The Selfie: A Reflection of Only A Moment.

The "selfie," a phenomena so large that it has merited it's own "Sharing Selfies" section of the App Store. Millions of millions of pictures are taken each day by individuals within the environment around them. It used to be said, "look into the mirror and what do you see?" Now we look from moment to moment and reflect who we are in the world around us. Furthermore, we have become conscious of the the fact that we can control what we look like, sound like, and act like in whatever environment we choose. The "selfie" is the epitome of momentary personal awareness and individual presence in the world.

Each year we are saturated with data that ranks students, schools, and societies. Data that works to claim competition in certain innate values, that if we fall behind as a society we are endangering our long-term capacity. We hear words like achievement gap, poor performance, lack of rigor, grit, resiliency and project this onto a greater world. We accept standardized data as a projection of future performance. Momentary information expounded onto a greater whole.

Funny thing is that momentary assessment is just that, momentary. It doesn't project to the future. It doesn't reflect the past. It simply reflects that moment in time. In the 1998 NFL Draft there was great debate between a strong-armed Washington State quarterback Ryan Leaf and an intelligent son of a legend but individual who could not win the big game, Tennessee quarterback Peyton Manning, as to who should be the top selection. Peyton was seen as lacking grit, rigor, and the championship valor to be successful exiting college. Ryan was seen as having a terrific upside and a ready for the NFL body. Today, Peyton is perhaps the best quarterback in NFL history. His greatest competition during his era, a 6th round pick who served as a backup on 1997 national champion Michigan Wolverines, Tom Brady.

Data is easy to analyze. Conclusions are easy to draw. However, they are not indicative of the final outcome. They are reflections of moments, times seen in the best light possible. It is only after the journey is complete that we can understand how each image fits within the tapestry of the whole. The same is true in schools as in life. In September, it is easy to say these students have great potential. In November it is easy to complain that this class won't get it. In February it is easy to say that child is lazy and doesn't have the grit to be successful. I would have been all of those children. From quickly having the correct answer in September to not paying enough attention in November to not turning in any work in February. Data points and conclusions. Moments of self that I had responsibility for and control of. Momentary assessment that truly did not project any future. As one teacher expressed it to my parents, "your child is destined for custodial and maintenance work." Both of which are fine professions, her conclusions would have been accurate had she simply added in my own home.

I didn't learn grit in the classroom. I didn't learn resiliency through standardized tests. I learned those values and skills in another place, a similar place to many children of my generation and my children's generation. I learned through sports as both a viewer and a participant. I remember moments of coming from behind as I swam the 100 breaststroke. I remember training in things I was passionate at and not very good in. I remember choosing roles in intramural basketball within which I could excel but still understand my limitations. I could play a mean point-forward, dribble, pass, and rebound but please don't make me shoot. And through sports, we learn how to struggle, fight, and come back. All of Chicago is watching as the Blackhawks try to crawl back into a series with the LA Kings, in which they were down by 2 games and on the verge of elimination. A city that remembers being down by 2 games last year to Detroit and demonstrated the resiliency and grit to come back. All playing against a team that just came from behind to overtake the Anaheim Ducks.

Photos shot in the moment. Awareness that surrounds us. The "selfie," a momentary experience in time from which we can make a judgement that only represents that point in time. Our experience is much more than this. Our experience is one of millions of images that capture the culmination of millions of moments creating a tapestry of our world. It is in the collection of these experiences that we truly learn grit, resiliency, and valor.

Hoosiers

Who's Party Is It?

So, we have a date. We've had it for a year and to be honest I had to look it up because I didn't remember. My eldest son will have his Bar Mitzvah on June 4th, 2016. I was hoping we could have one of those drive-by Bar Mitzvahs. However, after ignoring it for a year, I said it. It's coming. For some of our friends, the reality is closer than two years off. They have older children and they are working on their portions with cantors and tutors. They have themes and center pieces. There invitation lists and planners. It's an event, but who's party is it? As we stressed with our friends last night over the event, like all Jewish families, we reached out to our friend Netflix and watched Keeping Up with the Steins. We see the battle of strained relationships, the anxiety of the event, and the guest list battle between work clients and family. Each reminding us, what is really important here. Through this, we see the child eventually take over and help his father and grandfather find value within their own relationship. Only through this ownership, does the event take proper perspective and the family move forward.

