Into the Dungeon: A Formula for Success

Often it's hard to let go of the way we grew up. There is a comfort to the rhythm of the experience. School was school. Home was home. All of us like patterns and predictability. Sure we want an occasional pleasant surprise, however even in those surreal moments, we are more at home within the continuity of our comfortable predictable experience. As teachers, just like any other individual we like to set up our schedule, our units, and our experiences in a predictable comfortable way.

Often if we ask a teacher what they do, they describe themselves as a science teacher, third grade teacher, or my favorite sophomore English teacher. They talk about the age of the students or content area of focus. It's an intriguing concept. The commonality of the students or the content becomes the focus rather than the mentorship and guidance. Interestingly in reflection of the long-term age, how much of the take away the is the content. Does anyone that isn't teaching it remember the skills they developed in sophomore English? Does anyone that isn't teaching it remember the definition of electronegativity? The differences between ionic and covalent bonding?

The reality is that search engines are far faster and far better at both gathering knowledge and applying algorithmic formulas than humans will ever be. Things we valued growing up, informational knowledge, math facts, and the ability to calculate using formulas, are all easily replaced by the silicon contraptions in our pockets and before our eyes.

So where is the value? The Partnership for 21st Century Learning places it in the 4 C's, communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking. All skills intrinsically human dependent. Items that require us to break the individualistic focus and mold of learning in our schools and exhort us to challenge the comfortable learning patterns of the way we were raised. Our schooling focused on gathering knowledge and applying formulas. Our work lives need this at a much rarer rate. Our personal lives need it even less. However, the 4 C's, that we could use in both personal and professional lives.

If we can't teach simply age-level content and formula application, what do we teach? The challenge is not the age-level content and formula application. Rather, the challenge is how we get there. In an information distribution model that schools often are, we model a process, share specific information, and gradually release. The learning is a result of pattern recognition and then independent repetition. Lost in this process are the 4 C's. Student communication in this model is predominantly listening, collaboration is limited both in time and product, and both creativity and critical thinking are predominantly absent. If we think back to the 70's and 80's, in the era of Dungeons and Dragons, children had to use all 4 C's. There was a gradual development of challenges in which characters had to problem solve often through ridiculous situations. Players had to communicate with each other, develop collaborative plans or face failure. School is not the dungeon and teachers are not the dungeon master. However, it's pretty close. We remember the Oregon Trail simulations. Why can't the majority of Social Studies be students problem solving through life situations as a hunter or gather in early civilizations or strategizing in the cabinet meetings with FDR to move our country out of the depression and through global warfare? In math, why is it we learn the algorithm first as opposed to being presented with a situational challenge and discovering which math concepts and strategies may work for the situation. The Next Generation Science Standards explicitly want students not to learn kinetics directly, but observe situations in which different rates of reaction are occurring and discover the relationships between the reactants and the reaction.

The reality is the formulas for instruction and learning we grew up with do not necessarily result in the development of desired skills for our current and future work force. In order to be successful, we will need to release the models which we learned from and find other models from our life experiences to move us forward. The formula for success may not be Madeline Hunter anymore or gradual release. We may discover it in the unlikely dungeons of nerds gone by.

The Goldberg's Contest

Don't Change, Iterate!

