Say Something

I have dozens of stories about my intern experience. I learned a lot from an amazing teacher with a larger-than-life personality. On top of that, the school was in a cultural upheaval and my clinical teacher was leading the charge. My clinical teacher had tons of quips and sayings that stuck with students and teachers that knew him. One of the most memorable things that he ever taught me was, "If they read it, write it, hear it, and say it, chances are they'll know it." It was his way of enforcing repetition and appealing to multiple learning styles. It sounds simple, but there's certainly some truth in there.

That saying has been on my mind this week as I started doing classroom observations. Classrooms look different, but the content that we are teaching and learning is the same. But the smaller groups seem to be inhibiting one of those things that my clinical teacher mentioned. Students don't seem to be talking as much. I'm not sure if it's the masks, the fact that things aren't "normal" yet, or if the smaller groups tend to make students feel more singled out. Maybe it's a combination of all of that. No matter what the cause, we have to figure out how to bring student voice back into the classroom. 

Studies have shown (see here) that student talk is correlated with their achievement. However, it seems that right now we need to be a lot more deliberate with how we get that. Here are a few recommendations to get students talking more:

1. Start each day with a welcoming ritual. Get their thoughts or ideas on literally anything to open the day.

2. Plan consistent opportunities for students to speak. Use this as your opportunity to introduce higher order thinking skills and more open-ended questions.

3. Ask students about their lives beyond the classroom. This builds their relationship with you and the class and breaks the ice to speak later.

4. Ask for student feedback - and use it. This validates that what they say is important and will encourage more talking later.

Sharing ideas and thoughts is going to be essential to getting small group instruction to work and that means that we have to get students talking. Who knows, they may have something important to say if we do.

The Power of But

I'm guilty. Sometimes I can't help myself either. It takes so much self-restraint. Even when you do hold back, you just want to scream. Most of us have been there. You get frustrated at something you see or some experience you have and you take to social media somehow and you rant about it. I can hold myself back on politics, religion, and lots of other things, but I can't hold my tongue sometimes on supporting kids and schools. I spend too much time on it and I'm passionate about it and sometimes things just set me off. That happened to me last week and I learned something that I hadn't planned on learning. I learned the power of the word "but." 

My rant was simple. I just wanted parents to spend a little time checking in on what their kids were supposed to be doing. I feel like we need parents as partners right now. It's hard engaging kids that we don't have in our classrooms and just having an accountability partner in the home makes a huge difference in what a teacher can accomplish. To my surprise, my eight-sentence rant was shared out hundreds of times and passed along by many people that I certainly don't know. Apparently, I had struck a nerve. I'm curious about people, so I looked at the comments of the people that I didn't know. They don't know me and they certainly don't owe me the courtesy of being polite or agreeing with me. The overwhelming majority was supportive and there also appeared to be a lot of educators. There were a few others that caught my attention though. There were the people that agreed, but not really. Their comments ranged from things like: 

 "So true, but what about the teachers that don't reply back?" 

 "I know I should help, but I'm a single mom and don't have time." 

 "This is true, but Canvas doesn't work." 

There were a lot more like this and most were pretty similar. What I found odd was the use of the word "but." It took me back to a high school English teacher that taught me that when you use the word "but" no one cares about what you said before it. How true that is. Go back and look in the first paragraph of this blog post. I did it. I said, "...but I can't hold my tongue sometimes on supporting kids and schools." Nothing before that mattered to me. I know I shouldn't run my mouth on social media. It doesn't solve anything. I certainly don't think anyone has ever changed their opinion based on a social media rant, BUT I just couldn't stop. The BUT was too powerful. 

So what are your BUTs? What is just to powerful from doing what you know you probably should do? Maybe yours are personal and maybe they are professional. Maybe you're human and have some of both. We grow by addressing those BUTs and by doing our best to cut them out. Do an experiment and try to catch yourself on your BUTs. You might be shocked at how much you use them and what they tell others about you. I'm going to try to correct my social media rant BUTs. Even though it can be so satisfying.

Now What?

An accurate representation of teaching right now

On the afternoon of August 21st, I breathed a sigh of relief. We had made it through a week of school and 
for the first time in a while, I slept through the night. Then we made it through a week of Track 1. We learned a lot, changed a lot, and some of us cursed a lot. The difficulties of tech issues, managing tracked out students, engaging virtual students in real work, and communicating with students and parents occupied all of our time and energy. So many of us left last week deflated and wondering if this was the new normal. Then this week came and while it certainly still isn't perfect, we seem to have found a bit of a groove. We tracked down most of our students and started to get something out of them. At the end of this week, I'm left with one question, "Now what?"

