My blog has been off and on for the last little while due to technical difficulties but luckily (for myself) I have temporarily fixed it! This is all a part of the learning curve!
Here are some really interesting videos/articles that I have seen in the last little while.
1. Can Skateboarding Save Our Schools – A very interesting idea on using skateboarding as a model for assessment and at about 9 minutes (watch this), the speaker uses a great example of why grades are really tough to use when learning a new skill; you either can or cannot do it sometimes. You may not agree with what the ideas that the author suggests, but it is a great ‘real-world’ example to spark discussion. Isn’t that what we want in our learning communities?
2. Slacktivism – Another great post by Shelley Wright discussing the Kony 2012 video that has quickly went viral (here is a great Ted Talk on why videos go viral) and is all over both mainstream and social media. The discussions that the Kony video are fantastic although not everyone agrees with the way it has been done. Here is what Shelley has to say:
Here’s the problem, while the video correctly informs us Kony is a dangerous man who needs to be stopped, the solutions it offers are decidedly white, North American and ill-informed. Throwing North American money at a problem, at best, rarely solves it, and at worst, exacerbates it.
Essentially, the premise of the video is that Kony has abducted thousands of children and needs to be stopped. The solution? All of us who stand for truth and justice should be the ones to stop Kony. How? We mobilise as many people as possible to lobby influential artists and politicians to stand up for the cause, which in turn will pressure Obama to keep the 100 troops deployed to Uganda in place until Kony is caught. Once Kony is caught, or killed, all will be good. But will it? Do we honestly believe Justin Bieber is the Ugandan people’s best hope? Doesn’t that overestimate our ability and underestimate theirs?
If anything, educators are learning more than ever to not simply jump on a bandwagon behind these types of global initiatives, but more importantly to think critically about what is happening and it means to our world. There is so much to learn not only about our past, but our present. This article talks about the opportunities we have to discuss this with our students:
So here’s the positive side of Stop Kony: it’s an open door to have those tough conversations with kids who are mature enough to handle them.
Practically every teenager I know has seen and shared the Kony video. It’s always a good thing when youth are encouraged to think beyond their own borders, and when they’re inspired to make a difference.
Invisible Children is telling teens and young adults that they can use their powers of social media for good. Those are important messages.
But we should also encourage our kids to heed some of the critics and come to their own informed conclusions about the campaign. Major kudos to Grant Oyston, an Acadia student, for essentially kick-starting a global dialogue.
Dialogue. Such a great word to be used in the context of our schools. We need to have it more openly and if anything, videos like this give us great opportunities for learning in our classrooms.
3. Digital Portfolios – Kathy Cassidy, an outstanding educator from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan (this is turning into the all Moose Jaw edition of ‘You Should Read’!) discusses her process and learning from doing digital portfolios with her grade 1 students (yes, grade 1!). Here work has been inspirational in some of the things that we have been trying to do within our own school division. Kathy has been a leader in this area for several years:
I have been using my students’ blogs as digital portfolios for several years. By the end of the school year, they reflect each child’s learning in many subject areas from the first weeks of school until the last. In addition to showing the development of our writing skills, we make podcasts of our reading fluency at different points in the school year, and show our learning in language arts, mathematics, science, social studies and health.
I am hoping that sharing this type of resource will push more people into helping students learn to assess their work in a way that they have a solid understanding of their work while also building a very positive digital footprint of their work!
I hope you all have a great week with your students!
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by mrsdkrebs
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by pedroelnegro [ and Reverend Godless]
I recently read this comment in a blog post, but have seen it (or variations) several times:
“No one cares about your feelings at the work place. They expect you to get your job done.”
Really?
Why are our schools not the place where we start to build our preferred future? Why are they meant to fit in the model of what exists, or sometimes, what existed? If our dreams lie in our children, do we dream of them working in a place for 30 years where no one cares about anything other than the bottom line? Yes at some point, we did not know much about emotional intelligence and the effect it has on output, but we know better.
The reality of our world and economy is that if people have emotional well being, they will do much better and create higher profit. The idea that ‘money’ is the only motivator towards excellence is outdated. People need more of a purpose in something they spend at least one-third of their day doing:
…the well-being of employees is also in the best interests of employers who spend substantial resources hiring employees and trying to generate products, profits, and maintain loyal customers. To succeed in hiring, employers must provide tangible benefits. However, employees want more than a stable job with pension and benefits. Surveys of recent and upcoming generations of employees clearly show a majority of employees desire greater meaning and personal development from their work and suggest many workers see their work as a calling–enjoyable, fulfilling and socially useful (Avolio & Sosik, 1999; Wrzesniewski, McCauley, Rozin, & Schwartz, 1997)
As leaders, it is essential that we recognize the importance of this not only in ourselves, but in those we serve. Dr. Maynard Brusman discusses the importance of emotional intelligence in leadership and how we can sometimes get lost in the ideas of “what worked”:
“The more frequently you are promoted to higher levels of executive responsibility, the more important your interpersonal relationship skills are to your success—and the more challenging it is to change bad habits.It’s natural for successful people to believe that what contributed to their past accomplishments will continue to work for them. They also assume that they can—and will—succeed, no matter what.”
