cc licensed ( BY SD ) flickr photo shared by wadem
“Directions are instructions given to explain how. Direction is a vision offered to explain why.” Simon Sinek
As I am seeing a growing demand for schools to learn how to use social media tools in classrooms with students, staff, and parents, I have continuously tried to focus on this Simon Sinek video (which I have mentioned several times in this blog). In the Ted Talk, Sinek continuously says the same phrase over and over again:
“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”
Although this can be taken as a very “business-driven” phrase, there is definitely a connection to the work we are doing within our schools and especially with our students, staff, and stakeholders. I have this huge belief that people want to be inspired and want purpose in their lives, they don’t want to just “show up” and do the work.
With that being said, I have seen the importance of defining the “why” in my own experience. Often I have been asked to work with staff to either give a talk and/or to follow up by doing a workshop on how to help educators get connected. Sometimes though, I have been asked to simply do the workshop portion. Although doing the latter is much more time efficient for that day, in the long run if we do not clearly articulate “why” we are doing what we are doing, the “what” and the “how” are lost.
Recently, I had the opportunity to work with a school staff giving a presentation on some of the trends happening in our world and how we can leverage technology in a way to connect with our students, school community, and the rest of the world. After the presentation, we were meant to do a workshop on Google Apps, but questions came up about Twitter and how they would use that tool to connect and learn with so many great educators around the world. The questions were inspired and teachers were excited about moving forward and learning something new. As I left to head off to my next meeting, the entire staff was still there working on what I had tried to teach them. It was inspiring for me to see and I was reluctant to leave.
I am not certain if the discussion I had with them that day will stick with them, but I do know that taking that hour before and sharing with them “why” we are trying to move forward will definitely increase the percentage of success. As educators (and as people in general), we are always stressed about the amount of time we have in a day, but as I have been told often, “sometimes we have to go slow, to go fast”. Taking that time to discuss the why was important and needed. It is also a lesson that I can learn greatly from as I continue my own work.
I have embedded the Sinek video below…if you have not seen it, it is definitely worth the 19 minutes it takes to watch it.
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Search Engine People Blog
“Our careers, our companies, our personal relationships, and our very lives succeed or fail gradually, then suddenly, one conversation at a time.” Susan Scott
We are currently in a workshop entitled “Fierce Conversations” (where the above quote came from). The focus of the workshop (that I have obtained so far) is about the relationships and connections that we have with people; how we talk to them and how we move forward both personally and professionally, in a way that we build relationships and trust. Relationships, as I have always believed, are the foundation on which good schools and organizations are built upon. They do not necessarily make an organization great, but without them, excellence is less likely to happen.
I haven’t been blogging much lately. Honestly, for one time in my life, I feel that I have had nothing much to say. Now in reality, I always have an opinion on something, but just in the case of my career or my experience in education, I just haven’t felt the need to share anything, nor have I seen anything that has inspired me to write. It is not that there are not a lot of amazing things happening in our school division and around the world, but I have just tried to purposely disconnect for a bit. I have been thinking a lot about my job, the work I do, and my own personal life.
Last year as a principal, inspiration came seemingly every day when I worked with students and their stories affected me profoundly. This year, being in central office, I have been around students, and have seen different ones a fair bit. The problem is that seeing a mass amount of students for a limited amount of time has not created the same connection that I have always longed for in my life. The relationships are there, but they are just not as deep. I miss that connection often and have sometimes struggled with it.
It is not that I don’t love my job, but there has definitely been an adjustment. Any time I felt I needed a break from ‘office work’, I would get up, walk around, and go visit kids in the classroom. I have found now that I get up, walk around, and have nowhere else to go. It is just different.
Schools, I believe, are like no other business in the way we build relationships. Leaving a school or classroom, impacts people to a point where students, and sometimes families feel abandoned and hurt. I remember specifically students at my last school in grade 6 (the highest grade in the school), wondering how I could possibly leaving them. I told them that it would not matter to them since they were switching schools as well, but you could still feel that they were at a loss because the world that they had known was going to change. Although I think in a positive way of the relationships that I had built in my former schools, there is always a feeling of guilt when you leave, even if it is to do what you feel is right for your own life and family. Kids impacted me in a way that I could never imagined when I first started teaching and I miss seeing them every day.