   We all have challenges. For my youngest Son, it's that he eats about five things for dinner and for my oldest son, it's that he has several hours of homework each night. It seems easy enough to say do your homework or eat this. It seems like it would be as simple as Yoda says, "Do or do not, there is no try." For those who have parented before, you recognize, that those things which seem easy rarely are. Change is difficult. Abrupt change is even more so.
   As leaders of a household, classroom, building, or school district we are always looking for ways to improve. Whether it's a way to save a few dollars, such as cutting the cord on cable or no longer paying for a certain work book, adding a new practice to our routine like walking a puppy or guided math, we always looking for our next step towards improvement. The challenge is even with a desire from leadership, change doesn't simply happen. Furthermore, even if I wish it were so, effective change can rarely be mandated.
   There is hope, if you think you have problems with change, that's just peanuts compared to Apple. Each year they sell around 200,000,000 iPhones. Each year, they update their operating system and have around 500,000,000 people using new software tools that they didn't ask for. And each year, the press come out and say that this update isn't that much. Approximately 90% of Apple users choose to update their software each year. Android isn't even close. Part of this is control of the cellular service and device. However, part of this is also helping people feel comfortable in the idea that the change process is helpful and worthwhile.
   Supporting growth and change is hard. Effective change only come from internal motivation. Individuals need to believe they have something to gain from changing and they need to believe that the change is both achievable and manageable. Rene Ritchie from iMore maintains a comprehensive change list of how iOS, the iPhone operating system, has evolved. In it, one can see that Apple has taken an iterative process. Each year adding only a couple of new features. Even though other phone makers may have a process quicker such as cut and paste or facial recognition, Apple baby steps the journey in order to bring their products, software, and users along with each iteration. For example, the first iPhone didn't have an app store. Cut and paste came in version 3. Drag and drop copying came in version 11. FaceTime over WiFi came in version 4. FaceTime over cellular came in version 6. FaceTime audio came in version 7. Small enhancements year over year lead to longterm changes for the user and the product. iOS 11 is dramatically different than iOS 7, iOS 3, and the original iPhone. However, the small annual jumps do not feel drastic to the reviewer or the user.
   This iterative approach to change highlights a way for successful development both at home and in the workplace. My youngest son isn't going to magically start eating every food. However, we have gotten him to try 3 new meals over the past 4 months, of which, he will consistently eat one. My eldest didn't go from zero to multiple hours of homework each night. It started by adding one subject than the next over the past couple of years so now, while tired, he does feel that he can get it done. The same thing in schools. We are exploring two change initiatives. One with technology and one with pedagogy. In doing so, we are not taking away teachers' old tools, but adding new ones in an exploratory phase. Slowly, over time we hope to have the new ones accentuate positive practices and eliminate less effective practices as our instructional leaders see the impact of their work. We may want to totally transform our workplace and home life. We may dream about the moonshot. However, in reality, the more we iterate, the more substantial growth we may accomplish over time.

Original iPhone Commercials

What's Our Product?

I remember in the 90's the common refrain, schools should be run more like a business. There are clear efficiencies that you need in a business in order to survive. No business could be managed like public education, there is too much waste, the work year is too short, and schools don't use data. As a result, the government and the private sector pushed business-like features onto schools. The amazing impact from public educators was go ahead, measure me, and try to do what we do. However, there was only one question that came forth, what exactly is our product?

Over the past two decades, public school students have been assessed in more ways than students in any other country in the world. Annually children in 3rd through 8th take tests for the State/Federal government in Reading and Math. They take assessments in Science for two of those grades. Additionally children take standardized assessments multiple times a year for their schools in Reading and Math, plus local common assessments, plus classroom assessments. Students, teachers, and administrators are asked to create SMART goals. So they can progress monitor their steps and develop actions to improve. are measured in every which way. We know more data points than we have ever known before.

Furthermore, States and localities at private business like runs at operating schools like a business. If you'd like the comedic analysis of charter schools, one could try John Oliver's take as he cherry picks the worst of the worst. Or one could look at reports from more traditional media like the New York Times and the Detroit Free Press. The reality is as schools operate pretty efficiently. The cost of schools is related almost exclusively to the cost and benefits of employee salaries. One can increase the length of the school year by increasing labor costs. Michigan tried this, forcing schools to add additional days, but found they couldn't fund it. One can drive down the employee cost by reducing benefits and salaries. Many States and localities have done this. The result is the number of highly qualified college graduates entering the field has reduced significantly. The field is simply seen as less desirable, resulting in states and local offices of education gathering data regarding employee shortages. 

However, the biggest challenge to trying to run a school as a business is defining what our product is. As a parent, I want my children to communicate well to peers, teachers, and employers. I want them to be able to read things for pleasure and to be able to solve problems. I want my children to understand the world. Furthermore, to steal a quote from one of my parents as she drops her children off to school each day, she says "choose kindness." I want my children to be kind to others. In reality, schools have very complex jobs. Teachers are working to mentor students with the DNA of communities. Developing creative communicators who can problem solve a wide variety of situations and invest children in challenges of the future. We need good people to develop good people. We need challenge creators to cultivate students into being leaders and difference makers. Our product, as much as some may wish, can not be simply measured by the nine-month growth in reading and math scores. Our students, and their classroom leaders, are so much more than that.

Measuring the Right and Wrong Things

10,000 Choices

Around the country teachers and students are returning to school. There's a freshness to August. A sense of excitement. Nervous anticipation resonates throughout our schools and communities as we contemplate the potential of a new school year. Inside each schoolhouse is a principal, who's very words, actions, and ideas set a tone for the learning community. Inside each classroom is an instructional leader who is beginning to make 10,000 choices as the children prepare to return.