Brusman goes on to describe the characteristics of a “good” and “bad” boss, which also shows a high level of understanding and empathy:
To create the most productive work environments, we need to not only understand ourselves, but also those we work with.
Look at Google. One of the most successful companies in our world today does everything to build an environment where their workers are comfortable and feel that their needs are met. They know that if someone is valued, they will do a better job.
“Google is not a conventional company, and we don’t intend to become one. True, we share attributes with the world’s most successful organizations – a focus on innovation and smart business practices comes to mind – but even as we continue to grow, we’re committed to retaining a small-company feel. At Google, we know that every employee has something important to say, and that every employee is integral to our success.” Life at Google
We can take this as a “touchy-feely” approach to the workplace, but what if we look at from a profit standpoint? To make the most money from our organization, we need to treat our people as real human beings and show that they are valued. If they do that, their output will be higher, creating more prosperity and wealth for the company. This is not an “either/or” argument; we can care about the emotional well-being of those in the workplace AND can create greater revenue.
“Proponents of the well-being perspective argue that the presence of positive emotional states and positive appraisals of the worker and his or her relationships within the workplace accentuate worker performance and the quality of life. When environments provide and people seek out interesting, meaningful and challenging tasks, individuals in these situations are likely to have what Brim (1992) has called manageable difficulties and Csikszentmihalyi (1997) has described as optimal states. That is, when demands match or slightly exceed resources, individuals experience positive emotional states (e.g., pleasure, joy, energy) and they perceive themselves as growing, engaged, and productive (Waterman, 1993). From the well-being perspective, a healthy work force means the presence of positive feelings in the worker that should result in happier and more productive workers.” (Harter, Schmidt, and Keyes)
Yes…the job needs to get done. Treating someone as simply a worker and not a human, will not yield the same results.
That’s the bottom line.
Hope you have a great week and do something special for February 29th 
Here are some great links that I would like to share; some new and some old.
1. The Myth of the Echo Chamber - In this post that is almost two years old, Karl Fisch discusses the idea of the “echo chamber” and debunks the myth through social media.
There is no “echo chamber.” It’s a myth.
Do you follow at least one person on Twitter? Then you’re not in an echo chamber.
Do you have someone’s blog other than your own in your RSS aggregator?Then you’re not in an echo chamber.
Do you teach/work in a building with at least one other person that you talk to? Then you’re not in an echo chamber.
Do you have a family? Friends? A neighborhood? Then you’re not in an echo chamber.
As this is something that I have struggled with tremendously, it is important to not only understand that there are many different opinions on Twitter, but it is also essential to go out and seek those opposing views. Through the conversation, many great ideas are shaped. It is also important that if you disagree with someone that you speak up and share those opposing views. This is necessary to not only the growth of individuals but education as a whole. The way we do it is important, but more important is that we have those conversations.
2. Wine and Education – Cale Birk, a principal in British Columbia discusses how we often talk in terms not understood by the general public, leaving many of our students and stakeholders behind:
I realize that oftentimes, I speak in ‘educationese’, in terms that are puzzling (and sometimes outright offensive) to people in business, industry, the trades, or to the general public (including our students). In order to create positive partnerships with our ‘consumers’, we need them to be very knowledgeable and informed about what we do at schools and the value of this education for our students as contributors to society. We need to be able to clearly articulate the skills that kids are learning in our buildings and how these will be transferable not just to something such as post-secondary education, but to business, industry, the trades, or whatever our students may choose to do. And perhaps most importantly, we need to articulate this for our students in our buildings TODAY.
Cale’s focus on partnerships is so imperative to our school system. We do not just work with students to do well at school; we work with them to do well in life.
3. The Trip Advisor Tail Wagging the Dog - In this Seth Godin post, he discusses how industry has changed and how the consumer is really driving the way we do things and get better. I related with this post as I just recently planned an entire trip using the Trip Advisor site, and the comments were so imperative to where I booked. Here is a quote from his post:
Today, it’s sites like Trip Advisor and Yelp (among many others) that are transforming the way service businesses operate. Here’s how it works: at first, a business might try to ignore the system, but then they notice their customers talking about the reviews and their competitors. So some stoop so low as to attempt to game the system, sending sock puppets and friends to post reviews. But that doesn’t scale and the sites are getting smart about weeding this out.
