Don't drive angry!

Don’t drive angry!

For those of you who quote the movie Groundhog’s Day, you may not have to watch this 45-second clip to appreciate my references in this post.  For others, its worth less than a minute of your time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBpw1sdFu2w

I kept waiting to write this post, hoping to be healthier, not exhausted.  Don’t blog tired!  Now on my second round of antibiotics, weary and not thinking straight – I’m writing it anyways.  (Cue Phil, “She might be okay. Well..no, probably not now.")

How many times do we work late, work weekends, work sick, work tired?  It doesn’t honor a commitment to the “whole person,” let alone reason.  Honoring the whole person means we tend to the physical, mental, and spiritual.  Relentlessly focusing on the academic betrays whole child education, so why do we do it to ourselves? ("You've gotta check your mirrors...side of the eye, side of the eye.")

To be fair, my boss said, “You need to take some time.”  Tell me….how does that work?  You know it can be harder to NOT be there, than to just drag yourself into work.  The two times I did step away from my office, I received dogging emails asking, “Where are you?  Students are looking for you.” ("Hey, they're chasing us.  C'mon...make it fun!")

Am I giving them my best right now?  (Considering I just tried to get into someone else’s car, I am probably making mistakes at work too.)  Am I being fair to my family, pushing myself into further illness?  Am I modeling self-care and education of body, mind, and spirit?  So, am I so important that a short absence would turn the world on its ear?  I think we all know the answer to that.  None of us are, and it would be silly to think that our place of work would cease to function without us.  However, we do have a lot of people who count on us.  But they aren’t just counting on us to show up.  Sometimes they are watching more than that – and we are modeling the way regarding life balance, self-care, and respect.  

Despite being born on Groundhog's Day, I know I don't get a redo of today.  I can't push myself until I drive off the cliff.  What's great is that I DO get a redo tomorrow, and I've got some ground to cover. 

I just need to remember….don’t drive angry.

Listen to what is being said...

It goes without saying that those in education have ‘a lot on their plate’ these days. I would bet that it has been less than 24 hours since you’ve last thought, said, or heard “when will I find time…” or “there aren’t enough hours in the day…” But, somehow, we always manage to make that plate a little bigger and do more because it’s what’s in the best interest for kids.

In our district we have ‘building PD’ once a month for 90 minutes.  These opportunities are typically designed by the Instructional Leadership Team (ILT) - based on the identified needs of staff - and align with our school and district initiatives. For over a year we’ve been focusing on the idea of accountable talk and offering focused sessions through a differentiated PD approach.  Through surveys of staff, sharing of student work, and classroom walk-throughs it is evident that staff has bought in. Students are engaged in deeper levels of authentic conversation, carefully listening to one another, speaking in complete sentences, and building arguments with claim and evidence. The school-wide efforts can be seen all over and the staff is proud of their efforts and what skills students have learned through this focus.

While this has been exciting work, it’s not the only thing we do. We had reached a crossroads coming into this school year – everyone could feel it, no one could put their finger on it. Our ILT met several times with the intent of planning the next steps for professional development and it just wasn’t feeling right.  Staff was surveyed on their next needs from PD and we even spent time diving into the different ways a teacher could immerse in professional development. There was uncertainty of whether we continue focusing on accountable talk or if there was a different, broader direction that made sense. What we did know was that there is a definite momentum among the staff to grow professionally and we didn’t want to lose that.

So we listened – really listened – to what the staff was saying. We put aside the surveys about professional development and listened to what they were really saying in the lunchroom, in their team meetings, in observation and goal conferences, and to one another. What we heard were things like What about GLAD, do we still do that? or I don’t have time for ____ because now I do accountable talk.

It became clear that over the past few years of different initiatives brought on by the school, district and/or state that we had not messaged the purpose of professional development accurately. As our instructional coach said in last week’s meeting with staff, the purpose of our professional development is to build and strengthen our capacity for instructional design and decision-making. Accountable talk is a component of instructional design.

After having our staff each fill a paper plate with all of the different things we do as staff members at our school, our facilitators recorded as the staff shared out. The list had about 75 different items when we were finished which was eye-opening to everyone in the room, yet also validating of their hard work. As a staff, we highlighted the items which directly relate to instructional design and decision-making, making special note that accountable was one component. We didn't want to send a message that we were abandoning this most recent focus. 

Knowing that our staff responds well to the idea of having differentiated PD, we now have our next steps in our PD plans. Each staff member has identified their top 3 components from the highlighted list to focus on and strengthen their understanding through a variety of PD approaches. Additionally, each staff member identified the top 3 ideas in which they feel confident and would be willing to share in the planning of a PD offering for colleagues.