As I think back to my opportunity to set up my classroom, I wonder how much I did because it was the thing to do and how much I did because it would have an intentional impact on student growth and development. I remember the cute posters and the bulletin board my bride helped me hang. I remember arranging the desks in a way to promote discussion, or at least discussion with me and kind of, sort of with other kids in the class. I truly wonder how many of my choices were because this is what I saw from classrooms where I grew up and thought a classroom needed to be.

It's been fun to watch our teachers begin to return this month. The pre-school teacher arrived and her assistant arrived first, having so many hands on things she needed to organize and arrange. They were followed by the kindergarten team, then the first grade team, and so on and so forth. As they children get older, it seems our classrooms have less and less stuff. I figure the high school philosophy teacher probably shows up three minutes before the first institute day begins.

As our teachers, coaches, counselors, and speech pathologists cultivate our learning spaces, I wonder how much of this is because we have done it in the past or we have seen it done and how much of it is because we want a certain type of learning to occur. In cultivating the Feng Shui of our learning spaces are the designs based on the idea that I need a listening center and a computer nook or crafted by thoughts of I want a place where children will build with objects and another space where they will imagine and role play.

The clearest examples in my mind of making these 10,000 choices based on learning experiences was when we added the Optional Kindergarten Enrichment and Enhancement Program in Downers Grove. This added a second half to our kindergarten learning. The teachers were thoughtful about the types of experiences they were adding. More Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math (STEAM) and more social-emotional learning meant that in the same rooms, areas which focused simply on reading and writing were converted into more open spaces to allow these interactions. Some book nooks and listening centers left and were instead placed in tubs, so that they could be alternated with tubs of legos, solo cups, and straws. All of a sudden, play kitchens and costumes returned, allowing children a some time for imaginary role play and interaction. Sure the kitchens were covered with maker space tubs in the morning, there was only so much space in the classroom, but the materials present and design choices of the room were based on thoughtful decisions made by the instructional leader, influenced by the goals of the entire kindergarten team.

The best part, just like the students, this school year is just beginning. Our initial setup is simply that an initial setup. We start by making 10,000 choices to design our learning spaces. We will have an opportunity to see how each decision plays out and how learning is impacted. Throughout the year we will be able to make 1,000,000 decisions more. As long as we are willing to adapt and adjust our learning spaces to meet the learning objectives and the needs of our students, the successful both we and our students will feel. Enjoy the journey, it is through these choices we feel empowered and empower our students also.

The Reset Button

I was looking through Facebook the other day and saw one of my former teachers and her family tubing on some lake. The children, a rising second grader and first grader in my former district, were grinning ear to ear as the were sliding through the water. A smile crossed my face. A decade ago, maybe more, I remember a friend complaining that teachers get the whole summer off. I don't hear that complaint as much any more.

I looked at the picture and those pictures of several of her colleagues and I'm glad to see them spending time with their families, taking time with their children now. As I've grown and our profession has evolved, I have begun to realize how fleeting these moments are for these individuals. Whether we like it or not, schools have changed over the past 17 years since the passage of No Child Left Behind. Teachers aren't cruise directors given children tasks and simply waiting for them to complete them. Teachers are literally making hundreds of decisions an hour for their students, modifying and adjusting tasks and learning experiences based on classroom formative feedback. The hours for both students and adults are not 8:30 to 3, but rather often 7:30 to 10 or 11. These children I was looking at in the picture I knew had been working hard all year long. I am sure there were evenings by the end of a school day in which they simply melted down for their parents based on the exhaustion of their work. There were days after long committees, data analysis, center prep, and assessment feedback the teacher-moms were ready to melt down from the exhaustion of their day and week.

I've been using computers since the 80's. I remember the amazing things they could do. The sheer numbers of operations and tasks they could complete. I also remember at times even the computer would become overwhelmed with the tasks at hand and on those machines, we all did the same thing, "Control-Alt-Delete" and the system would reset. Even todays machines, as advanced as they are, need to be rebooted from time to time. Their energies restarted and memories cleared.

My brother just arrived from Scotland on "holiday." He spoke of the required vacation he had during the year. It seemed so odd, that I looked it up. In the United Kingdom, employees were required 20 paid vacation days by law. In fact many countries require time for their employees to reset.  I would presume that this results in more productive work when the employee returns, just as the computer becomes more productive after it is rebooted.

