5 Steps to Surviving Stress-tember

September 2021 has proven to be even more demanding than September 2020 ever was. With the increasing cases of COVID, addressing learning gaps due to the last two years of COVID slide, catching kids up when they're out for 2 weeks, getting caught up if you're out for 2 weeks, and balancing the personal issues that go with COVID, September is definitely a stressful month for us all.

With everything coming at us, how do we deal with the stress? How do we deal with all the demands coming at us? How do we deal with the frustration of others as well as our own frustrations? There is a solution, and it involves you.

5 Steps to Surviving Stress-tember.

1. Count your Blessings - You make the choice to be stressed or blessed. If you are breathing, you are blessed. Look at all you have. You are blessed. If you can make it to work and make it home, you are blessed. Others are not so fortunate.
2. Stop Focusing on Everything - You are a human, not a machine. You can't do everything. Also, with more tasks on your plate, you can only do so many in a 24 hour day. Prioritize your work, and recognize some things will have to wait.
3. Give Encouragement to Others - You may think it's crazy to give when you feel you have so little time to give, but if you encourage others, you in turn encourage yourself, and that shot of dopamine decreases your stress.
4. Share Concerns with Leaders - Your leaders are stressed out as well. If you have concerns they need to know because those concerns can help them steer the ship or adjust the sails in these turbulent waters.
5. Give Yourself and Others Grace - In order to win the race, you must give yourself some grace. You will fail. Others will struggle, and many will be overwhelmed. Be an ambassador for grace and give it graciously.

Bonus - Don't Neglect your Family - When we get stressed from work, we have nothing left in the tank for the people supposedly matter most in our lives. When it's time to go home, go home. The work will be there when you come back tomorrow. Without your family, your work is meaningless anyway.

With these 5 steps, you will be blessed, but without them, you will be stressed. If you want to survive September, you have to remember that tough times don't last but tough people do. You also have to remember that it could always be worse.

Don't be overcome by the circumstances. Instead overcome them by believing in all that is good, pure, noble, and praiseworthy. If you do, you will watch your stress decrease tremendously.

God's speed...

A Random Act of Kindness for Every Teacher

Tomorrow is February 17, National Random Acts of Kindness Day.  Educators are some of the hardest working individuals in the world and have the biggest impact on the future of our world.  And with all of the demands and challenges that teachers and administrators face, it's not only overwhelming.  It can be downright impossible for them to see the differences that they are making.  Educators often hear about it when they fail to reach their goal, but how often do they hear how much they're appreciated?

So here is my challenge.  

Let's let all educators feel the power of the most undervalued yet most powerful random act of kindness ever.  Sure, you may be thinking that I'm talking about money, gifts, A NEW CAR (in my Price is Right voice), or some other trinket of appreciation, but I'm not talking about that.  I'm talking about something bigger, something better.  Here's what I'm talking about.

A KIND WORD OF APPRECIATION!!!

Tomorrow, I challenge you to reach out to educators that impact your world, that spend more time with your kids than you do and let them know how awesome they are.  No complaints tomorrow.  Save that for February 18.  On Tuesday, February 17, show a random act of kindness to an educator.

Here's How You Can Show Your Appreciation for Educators

• Pick up the Phone and give them a Call
• Send a Surprise Email
• Post on Facebook how much you appreciate a specific teacher(s)
• If you have time, stop by the school and tell them thank you.

Educators do so many things behind the scenes that they will never be recognized for.  Tomorrow, February 17 is  our day to let them know just how great they are.  A random act of kindness is special because it's not expected.  It has the power to inspire and even change lives.

What do you say?  Will you join me?

Excellent Teaching Is...

Teaching is the one of the most important and most difficult jobs in the world.  Where else can you find a career that has so many challenges yet such huge implications on the future of our nation?  When I pondered what teaching actually is, a flood of thoughts emerged, and then I fixated on the greatest teachers that I've ever had the privilege to work with.  

Here are a few descriptors that make them the best at what they do.

Tenacity

The ability to be obsessive about creative ways to hook every child into learning and discovering their purpose in life.

Enthusiastic Energy

The kind that inspires learners to surpass content consumption and see the impact that their learning  can make on the world.

Action of Accountability

A focused and committed environment that takes learners from where they are to where they need to be, but goes a step further by transforming engaged students into empowered learners.

Collaboration

A constant desire to learn with and from colleagues to find ways to improve at the art & science of teaching.

Hardwork

Which generally goes far beyond the hours and confines of the school building.

Inward Inquiry

Constantly asking the question, "How can I improve?"

No Excuses

The unwavering commitment to conquer all obstacles and never accept excuses when students fail to learn.

Greatness

The persistent pursuit for greatness in every child.

The greatest teachers know how to elicit greatness from their students. In fact, as you read through these descriptors, you probably had several teachers come to mind.  Teaching is a difficult profession.  It is sometimes thankless, but there are those times when it is the most fulfilling and most personally rewarding gift that a person could ever give themselves.  

I would definitely enjoy your thoughts on what you believe excellent teaching means to you.

5 Fixes for the First 5 Minutes of Instruction

You don't have a second opportunity to make a good first impression. If you get a bad feeling after meeting someone, it's going to take a lot for that person to change your general feelings about them. In other words you better spend time making the best impression the first time, or you'll have to spend lots of time thereafter convincing them that you've got it going on.

