Stories of learning and leading

It has been a VERY busy first week and it seems like so long ago that we had our staff meeting. Within this week, I learned that I am grateful and fortunate enough to work with a parent-partnership program that I worked with only one year earlier. This was very exciting news for me as this program had tremendously influenced me in seeing the importance and impact parents can have on the learning of their children. I read a tweet earlier this week (sorry for the lack of link), that basically said that we need to not only share what we do with parents what we are doing, but we have to make use of their expertise as well. There is an abundance of this resource and it is essential that we tap into it.

Students were very excited to be back and I am glad that I decided to share the view that I get to see everyday from my students.  Not only is the “200 Days Project” a great project to share what I am doing, it is also a way to ensure that I am taking time to get into the classes everyday.  It also doesn’t hurt that the kids are extremely excited about getting their picture taken.  Kids are always the best part of this job and the more I can show that I appreciate and care for them, the better.

As I heading to a meeting, I realized that this is my fourth year of administration.  It actually shocked me since time has flown so quickly.  One of the key messages that I have learned is that there are really not that many real emergencies.  Often times when I first started in admin, I wanted to answer everyone so quickly that I would often be wrong on my answer or unintentionally lead them astray.  You felt hurried and were sometimes pressured by others to make a decision or give an answer now! That pressure led me to the quick response.  This quick decision making was not best for taking care of the long term needs of our school.  The “think time” that we so need to afford to our students is also important to give to adults as well.  Sometimes it may deter some people from asking questions because they do not get the instant answer.  It is more important that I give them the honest and correct answer though.  The quick fixes sometimes lead to more problems and we have to ensure that we are thoughtful in our process, especially when we are dealing with the needs of students.

Blogging and taking the time to reflect has been one of the best ways for me to grow because it helps me to sort my thoughts and understanding on different topics.  This same practice has to be implemented in our day to day work with others.  If you are an administrator (or really anyone), take the time to reflect and ensure that you are getting the right answer to the people you serve, not just an answer.  If you know you can’t figure out the answer, ask for help.  You will gain more respect out of showing your willingness to lean on others than you would from leading people in the wrong direction.

cc licensed flickr photo shared by gcouros

What does a principal see everyday?  What are some of the images that inspire me to be better for my students?  The above picture is the first student arriving at school today and very eager to begin (he popped by the school 4 times last week so he was pretty excited when school opened this week).

I decided this morning, right before I pulled into the school, that I was going to take a picture everyday school was on, so I can share a “200 days of school” album at the end of the year.  I know that there are many “365″ projects, but I wanted to start with something that was school focused.

I challenge all educators out there to create a similar album and sharing what they see through the school year.  Your students may already be at school, so start tomorrow.  Let’s show the world how awesome our schools are!

Are you up for the challenge?

(You can follow the set on Flickr here –>  200 days of school)

cc licensed flickr photo shared by 16 Miles of String

Getting my yearly “back to school” haircut, my hairdresser and I started talking about family.  She was telling me about her two daughters who are aged 19 and 22 that still live at home with her.  Her story about them really hit home with me as I anxiously await the arrival of our students.

She had told me that she LOVED her kids being home, although sometimes when they are, they are just SO NOISY.  She then told me, that even though sometimes it gets to her, when she walks in the door and they are not there, the house seems empty.  She said that when her children are gone, “I miss the noise”.

Although staff has been there for the last two days (and many days prior), schools are, and always will be, about our kids.  I appreciate the life and energy that they not only bring to the school, but that they bring to me.  It is those days that give you headaches and you feel frustrated, that you have to remember to that ultimately, children are our greatest resource in schools.

I am looking forward to the noise tomorrow.

I have often heard the saying, “if we can impact one child, then we will have made a difference.”  So what happens when one school impacts another?  How big of a difference is that?  Here is an email that I received from a principal in Texas regarding what they did for their “Identity Day“.

Hello George,

Where do I begin? Before school started I was really looking for something that would help students to begin building productive relationships with one another right away.  Your posts about the Identity Fair held at your school was exactly the type of activity I thought would help accomplish my overall goal of being proactive against bullying. I sent home a letter in the summer to student/parents about the event and when it would be held. The staff received a letter about the Identity Fair with their summer welcome back letter.  I borrowed a lot from the information in your posts and I hope you don’t mind.  I wanted to capture in writing for parents and staff the same feeling that I felt from your posts.