I think back to this past school year for my children, my bride, and myself. I think we as a family recognize that we all need some reboot time. We realize that this past school year was a challenge and the upcoming one will be even harder. Whether it's advanced courses, new responsibilities, or new schools, there are challenges before us. So, I think I may follow my former teachers' model, take a few moments to reset and reboot, knowing that we will be digging in for far more than 8 hour days as school begins. I hope you do also with your kids.

Working Hard Until You Crash

The Journey

I am a child of the late seventies and early eighties. As a young kid, I remember napping in Mrs. Roush's kindergarten, learning to handwrite with Mrs. Stewart, and spending an inordinate amount of time in the Hillcrest office with Mr. Crandus and Dr. Del Bene. When I left O'Neill school in 1987, I had never imagined I would find my way back. In truth our journeys are not predetermined, but rather contain unimaginable twists and turns. They take us for wild rides, introduce us to amazing individuals, and challenge us daily. After my parents moved to Wisconsin, I never thought I would return home to Downers Grove, yet I did. Nearly five years ago, I was offered the opportunity to work with the learning program in my home school district, Downers Grove 58.

The first day home doesn't seem so long ago. After being gone nearly 30 years, coming back to Hillcrest and O'Neill was energizing. I could hear the Welcome Back Kotter theme song in my head, remember curling up and watching it on TV after a day in school with Mrs. Frankfater or Mr. Wild. I remember walking into Hillcrest and seeing Val still behind the receptionist desk, her broad smile as welcoming as ever. Just like she had been a generation before when I wandered in after getting in trouble. Ms. Fiene was waiting for me there on that early August day, just as she had waited for my siblings to saunter in after recess. I wandered over to O'Neill later that month, drifting down the halls past my old locker drowning in memories, only to hear Glen leading the choir as he had done for my friends when I was there.

Sometimes home is home. Like all homes, there are times of peace and times of stress. There are great things we try, sometimes successful and sometimes everything crashes around us. In the end, whether it is with hugs and kisses or yelling and screaming, we are family, united in common loves and common goals. For nearly five years, I have had the chance to work with family. We have tried a great many things to support the learning and growth of adults and children. We have worked to understand each member of our community and create ways to support the growth of each child. And through this process together, we have created some great things. Is it all complete? No. Is it all perfect? No. Is it a little more perfect that what it was? I think so and I hope so.

It's hard to leave family. My personal family is scattered throughout the world. With members in Wisconsin, D.C., Scotland, Arizona, Michigan, New York, Washington, California, and Georgia. It's hard for us to call any one place home. For the past five years, I have felt at home in Downers Grove District 58. Thank you for partnering with me in this journey.

I look forward to the journey ahead in Winfield. It feels like a wonderful community who's staff and leaders have opened doors and welcomed me as one of the family. I have been supported so nicely by the retiring school leader and key members of the community and surrounding schools. I hope that it to will soon feel like home.

Thank you (in alphabetical order) to the administrators, board of education, community members, maintenance & custodial team, parents, principals, secretaries, students, support staff members, and teachers of District 58. I wish you luck in the work ahead and look forward to seeing your celebrations on #dg58learns.

"It is not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world, but you are not free to desist from it either." - Rabbi Tarfon, Pirke Avot 2:21

The Innovator's Dilemma

In schools, we often discuss 21st century skills. We conceptualize the qualities individuals need to possess and the prerequisite training students must have in order to get there. Conversations frequently are around questioning, cooperation, collaboration, critical thinking and collaboration. We think about what it means to be ready for our future. Yet we measure and produce based on skills of centuries past. Students are not measured in creativity but rather reading, mathematics, and science. We value and structure our successes by how frequently students get answers in content correctly but want outcomes which inspire students to take risks and grind through failures to innovate.

In many components of our society we find that what is measured is what is focused on. Corporations focused on quarterly financial reports, make choices to ensure that the quarter's profits are high. Corporations that focus on long-term gains spend funds on research and development to create new products and enter new markets realizing that there short-term prices may suffer.  In schools, if we test  the quantity of correct answers in reading, math, and science, it's natural to think that students, teachers, and parents are going to focus on how to get correct answers in reading, math, and science.