The same thing goes for any lesson.  If the kids don't develop a good impression in the first 5 minutes of the lesson, you're going to experience a lot of problems convincing them to stay with you. Great lessons can die in the first five minutes. It's not because they weren't planned well. It's because they didn't make a good impression on the student in the first few minutes. Have you ever had a lesson that included technology, and the technology wouldn't work?  Minute by minute the student engagement morphed into passive disengagement and eventually into disruptive bedlam, and as a result it took three times the time to reengage the students as it did to lose them in the first place.

#5MinutesMatterALOT

But it doesn't have to be this way.  Look at the first 5 minutes as the foundation for learning.  A house built on a sandy foundation won't last long, but a house built upon a rock will last forever. Having homework turned in and materials ready for instruction is not enough to motivate kids for learning in the first five minutes. So how do great teachers create a great foundation for learning?

5 Fixes for the First 5

Here are 5 strategies to engage kids in learning and make an awesome 5 minute impression.

1. Pose a problem on the board that is tied to your direct instruction.
2. Padlet - Students can use their cell phones or tablets to respond to a thought-provoking questions.
3. QR codes - Post a QR code that connects them to your lesson.
4. Today's Meet - This is a great way to get kids to post their questions or comments about last night's homework while you tend getting class started.
5. Google me this - Pose a term or concept for students to research through a Google search. 

The first five minutes of instruction is all about igniting minds. It's about connecting what students know to what you want them to know. If students aren't connected to your content, it is kind of difficult for you to create that interest through a lecture or presentation.   The pathway to rigor starts with cultivating a desire to want to know more. If the first five minutes of instruction do not inspire a student to want to know more, the remainder of the class will not be filled with rigor, but with rigor mortis. 

Are you a Learner or a Leaner?

I have visited with lots of educators over my almost 20 years in public education. What I have come to find is that there are two types of educators: those who learn and those who lean. From a cultural perspective, leaners annoy learners. Leaners lament for the status quo, and they oppose opportunities for growth. They yearn for yesterday and tear down tomorrow.

Now before anyone gets too offended, let me explain a little further.  Leaning is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does become negative if that's all you do. From time to time, we have to lean on our friends for guidance, experience, or just plain old wisdom. But if we look to people to do our jobs for us, then what good are we to kids?  I'm not just talking about our kids, but the kids of the person that we are taking advantage of? 

Leaning + R = Learning

Learning is leaning with a little R. The R stands for resilience, a commitment to never give up, a desire to know more, a commitment to make this world a better place by making ourselves better first. Educators who are learners are constantly finding new ways of thinking, and new ways of doing. Learners are like leaners in that they rely on their colleagues, but the striking difference is that learners don't mooch off of their colleagues. Learners give as much to their colleagues as they borrow from them. They reciprocate the favor. (another R that is in a Learner) 

A good friend of mine always said, "If you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean."  Well the same goes for education. If you've got time to lean, you've got time to learn.  Those who habitually lean on others ultimately do not impact their kids to the degree and depth because they have no desire to impact their own life. 

To put this thought into even more perspective, I'll throw you this question. If we really believe in learning for all kids, shouldn't we believe in our own learning first?  After all, if we are not focused on being learners first, then how can we possibly expect our students to make learning their first priority?

What other R's would you add to make a Leaner into a Learner?

Is your Mind Fixed on Growth?

Do you have a growth mindset?   Learning is about growing through failure not success.  To synthesize this question at a deeper level, I challenge each one of you to read Bill Ferriter's blog (CLICK HERE) and watch the video at the end.  I rarely say that something is unbelievably amazing, but this concise post (which was unbelievably amazing) fixed my mind on what is most important.  It is the growth not the result that determines if we are learning.  If we can condition ourselves first to become fixated on the progress we are making in our craft as opposed to obsessing about meeting a specific level of mastery, then I am confident that we will be more successful at conditioning our kids to develop the same growth mindset..

As I pondered the idea of growth mindset, I wondered what questions I should ask myself.  That is when I found this infographic by Marc Chernoff from MarcAndAngel.com.  While these questions focus on reflecting on our work at the end of the week, you can ask these questions every time you encounter a failure or setback.  By reflecting and being cognizant about failure, we can identify which strength can be leveraged the next day or next week to improve our deficit area.

Tweet by MAMS_PrincipalNov 01, 5:11am via Twitter for iPhone

Great reflection questions to end the week and help your planning 

#satchat#atplc #edchat #njed #cechat 

#mupa13pic.twitter.com/STBWDCCQu0

6 Sparks of a Scintillating Teacher

I love watching "Minute with Maxwell", a daily email that comes into my inbox each morning.  This morning a fireball of a word piqued my interest, Scintillating.  I knew what the word meant, but the mere pronunciation of the word sparked my intrigued in John Maxwell's message.  I just had to find out what he would say about the word in his video.  

As he went through his vivid description of the word, some of my favorite teachers of all time bursted to the front of my mind. Their electrifying lessons captivated me.  Their individual consideration made me feel like their class was designed just for me.  They walked their talk, and that influenced me to do the same.  Finally, these instructional idols inspired me to shoot for the stars in my own life, and they did that with high expectations accompanied by amazing accountability and stupendous support.

6 Sparks of a Scintillating Teacher 

To be even more definitive, each of these teachers possessed 6 sparks that didn't just motivate me.  They motivated all students.  Hope you identify with them.