Now that we are settling down and finding ways to mitigate problems, we are getting back to the business of school. We have a School Improvement Plan to update, a testing calendar to review, and all of the usual things that schools do each year. In the hustle to create plans for change, those "normal" things slipped to the background, but they're back now. Most of those things that I listed are administrative things. They are not day-to-day teacher issues. So now what for teachers? I sincerely hope that answer is teaching. 

Your classrooms are smaller and while your kids are focused on completing Canvas assignments, I hope that each of you finds a way to take advantage of the personalized learning that smaller groups give you and uses it to teach your heart out. While we've asked you to get good as technical details and controlling the spread of the virus, please don't forget what you really are. You are teachers and now is the time to teach. The ultimate purpose for choosing to open our school on Plan B isn't to meet a political agenda or to provide daycare for children so that parents can work. Our purpose is to provide them with an education that we know that Canvas modules don't fully replicate. Now is the time to go and do what we are good at. Now is the time to teach.

Lessons from Mr. Rogers

I was hunting for an article that I read a while back and I couldn't remember the title, so I did a Google search. What I found was something better that spoke to me so strongly that I have wanted to send it out for three days now. Instead of the article I was looking for, I found an article entitled, "Seven Lessons from Mister Rogers That Can Help Americans Be Neighbors Again." The article was written in 2018, but the lessons there sounded like something we all needed to hear today. Here are the seven lessons (click the link above for the full version):

1. It's ok to feel whatever it is that we feel. 

2. But our feelings aren't an excuse for bad behavior.

3. Other people are different from us - and just as complex as we are. 

4. It's our responsibility to care for the most vulnerable.

5. We can work to make a difference right where we are.

6. It's important to make time to care for ourselves.

7. We are neighbors. 

As I read through the explanations of these simple lessons from the man that sang while he changed his shoes, I saw the faces of staff members. So many of you have been doing a great job of taking care of one another in this time of stress and adversity. This year has made every one of us a first-year teacher all over again. No matter what you knew about Canvas, blended instruction, or communicating with students, this year is different and difficult. While I expected so many of you to be overly frustrated, instead I watched you treat each other as neighbors. You helped one another and you are making a difference where you are. And in case you read the previous sentence and thought that it may not be ok to feel frustrated, look back at lesson #1. It's ok and I've certainly been there too. We all have. 

I never found the original article that I was looking for, and I'm glad that I didn't. Maybe something led me to the Mr. Rogers article or maybe I was looking for a metaphor for how proud I am of all of you right now. Either way, these lessons are here for us as reminders of what taking care of ourselves and each other looks like. Thanks for being good neighbors.

What I've Learned

People-watching is one of my favorite crowd activities and you can bet that in malls, restaurants, or at the beach, I'm watching the people around me. Maybe I'm nosey, or maybe I'm just intrigued by human interactions. Since the school shut down in March, I've been somewhat uniquely positioned to watch people and how they have reacted. The social studies teacher in me couldn't understand how we politicized a medical event and the school leader in me worried about students, families, and our staff members. But in my people-watching, I can tell you that I've learned a lot. Here are a few of my conclusions: 

I've learned how fear can paralyze people, and how legitimate that concern is for some and not for others. I've also learned that I had to find a way to address both groups.

I've learned that a crisis can bring out the best in some people and the worst in others.

I've learned that some things look worse on paper than they do in real life. People make things better sometimes.

I've learned that sometimes the best thing that I can do is to stay out of the way of people doing a good job.

I've learned that some people can make a bad situation work for them and others shut down.

I've learned that trying to be more patient is the leadership skill that I need to develop more.

I've learned that some people rise to challenges and that strong teams rise together. Their power is in the sum of their efforts and isn't necessarily limited by individuals. 

I've learned that I don't have to carry the load for everyone because there are good people working with me that help. Most without ever asking. 

I can't tell you how happy I am to be back working with you all. I know that some people think that we are crazy or reckless for trying this. Others wish that their children were in our district so that they could benefit from it. Seeing you all rise to the challenge this week has been amazing. It has worked better than I imagined it would. I've heard so many stories from friends across the state about how their district or staff just couldn't make it work. Thanks for being who you are. Thanks for being this crazy group that works as a team. I know that we are all different, but together, we are pretty awesome. I missed your awesomeness. 