And thus we hit the innovator's dilemma. If we want to cultivate creativity and risk-taking, we need to promote, encourage, measure, and celebrate those skills. Some teachers have begun to create these types of environments. Experiences such as Genius Hour or 20% time, which encourage students to define their own project, create their own research, and design their own outcome, are beginning to creep into some classrooms. Frequently these teachers and schools get people lashing back about wasting student time and not having clear outcomes. The results of these projects frequently do not directly impact student test scores. In fact, they may result in lower scores than if the time had be used for reading, science, or math. For months, we heard about the movie Rogue One and how it was going to be a failure because of how many reshoots it needed. Since it was not going predictably, people assumed that the product would be a flop. However, much like schools, the more the director took chances, was willing to change, and revised their product, the long-term outcome created something special.

Thus, if what we measure is what we value, schools and society may be shunning long-term gains for quarterly profits. Our quest for higher test scores may reduce children's willingness to create, innovate, and take risks. For us as parents, teachers, and school leaders we need to push back against these forces and look for opportunities to encourage our children, our teachers, and our leaders to take the next chance, and the next chance, and the next chance. Realize, much like an actor or a comedian they are workshopping the skills of innovation. Celebrate the failures of genius hour that don't work and those that do. For these are the skills, just like reading and math, that will promote the entrepreneurial spirit that we desire as a society.

This past week, my son's school decided instead of an open house they would have an innovation fair. Children created different projects and showed them off. Some were better than others. Children took to new opportunities, some slowly and some fast. The projects looked different and sounded different. Some were recognizable and some were not. Some had parent help and some did not. As a school, the students and teachers took a chance. It is something we need to encourage, a change, a chance, and an opportunity. In the end, we want each of our children to take a chance, and the next chance, and the next chances, until they win the day or the chances are spent.

The Truth Becomes Us or We Become Our Truth

As a teacher, building administrator, or district administrator, a great deal of your time is spent trying to figure out the facts. Whenever there is a conflict, between whatever parties, one observes, listens, and searches for commonalities in order to find the truth. Schools are as much a social incubator as they are an exploration of knowledge and reason.

I remember frequently as a principal, an assistant would come in and explain to me that there was sort of incident outside. One of my favorites was when "the fourth graders blockaded the playground with snowballs." The assistant announced this and indicated that she had rounded up the perpetrators and they were waiting for me. I looked outside of my office and there sat 10 fourth grade boys. My imagination ran wild for a moment. I imagined children with bunkers and an arsenal of snowballs, reigning cold ice chunks on any student who dared cross their vision within the range of those deadly fourth grade arm-cannons. I looked at Luke, all 4 feet 6 inches of him and wondered what damage that 55 lb frame could do with wet snow in his hands. Of course, I called him in first.

Luke was not a stranger to my office. He knew the drill. He recognized that I would call each child in individually until I heard every version of the story. From there, he knew I would pick the common pieces and reconstruct the events for them until I found a close approximation to reality that we could agree upon. Luke explained that they had rolled large balls of snow on the ground until they became just as big as him. They rolled them until they could roll them no more. Many of them ended up in the swings area.

I called in more of the boys. Amazing that this incident had no girls. The kids smiled as they told of running the balls around until they became huge. These were the days before "bigly" became a thing. They talked with excitement as they shared their creations. Eventually, I walked outside. There they were. Eight large snowballs, nearly four feet a piece. Four of them in front of the swings and four of them scattered around the playground.

George Costanza taught us, it's not a lie if you believe it. Our children take cues from our leaders. We teach children to be honest and truthful by modeling these actions and expecting them to be honest in their behaviors. I wonder how different it will be as our children learn from our leaders that it is ok to double down on distraction. I wonder how much harder it will be when our students learn find an alternate reality and stick to it. What would have happened outside if the children kept saying, we were just standing by the wall. The assistant is nuts. Those large snowballs, no idea how that happened. All they would have had to do is whisper to each other, we were by the wall. What was in fact a funny story, would have been a miserable and eventually inconclusive investigation.

The reality is many of us have hearts filled with integrity. We expect to tell the truth and we expect to hear the truth. We may disagree with each other's positions, but we respect that it comes from our perspective of the truth, our perspective of the needs, and our hope to make something better. Many of us are like Jerry Seinfeld, and we can't pull off the lie, even when we want to. We hope to guide our children, and our leaders, that it is only through acting with integrity, we will accomplish what we want in life. Eventually, even George Costanza discovers that if he were to do the opposite of what he does, he may lead a better life.