Brilliant

Her intellectual prowess drove me to constantly ask the question, "How does he know so much about this content?"

Rousing

His passion for telling us the story of history took me on a journey back in time. 

Invigorating 

His dynamic presence made me believe that I could be equally an expert of this content. 

Gung-Ho

Her excitement and love for life and teaching challenged me to be a more selfless human being. 

Hypnotic

Listening to her 'why' behind the 'what' entranced my mind and made me view life and content in a way that I had never experienced before. 

Thought-Provoking

His unique way of explaining my thinking to me redirected me to correct my own mistakes without ever hearing that I was wrong. 

So what other Sparks would you add?

Scintillating teachers sear learning into the minds of their students. Kids rarely forget these superstars because their content is branded into their brains.  But there are other descriptors that make a scintillating teacher, so drop a comment and share your thoughts.  Who inspired you by being a firecracker of a teacher?  What was it about their teaching that fired you up?  After all, that is how we become better teachers, by emulating the greatness in others.

20 Things All Teachers Need to Hear from All Parents at the Beginningof the Year.

Well school is cranking up, and parents are bringing school supplies and their children to school to meet their new teachers. Anxiety is mounting as parents wonder how good their child's teachers will be. Teachers are nervous about making a good first impression with every parent. Building trust is definitely a difficult task at the beginning of the year. 

As I drop my kids off this year to a complete stranger that deserves my respect, I ask myself what are some things all teachers deserve to hear from me, the parent. Well I reflected on my days as a teacher, and I thought about some of the most powerful things that I have ever been told by a parent. 

Here are 20 things every teacher deserves to hear from every parent at the beginning of the year. 

1.  I trust you with my most prized possession.

2. Here is my cell number. Call or text me if you need me. I will always answer your call. 

3.  My child is not perfect, and I know he will make mistakes. 

4.  I won't believe half of what my child says about you if you won't believe half of what he says about me. 

5.  I want you to make my child work hard. 

6.  I want you to teach my child how to struggle. 

7.  I expect my child to learn the skill of perseverance. 

8. When my child is mad at you, I will talk to you about it first because his anger is based on his perception. 

9.  I will assume the best in you. 

10.  If I'm frustrated with you, I will remember that you have the hardest job in America that few are willing to take on. 

11.  I understand that just like me, you will have bad days. 

12.  If my child makes a mistake, I will support you in helping him correct it. 

13.  If my child is struggling in your class, I will help you help him improve. 

14.  I will encourage my child to reach out to you when he needs help. 

15.  I will teach my child the importance of completing assignments and tasks in a timely fashion. 

16.  I will remind my child that you are preparing him for life not a test. 

17. I will look to you as the expert to make the best decisions that will help my child learn at higher levels. 

18. I know you may not have all the answers for every question that I ask, but I always ask you first. 

19. Please tell me if I need to do more at home to help my child do better in your class. 

20.  You are an American hero and what you do is changing our world. Thank you.

What else would you add?

Drop a comment and share this post with parents. Remind them that teachers are nervous just like parents, but everyone has the same goal. We all want every child to have an awesome school year, and if we will all work together and trust one another, surely they will. 

Culture Cultivation

Culture eats structure for breakfast. Great PLC leaders always address this first. This tweet from Mark Clements @edunators makes it crystal clear. So how do effective leaders value culture? They realize that structure cannot be built until culture is developed first. They also realize that culture is best established and maintained through one on one conversations with as many stakeholders as possible.

A great strategy to use especially when you are new to a school is to set up 15 minute meetings with your staff and central office staff members that support the campus. The structure of the meetings is quite simple. Ask your guest these 4 questions and make sure you have a pen and pad ready to take notes. Taking notes shows that you are here to listen and that you value what your guest is saying.

1. Tell me about yourself - This ice-breaker communicates that you value the staff and what to get to know them personally. By getting to know the individual staff members personally, you are making major deposits in your campus culture bank account.

2. What are some great things happening on the campus that you want me to continue? - This question sends the message that you honor the work that has been done and that you don't want to change things that work on the campus. The answers to these questions also tell you what traditions are important to the school community.

3. What is something that needs to be changed or improved? - This question is critical because the leader must listen for patterns in all responses. Patterns will show what problems are isolated or prevalent among the campus. You must be looking for important patterns such as if communication is clear, if communication is 2-way, if teachers are supported and if there are structural or cultural barriers that prevent learning.

4. The last question is critical if you want to know what your expectations are as the leader from the campus. Ask your staff, "If you could give me one directive to make sure that I follow, what would it be?" I love asking this question because it is the strongest culture building question that you can ask. You are giving the employee the opportunity to tell you what they think is the most important thing that must be done on the campus. It also shows that you, the leader, are approachable, desire feedback, and truly need every employee to have a voice to make the campus the best place to work and learn.

Culture is massively important and highly successful leaders keep culture at the forefront at all times. The more positive and collaborative your culture is, the more successful your structure can make the campus. Structure with a negative or even toxic culture will certainly guarantee no improvement and quite possibly a decline in student achievement. So go forth and cultivate your campus culture one person at a time.

6 Symptoms of a Contagious Classroom

The flu season never seems to end. The stomach bug comes through and wipes the classroom out like a tidal wave. It seems like sometimes the classroom is nothing but a contagious pool of germs. As soon as one student comes back from being sick, two more go home with the same symptoms.

