New Year Reflections

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When I think about classrooms that work I always come back to the importance of students being allowed opportunities to reflect on their learning.

I also tell people that they should always be learning. This year I learned a lot about myself.

So, in keeping with my beliefs, here are some thoughts about what I learned:

2014 will go down as the year I lost my big brother Rick. In many ways the time from diagnosis to death was short. And many people have said, "at least he didn't have to suffer too long." Having to deal with the death of a loved one taught me about myself and my family.

I learned that my sister-in-law is one of the strongest people I know. I learned that a few months of hell can feel like a few years of hell. But, a few hours of laughter, in the midst of this sadness, can feel like no better time in my life. When I went and visited for, what turned out to be, the last time - we laughed. I didn't learn the importance of laughter that day. But I sure did validate the necessity for finding humor in even the darkest moments.

2014 will go down as the year I had my "perfect school year" ruined by someone else's success.  Before anyone reads this and says that I'm not being very kind to my current school leadership team, I want to emphasize that when I left for the Summer I was looking forward to the 2014-2015 school year like no other time in my history of being involved with education.

Then my principal was given a promotion in our school district. Then they created a new leadership position at our school. Then our literacy coach got a promotion. Then they pulled one of our assistant principals and they replaced him with another from our district. Throughout this school year they kept hinting that they were going to be taking another one of our assistant principals too.

We went from a principal, three assistant principals, and a literacy coach (and me) who had been together and were ready to move forward with instruction like our district had never seen, to a new principal, a new associative principal, a new assistant principal, and a new literacy coach. EVERY one of these new people is competent and EVERY one of these people is great to work with - so what's my problem? The problem is that, with so many new faces, we needed to put all of our plans on hold. We had to learn how to work together. And, our students and teachers suffered from a less than perfect leadership team. Maybe that is the biggest thing I learned from this - the leadership team at any school must work as a cohesive unit if we want to have student success

2014 will go down as the year I really made a fool of myself. Making a fool of one's self is something that is not recoverable. The only answer is to move on to a different school district where there will be less people who ever want to cross those bridges I blew up - I didn't just burn bridges; I napalmed them! Ironically, my heart was never stronger. I did what I did because I truly believed (and still believe) that everyone should be treated fairly.

But sometimes, when you are just a peon, it is better to keep your thoughts and comments to yourself. Sometimes, people don't understand the facts. Sometimes we need to just let the big boys play the political ping-pong.  I certainly got paddled. And, worse than anything, I got other people hurt and I lost a ton of credibility.  I won't (and am not allowed to) say anything else on this subject. All I can say is, at 57 years of age, I don't plan on getting involved in political messes ever again.

2014 will go down as the year Sheila and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. 25 years of living with someone is a long time. But I can't imagine being with anyone else for the next 25 years. We've had some really great times, we've had some less than fun times, but we have survived all of these times together. So from this I have learned the importance of the expression "... till death us do part."  When two human beings make a vow like that in front of family, friends, and God - how can you NOT make that work. Relationships take time; they take constant tinkering; and they take the gentle touch of a baby.  I learned that we will make it another 25 years (and beyond).

Happy New Year. May each of you experience the beauty of a great relationship with someone. And may each of you avoid death and destroying your credibility. It WILL be a great 2015. There are many new experiences to be had and I am looking forward to my reflection at the end of December of next year.

Take Time to be Thankful (even in a crappy year)

Via Smithsonian

There is so much going right in my world that I shouldn't dwell on the downer stuff - but the holidays push me towards that abyss. And no one would fault me for whining and complaining. But I'm going to try and take a different tack.

Tomorrow will be the first Thanksgiving that I won't get to talk with my big brother. There's been a lot of firsts since that sad day last Spring when cancer took his life. 

That's the mean thing about death. Those left mourning get to experience the first birthday, first pick-a-holiday, and first pick-a-season.  But what about those others who are living with this? Every day I read about another person who was wiped off of this planet by something tragic. There are a zillion people experiencing their own first______ since ______ died. 

I want to celebrate resiliency.  My brother had 2 sisters and me. [Our parents passed years ago.] He also had a wonderful wife,2 sons, and a daughter. Each of those people have their own family. If we call these folks the immediate family circle, then we have 15 individuals who all are dealing with this loss in different ways. And they are all going to be ok - we're all going to be ok. 

So I want to think about things I am thankful for, such as:

• 25 years of marriage
• a great wife who keeps the ship heading fair
• a great daughter and son who are heading in the right direction and, by all accounts, will be people others will look up to in life
• wonderful sisters (MaryAnn, Janice, Alice) 
• incredibly gifted nephews/nieces - 6 amazingly talented people.
• a job with a good salary - I get to work with some great professionals
• good health - I haven't had to spend time in a hospital since losing my appendix back in 1987.  
• ready to go somewhere else to work - and there are options out there!

It's Thanksgiving. I have so much to be thankful for and I am already looking forward to Thanksgiving 2015 - because it won't be 2014!