As my career has moved quickly, and I have always felt that if I wasn’t busy, I would be bored, I noticed that I started to check out of many things outside of work. It wasn’t that I hated the things that I was doing, but I was continuously doing things, as opposed to sometimes just soaking in moments. Last year, I taught classes at a gym 6 times a week, refereed basketball on my nights off, all while running a school. I had no time for anything else. My blog posts in this year have focused a lot less on educational technology, leadership, and teaching practice, but a lot about balance. The term balance has always perplexed me as those who are seemingly successful aren’t necessarily ‘balanced’; they are focused and determined to be successful in what they are passionate about.
So this year, I have decided to cut back on several things. Reffing basketball was off the table. I teach classes at the gym only four times a week (as opposed to seven). When I leave work, I tend to not check my phone at all hours and I spend much less time working at Starbucks. This does not mean that I am not passionate about my job, but I just know now that I do not want to be defined by it. I love what I do. I love connecting with people, both kids and adults. But I also know that I needed to focus on things outside of work. I have spent more time connecting with friends, working on relationships, and just enjoying life outside of work. To be honest, it has been great. I had “blog-guilt” for awhile, but I promised myself when I first started that I would not write unless I had something to say. The guilt goes away.
So when we talk about the ability to have “fierce” conversations with one another, we always have to focus on our own readiness to talk. We have to look at where we are at as individuals. Are we at the point where we are truly ready to listen and empathize with someone else’s point of view? To get to that point, we have to look at our own situations and make sure that we are able to have those conversations.
In the workshop, the following quote (unknown) said it all to me:
“If you don’t like the conversations you are having with other people, look at the conversations you are having with yourself.”
We always need to be able to work on ourselves if we are truly going to be effective leaders. What I found from my lack of blogging lately is that sometimes the best reflection comes from saying nothing at all. We need to be comfortable with those breaks as well.
The one thing that has always been lost on me with the Internet, is how AMAZING articles or blog posts tend to have a huge impact, and then just disappear. That is why I love using a service like Diigo to bookmark some of my favourite links and categorize them so I can come back to them later. This week, I wanted to share some great articles that I have found recently and in the past.
1. Students vs. People – This is a great blog post that really emphasizes the importance of realizing that as teachers, we are not dealing with ‘numbers’ or ‘test scores’ but we are dealing with people every single day. We need to always be cognizant of that and this is a great reminder of this important fact.
That’s it, they’re people, like the rest of us. They have problems, I have problems. They are individuals, who will do some things well, and other things terribly. I’m really good at playing video games, but I can’t throw a ball all that well. What a lot of people don’t realize about that is that I’ve dislocated my right shoulder nine times, so if I throw a ball too hard, it’s possible that it will come out again. I have a subtext of background information that people need to know if they want to fully understand me. The same goes for my students, my people, that I try to teach everyday.
2. The Creativity Crisis - This is a great article talking about the importance, but loss of creativity in schools. There is a focus on creativity not only in North American schools, but all around the world
Around the world, though, other countries are making creativity development a national priority. In 2008 British secondary-school curricula—from science to foreign language—was revamped to emphasize idea generation, and pilot programs have begun using Torrance’s test to assess their progress. The European Union designated 2009 as the European Year of Creativity and Innovation, holding conferences on the neuroscience of creativity, financing teacher training, and instituting problem-based learning programs—curricula driven by real-world inquiry—for both children and adults. In China there has been widespread education reform to extinguish the drill-and-kill teaching style. Instead, Chinese schools are also adopting a problem-based learning approach.
As Sir Ken Robinson says, ““Creativity is as important as literacy”, and we need to recognize its need in our current world.
3. If Doctors Were Treated Like Teachers - I think this is a powerful article for anyone that says the teaching profession is not important in our world.