I’m on car rider duty every morning with the staff.  On Friday I watched as students got out of their cars with their displays.  By that time I had already seen staff members with theirs and listened as they talked about hiding it until the “big reveal.”  My assistant principal, leadership team, and office staff used one of the display cases for our creations.  Later that day the classes rotated within the grade level areas allowing students to move from one classroom to another.  In each room the students were able to see a display showing the “one” thing they were passionate about.  They were also able to see the teacher’s work as well.  It was very exciting.  As I’m sure you can already imagine, the students loved sharing something about themselves and were excited to see what was special about others.  They also found it hard to believe that a “principal from Canada” knew about what they were doing and couldn’t wait to see pictures!

There were two moments that really tugged on my heart with the latter bringing me to tears.  One student’s display was about their father who was away in Iraq.  The student’s father was due to come home soon. It was beautiful and it really let you know just how much our students deal with outside of the classroom that doesn’t really stay outside.  The second moment came from an unexpected place.  I was sitting in my office and I could hear music that didn’t sound like what we normally hear coming from the music room.  It intrigued me even more so because my music teacher was absent that day just as she had been half of the day before.  I went to the music room.  When I entered I saw the substitute standing at the front of the classroom playing his saxophone.  The students sat mesmerized by what they were hearing and seeing.  This teacher is a familiar and frequent substitute at our school.  He is about 63 years old and believes in education.  When he learned we were sharing the one thing we were passionate about, he came the next day with his passion, the saxophone.  It brought me to tears.

I cannot say thank you enough!  I know you always give your assistant principal credit for implementing the idea at your school so please pass on my thanks to her as well.   Because of your posts and tweets, I’ve tried things that I never knew existed.  I’m out of my comfort zone technologically speaking (and loving it) but, I’ve managed to already show my staff that I’m learning and we all need to keep learning in order to keep up with our students.

Simply – Thank you.

This email brought me to tears last night.  I was already so proud of what our school community did with our Identity Fair and now to see that they are impacting others is amazing.  How powerful will this be when I share with students?  They will know they are making a difference.

The great thing about this email is that all I did was share the information.  Our school led the initiative and I took part as a participant and wrote about it.  How many things have you done in your school do you think could impact other schools? Are you writing about them?  Everyday that I read and learn about what other schools are doing, the more I am convinced that we cannot let our best practices live in isolation anymore.

cc licensed flickr photo by Tacit Requiem: http://flickr.com/photos/tacitrequiem/2981446879/

We need to share the achievements of our school so that we can work together as an educational community to make widespread change.

It is interesting that I received this email the same night I went out with Will Richardson for dinner.  The last time we met, he and my brother convinced me that I need to get more involved using social media.  It has now seem to come full circle.

I am so proud of what my school did that day.  I am even more proud that their enthusiasm and passion is spreading to others around the world.

I have taking some time away from writing in my blog as I have been really focused on preparing our school for our new Google Apps for Ed accounts, as well as our WordPress MU site.  With these two sites, our students will hopefully have all of the same opportunities that we do as adults in creating their own personal learning environment.  Although this has been a time consuming task, in the long run, I am hoping that the “maintenance” time will be minimum.

Here is essentially how this will work.  The students will all have Google accounts that are hosted through through our school.  These accounts will give them opportunities to use Google Docs, Calendar, Gmail, and other components.  The WordPress MU site, will give students the opportunity to have their own space where they can create and maintain their own online portfolio that they will have throughout their time in our school.  Once they are done, they will just have to simply import their work to their own site, as I am hoping that this is something that they will continue on with past their time in our school.

Creating these components, can dramatically change the way we do things in our school.  The important thing though is that we ensure that this is not “more work” for our staff, but it is just a shift in the way we do things.

For example, the goal is that we have every classroom blogging within our school so that we can open up communication with our parents.  Instead of “telling” parents what it is going on through a newsletter, I am hoping that we can open up a “conversation” with parents, as we continuously tell them that they are a crucial part of their child’s development.  This is our way of showing it through our actions.  What I want to ensure is that we are not doing a newsletter AND a blog to our parents from classrooms, but we are just using a blog.  Last week, I spent some time looking for websites that could transfer a blog into a newsletter, for the families that do not have Internet access.  I am doing everything I can to ensure that we change what we do, as opposed to “adding” what we do.