Got hand sanitizer?

Here's my question for you today. Is your classroom a place that is infesting with contagious germs for learning?   In other words, do students walk in the door and instantly catch the bug that you're infected with?  Does your passion for learning motivate the apathy out of kids?  

Here are 6 Symptoms of a Contagious Classroom. 

Intrigues high achievers

Nurtures struggling learners

Fascinates average abilities

Empowers all learners to own the content

Connects learners to one another

Transforms acquisition of information into passion for learning. 

So are your Kids Infected???

If your instruction has these 6 components, chances are that the kids are infected with inspiration. If you have a contagious classroom, apathy is absent. Interest is invigorated, and learning is growing by leaps and bounds.  Finally, are you a contagious teacher?  If so, you don't have a job.  You have an awesome affliction. 

This week, catch the bug and infect your students with it.

The Work Ratio

Converting curriculum into instruction takes a lot of work. Designing learning from introduction to mastery can be a challenge, and the more diverse learners you have, the more diverse instruction is required. In every classroom a teacher plans for instruction, and we call that teacher work.  Students receive the information and respond to the instruction, student work. Some classrooms have instruction that makes a tremendous impact on students; therefore, the amount of student work is higher than the amount of teacher work. Conversely, in other classes, teachers are working much harder than the students and therefore, the instruction has minimal impact on students. In other words, instruction is negligible.

Why is that?

If you think about the very best teacher you ever had, you can quickly say that the teacher got the very best out of you. His or her effect on you was tremendous. The other thing that made this teacher tremendous may have been her ability to make learning meaningful by designing work that mattered to you. To sum it up, the student work was much greater than the teacher work. 

In a weak classroom, the amount of work on the teacher is always much greater than the amount of work on the student. No matter how hard the teacher teaches, or how much he tries to improve the effectiveness of his work, little will change as long as he ignores the work that students are expected to do. 

In all classrooms the key to learning is engagement. How we engage students in the the work of learning is critical. The focus on learning requires teachers to put the emphasis on increasing student work to a point that it exceeds the amount of teacher work.  To make student work transfer into learning, there exists five conditions that can negatively affect or positively impact the the student to teacher work ratio.

Relational Rituals 

When students enter the classroom, do they know how to interact with the classroom without the teacher's direction?  Do students feel like they are a welcomed member of the classroom?  Do they feel like the classroom procedures are designed specifically to make them more successful in learning?  

If we want students to be successful in the learning process, they have to know that the procedures of the classroom are designed to make them more successful in learning, not to make them more compliant to the teacher's rules.

Accountability

Is the accountability for student learning  and behavior completely driven by the teacher?

Do students know the areas that they are weak in and areas that they are strong in, or is that completely determined by the teacher?

In a classroom that has a strong effect on students, accountability is shared by the student and by the teacher.  The more that students take personal ownership of their proficiencies and learning, the more they will take purposeful steps to own the work that will improve their learning. 

Time Optimization

Is time monitored closely by the teacher?

Do students have idle time when they complete tasks or assignments?

Are there periods of time where students daydream or get off task during instructional activities. 

Time management is completely dependent on the teacher's ability to perceive which tasks are optimizing time and which tasks are wasting time.   Wasted time will always cause the instructional impact to decrease substantially; therefore, teacher will increase because student work decreases. 

Individualization

Is the instruction delivered in such a way that students can learn at their own pace and in their own unique modality? 

Are students forced to learn mostly in the same manner, pace and modality?

When the instruction is predominantly in the whole group mode, the student will never exceed the teacher in the work ratio. When the class has to learn content in the same format at the same speed and in the same way, there is no way that students can work harder than the teacher. That is because the teacher has to control the time each activity takes, the speed all students must learn and the method that students are required to learn. Students need individual time to apply their learning in ways that work best for the learner not the teacher. 

Ownership

This question is pretty simple. Who owns the learning, the student or the teacher?  If the student learning has to move at the same rate as the teacher's instruction, the ownership cannot possibly belong to the student. At the same time if the instruction is not designed in a way to put the student in the driver's seat of how they acquire the learning, there is no way the student can own the learning. Ownership can only occur when the student is able to take the instruction that is provided and be given the opportunity to make meaning in their own unique way. Being able to create useful products and purposeful projects are surefire ways that students can fully possess their learning. 

So what's the Student to Teacher Work Ratio in your Class?

Are you working harder than the kids?  Are you taking more ownership of the learning than the kids are?  Are relationships weakening because the work is mundane to the kids?  Are kids in a position to conform their learning style to your teaching style?  If any of these questions identify with you, it may be time to reexamine the strategies that you are employing.  It may be time to find new ways not to get more work out of the kids but to get more meaningful work out of them. 

Teaching Kids the Highest Leverage Skill

In our standards-based education system, we are engaged in a never-ending effort to teach every high leverage skill. We focus on skills that are so critical that they are foundational for learning standards far into the future.  If you have ever worked with a student that had gaps in his learning, you can instantly tell where his gaps lie. You can quickly identify the skills that he is missing. Some students close gaps quicker than others and some never do. Why is that?  

It is because few kids possess the highest leverage skill. 

Some people feel that reading comprehension, fluency or numeracy are the highest leverage skills, and they are from an academic perspective.  But without the mindset for learning, these skills struggle to grow. 

