behavior.  Here’s her first question:

This question reminded me of a recent flurry of activity we had been doing in our district around post-its.  Specifically, a post-it around kids making the ‘choice’ to misbehave.  So responded to Dr. Powell’s first question thusly:

This response led to another response by a new colleague to my PLN:

And this graphic, from George Aversano, was the hammer of the entire chat to me.  What a great graphic.  What a great reminder!  Don’t judge a student’s story by the chapter you walk in on.  Be a submarine, not a boat.  Look below the surface.

He’s not giving me a hard time.  He’s having a hard time.

Continuing to grow and learn is a professional, moral imperative.  It’s important and deserves our time.

Thank you Dr. Powell for the great edchat.  Thank you Shelley and Beth for Lead Like a Pirate.

See you all on Saturday!

What’s on the post-it on your monitor?  Do you have a post-it on your monitor?  Do you want to add one?  The one below has been on my monitor through 15 years as a building administrator and now in my 4th year in the district office.  Same message, updated post-it as the older ones became bedraggled.  Just a reminder to me to thank people for doing a great job.  This was a good reminder when I was a principal, for example,  after our teachers killed it with an arena conference or our kids were fantastic at a Veteran’s Day assembly.

The idea for a blog about Post-its came from this post-it:

One of our gifted principals, Mark Beddes, captures images every week from his school, and this message was in his latest edition to his staff. What a fantastic reminder for this teacher every day!  Kids all have stories.  Reminds me of the great quote,

“Don’t judge a student’s story

by the chapter you walk in on.”

I was also reminded me of this great post-it:

This reminder came after a teacher, Andre Sasser, wrote a tweet about how she was going to abandon the usual question to her students, “Do you have any questions?”  Instead, she made the subtle change in language to, “What questions do you have?”  This turned out to be a MONSTER change in her classroom.  I’m guessing every educator can easily see the power of that shift in language!  Instead of the usual silence that followed the former question, questions erupted following the latter!  Then she further honed the question to be, “Ask me two questions.”  By the way, that one tweet currently has 338,000 likes, has been retweeted 62,000 times, with over 1100 comments.  Wow!

Well all of these things caused me to wonder what other educators might have on their post-its.  Daily affirmations?  Quotes? Reminders?

I have another one on my monitor.  In case my scrawl is indecipherable, it’s an on-demand professional learning activity.  I ask forgiveness from the author, as I can’t remember from where I borrowed this idea.

It has 3 steps and is focused on 21st century skills.

1.  What are the 2 or 3 biggest changes in our society in the last 25-30 years?
2. What 2-3 skills do students need to address these changes?
3. How intentional is your school district in helping students develop these skills?

Wow!  This activity is ready to roll at a moment’s notice at any professional learning I lead.  It can easily be adapted to the building or classroom level, ready for teachers or kids.

I’m going to throw this blog online and wonder if other educators will be willing to share their post-its with each other.

What’s on your post-it?

as·pi·ra·tion