The new charge for our ILT is to now look at the identified needs and plan for who and how the PD will be offered. There is a new excitement among staff knowing that we are going to have the opportunity dive deeper into the already-great things we are doing. It’s not about adding to your plate with another thing. Rather, it’s feeling confident and competent about the tools, strategies, and content to effectively reach and teach our students.

Elements of Success

The other day I told my principal I was pondering what to write about for my upcoming Leading & Learning blog post. He turned to me and said, "Well, you've been here a while now. Why don't you write about what makes you a successful leader here?" Great idea! He and I quickly brainstormed the key points below. This is dedicated to all the deans and assistant principals out there as I share what's been working for me.

Communication & Relationships
Communication with my principal, office staff, our specialists & family liaison, paras, teachers, students, and families is key. I've learned to differentiate the mode of communication (face to face, email, phone) based on the situation and individual(s) with whom I'm communicating.

Example: Adults, sometimes get stressed out around testing and I've learned part of that has to do with a concern about student progress reflecting on our work as educators. It can be a challenge to hold test scores up as a mirror to reflect the impact of our instruction! That's why, when we administered the STAR Test on computers for the first time this year, we was particularly conscious of our methods used to communicate updates. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we were faced with a challenge the Friday afternoon before our week of testing. Thankfully, we'd been in face to face contact with teachers all week to provide clarification and support. So, when our team sent out the revised testing schedule for the upcoming week, my principal and I made ourselves available by being visible and we checked in with classroom teachers to answer questions. We were able to clarify & confirm updates on the spot. Our initial round of testing ended up running pretty smoothly and we continued face to face/email communication throughout the week.

Follow-Through & Support
One of the most important roles a leader plays is that of "support". People deserve to have leaders follow through with protocols, next steps, goals, values, etc.

Example: Last spring, our staff updated our Professional Code of Conduct (norms) and made a commitment to live out these professional agreements on a daily basis at work. One of the norms we created is: Go to the source. When colleagues comes to me with a wonder or question that is really for someone else (early childhood team, instructional coach, principal, etc.), I generally give a brief response based on my knowledge and encourage them to go to the source/leader/individual who is coordinating the work they wonder about to gain in depth clarification. I then follow-up with both the person to whom I sent them and the individual(s) asking the question. By doing this I am following-through on living our Professional Code of Conduct, while also following-through with support for teams and individuals to make sure questions are answered.

Questioning for Clarity
As a leader, I represent a lot of perspectives, teams, and initiatives. In order to fully understand, lead, and represent, different aspects of our school, I've developed a "seek to understand" mentality.

Example Questions: What is the goal? What do we hope to accomplish? What might success look like? How might we measure success? How does this make a difference for students? How might we know it made a difference for our students? How does it impact different stakeholders? How could we communicate with stakeholders? What supports might be needed? What existing supports do we have? How does this support other initiatives? How might we need to shift our allocation of resources (fiscal/human) to support this work?

Self Care

I've learned to try and get enough sleep, eat healthy, participate in weekly joint immediate/in-law family dinners, volunteer within my community, walk my dog, & use online resources (ASCD free webinars, articles via Twitter, etc.) to develop as a professional. Surprisingly, maintaining Self Care is quite the challenge! It takes a conscious effort on a daily basis in terms of scheduling and communicating. I continually go back to Covey's work, however, around balance to help remind me of the importance Self Care has.

Example: Making sure my body gets the nutrients it needs (beyond a multiple vitamin), is essential. I schedule time on the weekends to go grocery shopping with my husband. Then, we come home and make lunches for the week. This weekend we bought frozen soup in bulk - just add water, boil for 40 mins., & you have a lot of soup that can be eaten and frozen! I look forward to feasting on tomato basil or cream of broccoli soup for lunch each day alongside crackers, cheese, & fruit. For breakfast, I buy disposable cups in which I put non-fat Greek yogurt, fruit, and granola each morning. Sometimes I feel guilty about using disposable cups, but I know this keeps me on track with getting the nutrients my body needs. On that note, a friend of mine found washing her "to go" mugs from coffee each day became too much to keep up with so she bought paper disposable cups + lids. She now puts coffee from her Keurig in a low-cost disposable cup every morning. This reduces the urge to stop by a coffee stand and provides similar convenience.

Cross-Posted: http://edge.ascd.org/_Elements-of-Success/blog/6556474/127586.html

WILL #8

What I Learned Lately (WILL 13/14 #8) by Dr. Josh Garcia @Garciaj9Josh

“The Grass Is Not Always Greener”

At this time of year in the great Pacific Northwest there is lots of fog.  The days are getting darker and many of us long for the sunshine.  It also the time where we start having “family/teacher” conferences.  In many cases, families and staff go into these events with a little angst, not knowing what will be a bright spot or what will add to the haze of clarity on how to help our shared students.  Perceptions are such a driving force in this dance. 