My best to each and every one of you. Take time to find at least one thing you are thankful for - and then hold on tight to that one item. Keep a vision of that one thing with you for all of those bad times that are waiting out there for you. Here's to resiliency - cheers.

There Was Gold In Them There Colorado Hills

http://goo.gl/oNBuIc

A Gold standard for PBL - that's what the folks at BIE.org are trying to define. And we are reaching out to all of you who are practicing this in your classrooms and schools. This past week the National Faculty (NF) met for our Fall summit and we had some rich, deep discussions on the topic. My takeaways:

(A). Many people refer to our 8 Essential Elements for PBL. If we are defining the Gold Standard then we need to determine whether we keep these as they are; we change them all; or, we just change key elements. For our summit we decided to start here and we were shown a proposed new look that is far from the finished product. The original 8 elements will probably be changing slightly. For example, Public Audience might be replaced with  Public Product.

Outside of the original hexagon there might be a new layer of teacher/facilitator practices. The idea here is that the teachers will now have specific things to think about as they create,facilitate, and assess projects. My question on this layer is the shape - do we keep it hexagonal or do we use a circular or rectangular shape to show how this layer envelops all of the 8 essential elements.

Look for more on this as we go through the next few months and follow #goldstandardpbl on Twitter.

(B). In our signature PBL 101's we concentrate on helping teachers create projects and we refer to the importance of them taking their students' learning deeper. Who are we educating in these sessions? Adults, of course. 

We acknowledged that we need to do better at educating these teachers. To do this we need to increase our knowledge of adult learners. This was our next focus for our summit - the adult learner. As with all summits I was amazed by the level of knowledge of my fellow NF's. 

We looked at various aspects of learning and we had a very informed discussion from our own Jennifer Klein on the Male and Female Brain. She even gave us a diagram of the 8 essential elements with how each type of brain interacts with that element.

(C) Another key topic in our summit was the idea of PBL Sustainability. As one NF put it, for true sustainability we need to work ourselves out of a job. We want our clients creating a culture of collaboration on their campus. We want our clients growing their own PBL "experts." And, we want our clients creating a culture of learning for all of the stakeholders. Teachers should be co-creating projects with community members and students should be interacting with local companies.

When we have a sustained "gold standard" of PBL in a community or school we will truly have reached the gold standard for education. Then, in fact, we will have worked ourselves out of a job at BIE. And I'd be OK with that.

(D) With each summit I attend I find myself increasingly excited about working with this incredible group of NF's. They come from diverse education backgrounds and experiences and we push each other by questioning accepted norms.  

When you see the book on Gold Standard PBL come out (next Summer?), you can bet that it will have been discussed, analyzed, and vetted by some of the greatest minds in education. And, some of those minds will be BIE's own National Faculty. Feel free to add your thoughts via Twitter. Remember the hashtag: #goldstandardpbl.  

20 Thoughts on Instructional Coaching

http://goo.gl/CxWFJb

Thursday and Friday I attended an incredible training by Steve Barkley. If you haven't heard of him, get to know him. If you have heard of him and haven't attended one of his sessions then get going and attend one. As a coach, this is one of those must attend events.

What I learned is forever going to change how I look at the coaching process and teaching, in general. I know this is true and, from talking to the other coaches in attendance, I know others felt the same.

 Here are 20 things mentioned in these two days that caused me to stop and ponder:

1. How can your teachers trust each other if they've never been in each others' classrooms?
2. Are your teachers a franchise or are they a team?
3. Department Heads should be the model classroom.   
4. When using rubrics have the "top" line be created by the students.
5. Students cause student achievement. Teachers do not cause student achievement. Therefore, coaches need to focus on students when they observe.  
6. You can't teach a student math. You teach a student how to learn math.
7. Teachers should use their inclusion teachers to model expected behaviors, thinking, and discussions.
8. Schools should do Emotional Walkthroughs. On a 1 - 5 scale what is the emotional level of each classroom?
9. When you walk through your school, how many Wow!'s to you get?
10. If students complete the exact work assigned they should get a "C." Go Beyond that for a "B" and go above B-work for an "A."
11. A student's major work shouldn't be graded until the end of semester or year and students should have multiple opportunities to revise/edit.
12. Students should be exposed to more book options. One teacher put 5 books on each of 20 tables at beginning of the school year. Students rotated, table to table, and scored the books based upon interest. At the end of one class period they had seen 100 books and should have seen a few that met with their satisfaction.
13. The hardest part of teaching is when the students aren't there.
14. Coaches, you have been hired by your school to change kid's behaviors.
15. Homework should never be the same for the entire class.
16. Teachers should have a 3 year commitment to kids: Spend time with them the year before they come to you. Spend time with all of the students on your grade level. Then spend time with them the year after you have them to see how they are doing.
17. We tend to do vertical alignment without the students.
18. Instructional coaches should be evaluated on the teacher growth during the year.
19. We were hired to bring discomfort to our school. We want a culture where our teachers are comfortable with discomfort.
20. The biggest coaching mistake is to let teachers know what the coach is thinking before the coach knows what the teacher is thinking.