This summer a colleague of mine, Karen Berreckman (@2ndCoz), shared with me a blogger that she follows on twitter, Pernille Ripp (@PernilleRipp). Recently she wrote a blog entitled 'Dear Administrators, Please Don't Forget About the Little Things'. Generally, I don't spend my limited time reading blogs when they are written by teachers who have not worked in administrative capacities. Even with my experiences as a quasi-administrator and my limited knowledge of all the things a real administrator deals with, I know that there are parts of their job that I don't have a clue about. Most of those that I have read have been little more than just a rant from a teacher who has an axe to grind. This one from Pernille Ripp was different.
The gist of the article was that as busy as principals are this time of year, it is vital for them to take care of the little things for teachers right now before student arrive. This paragraph below from her blog sums it up perfectly and made some connections for me as a guidance counselor and my work with students and teachers:
"Yes, I know it is not fun or exciting to think about those things that you promise teachers that you will do, like approving a form, emailing a parent, looking up that long lost order. But those little things? They make a big difference to us teachers. Those little things that you may not think deserves your limited time right now, those are the ones we need you to also take care of because those things add up to a whole lot of stress for us when left undone. In fact, some of those little things may be stopping us from fulfilling our big dreams, hopes, and wishes." (Copied from http://pernillesripp.com/2014/08/12/dear-administrators-please-dont-forget-about-the-little-things/)
There are so many big things we all come back to school after summer wanting to accomplish, and each day we perform 'small task triage' to work on the most pressing tasks. After reading that paragraph, I couldn't help but think about the large number of emails or messages I receive from students that I sometimes put off for a day or so until I have time to get to them. I also couldn't help but consider teachers requests such as scheduling concerns, rosters, etc. and how my 'small task triage' may be an obstacle to their implementation of big ideas in their classroom.
Reading Pernille's blog gave me a solid direction for my work yesterday and today as teachers came back to school. It was rewarding to fill those immediate needs of teachers in an almost immediate timeframe. Many of the staff here at Cozad Community Schools are working to implement big ideas and it is exciting to see those come to fruition as the small tasks are taken care of. Now that it is crunch time (a.ka. Prime Time), we have a great opportunity to complete the small things for fellow staff members and students. It is an empowering and positive way to start the school year by helping those big ideas set sail.
If you have a few moments take the time to watch this video of a former Navy seal who spoke at the University of Texas Commencement in May of 2014 (forward it to 4:36 to get to the heart of the message) or read this link on the 10 Life Lessons from a Navy Seal. Number one on the list is an illustration of the idea of taking care of the small things first. It gives us a sense of accomplishment and sets us on a course to accomplishing more.
This year I hope to remember that if I want to really change the world, I have to first take care of the small details to make a big difference.
As the school year begins students, teachers, parents and the community are filled with excitement and a willingness to try new things. A new year is a new opportunity for success.
As the year starts, students and teachers are motivated to make the most of this opportunity on their way to earning their diploma. Recently for me, this has begged the questions of "How can we make the most of this opportunity while earning a diploma" and "What is the value of high school diploma?"
Is a high school diploma worth anything? Now, before you react viscerally, humor me for minute to consider if it really prepares kids to function in a global society where skills are key rather than knowledge. Times have shifted where the knowledge we possess is only as good as our ability to translate that to action through our skills.
Last week at our first in-service day, our new superintendent addressed the staff and spoke about his past experiences which have prepared him to lead our district in this very dynamic time in public education. Mr. Applegate has a very diverse background that will be a tremendous asset to our district. During his in-service address he posed the rhetorical questions of "What does a diploma allow a kid to do? What does it qualify them to do? " Now, we as educational masses have always responded with "It gives you the skills to be a functioning member of society," or "It will allow you to secure a job where you can live a comfortable life". Recently I have started thinking that these may not be sufficient answers anymore.
