#TxEd - You Have 2 Choices: March or March

The other day, I ran into a teacher friend of mine, and she said,

"John, you haven't said anything about the Texas special legislative session".

She's right. I have been under the radar so to speak this summer.

So today, I'm going to surprise you.  I'm NOT going to talk about vouchers, school finance or even A-F.  I'm NOT going to lament the decisions that the Texas Senate is making on public education, and I'm not even going to advocate for a bill, today.

I'm going to talk about YOU, 
and this is what I have to say.

March - Educators across Texas are inspiring me by going down to the courthouse and even the Capital to state their position on education.  The great thing about this kind of march is that it tells legislators what you are for and what you are against.  Marching is a very powerful action as it sends the message loud and clear that you don't like what's going on.

March -  This March makes all the difference in the world.  Here, you show up to the voting box at the March primaries and vote for candidates, who will legislate on behalf of the 5.3 million students in Texas.  This kind of March is  the only way to make substantial change because voters are selecting the people who can make the changes that education needs.


The Choice is Yours
So will you march or not?   I truly believe that educators can't say they care about education if they don't march.  If you want to move the needle for education, you can physically march, but if you don't show up to vote and (even more important) encourage others to vote in March, you will have wasted all of your energy.  March is the only choice we have to improve education.  Now the only question left becomes this.

Will the education profession show up and March?

Is Commitment Really Enough???

I've been reading H3 Leadership by Brad Lomenick, and in one of his chapters he talks about the need for conviction. For him conviction is the only thing that can conquer temptation. As I started pondering his thoughts, this question kept surfacing. 

Is Commitment Enough???

I realize that commitment and conviction are synonymous, but as I ponder the 2 words, it seems that commitments can be broken, but conviction can't be shaken. Just like a convicted criminal can't evade his sentence, those who are convicted can't evade their super-commitment to the mission that is tethered to them. 

When I think of commitment, I think of a promise held by your word. But when I think of conviction, I see a ball and chain that is with you wherever you go.  See where I'm headed???

So are You are Committed or Convicted?

 If you're committed, you own your passion.  But if you're convicted, you not only own your passion, you also carry the burden of the impact your passion has on those you lead. Commitment owns the result. Conviction owns the result and the consequences associated with the efforts to gain the result. 

I think it's high time we deem the word, commitment, as a cliche. 

Has the word, commitment, has lost its value in our world? Think about it. Everybody wants commitment.  Everyone expects it, but there's always a loophole to absolve yourself from it. You can always get out of a commitment, if the conditions aren't right for you. 

I'll choose conviction. It's commitment times 10. It's painful, and it's pleasurable. You can't shake it, and you certainly can't fake it.  Actually it's the difference between leadership and transformational leadership.  

Got conviction???

What Kind of Deal is your School Offering?

Hiring season is in full swing, and schools are competing for the best applicants.  When I think of recruiting and retaining the best, I think of the one of the best clothing stores, Old Navy.  Old Navy is probably one of the best retailers at bringing people in the door, enticing them to buy good nice attire, and bringing them back for more.  Their advertising, marketing and communication strategies convey one thing. 

We are you doing to make people think this about your school?

Source - Old Navy

Let's face it. A great deal will convince the biggest skeptic to bite the bullet and spend money. 

So If You're a Big Deal, Then What Kind of Deals are You Offering?

When it comes to teacher recruitment and retention, it comes down to one thing. 

What Kind of Deal are They Getting

If you want to increase your retention rate and entice the best to work in your school, you have to be able to answer a few important questions. 

• How competitive are you with salaries, stipends, incentives, etc.?
• How well does your school do at reducing the teacher load or amount of preps?
• How much work is being taken off of your staff's proverbial plate next year?
• What reductions are people getting on redundant work?
• How much time are employees getting to do work that matters?
• How well are you slashing bureaucratic nonsense? 
• How successful are you at making teacher professional development less standardized and more personalized?

In other words, what is your school's 

Source - Old Navy

And What are You doing to make Teachers Say

Source - Old Navy

If you want to make the best deal with your staff, it starts with knowing your clientele, what they need and giving it to them in the best way possible. But it also means doing it WITHOUT lowering your standards, dropping your expectations, and sacrificing your bottom line, student success. 

Student success can only exist when teacher success is the constant not the variable. The key to teacher success is creating schools that teachers believe in, run to and commit to. That only happens when leaders know have to make deals that keep teachers coming back for more. 

Walkthroughs Don't Work!!!