As families we have perceptions about our own experiences of school.  Ultimately we just want to know if our children are safe, engaged, supported, challenged and in a healthy environment.  Often we are in unchartered waters, either this is our first child experiencing this grade level/school or our children are so different that we experiencing something new at home as well as at school.  As staff, we have perceptions about what perceptions families may have about us, our schools and public education as a whole.  We have to not only know our students individually well enough to guide them, we need to think about what strategies we can provide families to help their children at home.  We want to be clear and honest about each child’s strengths and areas of growth, but don’t want to feel offensive.  We want to help our families, but also need to be aware of our limitations of time and resources.  For me, I am aware of both sides of the dance and always trying to different strategies to help my needs as a parent as well as honor the staff that are serving my children.

This week a master teacher taught me a few new strategies.  She starts by asking families to describe what they are seeing at home when they are working with their child (assessing their perceptions about their student). 

Next, she has the family watch a short video that she has filmed of the student doing some grade level work (establishing a shared context for the conversation and showing what the engagement or non-engagement looks like in the class). 

Showing her human side, she is honest about her new learning of technology and her limitations(establishing that we are all learning and to take risks).

Then she asks them what they saw and their thoughts (facilitating reflection, this may be the first time the family has seen their child learning at school). 

She builds off of their comments and talks about what they are doing in class to either provide additional support and or challenge the child during the day (reassuring their child is safe, engaged, supported and challenged). 

Working from the standards and skills, she has a few generic strategies that are related to the standards/skills that can be replicated at home.  Often these are skills that reinforce academic stamina, solid work habits, and are simpler versions of what she doing in the class already (reinforcing healthy habits that we all can support). 

She reminds the family that this work needs to be low stress and not fight, “start slow and be consistent” (finding safe ways to challenge their child at home).  Finally, she asks the families to contact her every few weeks to get an update and share what they are seeing at home (reinforcing the partnership without all the ownership lying on the teacher). 

I was reminded that we have world class teachers and world class principals in our schools.  Our teachers and principals have never been more challenged and met those challenges at higher levels than ever before.  I know there are challenges in our schools across our Nation.  I am not blind to the realities that not every child in our country has a world class teacher, every day. 

However, there are many schools, cities and states that our global partners may want to come examine.  With relentless pressure to provide quick fixes and national propaganda about the lack of the success of our schools, maybe we should look closer at the numbers (http://www.edweek.org/ew/section/infographics/math-achievement-globally.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1).  In our state we are not perfect, but we are becoming world class.  

This week in Washington it is Principal Appreciation Week, I am thankful for our world class principals.  Their successes are marked in more than a single test score, but rather the 1000’s of lives they save every day.  In Tacoma, we have some the world’s best educational leaders.  Although there may be foggy days in our area, rest assure there is sunshine behind the clouds for our students, for that I am humbly grateful.

Finally from David Whelan’s “My View of Fog”,
Ask any ten people, 'what's the odor of fog? ' And...
you'll get different replies, from ten different guys,
from brisk, briny sea smell, to smell of wet dog,
to perfume worn by Neptune, essence of clouds
and blue skies

I think that fog is something and nought.
A wraith of perception
suffused with deception
as easily at home…
in fact
or in thought
Cross-posted: http://edge.ascd.org/_WILL-1314-8/blog/6554290/127586.html?b=

WILL #7

What I Learned Lately (WILL 13/14 #7) by Dr. Josh Garcia (@Garciaj9Josh)

What Does Love Have To Do With It? 

Early one morning this week, before anyone was up and the first cup of coffee was even sipped, my son asked me if I loved my job.  I smiled and said yes, thinking that this would be the end of the conversation.  I was wrong… Like I was being sprayed with a fire hose, he hit me in rapid fire with the following:
How can you love going to all those meetings?  How can you love something that make you so tired? How can you love people who make you mad?  How can you love something that makes you cry?  How can you love something people are talking bad about?  How can you love something, people are fighting against?  How can you love something so big?  How can you love something that is so hard to explain?  How can you love something when you see people die and be hurt?  How can you love something that makes you spend time away from us? 

I took a “big drink of coffee” and smiled, thinking to myself “wow, you are thinking about some heavy stuff for being so young and so early in the morning.  I asked him, “Why are you asking all these questions”. He looked at me with pure clarity and said, “Dad you fight for them like you fight for us”.

What did I learn this week?  I learned that even though it may not be politically correct, that it is ok to love your work, the people you serve and the people who you work with.  Most of this week, I have reflected on my son’s questions and I know I am not alone in my love.  I am proud of our schools and the people that work in them.  I am proud of our city and its commitment to getting better and supporting our students.  On this cold, foggy Friday, I proud to say, “I Love Tacoma”.   
Finally from Merriam-Webster,
Love,
a (1):  strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties

Cross-posted: http://edge.ascd.org/_WILL-1314-7/blog/6554160/127586.html