So what is the highest leverage skill?

Some people look beyond academics and feel that self-confidence is the highest leverage skill. With it, you can do anything. Without it, growth is minimal. Kids, that make the biggest gains, do so because they have been hard-wired to believe in themselves.  This positive image of one's own abilities generates strength and the desire to take risks. Like it or not, self confidence is not the highest leverage skill. 

Some believe persistence is an invaluable skill. To learn difficult concepts, kids must have resolve. They must keep going when they hit the brick wall. Persistence is what turns practice into progress, but I'm sorry to say that while persistence is valuable, it is not the highest leverage skill. 

Enough Already, What is the Highest Leverage Skill?

Hope.  Eric Jensen sited hope as the difference between students of poverty making it or not. Hope is the eternal belief that life will get better. No matter the obstacle, circumstance or barrier, hope of a brighter future is the only thing between a student's reality and his potential.  In short, self-confidence and persistence can't exist unless there's hope. 

How do we teach hope to our kids?

Educators must transform the role of content-instiller into that of hope-builder. We possess massive potential to turn hopelessness into a viable vision. We build hope in students by doing the following things:

1. Help students create their own meaningful pathway to a better life. 

2.  Set challenging but realistic goals to measure progress along the way. 

3.  Guide students to find short-term wins. 

4.  Facilitate student thinking and problem solving through setbacks and losses. 

5.  Teach kids a never-give-up mentality. 

How do educators become hope builders?

1.  Stop thinking about teaching content and start teaching kids.  Content will come once we focus on teaching kids. 

2.  Connect with kids on a human level. Relationships are the pathway to learning. 

3.  Model hope by expressing personal beliefs in students to everyone we encounter. 

4. Never give up. Never give up. Never give up. 

Hope is the antibiotic to fear and uncertainty. It is the GPS used to navigate the winding road of success. Hope overcomes obstacles and dissipates doubt. Finally, it is accompanied by faith, joy and love. 

Got hope?

From "Great Job" to "Great Growth"

"Good job!"  "You did a great job!"  "Nice work!"  "Super effort!"  When's the last time you gave an employee one of these announcements of affirmation?  If you're a leader who likes to promote the positive, chances are you say this a lot.  Any why not?  After all, affirmation solidifies behavior, and recognition builds repetition.

But there is a downside to "Good Job!" Telling people that they did a good job loses its effect after a while. People come to expect it from leaders who say "Good Job" all the time.  Employees begin to wonder what makes the leader determine who does a good job and why they get a compliment. In time, they can end up focusing more on what the leader deems as the standard of high quality work. If certain people receive more kudos than others, resentment toward the leader will eventually develop over time.

 Here's the root of the problem.  Compliments are transactional responses. In other words, if I, the leader, think you do something pleasing to me, I need to pay you a compliment; thus a transaction has been completed.    However, if the employee works hard, and the leader doesn't see it or worse fails to compliment the effort, the employee will not be paid; and therefore, a transaction will not occur.  The employee will be led to believe that the leader doesn't value his work simply because he hasn't been paid a verbal compliment for his efforts.  The problem with this fixed mindset is that the focus from both parties is on recognizing effort and paying for it, rather than creating an environment where the focus is on continuous progress and growth through consistent efforts.

Transformational leadership is more about moving people forward than praising them for where they are. In other words, if leaders want to transform the workplace, they must stop employing the tactic of transactional compliments such as praising people solely based on singular, isolated actions. A mindset of continuous change requires leaders to exceed praise and utilize specific feedback that celebrates growth over time.  This happens when the leader acknowledges not only where someone currently is but how far they've come and where they will eventually be one day.  Hence, the leader focuses his feedback on growth instead of the job.

Here are 5 Ways Leaders can transform "Great Job" into "Great Growth"

Growth Feedback

Commenting on a person's performance over a period of time by showing specific areas of growth helps employees transform their behavior into more efficient and focused behavior. Nothing transforms mindsets better than showing people how far they have come in their work. They will focus their efforts on continuing the growth that they are making.

Reflective Questioning

Asking reflective questions gives the employee a chance to evaluate their own performance. This also gives the leader an opportunity to gauge if the employee has a false sense of confidence or expectations that are too high. Reflective questions also help the employee see their own strengths and find ways to fix their own problems. The purpose of reflective questioning is to guide people to rate their work and effectiveness.

Examples of Exceptional Work

Highlighting and giving specific feedback on examples of the employee's exceptional work builds tremendous confidence. Nothing builds a sense of efficacy better than the leader showing an employee a piece of their own excellent work and then highlighting why their work is tremendous.  This tells the employee specifically what quality of work you want them to continue.

Affirmation Connected to Areas of Weakness

Some people do some things really great and other things not so well. Find opportunities to connect strategies within  the employee's strengths to their areas of weakness. For example, "if you had done this weakness in the same way that you did the strength, you could possibly get better results".  This feedback affirms the employee's strengths while defining how the employee can improve their deficits. 

Thoughts to Think About (yes, the redundancy is necessary)

Another great way to transform people into a mindset of constant transformation is to affirm excellent work by giving them a question that challenges their great work to become even bigger and better. Asking people how they would make changes to their work when they do it again affirms quality while challenging growth.  This challenge by affirmation also tells the employee that you have a lot of confidence in their abilities and the growth they are making . 