Here are some other questions I am wondering about?

1. Writing in a standard note journal or a blog? Do we need to do both or is one of them sufficient.  We need to ensure students still have writing skills as it has not entirely disappeared, but which is more beneficial to the child?  Collaborative blog or notebook journal that the teacher is usually the only one to see?
2. Should we do daily writing in an agenda or use a google calendar to connect with students? Each student has a journal and I have seen the practice of students getting the “agenda” items for the day and copying those notes into their agenda.  Is it better to simply put the agenda into a calendar that all students have access to and forgo them writing it in their book everyday?  I know that we can ensure one of those is available to all parents (that have Internet access).  I understand that writing daily in your agenda improves writing skills (the technique), but does it encourage a love of writing?  Is the time saved here writing it in one open calendar, not better used with some deeper learning opportunities?

We have a long way to go this year in our project, but the hope is that this will become a system that is for the long term for our staff and students, not simply a one year deal.  I will be providing sessions, one-on-one time with staff, and other opportunities to help build their learning with the help of a teacher leader in our school.  The model for learning is in place, and I am excited that this is something that staff will be working on together with students.  Is there really a better way to show students the importance of lifelong learning than doing it alongside them?  Everything is in place.  We just need to make the shift.

I would love your thoughts on this project.  What are some things that you think we could do better with this project being implemented at a whole school project? What are some ways we can not do more, but shift our way of doing things.

cc licensed flickr photo by schani

The more I read the work of others, the more I am inspired to push change forward not only in our schools, but society.  As schools, we really need to do our best to serve those around us so that they can join us in making a difference.  In the three articles that I decided to share this week, they talk about “how” we can get better, “how” we need to take the lead as educators to move forward, and finally, how this is so important to our society right now:

• A Priority List For Principals | Connected Principals – A great reflective post by Patrick Larkin that summarized his findings when he asked how principals should change.  This article links to the original post as well as the summary.  A definite must-read for any administrator that is looking to improve their practice.
  • A week ago I wrote a post asking “How Do Principals Need To Change?” At the end of the post I promised to share the responses with my fellow administrators so that we could all have a priority to list to refer back to as we start our the new school year.

• Weblogg-ed » Who’s Asking? -As educators, we need to get better.  Status quo is not sufficient.  Will Richardson shares a passionate post on how educators need to lead our way forward.
  • So here’s the deal with the change that many of us in this conversation are clamoring for in schools: we’re about the only ones talking it. The townsfolk down at the corner store aren’t demanding “21st Century Skills,” technology in every student’s hand, an inquiry based curriculum and globally networked classrooms.

• SpeEdChange: Teaching Citizenship: We have to do better. – A passionate educator, Ira Socol really shares his passion for getting our students better, and how we need to work with them to understand and accept other cultures.  Ira writes two passionate posts that all educators, and really, humans should read.
  • I am scared. The opposition to the Park51 Islamic Cultural Center project is a frightening step over the line for the United States, reminiscent of the days in the 1920s when the KKK marched through Washington DC proudly.
  • See, this is not a protest against anything that is any kind of threat – not a real one, not an emotional one. There is, rather, no difference between this mob…

• SpeEdChange: Teaching Citizenship: We have to do better. Part II

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here

I had the fantastic opportunity to talk with a parent today on why we did not give students an award certificate at the end of the year.  Every time I have one of these opportunities to chat with a member of our school community, it really gives me a chance to reflect on the practice of our school.

As my first year in the school, we did not do a big awards ceremony or give it out individual academic awards.  If you would have asked me this question five years ago, I would have thought that any school that did not give “awards” was all about the fluff.  After some more experience, there are several reasons why I don’t believe in rewards or awards in the classroom.