The only alternative? Amazing service. Working with customers in such an extraordinary way that people feel compelled to talk about it, post about it, and yes, review it. It’s not an accident that Hotel Amira is one of the highest rated hotels in all of Turkey. They didn’t do it with the perfect building or sumptuous suites. They did it by intentionally being remarkable at service. And yes, the Holiday Inn in Oakland has the same story. They took what they had and then they deliberately went over the top in delivering on something that never would have paid off for them in the past.
Amplifying stories causes the stories that are built to change. Outliers are rewarded (or punished) and the weird and the wonderful are reinforced. Once people see what others are doing, it opens the door for them to do it, but with more flair.
I wonder how this type of site will impact education. Sites like “Rate My Teacher” already exist, but have they hurt or helped our profession? It seems that more sites will continue to pop up like this in education as social media continues to grow.
4. Literacy in the Digital Age - This is just a great site and wealth of resources from Kathy Schrock regarding the continuously evolving nature of literacy. Definitely take a look at all of the resources she has compiled.
Have an amazing week!
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by mrsdkrebs
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by epSos.de
As I have been working with our “Learning Leader” group and implementing a blended PLC model, I have been watching and connecting with educators who have been doing things in a slightly different way in their classroom. To be honest, as the PD is being offered to participants over this 2011-2012 school year, I have been adapting and changing the model based on their needs. I am trying to understand the people I am working with and adapt our program to their needs. To plan any learning for an entire year shows how quickly we forget that people are our number one focus, not curriculum.
In our second session, I simply showed a couple of apps and shared this Dean Shareski video and had participants tweet and share thoughts, while I engaged with them online. The conversation did not blow me away, but it was a start for something that was totally new to most people. Trying to make the course participatory and have participants tap into the learning of people in the room, as well as the world, I was happy to see how they started to engage with one another and see how easy the connections were.
As this was something I had done with adults, I was happy to see one of the teachers in the program started to implement this same practice into his own Social Studies classroom. I was proud to see that Cam actually implemented this because of what we were doing in our own program. When I asked what he was doing, he responded with the following:
It was awesome to see Cam using and creating a Twitter hashtag for his classroom. Not only can they learn from one another and tap into the wisdom of the crowd, they also can start to develop and understand the importance of a positive digital footprint. There are so many benefits of this type of networked learning for our students.
As we look at what we want from our classrooms, I realize more and more that we need to model in our own professional development what we want our classrooms to look like. We cannot just lecture about how classrooms should look different, do the same thing with educators, and then look at our classrooms and wonder why nothing has changed. Explaining our why is still important, but educators do not only need to hear about different practices, they need to experience it themselves as learners.
We have to continue to look at models of professional development and our rhetoric between the ever-evolving classroom. If our PD looks the same, why would our classrooms be any different?
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by robertstinnett
We are currently working on creating a document for our school division on our “Educational Technology” portion of the education plan. As I have looked at different documents, including this one from Alberta Education, I have been struggling with the generic phrases that have been used. Here is the statement on the outcomes for “digital and technological fluency” from Alberta Education:
Alberta students competently use information and communication technologies as tools in a variety of digital environments and media. Students access information from a variety of sources to learn individually or with others, to communicate, to come to new understandings, to inform problem solving, and support decision making. They are aware of current and emerging information and communication technologies and choose with confidence the appropriate technology for a defined purpose. Students can access, understand and manipulate digital information creatively and effectively for learning, for communication and for sharing and creation. They use technology critically and safely, and in an ethically responsible manner.
I think this is a great goal but I am wondering if you put 20 people in a room and asked them how they would do this, would you receive 20 different answers?
From that viewpoint, I then saw the ‘Technology Integration Matrix’ from the Arizona K-12 Center. This gave different goals, broke them down into steps, and then also provided exemplars in each area. When you provide examples like this, do we often kill the creativity of our teachers and students by giving them a preconceived notion of what good teaching and learning looks like? In this article on creativity, the author notes that our prior knowledge can sometimes inhibit our own opportunities for innovation:
“Perhaps the most important entry on Michalko’s list is his last point, that “creativity is paradoxical.” Schools are places where students are supposed to acquire knowledge—but to create, a person must “forget the knowledge.” If you’re not able to leave what you think you know behind, you can’t approach problems with a fresh perspective. Students must also be taught to “desire success but embrace failure,” and to “listen to experts but know how to disregard them.” Liz Dwyer
So where is the balance? How do we ensure that all of our students get the same opportunities no matter what school they attend, while also ensuring that our teachers have the autonomy to be innovative in their teaching practices? If you were to create a plan to support teachers and provide a vision for a preferred future, how would you go about it? Your thoughts would be appreciated.