This year, after 23 years in education, I will work in a school where we will not do walkthroughs. Why do you say? Well it's simple. 

Walkthroughs don't work. 

Think about it. What has a greater impact on student learning, instruction or assessment?  Obviously instruction is the variable on student learning and assessment is the gauge of learning. If we really believe in this idea about growing kids, then why are we only assessing our teachers when we walk in their classroom?

The research shows that walkthroughs don't improve teacher effectiveness.  Here's what I mean. Walkthroughs with no feedback negatively impact teaching.  Yes, they make teachers less effective. Observations with a form have no positive or negative impact on learning, so walkthrough forms have little impact on teacher effectiveness.  When observations are accompanied with coaching, teachers see gains in their effectiveness. In other words coaching is what helps teachers grow. 

So What Will We Do This Year?

If we want teachers to grow, we must admit that forms with checkboxes won't suffice. Ratings scales won't do either. To grow our teachers, we will replace walkthroughs with coaching visits. 

Yes, Coaching Visits!!!

Our teachers will receive coaching feedback that does 4 things.

1. Affirm positive practices in places

2. Identify missed opportunities. 

3. Pose questions for reflection and to open the discussion. 
4. Help the observer grow in their ability to help teachers grow. (MOST IMPORTANT)

The Goal is Simple. 
We will work to drop the imbalance of power that the term, walkthrough, brings forth. If we are truly instructional leaders, then we must realize that we must offer our teachers instruction on how they are doing and how they can improve, not just assess how they're doing. Furthermore we must provide a platform of reciprocity for teachers so that teachers can also instruct leaders on how they can improve at supporting teachers. 

Pure and simple, the purpose of a walkthroughs is to rate the teacher.   The purpose of a coaching visit is to improve both the teacher and the leader. Just as iron sharpens iron, so does one person sharpen another. If we truly want to make schools better, it starts by creating observation system that require feedback protocols for that is the most productive way to grow all educators. 

What if Kids had Learning Streaks???

Snapchat is everywhere, and kids are seriously addicted to it.  Seriously, they are, and why not?  It has a relevant goal that all kids want to reach.

STREAKS

Kids essentially are gamifying their connections to other kids, and when a kid loses a streak, it is devastating.  When my kids lose their phone privileges, it is heartbreaking.  The streak ends and they have to start all over again.

So How Can We Tie STREAKS to Learning?

It's pretty simple.  Kids need connections with other kids to accelerate their growth in learning.  In other words, collaboration is not just important.  It downright ESSENTIAL.  Below are a few ideas that we could use to get our kids to create learning streaks.

1. Use Snapchat to share their learning with other peers during classtime.
2. If technology rules prevent the use of Snapchat, use Twitter or Instagram for kids to tag their learning to a class account.  The consecutive days of tagging classmates to learning could become the streak.
3. If technology is a problem altogether, build collaboration into your instruction where students can share their work with other students and have peers give written feedback or suggestions for improvement along with the student's signature to signify the learning connection and to curate the streak.

Honestly, this is a random thought running through my head and not really formalized into a completely rational thought.  I do however think that educators must leverage the relevance that students find in STREAKS and let this fascination serve as a tool for engagement and a relevant entry point for learning.  

What ideas or thoughts would you add?

Ending the Institutionalization of Education

One of the most powerful if not the most powerful institutions in our country is the public school. If you look around you, you cannot see anything or find anything that was not influenced first by the institution we have come to love.  There are so many positive actions that the institution of education has done to impact our country, but there is one action that has a negative impact on the future of education.


One of my favorite movies of all time is Shawshank Redemption. At a powerful moment on the story, Morgan Freeman's character talks about how prisoners become institutionalized because the institution grows on them and eventually becomes something they can't live without. In other words, the institution doesn't just shape thinking, it limits creativity and opportunities for growth.  Now I'm not saying that schools are a punitive place that imprison us.  What I am saying is that we lose sight of our moral imperative when we become driven by the structures, language, and labels that at times inundate schools.  

INSTITUTIONALIZED LANGUAGE
Reflect on this section and ask yourself this.
Do the following words institutionalize your thinking?


Passing - This word sterilizes growth. For some, passing is too high a standard and for others it's way too low.  When passing is the goal, learning is not longer the priority.  We must make this term a step towards excellence rather than the standard.

Intervention - In the mind of the institutionalized, it is a location or a separate segment of time in the schedule. What it should be is a mindset about learning and when any students fails to learn, we immediately respond.