The Basics

To start with, here is a quote from Alfie Kohn:

In short, good values have to be grown from the inside out. Attempts to short-circuit this process by dangling rewards in front of children are at best ineffective, and at worst counterproductive. Children are likely to become enthusiastic, lifelong learners as a result of being provided with an engaging curriculum; a safe, caring community in which to discover and create; and a significant degree of choice about what (and how and why) they are learning. Rewards–like punishments–are unnecessary when these things are present, and are ultimately destructive in any case. (Alfie Kohn, The Risk of Rewards)

Now I have heard the argument about how students love getting rewards in the classroom and they work towards this.  This is definitely easier in elementary grades.  It is important though as educators that although it may work in the earlier grades, our vision as teachers in the classroom should be long past the year students are with us. What do we want from our students?  To be good grade 2 or 3 students, or to become lifelong learners?  I know what I want to provide in the long term for our students.  If you take opportunities to learn about your students, find their passion, and make connections to their world, you will not need rewards or awards to motivate them.

Awards eventually lose their luster to students that get them, while often hurting the self-esteem and pride of those who don’t.

Creating an awards system in school; there is no right way.

Have you ever been in a meeting with your colleagues discussing how awards should be given out?  Should the average be 85% or 80%.  What subjects should it include?  Should it only be the “core” subjects?  There are so many things that are not right with this process.

First of all, there is no perfect grading system or mark structure (I will talk about grades in another post).  It doesn’t exist.  So if the students gets a grade of 79% on a subject that knocks them out of the “award” process, what are you going to do?  Will you bump them up to an 80% or leave them at a 79%, or even worse (to some) move them for a 75%?  We all know that educators are not perfect and your system of grading is not perfect.  There is no right answer with this because to me, it doesn’t make sense.  Students should know where there strengths are and what they need to work on, not how they fit in our magical grading system.

Secondly, if you believe that we need to find students passions, leaving subjects out like the Fine Arts  (Ken Robinson might have something to say about this) does nothing but tell everyone that those subjects are not important.  Imagine how this feels to the student who wants to become a dancer?  “Hey kid, that is nice you can dance, but since you can’t list our last 5 Prime Ministers, you don’t get an award today because your Social Studies mark got bumped to a 78%.” This does not show my belief that we need to build upon students’ passions.

School as family.

I have shown my belief that we want to create a family environment in our school. I do not have my own kids, but I do not remember my mom and dad annually or semi-annually recognizing our achievements as their children (it would be so easy to make a brother joke here but I am going to refrain).  As parents, it is important to let your kids know when you are seeing good things from your kids, WHEN you are seeing them.  I also do not remember my mom and dad sorting us by who did what better in our family.  We each had our own unique gifts as kids in my family, and we were recognized for that.  Should it not be the same in a school?  Does the term “caring and safe” match with “ranking and sorting”?  Awards definitely lend to the latter and do nothing to create that caring and safe environment.

When I discussed at parent council this year about us removing awards, one of the parents shared how she was so glad that her child would not go through what she did as a child. She talked about how every year her sister (who was the more academic) always got an award while she sat in the audience and watched others get called up.  Do you think that this may have lead to some resentment in their own family? You may not believe that schools should be “like a family”, but I can guarantee that you do not want to cause rifts in one either.

The team environment

An essential 21st century skill is being able to collaborate.  No matter what awards system you use, you are promoting individuals as opposed to the efforts of working together.  Now at this point, you still may be convinced as an educator that awards are still good for kids so I will ask you this.  As a school, how would the environment feel if we had awards for the “best” teachers on staff?  Every member of my staff makes a contribution to our school environment, just like every child does.  I try my best to ensure that I let every staff member know how I have seen their contributions throughout the year, just as I try to let our kids know how important they are to our environment.  If I continue to say our schools works together, why would their be individual awards?  It seems to separate the team.

One of the things that I took from my days of coaching basketball and following the work of Lakers’ coach Phil Jackson (love or hate him, he has the most championships of any coach), is that every person on a team has a role they play.  As a leader (coach) you need to find them their role that will contribute to the success of the team.  I want to recognize everyone in our school as a contributor to our success.

Effort vs. Academic Intelligence

Take two students.  One from a home that is well off with both parents supportive and able to help their child.  The other from a single parent family where the parent has to work considerably to make ends meet.  Although both families love their children with all of their heart, one has more advantages in their life.  The “privileged” child is not really engaged in academics, does not work hard, but is able to easily meet all the “rubric” requirements for the year.  The other child works their butt off their entire year, has little support at home, does whatever they can, but pulls off a 70% average.  Who would you give the award too?