This week a principal shared with a group of colleagues and associates the biggest shift she had seen during the past five years. She described classrooms as changing places where learning began with the student rather than the teacher. She walked us through a series of situations from lesson design to implementation in which it was no longer the teacher's activities, the grade level resources, or the common assessments which guided the learning, but rather the questions generated by students, the products developed individually or collectively, and the needs of the child that guided the learning practice. As the associates questioned her, she provided sample after sample in which it was a student question or a student learning level that drove the decision regarding how to move forward rather than some curriculum map, pacing guide, resource manual, or district ideal.

See, in the classroom, our students and teachers are figuring out who's party it is. As we discuss Common Core, State Assessments, and other global ideas, the revolution is occurring before our eyes and we are missing it. It's happening through Genius Hour and Twitter, through Explain Everything and Coach's Eye, through Movie Trailers and Chatterpix. As we figure out seating charts and themes for our Bar Mitzvah's the children are already discovering a brand new world around them. If we blink, we might miss it.

Last June, when we first kicked off our 1:1 program, we brought 60 teachers to Longfellow, our district professional development center for "Launch Parties." Through our wisdom and guidance, as district administrators and instructional coaches led teachers through a variety of tools and activities that they could do in a 1:1 classroom. Like the father in Keeping Up with the Steins, it was the adult's Bar Mitzvah. Teachers were pleasant and excited to walk out with the new devices. We did a cool bingo activity. Looking back, it was a mediocre experience at best.

On Tuesday, we kick off this year's "Launch Parties." We are welcoming over 80 more teachers to our 1:1 team. However, this year the parties aren't in the district professional development center but in the classrooms. The instructors aren't district administrators and instructional coaches. Rather, this year we are in the buildings. Our students, and their teachers, will be sharing what they can do, what they like, and what they would want to explore. The topics are ones generated by teachers regarding what they want to learn about as they enter this journey. It's their party and as coaches and administrators we are just guests.

It has been an amazing adventure this year. Both personally and professionally. There have been exhilarating moments and tearful farewells. The most moving moment of the year for me was my friend Jen who as an adult decided she wanted to become Bat Mitzvah. She didn't have one as a child, she knew very little Hebrew, and she made the choice to study and learn. She took a journey of personal growth for herself and chose to stand before the congregation and chant Torah. For many of us, the Bar/Bat Mitzvah is an activity we had to do. Just like the Common Core or State Assessments it is a required obligation. For Jen this learning was a powerful act of choice. An adventure of personal sacrifice, challenge, and fulfillment. The more I learn this year, the more we try to to control things, the more that slips through our fingers. We need to recognize that schools are for students just like the Bar/Bat Mitzvah is for the one who chants the Torah. We are just guests. Its their party, lets enjoy the celebration with them.

Havah Nagila from Keeping Up with the Steins

How Do We Learn Responsibility?

When I reflect back on my parents raising me, I just laugh. I feel sorry for them. The stories that they went in to work with each morning must have been comedy gold. My brothers and I always found, how shall we say it, unique ways of doing things. Simple things, complex things, it doesn't matter, we found a way to make it unique. Homework for example. As a teacher, I had the students look up the definition. We painted it on the wall. The words were simple, "the part of the lesson or lessons done at home." As a teacher that sounded great. Sure my students should do that. As a student, homework was the incomplete half-scribbled on piece of paper crumpled in my backpack or back pocket scrawled together in a version of ancient Sanskrit that could only be interpreted by Monks in India. If it was turned in, it was late and incomplete. I knew I would still pass the test and still pass the class. In fact, the only time my homework improved was when my parents "informed" me that in order to drive the car and get car insurance, I needed to have a 3.0 average. From that point forward, until grad school, I did exactly enough work in class so that with the tests I would earn my 3.0 average. After all, I needed to drive.

My bride was the opposite way. She was the work hard student. She struggled, she strived, she pushed herself to learn, and she succeeded. The test was going to stress her, even though she knew it, so the work mattered to her. It eased the pain of the "exam." She learned to complete all of her stuff so that when the assessment came the results might be less painful. Her tension of the moment was eased by all the work she had put in before hand. A Bachelors, 2 Masters degrees, and an ELL certificate later, she proved that hard work could make her a success. She learned daily responsibility because she needed it to survive.

On Thursday night I had the opportunity to talk with many students parents. One family expressed concern about their talented child not doing work and how they would learn responsibility. I thought about that for a bit as I was a child like that and have a child like that at home. The more I think about it, the more I realize, responsibility isn't something we teach but rather something that rises out of need and desire. Simply assigning work and assigning homework doesn't teach children to become responsible. It doesn't translate into adults meeting deadlines. We often say it does, but the reality is that it doesn't.