Good, Better, Best

The word good affirms the present. Better is a step up from good, but by comparing yesterday to today, it solidifies the status quo for tomorrow. Best is the only goal of a transformational mindset.  If we want every member of the organization to be their best, each member must constantly know their performance every day without the leader's input and strive to improve. This will happen when leaders create the conditions for employees and leaders to work interdependently to evaluate one another's progress over time.  From there they must seek out new ways to more effectively and efficiently give their very best performance each and every day. Good is never good enough and never will be good enough, so let's create a mindset where we collectively evaluate our work in this way: 

Good, Better, Best

Never let it rest,

Until our good is better 

And better is the best. 

How Google is Strengthening our Learning Community

School is about to start and even though I haven't seen a whole lot of people over the summer, I really feel connected to my school community.  I have been in contact more with new teachers than ever.  Parents have been able to stay informed more than ever, and I owe this all to Google.  Here are the awesome tools that I am using to strengthen my ties with my entire learning community.

Blogger

Blogger has been the very best service to keep everyone informed with detailed information.  I use my Principal's Page to communicate weekly information to my parents and the community, and I push it out through my Twitter and Facebook accounts.  This year, I am replacing my normal staff email with a staff blog so I can encourage more dialogue through the comment feature.  I also have teachers that will be implementing blogs to improve parent communication

Reasons to Use Blogger

• Comments - Strengthening your community means encouraging dialogue.  This will do that for you.
• Gadgets - Gadgets are the coolest thing ever because they connect parents and the community to their personal social media preference of staying informed.
• Follow by Email - Parents can receive your posts by email each time you publish them.
• Share - Parents can share your posts by Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc.
• Translation Feature - This dropdown feature is AWESOME for your non-English speaking parents.
• Embed Hyperlinks & Videos - You can't do that on a paper newsletter.
• Blog Archive - This feature keeps your posts in order for easy reference when looking for a past announcement.
• Popular Post - This feature keeps the top read posts at the top of your feed.
• Multiple Authors - Instead of multiple people sending multiple emails that eventually get lost, overlooked or never read, why not have the same multiple people author one blog so your readers only have to look to one source for all of the information that they will ever need. 

Blogger has been a huge life-saver for me this year, and it has really made parents and the community feel like they are a vital part of our learning community.

YouTube

I use my YouTube channel to flip my communication to parents and staff.  This past year I have flipped many things like: 

• Parent pick-up procedures 
• Our discipline management system
• Promoting our Summer Learning Connection program
• Showing staff how to set up a Blogger and Twitter account

This Google tool has cut down the amount of time I have to spend communicating to the learning community, but it has massively increased the effectiveness of my communication.  I plan to use this tool a whole lot more this year.

#SmarterNotHarder 

Google Docs

Google Docs are an awesome way to collaborate with minimal conversation.  Using Google spreadsheets and word docs in our learning teams and with our administrative team has increased our collective efficacy because more people are in the know about exactly what is happening.  From placing staff in specific teams to creating tools to monitor student performance, multiple people can look at the same document, edit the same document, and comment on the same document in real-time.  This is the smartest thing that teams and campuses can do to focus on learning and maximize collaboration.

Google Forms

What a great way to gather information from people!  If you want to get everyone to sign up for an event, create a google form, send it out through your blog and your social media outlet, and let a Google Doc spreadsheet collect the information for you.  The data entry is done for you by the people that complete your form and then you can export the form into a MS Excel spreadsheet.  From there, you can mail merge for labels, sort by column or do anything else that will help you strengthen your learning community.  I have used Google Forms for the following:

• Staff Favorite Drinks from Sonic (#Homerun)
• Parent Sign-Up for Summer Learning Connection
• Staff Sign-Up for Twitter and Blogger Training

It's so easy, even a caveman can do it. 

Why Google?

Why not?  Google has taken the middle man out of communication, the student.  Let's face it.  When we send a piece of paper home with a child, there are many factors that determine if the paper will reach the parent's hands.  If I believe that it is important enough to copy and send home, I want to guarantee that parents will receive it.  Sure, some parents don't have access to technology, but that's not a good enough reason to not utilize this valuable tool.

For staff communication, Google removes the barriers of miscommunication and misunderstanding that teachers face when they read an email from the principal.  Email cuts out the paper concern, but doesn't remedy the factor of clarity.  Each Google tool has a specific purpose to eliminate ambiguity from communication.  The only question becomes this. Which tool do we use to remove which barrier to clear communication?  You learn that by actually using this tools regularly over time.

So what are you waiting for?  Take a chance. Get started.  The worst that can happen is that your community will know a little more than they knew already.  If you truly believe in your learning community, you should also believe that your moral responsibility is to do whatever it takes to build the strongest learning community possible.  That is why you should strengthen your learning community with Google.

The 12 Days of Christmas for Teachers

This Christmas what will your staff get from you? Will you scoot through these next 3 weeks doing very little or will you maximize every day leading up to the break to build, repair and strengthen your campus culture?  At every campus that I have ever had the privilege to lead, I have done my best to show appreciation for the staff by having little treats, gifts that don't cost a dime, and novel presents to show how much they are appreciated for the daily sacrifice they make to save and serve kids.

Here is a list of Christmas gifts that would be very appreciated by your staff.  This list is mostly comprised of  things that cost you little more than effort to get it organized.