My own award story

I loved basketball with all my heart.  I also really liked football.  I played both and did very well in the sports during high school.  In grade 12, the most coveted “award” for many was the “Male Athlete of the Year” award.  There was no criteria set out, but the general belief amongst students was it would go to the student that played the most sports.  In my grade 12 year, I played football, volleyball, basketball, badminton, and track.  I only liked two of those sports but played the others to get the award.

At the end of the year, I ended up tearing my ACL in both my knees and my doctor told me because it was because I put too much constant stress on my body.  I also did not get the award and was crushed.  Within one year, with aspirations of playing university sports in either basketball or football, I went from not being able to play anymore while also feeling crushed that I was not given the award.  Before my grade 12 year, I did not play those other sports and did not care about awards because they were not given to athletes other than grade 12.  In grade 12, I became more focused on the award than I did on my passion.  How many times has this happened in our schools and we have not known about the impact it has had on our students later on in their lives?

The alternative

So what about putting an “academic certificate” in the report card at the end of the year instead of having an awards ceremony?  If you have ever been around students in a school when they get their report card, they often compare with their friends, and although something that was meant to be private turns public really quick.  Here is something that was so effective and meant so much to me when I was a child.

One teacher that made a HUGE difference in my life was Miss Butler when I was in grade 4.  She was a fantastic and loving teacher and I really enjoyed being in her class.  She did something that year that I still remember to this day and still affects what I do as an educator.  In our report card, Miss Butler took a cut out of a smurf (one of my favourite things when I was a child – cue embarrassing moment here) and wrote to me on it how I impacted her that year, and what some of her favourite memories were of me.  She wrote how much she loved how positive I was and my sense of humour with others.

The thing was, she did this with everyone.  I did get an award that year for academics, but what I remember most is that card and how it made me feel. I remember the classroom BUZZING at the end of the year and everyone went home feeling like THEY were an amazing person that impacted that classroom.  It was not that I was the “smartest” or the “best recycler” (you know, the award for the kid that doesn’t fit into any of the “categories”), but I was a person that was special.

Schools are not about ranking and sorting. They are about learning and creativity in a safe and caring environment.  They are about empowering all students, not just the ones that are strong at the core subjects. If I continuously tell our students that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM is important to our school, I do not see how awards align with this belief.  Do you?

cc licensed flickr photo shared by LisaThumann

I was recently contacted about our purchase of SmartBoards for our school by a member of my PLN.  She asked some great questions about why we chose what we did and how we trained our staff in their use.  In Alberta, we have a government program that provides us money to ensure that every teaching space has a projector, so although that was covered, we ensure that we also bought the SmartBoard to have an interactive component in each classroom.

Whether you agree with SmartBoards or not, please read about how we ensured staff had training using this new technology in our classroom.  It is something that I believe is essential to success with any initiative you have in your school.

The questions and answers are below:

Hope this helps!

It is interesting how we continuously have the opportunity to provoke thoughts and learning from each other.  Recently I wrote a post on Cyberbullying which led to a comment from Tom Whitby where he stated: “Now that I wrote this I have a need to expand it on my own blog.”  Tom then wrote his post which has now sparked thoughts for me (is there a 6 degrees of blog separation from Kevin Bacon game?) In Tom’s post, he talks about what we need to do as administrators in ensuring the safety of students while not having “knee jerk reactions” that lead us to removing things such as mobile devices and an open Internet.  I agree wholeheartedly with Tom’s posts and thought how they relate to my situation.

At our school, we are lucky to have an IT team that works with educators to ensure that we have open access to the Internet (other than the obvious R-Rated sites) and we are able to use anything from Facebook, YouTube, to Twitter.  If there is an educational use for the site that can be applied, it can or probably is already open.  With the sites that I just chose to list, they may not be geared for educational use, but they definitely have applications in education.  There are also some portions of the site that definitely have no place in the classroom.  To blanket block these sites is pretending that they don’t exist.

Hearing comments on Twitter on how people are frustrated that they do not have opportunities to use these sites really is frustrating for me as an educator.  I feel for the students in those schools that are missing out on some amazing stories, connections, and friendships from all around the world.  I could not imagine that this video shared by Dean Shareski (take the time to watch it if you have not) would be blocked in schools.  What would bother me more though is that if videos like this were NOT shared in a school that had open access because educators do not “feel” that these global connections are important.  Of course, not every educator is going to stumble across posts like this and I miss a ton of good information on the Twitter stream everyday, but I know that I take the time to look through this information.