4. Top 10 Ways To Improve Student Achievement and Create Learners – I am not sure that these ‘top 10′ reasons would be my top 10, but they are definitely a good starting point for what can be done in schools. Here is a sample:
Share a Vision – Review your school’s Mission Statement. Your new vision should be tied to your district’s Mission Statement, but build up on it. The vision should describe why it is important to achieve your mission statement while looking to the future. It should portray what will be achieved if the school is successful in achieving its goals. Everyone should be invested in the vision with a total buy-in from the entire school. You have to keep your eye on the prize and never veer from your vision.
I hope that you have found something useful in these links. Have a great week!
cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by edtechworkshop
I have taken a little bit of a break from blogging but I have seen a ton of great links that I wanted to continue to share. Here are some things that may interest you:
1. Study Finds That Facebook Profile is Truer to Life Than People Think – I was asked a question this week regarding people “hiding” behind their social media profiles and then happened upon this article. I am sure that there are examples on each side of the spectrum but I found this article pretty interesting. As more people are becoming comfortable with posting their information online, there is a blur between online and offline.
The study also looked at what you can glean from a person’s offline personality by the information displayed on their Facebook page, which is essentially what many of us do when we look at a new friend’s profile for the first time, to see what they’re like in photos, if you’ve any interests in common, what kind of sense of humour they have, and to judge whether this person could be a future ‘real-life’ friend. Do you think that a person’s Facebook profile is an accurate representation of their personality, allowing you to judge whether or not a new Facebook friend could become a real-life friend? And is it fair to do so?
Whatever you believe, it is definitely an interesting article that helps with understanding of digital identity.
2. 30 Goals Challenge – Shelly Terrell has posted this challenge to help educators build their own personal network. If you follow the goals (starting today), you will definitely become more ‘connected’ by the end of the experience. (Here are some great resources regarding Personal Learning Networks) This is something definitely worth looking into for someone new to social media.
2. One Word – Jen Clevette posted this right before the end of 2011 regarding one word that is going to define her year. Jen used the word “balance” (which would also be mine for the year) and made several think about their word for the year. This is a great activity to do with students or yourself for personal growth.
I hope you all have a great week!
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Scott McLeod
cc licensed ( BY SD ) flickr photo shared by sun dazed
I saw this interesting post regarding Harvard University posting videos that act as a course syllabus (or a supplement to the syllabus) that anyone in the world can view. You do not necessarily have to go to the school to see what students at Harvard will be learning this year and who they will be learning it from:
The videos are publicly available on the site, which means that those of us not lucky enough to attend Harvard can catch a glimpse of what students there will be learning this semester, which is a positive effect of the use of such technology, opening up the workings of one of the most prestigious universities in the world. But on the other hand, it may just make some of us green with envy that we aren’t students there.
The last sentence in that quote really struck me. Mostly in K-12 education, students are told what they need to take and are forced into a class whether they like it or not, like it is the learning equivalent of vegetables.
“Just take this class…it will be good for you!”
Now I know that as we grow, we also gain more responsibility to pick and choose what we want to learn about. I know that when I was 5, reading would have not been my first choice for learning but obviously I am happy I have that skill as an adult. My question is how often do we just accept that students have to come to our classes and are okay with that? When would we ever create a video similar to the one created for this course, and get kids excited about what they are learning about? I hate using the term “customer” when talking about our kids, but in reality, we are there to serve them and should we not be getting them excited about what they are learning about?
I think little opportunities like creating a video are not only an opportunity to share what we will be learning but also to get students excited about the class and convince them to take the course. Would that be bad? I would love the thought that as a teacher kids would be excited about what they were going to learn in my class from day 1 and I knew that they wanted to be there. It is also a great time to challenge them, ask questions, get them to create questions, and even build a connection before they walk into class. A written paragraph on a piece of paper would not do that for me for most courses and I am guessing that would not work with most of our kids either.
I have enjoyed taking some time away from social media and connecting with family and friends. The more I get involved in the “online world”, the more I appreciate my time away from it. That being said, this graphic from Royan Lee says it all to me.