Frequently in schools, we are surrounded by multitudes of instructional leaders that want tasks completed in a timely fashion. We expect it from the children. We expect it from the adults. The reality is that the adults are often the worst at completing assignments in a timely fashion. When I set a deadline, I put it several days before I need it. This allows me for the 10% of adults that are just like me as a child who aren't going to complete the assignment because it isn't relevant. When the task is something that they are interested in, they complete it. When the task is disconnected to their world, it gets done when it gets done. This doesn't make them bad people. This doesn't make them wrong. It simply shows that responsibility is linked to our needs and our desires. The higher the need and the higher the desire, the quicker and better the task is completed.

The completion of homework and class assignments has little if any relationship to teaching children responsibility. Those who complete these as children are just as likely or unlikely to turn their taxes in and complete work assignments on time in the future. If we want a task completed it needs to be important and meaningful to the one doing the task. So lets not stress about the completion rate and focus on cultivating meaningful ownership in the work.

Office Space - TPS Reports

Clueless - Acceptance Speech

The Boys We Are Sending You

In each of our lives we wear many hats: friend, companion, teacher, parent, child, spouse, partner, principal, leader, listener, and supporter. These hats change as our companions change and their needs change. I thought about titling this post 4 funerals and some babies as that is the phase of life I am in. No longer the young elk flitting from bar to bar and wedding to wedding. No longer the young parent doting on their child's first smile or first foods. Not yet the proud parent of graduates or newlyweds. I am in the in between phase when the last of my friends are having probably the last of their babies and it seems this year each of us has had to say goodbye to someone we know or care about.

For my children this was the beginning of spring assessments. These measurements occurred both in and out of the classroom. The eldest had MAP testing throughout the week during the day and soccer tryouts at night. Monday was great. He was flying and proud. Monday afternoon he learned that his great-grandmother was very sick and was going to the hospital.

Like all of us, children and adults, he held resilient. Each of us during these times put our mind on the task of the moment, clinging to the routines of our lives. Distractedly completing task after task. Thanks to the patience of my wife's school, my bride was allowed to spend Tuesday through Thursday with the woman who she had traveled with, called daily, celebrated with and cried with. Each day, with the boys suited up and went on their day.

On Thursday morning, the call came early. My bride and her sister rushed out the door. Neither a morning person, the boys were in shock and awe. Reality set in for them. While the younger one was set in on that grandma would get better, the older one realized this was the end. An hour later, they got the call to whisper last wishes into great-grandma's ears. And this is the note I penned to the school:

"The boys found out this morning that their great grandmother, "Grandma Bernice" was very sick and expected to pass away soon. They also know that Stacy and Aunt Rachel were called by the hospital this morning and were asked to go see Grandma for the last time. They knew grandma was in the hospital this week and saw her 2 weeks ago and she was fine. Cameron has come to the realization this morning that she is going to pass away and is sad. Logan has taken the perspective that she might get better because she's not 100, she's only 97. These are the boys we are sending you today. They may be perfectly fine, they may have their moments of needing a break or someone to talk to.

Thank you for you support."

I can't say enough positive things about my child's school, their teachers, principals, secretaries, nurses, and social workers. I sent them two boys fragile in their universe and they loved them, watched after them, and cared for them. As the learning went on, I know my children were there but probably not present. They, like all of my family this week went through the motions. 

As I said earlier, it was MAP testing week. While my children were cared for, loved, and supported, I am sure their growth was not accurate. For them, I don't care and neither do they. There's another test in September and we can ignore this point as an outlier. For their principal and assistant principal, who are measured by growth via (Value Added Measure) and someday their teachers, in the moment when they were their best the data will say they weren't. In a time when my boys should have been contribute to their success stories they simply weren't capable of it. This is the silliness of VAM. It takes two points and subtracts. If in either situation the child is not able to give his/her best, the one penalized is the adult. While our circumstances were unusual, over a classroom, building, or district I can say each day we have children with these levels of worries and needs. We have these moments consistently were our staff, teachers, and leaders rise to the occasion in ways that can't be measured by a simple test score. In all of this,  I am grateful that while the system might not have a solid perspective, the people within it do.

This week we lost a great woman. A teacher for decades who influenced thousands of students. A mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother who taught each of us how to lead a positive life and make a difference for others. A woman who saw the best in all of us and was able to separate the silliness from the important. We will miss her. My boys will miss her. And yet we are glad that she left us surrounded by such great people. She created a legacy that each of us hopes we can continue.