Working a lot with teachers and parents in the past few weeks, it is amazing to see the shift in focus that our students need to be more connected. There is a definite shift in the mindset of many. With that being said, the focus on creativity, innovation, and the skills that are needed for the “21st Century”, many understand that schools need to continue to focus on strong relationships with their students and school community to thrive in our time. Relationships continue to be the foundation that great schools are built upon. It is paramount that we continue to focus on that.
Here are some articles that I found pushed my thinking in the last week:
1. What does teaching creativity look like? – Creativity is a skill that is needed in our world with the “knowledge economy” becoming dominant in our work place. With so many traditions that are firmly in place in our schools, does this skew our thinking and take away our ability to be creative? In this short article, the author asks a similar question:
Perhaps the most important entry on Michalko’s list is his last point, that “creativity is paradoxical.” Schools are places where students are supposed to acquire knowledge—but to create, a person must “forget the knowledge.” If you’re not able to leave what you think you know behind, you can’t approach problems with a fresh perspective. Students must also be taught to “desire success but embrace failure,” and to “listen to experts but know how to disregard them.”
2. Autonomy in Teaching Training – My good friend, Chris Wejr, challenges the “status quo” in the way that teacher training programs are preparing new educators for a rapidly changing world and classroom. I have heard this conversation often, yet it is interesting to not only read this post but the comments that follow as well. Chris ends the post with the following:
Our pre-service teaching programs seem to be over in the blink of an eye (in BC, they are often only 16-20 weeks). This is a critical time as this is often the only experience they will have prior to applying for teaching positions. Providing more autonomy for our future teachers is key to their development so I hope you can add your thoughts to this conversation to see if we can help move our programs forward.
Chris has some great thoughts…how can we better prepare our new teachers to implement the strategies needed to be successful coming into this challenging profession? I encourage you to add to the conversation on Chris’ blog post.
3. Important Conversations – Some of the practices that I (as well as many other teachers) have implemented over the past few years we now know are not beneficial to learning. The idea of taking away grades for being late does not show the true understanding a child has over the content of the class, yet it is essential to ensure students are good citizens and respectful of our school environment. The picture in this blog post is a great conversation starter for staff, students, and parents. More importantly though then the message, is the conversation. How do we continue to bring parents in on the learning of school to help enhance the work we are doing together with children? How do we continue to inform and discuss with them continuously evolving teaching and learning practices? I think of this Marc Prensky quote when reading the aforementioned article:
“Involve your students’ parents as much as you can. Try thinking of them as your students as well, that is, as people you are educating.” Marc Prensky
When parents and schools work together, you double the chance of success for each child.
I hope that all of you have an amazing week and I thank everyone for continuing to share and write amazing content that will help all of us continuously learn!
As I end this blog post, I have been caught up in all the “Linsanity” (as most were) and this was probably one of the most inspiring moments that I saw from the last week…enjoy!
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by photogestion
Over the last few years, I have fallen in love with Apple products. The ease of use, playfulness in design, and power they demonstrate have got me hooked on the product. With that being said, I was very saddened at this recent article discussing Apple’s failure to address concerns regarding labour practices at factories making the product. Immediately when I read the article, I thought of my youth when I had heard about the conditions that children were facing at Nike factories in Asia. The writer of this article clearly thought about that same instance:
Apple ignores these demands at its own risk. Such assaults on a company’s reputation—especially a company as brand-focused as Apple—have rattled powerful organizations before, from the recent controversy at the Susan G. Komen Foundation to Nike’s labor rights failures in the 1990s.
I remember as an avid basketball player, choosing other products from the Nike brand as it just didn’t feel right to still continuously buy this product. It just didn’t feel right. I cannot even remember the last time I bought a Nike shoe, although admittedly I do own a pair or two.