1. 7 Deadly Sins of Creativity – Innovation and creativity are two words that seem to go hand-in-hand to me, so when I came across this blog post, I thought that it had some fantastic ideas. I loved this quote that was shared:
Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. - Franklin D. Roosevelt
In this post, the authors go over the things that stifle creativity, while also discussing how you can conquer these ideas. Here is an example:
Lack of passion and enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm is the lifeblood of creativity. Creativity blossoms when you are passionate and enthusiastic about what you are doing. It’s extremely difficult topioneer creative solutions for things you have absolutely no interest in. When your mind is stimulated by curiosity and a fundamental interest in the subject matter, your creativity and motivation will automatically accelerate.
2. Questions about curriculum… – Edna Sackson has long been one of my favourite bloggers and this post definitely helps to guide questions in not only how you build a classroom, but also a school. These types of questions are imperative to growth of ourselves as educators and our schools as a whole. Here are some of the questions that Edna asks:
What are your beliefs about learning? Do they coincide with ours?
Did you know that a curriculum should not be static, but constantly revisited and updated to be current, relevant and promote authentic learning?
Do you think a curriculum has to be a set of books with prescriptive instructions for teachers?
Are you aware that workbooks do not usually foster meaningful learning?
Read the entire post to really get the entire idea of some of the powerful questions Edna asks of educators.
3. Zeitgest: 2011 Year in Review - As the year closes, I loved this video as it would be a great opportunity to discuss world events and how they effect our own communities. What are some of the questions that this type of video can spark? I love the easy access we have to these types of videos and events in our world; it really shows me how important it is that we bring this learning into our classroom every single day.
4. Although the below video is not necessarily focused on education or pedagogy, it is something that I loved and watched about 100 times last week. When I see amazing dance videos like this, I think of this amazing Chris Andersen Ted Talk where he talks about the power of video to drive innovation in our world. Would you see dance like this 10 or even 5 years ago? How many have learned this dance since the video has been released?
I hope all of you are having an amazing holiday season and I wish you all of the best going into the new year!
“So here are some questions that keep me up at night: How are we to make our students literate if we ourselves are not? If we cling to age old definitions and ignore the wisdom of one of the oldest professional education organizations we have in this country, how do we provide my kids with the experiences they need to fully understand what it means to be a self-directed, participatory learner in this century? How do we make sure that every child and every teacher has access to these tools and connections? And what do we do when the reform conversations are being led by a majority of folks who have no context for the changes that are happening every day in these connected spaces, folks that by NCTE’s definition, may have some literacy issues themselves?” ~ Will Richardson
As literacy is so fundamental to opportunities of learning, I have been thinking about Twitter and the use of it in our schools. If you look at this video, you will see that the use of Twitter is going up exponentially and things such as hashtags are making their way into things outside of Twitter. For example, have you ever read a text message that has the term “#fail” in it? Why the pound sign?
Just looking at a random tweet from Patrick Larkin, I wonder if most educators are able to decipher what the message is saying or even where to go to find out what the “pound sign thingies” mean? Take a look:
During this time in our world, if you can’t read this, are you missing out on something important? It is not just the words, but the links and hashtags that are in the message as well. I have done several workshops with educators and having something up like Tweetdeck looks like it is right out of the Matrix movies. I know it did to me when I first started using it. That being said, I am always appreciative when others are willing to take the time, struggle, and learn to get better at using this medium. It is so important that we model our learning continuously as educators for the sake of our students.
“The new literacy, beyond text and image, is one of information navigation. The real literacy of tomorrow entails the ability to be your own personal reference librarian—to know how to navigate through confusing, complex information spaces and feel comfortable doing so. “Navigation” may well be the main form of literacy for the 21st century.” ~ John Seely Brown
I have written about the texting improving literacy before, but I was again reminded of how much more our students read now as opposed to the time I was a kid when I read this article discussing a recent talk by Margaret Atwood:
Thanks to the rise of the internet and of social media, “I would say that reading, as such, has increased. And reading and writing skills have probably increased because what all this texting and so forth replaced was the telephone conversation,” she continued. “People have to actually be able to read and write to use the internet, so it’s a great literacy driver if kids are given the tools and the incentive to learn the skills that allow them to access it.”