The Opposite

I Must Be Missing Something

We all see the world through certain lenses. Our viewpoints are created by our experiences and as such, we are limited to what we choose to go out and see. As educators we work to open children's minds and encourage them to develop a deep understanding of the world. I have had the privilege to work and live in a variety of settings, Kalamazoo, the Detroit suburbs, and the Chicago suburbs. I have seen people drive their children in Ferrari's to school and hop off the back of the field truck after they finished in the fields as the school bus dropped their children off at the migrant farm. I have seen individuals with MBA's from big universities become house poor as the economy tanked and single unmarried parents working a shift at the Family Dollar followed by a shift at Target just to make the rent. What I seem to be missing is the large chunk of society who isn't trying to figure out how to make it day by day. I've spent twenty-two years working with families and communities and somehow I can only name two incidents of families that weren't working hard to try to be productive members of society for their own family. In both cases, there were significant mental health concerns that churches and community organizations were trying to figure out a way to help.

Now, I realize that I have only seen a small slice of America. From pre-student teaching to my current role, I've been in seven school districts. In each community, either through church or religion, I have seen service learning projects. Students and adults, families and congregants, going out and trying to help individuals and families that have fallen get up. When I've talked to those that are there, those who work and those who need help, many are victims of circumstances including abuse and neglect. Some suffer significant mental illness, frequently untreated, and some are truly lost in the world.

In the United States, 21% of children, over 15,000,000, kids live with families earning less than the Federal poverty line. This is down from 16,387,000 in 2011. This is a pretty large number. These children are spread everywhere. They live in cities, in suburbs, and in small towns. I have worked with many and their families. The funny thing is, their peers understand that their families are working to make it. They ask what does your mom do. The children share the jobs she's working. Their friends ask who is home when you get home. Sometimes its no one. Sometimes its an aunt, a grandma, or dad's friend. Frequently the conversations end with wow, you parent works a lot. These same kids, those in poverty and those that are not, often join in for a used coat drive "we are just sharing it with the next family that needs it," or helping make lunches at the local social service, "I may not be able to share the food, but I can help make the meal."

So, I must be missing something. I have yet to meet these denizens of leeches working the system to avoid their societal responsibility. These individuals and families that are conscientiously working the government over while playing their iPhones. Is their corruption and manipulation? Of course there must be. Am I saying that everyone is pure and innocent? No. Simply, I see greater empathy from our students and our families, those who have and those who don't than from our leaders. I am proud of the social service our children lead, our teachers lead, and our congregations lead. I wonder why those at the top are the ones who see these large bands of leeches, I'm here in the trenches and struggling to find them.

So Shines a Good Deed in a Weary World

Call On Me Brother

Mornings in our house are not easy. Each of us wakes up differently. I pop out of bed at 5am. Bright-eyed, ready to take on the world. Shower, dress, check the news on the Internet, and begin packing the backpacks for school. About 6, I try to wake up everyone else. Logan groggily dresses himself, Cameron cocoons himself back in the blankets, my bride strives to sleep just a little longer. It's a morning. Soon the chaos begins to reign. I ask who wants something for breakfast. Sometimes there's a response, sometimes there's a screech from one brother at another, sometimes I'm completely ignored, and sometimes strange grunts occur. Fifty-five minutes later there is invariably shouting as we try to shuttle us out the door. Yet, there we are, out the door, dressed, fed, and ready to go. Somehow the dog gets walked. Somehow lunches are packed. Somehow everyone has had there breakfast and medicine. Somehow we are helping each other get what needs to get done so that at 7am we are out the door.

It is often hard to understand how interdependent our lives are. Without someone grabbing a bag, the other child wouldn't have his stuff for school. There are times in nice weather, when the oldest one walks to his brother's school to take him home after school. This is true in nuclear families, communities, work groups, and societies. Currently I have the privilege to work in a shared office. Seven of us share the same open space. There are many times that only some of us are there. However, frequently when we are, we bounce ideas off of each other. Individuals ask each other, what do you think of this, how could I approach this, or could you share with me what you have tried when this happens? We share and grow together, and frequently it is more than ideas. Sometimes someone takes on another person's load, helps with a responsibility, or simply shows up with a Diet Coke or a coffee to make their colleague's day better.