1. Time  

Every teacher needs more time to get their job done so give them an extra conference. Make a schedule where the kids can be covered by a movie reward during their PE or fine art time plus the block of time after or before. Pulling all kids to the same venue and reward gives you lots of flexibility to let teachers have 2 planning periods.  You may have to deviate from your traditional schedule and use every personnel unit to cover kids, but this gift is worth it.

2. Relaxation 

Lots of massage therapy or cosmetology schools require students to practice their craft FREE OF CHARGE. Why not let them practice on your staff for free? Set up your teacher workroom with these people and have a schedule to let your staff sign up to come through for a free massage, manicure, or pedicure.

3. Vendors

Lots of vendors push their products by having parties that are free. The vendors make their money by what they sell at the party. Again, allowing teachers to come by throughout the day is no charge to you and helps them with their Christmas shopping.  You can also include your staff who sell products as a part time job.

4. Christmas Wrapping

Schools have volunteers that want to help out. Create a schedule for teachers to bring their Christmas presents to school.  They will need to provide the following:  wrapping paper, tape, and labels filled out on each present. The volunteers can do the rest. That is a huge time saver for teachers, and they will be very thankful for this gift.

5. Jeans for the Last Week

Need I say more.

6. Chili Cook-Off

This is a great competition where grades or departments can compete to have the best chili, most creative theme, or whatever award you want to give. You can provide all the fixins, and the staff can celebrate the fellowship of getting together over a warm bowl of chili. This is a great culture-builder.

7. Personalized Card from You

Who doesn't appreciate a card from the principal? There are lots of way to make a card with MS Word. With a large staff, you can make a spreadsheet of personalized items and messages and do a mail merge to make your cards. Be sure to fold your cards using a spoon to make to folds sharp. People notice that.

8. Affirmation

Teachers are often unsure what you think of their work. When the opportunity presents itself, affirm teachers individually, and let them know specifically what they are doing great. It will pay you back ten-fold.

9. Pinterest

10,000 gift ideas to let your teachers know they are great!!!

10. Hot Chocolate

On a cold Monday morning, a warm cup of hot chocolate starts the week off on a positive note.

11. Let the Kids Cook for the Teachers

For high school campuses, have your culinary arts class cook for the staff.  The kids love to get involved thanking the teachers.  This is a great gift that fills the belly and warms the heart.  Of course, follow your board policy to make sure you are in compliance financially.

12.  Campus Party

Nothing builds culture better than a campus Christmas party.  Whether it is on campus or off, after school or at night, this is a great time to celebrate the successful end to 2012.

January will be here before we know it.  The stress will be back, and uncertainty and fear of failure will settle in on every campus in America.  How will you be prepared to address it? The best way to address a problem is to be preventive rather than reactive.  Use your Christmas time to build your staff confidence, and let them know they are appreciated.  They will leave 2012 knowing that their leader values them, and they will return in January ready for a positive and productive 2013.

The Race to Educate

Running an endurance race for the first time is quite exhilarating. The anticipation mounts with the gathering of the runners.  The anxiety builds and finally the race begins. As the runner takes off, he finds it hard to gauge his initial progress. Is the pace too fast? Is he running too slow? The runner's brain pulses with every runner passing him by. There is little else that can describe the first mile of a race. Everyone is jockeying for position, trying to gain the edge.

As I synthesize the start of a race, I can't help but think how teachers in isolated systems feel. Without a team to collaborate with or a set of values to give them guidance or a vision to serve as a beacon of light, what emotions will run through their mind at the start of the race? In this race to educate every child, some will start off too fast and fall apart before they get halfway through it. Some will take off too slow and the race will end before they do. Some will finish the race, but they will have no one to share the sense of accomplishment with.

So what does every teacher need this Christmas to make it through the most important race in educational history?

Resources

In order to be the best runner, you need the best gear, training and coaching to compete.  In education, it's no different.  Educators need access to all of the resources, but more importantly, the training on how to effectively use the resources.  Many schools provide adequate or even superb resources, but no training about them.  This leads me to the most important resource that teachers need and that is TIME!!!  Without proper time to plan, ineffective lessons and poor use of resources occur.  This will lead to teacher fatigue and in time falling out of the race all together.  Coaches and leaders must be present to help, listen and guide educators so they, themselves, can be a valuable resource to the educator.

Affirmation

Affirmation is confirming that something is true.  To me, we all need to know that the path we are on is true or at least headed in the right direction.  This is where feedback is critical.  The more frequent the feedback we receive, the more we are fed intellectually.  All educators need feedback from their supervisors, from members on their team and from those that they lead.  Not all feedback must be positive to be helpful, but it must be TRUE.  If a runner's pace is too slow, the runner must be affirmed that what they are doing is not enough.  Feedback or affirmation is the nourishment that you need to continue running.

Collaboration

Just like every runner sees more improvement by working with a team, teachers benefit more by working regularly with a team of teachers focused on the same aspects of educating children. Teams that collaborate together, stay together, and they do so, because the focus is not on individual improvement but collective improvement. The purpose of a team is to get everyone across the finish line, and that occurs when all members are committed to making everyone successful.  Collaboration builds the stamina that every runner needs to finish the race successfully.