Redirection - When students are misbehaving, we have been expected to redirect them. Let's face it.  Redirection is reactive, not proactive. We must anticipate when kids are showing symptoms of misbehavior and intercept behaviors before we have to sacrifice instruction to redirect them.

Grade - This word has been one of the greatest paradigm builders in education. It sorts kids into ability groups. Sure it rates proficiency, but it also stifles progress in creating schools that are kid- centered.  The question is this.  Does the almighty grade inspire all kids to pursue learning?

Leadership - When you see this word, do you think of the person in charge or do you think of a function that everyone in the school must assume.  From the custodian to the principal and everyone in between, schools need leadership to become a collective function of the school, not the person in charge of the building.

Schedule - To the institutionalized, this is a static structure that can never be altered for any reason.  For the kid-centered school, it must change to meet the needs of all kids.  Time is a constant, but how we use it to help kids grow in learning is the variable.  Schedules are tools to help us better help kids, not a structure to shuffle them through the day.


What would you add?
If we want to end the institutionalization of education, it starts with eradicating words and the thinking behind them that shackle us to the schools of yesterday.  We must view schools not as they are but as they must become if we truly want to prepare kids for their future.  Drop a comment to add your thoughts of other words that inhibit growth in education.

Don't Forget to Excel

Note - This post is my commencement address to the Blue Ridge Senior Class of 2017.

Seniors, Parents and Guests,

On behalf of the Blue Ridge ISD Board of Trustees, I would like to welcome you to the 2017 Blue Ridge High School Graduation Ceremony.  I am truly honored to have this opportunity to celebrate the senior class of 2017 for successfully completing their journey through public education.  As a parent of one of these senior, I address you with both a tear in my eye and an excitement in my heart.  Hannah we love you and are very proud of you.  To the senior class of 2017, I know that right now you are thinking, "Hurry up! I'm ready to move on from Senior to See Ya", but I would like to have just a minute or two of your time.

In our district this year, we created a new motto, Learn...Grow...Excel...  This motto represents the next steps that we should all take in life. The next steps are hard ones to make, and sadly steps that some fail to make, so today I would like to share with you what they are and how your life will benefit from them.

The 1st Step is to Learn.
Those who succeed in life realize that learning doesn't end after high school; it actually begins.  The minute you stop learning is the minute you stop living.  My greatest hope for you is that you never view learning as a pain, but that you embrace it as an exciting and joyful part of life.  Always choose to learn more about your faith.  Learn from your experiences, but most importantly learn from your mistakes.  I challenge you to fail and fail a lot.  Because the more you fail, the more you can excel

The 2nd Step is to Grow.
Life is a metamorphosis.  You've grown physically into the adults you are today, but the very best people in life grow both mentally and spiritually.  They grow in their love for friends and family, and they grow in their passion and zest for life.  If you choose to take the 2nd step, you will experience life in the way it was meant to be lived.  You will never settle for life the way it is, and you will never make excuses for bad things that happen to you.  You will always find a better way, and you always make it a better day for yourself and those around you.

The 3rd and Final Step is to Excel.
When I think about what it means to excel, I look to the words of our founding fathers who wrote the Declaration of Independence over 240 years ago.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, 

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, 

that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Those who excel discover Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness when they realize that their purpose in life is not to take but to give.  If our country is to continue to be the greatest nation on the planet, we need less takers and more givers.  The bottom line is that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is not handed to you.  It is earned and it has to be earned every single day. 

Excelling is not about being the best; it is about giving your best to make a strong family.  It's about volunteering in your church, little league, in your school, and in the community, and most importantly it's not about waiting for someone else to do it for you.  It's about being an active leader in making your community and our country a better place for everyone.  

Think about this.  Who has stood out in your life and in your time here in Blue Ridge?  It was the people who excelled.  They did more than they were asked to do.  They were the ones who always stepped up to help you, and they were the people who invested in you.  Well now it's your turn.  Wherever you go and whatever you do, I challenge you to remember that the purpose of life is to make life better for everyone you come in contact with.  Then and only then will you find true happiness.

My final words to  you can be found in this 8 ounce cup.  To some it's just a cup, but to the senior class of 2017, it was your opportunity to leave a lasting impression on Blue Ridge (see video here).  From now on, every time I look at this ordinary cup, I will remember the legacy you left behind for future classes to follow.  I will always see your awesome personalities and special moments throughout the year, but most importantly I will forever see the potential that you have to make this world a better place.   I wish each of you the best luck and  I think I speak for everyone when I say this.

We will all miss you when you're gone.