The Potential in All of Us

Facebook is a wonderful place to discover when everyone you know has children or grand children. Blushing moms with gorgeous infants, proud grandparents holding a newborn grandchild, & blurry-eyed fathers grinning with their beautiful babies. Each one holding hope in their hands. Dreams of happiness and opportunity before them. At that moment all the world is possible because at that moment we see the next Nobel Prize Winner, MVP, or movie star before us. As such, we smile in awe and amazement.

Something happens as we and they grow. We find things difficult. Barriers appear. Limits arise and dreams fade in the reality of the daily grind. Slowly we give up on what could be and settle into what is. The scary part of this process is not that it occurs but how fast that it occurs. Does it begin as a Junior taking the ACT or SAT, or the 7th grader trying out for the basketball team, or 9 year-old not reaching grade level in reading, sentenced to skill and drill practice until they are a reader, or the 6 year-old who doesn't pursue the ball on the field, or the 13-month old who isn't walking yet? Dreams fade and reality sets in.

Somewhere along the journey, paradise is lost. In the daily grind we lose aspiration and develop acceptance. However, the funny thing is that there is potential in all of us and at any point all of us can accomplish things that we had never imagined but it begins with a baby step.

Last night we celebrated the retirements of over 600 years of district service. The last of my elementary school and middle school teachers retired. The world has changed since Jo and Glenn entered the profession. They were established veterans before I went running past their classrooms. Jo entered at a time when when Nixon was president, Secretariat won the Derby, and Dick Allen earned a record $750,000 to pitch for the White Sox for 3 years. Glenn entered the profession as MTV debuted and actually played music, Daily Light Savings time was introduced, and Sandra Day O'Connor was nominated as the first female Supreme Court Justice. They are leaving their "profession" in a world where music is created on a screen as often as it is played on the saxophone, one in which Ryan Howard and Cliff Lee are each earning $25 million to play for the last place Phillies.

For Jo and Glenn it would have been so easy to say that this strange place of where I worked is not the world I chose to enter. No one would have batted an eye if they said, I'm near the end, I don't need to understand this MAP assessment thing or that 1:1 craziness. However, they didn't. They took the step forward and said, I can make something out of this for my kids. I can figure it out. And after being in the classroom year after year, decade after decade, seeing goofy child after goofy child, they did what they always did and worked to make the best learning opportunity possible.

Potential doesn't leave us when we first fail. It doesn't fly away when we can't walk right away or read at the right time. Potential doesn't stop because one doesn't get into the right college or fails at their first job. Potential doesn't stop because we retire. Potential is always before us. At any point we can take those first steps on a new journey. Each moment we have the opportunity to redefine the road ahead of us if we choose. We just need the clarity and determination of will to take the hard step forward. As I looked at Jo and Glenn last evening, and had the opportunity to see opportunity to catch up with former teachers and former colleagues, I realized that their journey is only beginning. They have potential to do great things just like my children at home. All of our adventures are before us, let us make time for them and have the internal fortitude to take them.

Harry Chapin - Cats in the Cradle

Fletch

The Real World

The Real World, you know that place when you grow up that you are supposed to go. The place where when you wake up in the morning, put your suit and tie on, grab your briefcase, drink down a cup of coffee and go to work. The Real World where all of our children will go when they are done with the artificial world of school Not the Real World that resides on MTV, but the world in which not only can our children grow up and get a job, but do the job once they get there.  Now, there is this belief, that educators have never spent time in the Real World but rather they were born, raised, and never been allowed to leave the confines of K-12 education, so they have no context of what it takes to be successful in the Real World, only those that are in this real world know what it takes to be there, what must be learned, and how it should be assessed. The result of this is a long list of standards and some really long language-embedded tests. In order to prepare the students, we should have some very scripted recipe-based instruction and tests every Friday. Which, of course, the children can review for on Thursday.

The funny thing is in doing this we are required to create an environment that looks nothing like the Real World. While I have not spent a lot of time in the Real World, I am more of a rarity in education rather than the standard. Our teaching staff is composed of some college graduates that became teachers right away, but it is also composed of former attorneys, engineers, and construction workers. Members of our staff have worked in the corporate world and the world of education. Many of them as they reflect on their professions note how much more work they do now than then. In their former Real World lives often their work ended when they left for the day as opposed to the many hours of preparation and assessment feedback they do now in their evenings.