Often you will hear things on how Twitter is “eroding society”, yet there can often be much more in a tweet then simply 140 characters. Atwood goes on to talk about how people are using Twitter to express themselves in similar ways, further their learning through the links that are often provided, and are sometimes using the medium to do different things:
“A lot of people on Twitter are dedicated readers. Twitter is like all of the other short forms that preceded it. It’s like the telegram. It’s like the smoke signal. It’s like writing on the washroom wall. It’s like carving your name on a tree. It’s a very short form and we use that very short form for very succinct purposes. There is a guy out there who is writing 140-character short stories — I just followed him today…but that’s the exception. It’s sort of like haikus [and] prose,” Atwood said.
Journalists are quickly learning that a Twitter account can be the best way to connect with an audience and share information as it happens. It is making the news more interactive and you will often see on newscasts the “Twitter handle” highlighted when a person is speaking. Humans yearn for connections and Twitter is a great way to be able to interact with those that once seemingly were out of reach. If journalists and writers are using this medium, should we not understand or share it with our own students?
Literacy is something that continuously evolves and I am not here to condemn those that don’t use Twitter. There are many areas of literacy that I can continue to improve (especially in the area of media literacy), but I know better to not just brush it aside and ignore it. We always need to get better for our kids. If we can’t understand all of the symbols in Twitter, learn how to write a tweet, and use those 140 characters (not all of the time) to lead people to more information, are we missing out on something?
As evidenced in the video below, there can be a lot of power in a simple tweet. We need to learn and take advantage.
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by aloshbennett
There are WAY more questions in this post then there are answers…I would love your thoughts.
I am a HUGE believer in personalized learning and think that our students should have opportunities to express their learning in many different ways. I would say that this holds true with the majority of educators that I know. The difference though is that do we often limit students to our version of personalization? Do we only give them options that we know? I have been very comfortable in my career encouraging students to share their learning in different ways whether I know them or not. The exploration and problem solving that goes into the work that a student creates using an unknown technology may not be taken directly out of the curriculum, but will obviously have some learning “side-effects” that will benefit the child long after their time in my class. Is this notion of exploration the norm though?
As the year has progressed, I have seen so many learning opportunities where “paper” has been the only option (always my favourite thing to happen in a session that discusses differentiated learning) and there is no digital component. This is not only for reading what has been shared, but also creating content to deepen understanding. Lyn Hilt wrote a fantastic post today giving some great options of what school administrators can try to further their learning. She ends her post with this quote:
This learning and reflective practice, which needs to be embedded throughout any district or school organization, must be modeled. It must be visible. It must be continuous. If you’re a school leader, ask yourself what about your own teaching and learning methods needs to be transformed in order for you to grow your capacity as a leader. Then turn your insights into action.
I have always believed in the idea that we need to give all learners options and Lyn exemplifies this in her post with a great table of ideas. That being said, I am wondering if this is a ‘suggestion’ will people jump in and try the “new” way (which I would say is better)? Even if it isn’t better for that learner, as leaders, should we still not understand different opportunities for learning, especially if we are to be experts on the subject? I wrote a post this summer that literally stemmed from my frustration of not been given the opportunity to have a digital component for my own learning at a “21st Century Conference” that was “paper heavy”. I know we are supposed to meet learners where they are at, but, to be honest, this pushed me out of my comfort zone. That being said, when we are being pushed out of that zone, shouldn’t it at least be a push forward? I wonder what would happen if we came to a point where we would say to educators that we are only going to use digital resources for this meeting, this PD session, this learning opportunity? Would they back down from the challenge or would they adapt and perhaps even transform their practice? I love the idea of sharing a continuum as Lyn has done, but maybe we need to just cut off the ‘old’ option. Can we really personalize learning for students if we don’t understand how to use emerging technologies?