Just last week President Obama initiated a conversation centered around skyrocketing college costs and how to control those. As college student invest tens of thousands of dollars (and sometimes more) into a college degree, they have a sense of entitlement to higher paying jobs to justify the cost of a post-secondary education. I can empathize with that entitlement, but the reality of the situation is that many times even a college education is not enough to equip them with the skills they need to earn those large salaries. Employers want kids with certifications, skills, and competencies specific to their industry. Employers are often forced to make large investments in new employees to bridge that gap between formal education and the real world skills they need to function in the working world.
Here is where I believe schools have a golden opportunity to serve students better. For many years we have known that in order to work your way up the proverbial promotion ladder, it is imperative you obtain more education or higher certifications. As school systems, why can't we use our Career and Technical Education programs to do just this? How can we personalize these programs to the needs of our students to provide an opportunity to earn industry specific certifications prior to leaving high school?
A logical step in that direction will be to partner with business and industry stakeholders to bring the experts in those fields into the process of preparing kids for life beyond K-12 education. For far too long, we as schools, have been forced by the circumstances of the standards, assessments, and accountability policies to close the doors to local stakeholders with respect to real world problem- based learning because of the time demands of the aforementioned policies. The time has come for us realize that this has not been positive for our students, schools, or communities. Education is a diverse endeavor where the 'product' we produce is not truly quantifiable. We produce a qualitative 'product' to meet the demands of the world. This standards movement is founded upon lower level thinking skills and facts that are 'Googleable'. I believe that by reconnecting education to the real world we can make our 'product' quality higher by giving students skill sets and credentials to be better prepared to enter the real world.
This idea of partnering with local stakeholders and leaders can be a powerful tool to engage kids in learning content and skills. This past week I initiated a conversation with Central Community College and our hospital administrator about the possibility of offering CNA/CMA (Certified Nursing Assistant/Certified Medical Assistant) classes to our school and community. During that conversation Lyle Davis from Cozad Community Health System welcomed this idea and will be a key player in this idea coming to fruition. While this partnership may be in the infancy stage, we hope that this will become the model for a number of other partnerships we will look to forge in the coming months. In just a few moments of conversation with our Superintendent, we have already identified the possible certification/partnerships for several areas in which we have potential resources and experts in our community. Some of these certifications will be for those who will directly enter the workforce after graduation, while others will be geared toward students who may go onto earn advanced degrees from a post-secondary institution. Our tentative plan is to bring together many of these industry and community stakeholders in the fall to determine what partnerships are possible to best serve and prepare our students for the real world.
It is an exciting time to be a Haymaker. It is even more exciting to consider the possibility of bringing local support and ownership of educational ventures back to our school and community. We owe it to our students to work together to do everything within our power to fully prepare
them for the world beyond K-12 education. I have little doubt in my mind that our stakeholders will be tremendous assets in these future endeavors.
Dustin Favinger
9-12 School Counselor
Cozad Senior High School
One yearly task that seems to cause dread, almost universally, among counselors is SCHEDULING and REGISTRATION. While the reasons behind that dread may be varied, we all know how difficult it can be for a school and the course offerings of that school to "be all things to all people." I have been thinking lately about ways to become all things to all students.
What if we as public education entities embraced the power in allowing students to truly direct their own learning for part of every day? What if we modeled our school day after Google's concept of 20 time, where students were given 20% of their time to study or work on a project of their own choosing and design. Now I am not proposing just free time with no expectations, but rather time to truly invest themselves into a course of study that they direct. Nor am I proposing abandoning our traditional course offerings. I am proposing a system that engages kids in their own learning. We all know that when we are passionate about learning something we harness that power and throw ourselves full force into it. We become almost obsessed with it and it invigorates us and refuels us to work on it.
Over the course of my thirteen years in education, I have numerous times felt like there have been students who we have failed. That failure to serve students can be grouped into two categories:
1. Failing the high ability students by handicapping them with our pacing and limiting them to our course offerings.
2. Failing the disengaged students by not allowing them to study what is relevant to their lives and futures and consequently never teaching them the power of pursuing your passion.