Extra Credit

The job of assistant principal can sometimes be a pretty thankless one. In essence, your job is to make someone else look good at their job. In doing that, there isn't always a lot of praise or credit for the work that you do. Luckily, I had a mentor in my first years in administration that decided to change that. His thought was that while he had reached his career goal, he knew that I was just starting on mine. It was a powerful lesson for me, and one that I have tried to pay forward and not just to my assistant principals. There are so many people that make the wheels of progress move in education that don't have lofty titles. And while the system does not put these people with large salaries or anything like that for the things that they do that are above and beyond the call of duty, it's only human nature to feel proud when you're acknowledged for your efforts. 

As we start to wrap up the craziness of the year and set grades for student work, we have pretty clear guidelines from the state on what we must do. These guidelines have certainly come with harsh criticism and arguments that have merit on both sides. Our current situation in education has exposed great inequities in our society and how those inequities impact student learning. It has also exposed just how little some people knew of these inequities that have been present for a long time. Despite the criticisms, we have a path toward final grades and in that path, teachers can choose to improve a student's grade based on work done at home. For some kids this was easy, for some it was not. But in the spirit of giving credit where it is due, I want to ask that you adopt the philosophy of my mentor. Recognize and appreciate the efforts, even the small ones, of so many of our students that have made an attempt during this time.  Recognize that they have gone through the same frustrating feelings that we did about school. Give credit to the fact that their homes are not your classrooms. Understand that their efforts come from internal motivation, not a paycheck or in many cases, even a grade. So as you assign a final grade in the coming days, I challenge you to reach out one last time and give credit where it is due to the students that tried. It hasn't been easy for any of us recently, but their efforts probably deserve a little extra credit. 

Teacher Appreciation

It's Teacher Appreciation Week, and while I've been working all week on a light-hearted appreciation message to tell you all how important and valued you are right now, I was struggling to connect real meaning to it. My message changed this week as I, like many of you, learned about the sad case surrounding the death of Ahmaud Arbery. If you haven't learned about this story, you certainly owe it to yourself to learn more. While the events that occurred in Georgia on February 23rd speak strongly of the state of our society, I heard a story of education. It's a story that reminded me of myself and how different my life could have been as well.

I grew up like so many other white males in the South. I had two parents with decent jobs that put us in a place that in a rural area, you could call the middle class. We ate, paid our bills, and lived in a home, but also never had a lot of money for extras. Coming from a working-class family in the South, you are not often surrounded by college-educated people. Instead, you are surrounded by people that have worked hard but also often come with pre-conceived notions that were handed down in their homes and communities instead of through experiences outside their direct reach. Make no mistake about it, this is where bigotry lives.

I love my family and the extended community that raised me, however, if I'm being honest, racial slurs and prejudiced thoughts were commonly thrown around in my environment. Those thoughts and words were things that had passed down through generations. I would have been next and I can recall instances where that thinking had started to creep in. But luckily, there were people fighting that. My experience with African American teachers and teacher assistants in my schools left me conflicted. The words I heard outside of school did not match my admiration and love for these people. The more educated I became and the more experiences I had with people unlike myself, the more I learned about myself.

While we would like to believe that the incident in Georgia is something from generations before us, it isn't. And this is why we need to appreciate teachers now more than ever. Make no mistake about it, bigotry lives with ignorance. Our teachers (white, brown, and black) do damage every day to the systemic ignorance that allows these events to continue. I'm proud to say that I learned how to grow out of my past and my environment. And I learned that from teachers that cared about me. It was never in a book or in a curriculum. There was no multiple-choice test. No one got a bonus for teaching it well. But teachers taught me to be a better human.

Today, I don't have to deal with the words and ideas of my upbringing. It is something that has been lost in my family. My parents no longer condone it and my children do not even know about it. It's foreign enough now that when I heard about Ahmaud Arbery, it was a harsh reminder of reality for others. So as we end this year's Teacher Appreciation Week, on what would have been Arbery's 26th birthday, I want to say thank you to teachers for changing lives. Your love and compassion for children, coupled with the opportunities of education, will continue to work to erase ignorance in all forms. I just wish we had kids with us right now, because we still have some very important work to do.