Everyday at our school for a few months, I remember walking past students having lunch watching a mother eagle in real time take care of her chicks (the video is no longer available) and thinking about how amazing it is that this was brought to life for our students and how this was not possible when I was a kid.  I also wondered if this was blocked somewhere else.  There were many ways that I saw my staff doing these types of things this year.

One of my goals, as the principal of a public school that has open access is share as much as I can about the amazing opportunities our students have this year and what ways we have been proactive in ensuring that they are safe in the process.  We need to share what we are doing to help some other schools/divisions see what they are possibly missing by blocking these sites in the classroom.  As I have opened myself up more to connecting and reading about a lot of global issues in education, as well as the world, I feel that it is my responsibility to be an advocate not only for the students in my school, but students all over the world.  I am happy to see that more teachers in our school (Shawn Ram and Barb Kari) have started blogging about their own experience and get to share their thoughts and knowledge with the world.  It is amazing how we will now get to connect and collaborate with one another.

Recently, on a Skype call with John Carver at Van Meter schools in Iowa (something that is probably blocked in many schools), he shared his belief that we are now at a “printing press” stage in history.  The changes in our world are going to be monumental and hopefully we are doing our part to prepare our students to be ready for the world that they will face as adults.  I am going to do my best to share as much as I can about our school this year and the amazing things that I know our school community will do.

I am going to do my best to give our staff the tools and opportunities to help prepare our students for the future. I also am going to do my best to share their journey. I hope you do too.

cc licensed flickr photo by FunnyBiz: http://flickr.com/photos/funnybusiness/439655191/

After a really interesting twitter discussion on Twitter tonight that started  after sharing a story about a principal that was asked to resign after comments made on Facebook, I had a fantastic conversation regarding free speech for teachers as well as students.  It lead me to this article regarding a principal that suspended students for a facebook group that was started at school (by the way, I do not agree with what the principal did that elicited the ire from the students).  As we move more into using social media at our K-6 school in the next year, I am certain to be asked by our school community on how I will deal with cases of cyberbullying.  What if a student writes something derogatory about myself or another student (it is far worse about about another student). My hope is that we will not deal with this at all, but I would never expect our students to be infallible (or anyone for that matter).  If we are proactive in our plan, the mistakes will lessen.

1. Ensure students have a strong understanding of social media and that behind all of the avatars are real people. From some reading tonight, I came across the “Education Law Blog” which stated the following:

…our research on child development makes it clear that there is only one way to truly combat bullying. As an essential part of the school curriculum, we have to teach children how to be good to one another, how to cooperate, how to defend someone who is being picked on and how to stand up for what is right. (From “A non-legislative response to bullying”)

It is so essential that we focus first on students treating one another with respect and kindness in all environments, digital or not. (This is an interesting post on having empathy to those behind the blogs)

2.  We need to work with parents as we move our schools forward. It is interesting that I started using Twitter as a way of to learn more about cyberbullying and it has now come full circle to this post.  The presentation was to work with parents to talk about Social Media and Cyberbullying to ensure that they are a part of the conversation.  If we can teach them to be proactive and aware of what their children are doing, it will help to teach them to have the same qualities in person that they do online.  Parents should also be in on conversations when students do make mistakes.  My rule of thumb as a principal is that I call EVERY household when dealing with student incidents.  Working together we can do so much more than we can do apart.

Some may be looking for specific rules and procedures on this.  I believe that as administrators we need to work with every child and family to figure out the best solution for each situation.  I do not believe in “scripted” ways of dealing with anyone.  Each person and situation is unique.  It is important that we describe expectations and follow up with students.

So in summary, I believe that we need to be  proactive with kids, deal with each situation to our best abilities since they are all unique, and work with families to figure out the best solutions for each child. Even when students make mistake, we always need to treat them with dignity and respect.  As administrators, we need to ensure that we DO deal with situations as they arise; that is essential.

Kind of seems like my thoughts on cyberbullying are the same as for dealing with other mistakes.  Do we really need to deal with it any different?