In situations in which we go it alone, the more we realize we are alone. In these situations we often feel the fate of the world upon us. I look at our students. We live in a society that frequently pushes individual achievement, but those accolades are often reduced to meaningless when put in perspective of the whole. Kris Bryant's first words to the media after winning the World Series was that he had one many individual awards but nothing ever as a team as his smile brimmed ear to ear. In class, we look at who aces the test consistently, but in the work environment, that person is often useless unless they can work and communicate with others. The best products come when we set aside our egos and work together to understand how we can make a better whole.

That's the overall goal. Not to be the best student, not to be the best school, and not to be the best city, but rather to work with other students, other schools, and other cities to raise the bar for all of us. Do we need to have individual success at times? Absolutely! However, in the end, we are all interdependent. It's not one brother who wins and one brother who loses, but rather when we find wins for both of us together, we come out on top and then off to school we go in a much happier way.

Lean on Me

With A Little Help From My Friends

The Avalanche

It happens to most of us. It begins with something small, like a person cutting you off on the highway or the patron before you grabbing the last chocolate babka. Suddenly the spiral begins. Things begin to go wrong at work. Things begin to go wrong at school. Things begin to go wrong at home. A little incident builds and suddenly we fill as if at emotional avalanche is falling upon us.

With these avalanches, the pressure increases moment to moment. We question our decisions, we question our relationships, and we question our actions. It is in these times, we often face the darkest of times, wondering how it is we got here and how it is we can get out.

fortune from Keen Eddie

Just like the avalanche of awfulness beginning with a single event, the repairing of spirit and life can begin with a single event also. We can and do make a difference. In the book FISH!, we learn about how employees at a fish market is Seattle, Washington create energy by doing little things to make their customer's lives better. Whether it's making silly jokes, engaging them in some fish tossing, or simple being present to listen to them authentically, they engage others to make their day. By doing a little thing to make someone's life better, suddenly we may help them through something challenging. We may have done that slight action that turns their day from an avalanche of awfulness to a spirit of kindness.

The funny thing is, in helping others, we are really helping ourselves. Kindness and positivity are shared feelings. It is the kind of energy that builds, engages, and promotes. By helping someone else, whether it's putting their cart away, going ahead at the grocery store, or letting them leave a little early, there is a shared energy that helps us begin an avalanche of success.

Love Smith, former Bear's football coach and current coach at University of Illinois, used to speak of stacking victories. One victory builds to the next and then to the next. Our little acts of kindness can restart our path to success and bring others on their journeys forward. The avalanche, that starts with the smallest event, can be one of sorrow or one of joy. We have the power to impact it.

The Continental Crack-Up

Letting Go

I looked around the room on Thursday and there they sat, nearly 25 talented relatively new teachers. Some of them had been through the mischief and mayhem of the first semester, some had been with us barely a couple of weeks. I looked carefully, and had to double take. There is always that moment that sets in each year when you realize how young everyone is in the room. Nicely, it is often conveniently  followed by the realization of how talented everyone is in the room also.

In many places, many professions, professional development has been to learn to do as I do. Schools are no exception. We talk about the methodology of guided release. I do then you do. Model first, then guided practice, followed by independent practice in the classroom, and then practice on your own at home. Think about it, most of us "learned" this way.

While this is terrific for learning specific skills such as sewing a blind stitch or parallel parking, it can limit the creativity and depth of understanding of the learner. If we told each of our teachers this is exactly what to teach and how to teach it, providing every specific activity and script, we would get exactly that for every child. Very little would be built upon student interest and student capabilities. There would be a 4th grade program aimed at 4th graders. However it would capitalize very little on the capacities of those 4th graders.

In order to maximize our learning opportunities, more often we need to empower our principals, our teachers, and our students with the capacity to create and adapt. We can set up challenges, teach skills, as necessary, listen to them as they collaborate and explore. This requires trust in our teams and support when possible. It is true at every level of the relationship, curriculum leader to principals and coaches, principals and coaches to teachers, and teachers and parents to students. We set up the next challenge, give the team the opportunity to explore and then let them solve the challenge providing supporting guidance as necessary. Letting go allows for greater ownership and creativity as the learner masters the next challenge.

Last night, I was reminded of this. My son turned on the 1977 classic, Star Wars - A New Hope. There was Obi Wan Kenobi, not telling his pupil to do this step first and this step next, but rather letting him explore as he learned to conquer the next challenge. Letting go is not a new idea, but one from a long time a go and perhaps a galaxy far, far away.

Lightsaber Training