We ask our students to be uncomfortable in their learning every day; do we embody that practice ourselves?
Last year, I spoke with John Carver and our conversation still resonates. He said to me, “This is a printing press time in history; what are we going to do with it?” In my opinion, we shouldn’t have the option to ignore it.
Thoughts?
As the year is winding down and people have been busy preparing for holidays, I have not been as connected this week as I have been in the past. That being said, I have definitely seen some awesome links. Hopefully they will be helpful to whatever you are doing.
1. 7 Deadly Sins of Creativity – The thoughts of creativity and innovation to me, seem to go hand-in-hand. In this blog post, I love how it shares some of the roadblocks to creativity. There is a great list shared on this post, but I love the first one on “lack of knowledge and attention” as it is applicable to the work we are doing in schools:
Lack of knowledge and attention.
Knowledge and attention are absolute necessities. Creative thinking cannot be productively applied until a certain level of knowledge is gathered about the current situation or problem at hand. Thus, creativity actually relies on both sides of the brain, the creative right side and the logical left side.
The first steps the brain takes when tackling a creative venture are actually governed by logic, not creativity. This is because most creative breakthroughs rest on the shoulders of everything that came before it. The logical left side of your brain analyzes the situation and all the known facts, defines the problem that must be solved and then hands the data over to the creative right side of your brain. In other words, once a creative challenge has been realized, you must first rely on your logic and absorb yourself in what is already known. Without this logical review process, creativity will drown in misdirection.
The battle between content and process is something we often talk about, but we need to have both. I think that is well defined in the above example.
2. This Year’s 10 Best Ted Talks To Share With Students – Edudemic has been doing some great “end of the year” lists which have led to some great resources being shared going into 2012. Although many Ted Talks are great for adults, these suggestions may be ones that will start some great conversations with students in the classroom. Definitely check them out.
3. Smile – Nothing more than I can say then that I love this video and the story it tells. There are so many great little lessons from this video; it is definitely worth the sixteen minutes just for the smile it will bring to your face.
I hope that everyone has a great week and enjoys their well deserved holidays 
I don’t know if it is just that time of year, but I have been thinking a lot about the emotional connections that organizations need to make for meaningful change moving forward. As I try to read daily, my eye has been going more towards visual blogs (like the Flickr blog) and blogs that share little stories.
Often, for inspiration, I will look at the “Awesome Things” blog and loved this post on “Pinky Swears“:
These days the world is full of buzzing phones, double-booking, and changing plans. Texts sit unanswered, parties shrink and shift, and sometimes nobody knows who’s coming or going.
That’s where pinky swears come in.
When someone offers a pinky, they’re showing that they’re actually interested in following through. Accept that pinky and you enter into an unbreakable promise to get there too.
Who hasn’t done a pinky swear at some point? This is a simple story that people connect with and is probably why this book has been so successful. The stories move people and connect with them on a level where they are attached emotionally. One minute you can be laughing uncontrollably, and in the next, crying profusely. Emotions move people.
Then I fell upon this blog post, sharing little stories of kindness and love. There were several stories that were extremely powerful but this one of extreme unselfishness by a sibling stuck out:
Today, I operated on a little girl. She needed O- blood. We didn’t have any, but her twin brother has O- blood. I explained to him that it was a matter of life and death. He sat quietly for a moment, and then said goodbye to his parents. I didn’t think anything of it until after we took his blood and he asked, “So when will I die?” He thought he was giving his life for hers. Thankfully, they’ll both be fine.
#awesome
We have to continue to take advantage of these short, powerful stories in the work that we do.
Here is another great collection of stories and visuals that Google has created to share the 2011 school year:
#powerful
As I wait for my brother to fill me in on his little girl as she spent the night in the hospital, he shared this little picture with me to show how she is okay, although she is struggling with the IV in her arm. It is one of those pictures that can make you both smile and tear up at the same time.
Bea
#aww
We have to remember that when we share these small visuals and stories, we can really connect and move those we serve.
People don’t want to be pushed, they want to be inspired.
Recent Comments