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