When they spent time Real World, there weren't many tests. Employees were evaluated on projects and products they created independently and collaboratively. As they worked, there were opportunities for questioning and feedback. Employees worked at different paces, adjusting to meet the demands of the project. Feedback frequently was an ongoing process. Content knowledge was downplayed and effective product design and implementation was praised. This was their Real World, one if we want to prepare our children for we need to rethink what we do in our classes.

In a test happy educational world we need to realize that this form of assessment is the smallest component of Real World experience. Tests will be gate keepers for college and possibly graduation from school. They will occur rarely through our adult lives. While we need to be able to do our best on tests, in the Real World, we need to be able to create products and work collaboratively on projects. On a daily basis, our children will need to be able to work with others, take feedback and adjust what they are doing. They will need to think creatively, research information that they do not know, and integrate it into their products to meet their client and employers needs. As such, in schools, if we want to prepare them for the real world, we need to stop thinking about the grade we are going to report out and instead cultivate project-based learning opportunities that they will need to continuously revise, adapt, and develop. This is Real World. This is a world that can exist in and outside of school. It may not be easily measured by a standardized score, but will enhance our GDP much more than our current study and test methodology. It's a world that is better for our students now and in their future.

State Department Assessment - Spies Like Us

Rethinking the Learning Ecosystem

Special Educators and ELL teachers are awesome. When it comes to content,  they are jacks of all trades, learning each subject area at every level. They find out the information, translate it, and make it meaningful to our neediest students at a variety of levels. These teachers focus on the most important challenges by focusing on each child first and foremost. One of the most memorable Special Education teachers that I had the opportunity to work with was Pam. She knew each of her children's skills, needs, and personalities. Each day she walked in with four bags, 2 in each hand, filled with binders and papers. Often they would be put down three times as she walked the long hall to her classroom so that she could conference with teachers on the way into school. Each day in her classroom multiple student groups would be doing a plethora of activities. Each day, she would walk out with four bags filled with binders, papers, and assessment data as she worked to plan for her next day.

Pam spent many years in our field making a difference for students. She, like so many teachers, was an extremely hard worker who found ways to create connections from the silos of materials that we handed teachers in Social Studies, Science, Reading, Language Arts, and Mathematics. As a leader, mentor, and difference maker, each day she gave all that she had to change the lives of children and families. As district leaders, we certainly didn't make it easy. We purchased materials, this program for Math, that program for Social Studies, this basal for Reading but those Guided Readers go with. Each day, 4 bags of binders went home and 4 bags of binders came back. The digital age in education did not come soon enough for Pam.

So often in education, we confuse the resources with the curriculum. As teachers, principals, and district leaders we frequently say: XXX corporation Mathematics is our curriculum rather than in we are focusing this trimester on Geometry and we will be using tools from: XXX corporation, YYY company, and ZZZ conglomerate. Many of us have bought into the recipe rather than the entrée. As instructional leaders, whether it's because it's past practice, it's easy, or it's what our colleagues are doing, we purchase a recipe and say deliver this and our students will learn what they need to learn. Sometimes that worked, sometimes that didn't either way 10 years later we bought a new recipe book. However, in the digital age, this is no longer necessary. If we focus on developing solid curriculum objectives we can use websites to connect our objectives, our learning targets, our resources, and our assessment tools. We can make those "hyperlinks" that pull together the assessment data we have gathered with the best resources out there to help students master the next learning targets for that objective. These resources no longer need to come from one source, but instead we can choose tools that are the best activity for accomplishing that learning task. We can connect supplemental learning experiences, web quests, challenging games, and videos, to the curriculum objective. And whether we choose a google doc or a web page, we can wrap these great experiences together in one interactive document.

In the educational technology world there is a term called "App-Smashing." It means putting to computer applications together to make a better product. This may be taking a picture with the camera app, adding a voice to the picture using Chatterpix, and then making the product come alive in a video using Explain Everything or iMovie. We can develop learning ecosystems by "smashing" curriculum objectives such as integrating learning topics from Social Studies in with learning experiences in English-Language Arts by explicitly selecting materials that connect those curriculum objectives. The Internet provides a multitude of materials for us, it's simply do we put in the time as district instructional leaders to put the tools together to make this possible.

Pam may have taken 4 bags of binders home each night, generating shoulder pain and back pain, to make a difference for her kids. Perhaps this generation can carry one bag of student products along with their laptop and tablet while even having more resources than Pam did.

Bill & Ted & Lincoln's Excellent Adventure