Encouragement

We all perform better when others cheer for us. Encouragement and celebration along the way help educators stay mentally focused on the importance of finishing the race.  Encouragement is different than affirmation because affirmation requires the runner to acknowledge his current reality.  Encouragement is what every runner needs after they accept their current reality.  Whether you are behind or ahead, every educator must feel appreciation from supervisors, teammates, students and parents.  The leader's job is to make sure that everyone comes out and cheers the teachers on to the finish line throughout the race.  Encouragement is the 2nd wind every runner needs to run even faster.

Half Way Point

It's almost Christmas and teachers across the country have finished their first mile or two in this race to educate every child. As their coach, we must ascertain where they are in the race. At this point they need support from their leader of the good job that they are doing. They have reached the water station and they need to quench their thirst. This month, I challenge you to join me in being the best Resource you can be to Affirm, build Collaboration and Encourage your fellow educators.  They are running their tails off to educate every child.

Collaborative Teacher Appraisal Systems

In Texas, our evaluation instrument is called PDAS, Professional Development Appraisal System. The emphasis should be on professional development but with the lack of time (due to endless tasks) to get to all of the components of the system, administrators usually resort to completing only the appraisal part of the system. Sadly, the result usually finds the principal coming in with little knowledge of the teacher, instruction and the class' progress up to that point. He bases the evaluation on his interpretation of instruction and gives the teacher feedback on what he saw in 45 minutes. The end.


There's a giant disconnect here. The principal is giving feedback on his or her perception of each of the indicators in the appraisal system with little knowledge of all the work that the teacher has done. For the teacher, he or she is hoping that what he or she is doing will meet the virtually unknown perceptions of the administrator.

What's an even bigger problem is that the administrator is doing this to several teachers at one time, and the teachers often wonder what is expected from the administrator in the evaluation. And even bigger than that the administrator has no baseline, other than the evaluation instrument, to base his subjective ratings.

Pre-Conference
To ensure appraisal alignment between both parties, administrators meet with teachers before they have the formal evaluation. The administrator clarifies his or her expectations for what they would like to see in the classroom, and the teacher plays a role in the discussion by sharing what they are going to deliver in the instruction. This will help things, but here's the problem with this from a global perspective.

Time constraints
If an administrator is evaluating 20 employees, how much time will he or she spend pre-conferencing with every single person that they are going to evaluate? A good pre-conference last about 30 minutes, so for 20 employees the administrator would need to take 600 minutes or 10 hours to do pre-conferencing alone. Will every pre-conference get the same level of dialogue from these 10 isolated hours?

Limited ideas
If the preconference is at its very best, how many ideas can be gained from one 30 minute conversation between one teacher and one administrator, even if the setting has the ultimate level of trust? If the administrator is interrupted mentally or physically (which is certain to occur), the think tank is reduced to 1 person.

Solution
Instead of one administrator spending 30 minutes meeting with one teacher at a time, why not get all of the employees together with the administrator and meet in 3 or 4 meetings of 30 minutes each to discuss the evaluation together. The administrator would cut the pre-conferencing from 10 hours down to 2 hours. That's efficiency!

Safety in Numbers
When there are several teachers in the room with one administrator, teachers feel more comfortable in sharing their ideas about the evaluation criteria. They will also be more willing to ask questions about what the administrator's thoughts are on the criteria.

Exponential Ideas
If the administrator will spend time guiding discussion about each indicator with the group, teachers can be truly collaborative about what those indicators look like and sound like in action. In this setting, teachers will feel more comfortable asking questions about the criteria to the administrator and to different teachers that share ideas in the meeting. The focus of the meeting moves from the teacher and the administrator agreeing on the conditions of the appraisal to creating high quality instruction in action. That's a think tank on steroids!

Pre-Observation Walk-Throughs
Administrators should spend some time in each teacher's classroom giving them feedback before the formal evaluation. I plan to use the Evernote app and take specific notes and then share them with the teacher. The notes will be scripted in a way that are not judgmental but rather factual things that are seen in the classroom based on the collaborative discussion from all the teachers. My hope is to have dialogue with the teacher and encourage the teacher to visit with other teachers to gather suggestions and new ideas. The purpose of the informal walk-throughs is to ensure alignment on the criteria between the teacher and the administrator.

Instructional Rounds
After my first meeting with all the teachers that I plan to evaluate last week, two teachers stayed after the meeting. They asked me if it was okay to observe another teacher from the meeting that had great ideas that they wanted to know more about. My response was an emphatic yes followed by a question of how I could help them get into the classroom to watch the teacher teach. This, after all, is the ultimate form of professional development.

Teacher Retention
Now imagine! What teacher wouldn't want to be in a system like this:

• A system where the expectations are that the teachers co-labor with the administrator and one another to come up with the criteria for each indicator in the evaluation,
  A system where teachers commit to support one another to make sure that all of them are successful,
  A system where teachers are wanting to be in each other's rooms to learn from one another,
  A system where professionalism & improvement are the centerpieces of the appraisal system.

Putting the PD in PDAS
A strong collaborative team has an immense amount of power to build capacity in every single employee. Teachers want a great evaluation, and they want to know that they are doing a great job. Administrators must provide the supports and the avenues for teachers to work together to ensure that every teacher succeeds instructionally first and earns an excellent evaluation second. Through this system every teacher who commits to this collaborative appraisal system should earn an excellent evaluation because the teachers and the administrators are working in tandem to ensure that instruction is at the highest levels of quality, and shouldn't that be the intended outcome of an appraisal system?