With social media giving so many a voice in our world now, how could a company so quickly ignore any type of social injustice being created by the need for profit? With people seemingly having less connection to the companies that they purchase from, Nike still had a PR nightmare in the 90′s:
Another industrial design giant, Nike, endured the same kind of public relations nightmare in the 1990s, when consumers and activists made the company’s storied brand synonymous with sweatshops around the world. At a university convening on sweatshop issues in 2001, Nike representative Todd McKean bravely acknowledged, “Our initial attitude was, ‘Hey, we don’t own the factories; we don’t control what goes on there.’ Quite frankly, that was a sort of irresponsible way to approach this.” Consistent with assertions about Apple’s power and influence, McKean went on to say “We had people there every day looking at quality. Clearly, we had leverage and responsibility with certain parts of the business, so why not others?”
As Simon Sinek has clearly used Apple as a company that clearly defines their “Why”, I am hoping that they address this in a way that is transparent and showing their eagerness to rectify this situation.
School leaders can definitely learn from this Apple miscue. We have to continuously realize and embrace that our “customers” have a voice, and when we make mistakes, we must listen and rectify. I have watched my own brother challenge Sasktel recently and receive a great deal of attention as the company has seemingly performed a bit of a “bait and switch”. Customers know that they have a voice.
This does not mean that sometimes we are unable to have disagreements as education is a complex profession that many have different opinions on, but communication is imperative. I am proud to be in a school division that does its best to continuously be transparent in our message, and they have recently hired a new Communications Director to continue to work on how we can connect with our stakeholders in an open manner. Sometimes messages can get muddied through so many mediums, but what I have learned from Brian is that simple and straight to the point are always your best bet.
Hopefully Apple gets to the point and fixes this problem sooner than later.
As Educon has just passed, and many teachers will be attending our annual teacher convention, things have been very busy. With that being said, information never stops and my twitter feed and Google Reader account continue to push and inspire my thinking. Here are some interesting articles I have found this week:
1. The Ugle Side of Social Media? - Interestingly enough, the first I heard of this story of a woman taking this t-shirt from a young fan at the Australian Open was through mainstream media (I would provide a video link, but they are hard to find due to the backlash against the woman in question) , which has not become the norm for news in my life at this point. While I was aghast at what happened to this young girl, this article made me realize of the impact that social media and mainstream media have upon one another on significantly impacting the life of any one individual in a moment of indiscretion. This quote from the post really has pushed my thinking:
While the behaviour of the crowd may seem entirely justified to themselves – acting on behalf of the innocent girl – this can somewhat cloud the real situation. That is to say that we are focusing our attentions on someone grabbing a t-shirt, inciting hatred and abuse and even invading their privacy.
The question of who is responsible is a difficult one. Social media is not responsible itself, as it is simply the prevalent form of self-expression in our society today. It has not created the concept of mob mentality or victimisation, nor are the mob to blame themselves. While some are certainly taking it too far, it is innate within human nature that we will crowd together and rally round where we see that justice is needed, however far that concept of justice may have been stretched.
In this case, we can actually look to mainstream media as playing a big part here, for choosing to further the story and continuing to sway public opinion. There is a sense of responsibility required for those who, in an era when social media tools exist, are able to influence and reach the public en masse. What’s needed is balanced reporting to calm the crowds. The danger of doing otherwise is far too high.
Whatever you think about the situation, it is an extremely interesting read and great for a topic of discussion with students and staff. Does mainstream media have a different responsibility in our world today knowing that our world is different or is this solely the responsibility of each individual? Both? Can you imagine if “Bartman” would have made his mistake in a world where Twitter existed? Definitely an article that will make you think about our world today and the role media plays.
2. A little empathy – Edna Sackson has long been one of my favourite bloggers, but this short post really made me think about our role as educators in relation to those in the medical field. In this personal post, Edna discusses her thoughts in the context of a personal situation that she is going through at this point:
I’ve spent many hours in a hospital this past week (not as a patient) and have become acutely aware of the effects of every personal (and not so personal) interaction. It’s irrelevant whether the person concerned (or not so concerned) is a doctor, a nurse, an orderly or a cleaner. Only some display empathy. Not all are communicators. These are the things that matter. These are the things we should teach our children…
This quote is something that every educator should consider.
3. Education: Not ready to listen? – In this post written by Adora Svitak, a student currently in our educational system, she has some tough criticisms regarding the voice of students in our current educational system:
If the education community is unable or unwilling to receive a message about education from a student, I think we have problems. We’d find it unacceptable if our representatives suddenly started refusing to meet with constituents or if companies like Bank of America kept on charging ridiculous fees despite public uproar. Yet we accept that education doesn’t want to hear from students? We are the “customers” of our nation’s schools. It’s in our interest to learn in the best way we can–many of my fellow students have plenty of wise insights that I think could help change education for the better–but that simply won’t happen if the adults in the room are covering their ears.
I hope you all have a great week, and continue to enjoy learning with your students!
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.
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