Now the first group of students succeed in spite of our work as educators. Truthfully, these are the kids who are good at the game of school. They earn good grades and learn regardless of the quality of instruction or materials. They are just bidding their time until they go off to college or enter the real world where they become 'game changers'.
The second group of kids are those who are chronically disengaged from school. They show up week in and week out on the eligibility list, detention lists, at-risk list, etc. They hate coming to school, they find it a waste of their time, they don't see the school as applicable to their lives. Sadly, many times I have to fight back the urge to agree with them.
What if we changed our system of schooling to allow every kid the opportunity to study something they are passionate about. Then we allowed them the opportunity to create some sort of learning outcome they could showcase to teachers, administrators, community members, heck even the entire world! I can almost guarantee you that when students are given the opportunities to study what they are passionate about they will almost always hold themselves to higher standards than we as teachers do when applying our industrial model of assessment.
Now, I am sure you are reading this thinking, 'What a whack job!' 'Doesn't he believe in accountability?' Yes, and yes, I am not afraid to think outside the box and I do believe in accountability. I believe we need to allow students the opportunity to hold themselves accountable.
Think back to the first group of kids I say we have failed (High Ability Students). I believe that we have failed them because we have handicapped their potential. Rather than setting benchmarks for them to reach, we put a ceiling in which they are not to exceed. The second group of kids we feed more broccoli to even when they don't like the broccoli. Why not put some cheese on the broccoli to make it more palatable. Lets give kids the opportunity to create their own coursework for one elective and see just what happens. The worst thing could happen is that they don't learning anything useful or don't do anything....(News Flash: That worst outcome is already happening in the courses we offer).
Now consider the possibility of one of those chronically disengaged kids choosing to pursue the study of cell phones and how they work. What if in the course of that study, he learned about the electrical circuitry behind all of that and realized, 'Hey, wait a minute, I need to know Trig so that I can understand this.' or what if she got curious about the programming behind the user interface and learned how to code. Next think of the shift that would take place as these kids came to our math or science or computer classes and engaged even more so they could learn what they needed to go even further with their personalized learning course. Can you imagine how awesome that would be to have students who want to learn not for the sake of the test, but for the sake of applicability and pursuits in which there is no reward other than the intrinsic reward of learning?
With all the resources that exist digitally and the MOOC movement taking hold, why not harness the power of the winds of change before it becomes the tornado that destroys our pretty little system of mass education. Why not use what we see working with these MOOC's to accomplish our goal of educating kids who are able to problem solve while pursuing their passion. There are free resources online (Coursera, EdX, Udemy, etc.) There are communities abound online where collaborative discussions take place on nearly every subject imaginable. Why not allow our kids to go beyond what we know and connect with these resources to really learn?
Why not? Well it is messy and we don't like messy in education. We like standards and maps and flowcharts and crosswalks. I challenge each of you as you read this to consider the possibility that maybe we have it wrong. Maybe, just maybe we need to personalize rather than standardize. As people we all want individualization and to be seen as an individual with unique skills. Why not give this a shot and risk being right? What if this worked for 10% of the kids? Would that make the reward worth the risk?
If we are truly educating kids to the best of our ability, then we can't be the limiting factor. Let's get out of their way and start directing learning, facilitating their learning, provide guidance/feedback/criticism/encouragement to go above and beyond what we currently offer. Heck it just may cut down on those who make our coveted lists!
Thanks for reading and best wishes as our school year begins.
Dustin Favinger
9-12 Counselor
Cozad Community Schools
@CHS_Mr_F
Summer time is a time for fun, sun, and relaxation...or a little PD to refuel the passion for education. This summer I have had the opportunity to attend two very powerful conferences. The first was ISTE in San Antonio and the second was the Great Plains Google Summit in Lincoln.
As it turns out, these would be some of the best days of summer. I am sure that all educators can relate to the fatigue we feel at the end of the year. It is that fatigue of caring too much throughout the year and not having the emotional dollars to spend that makes us long for the days of summer. However, as summer passes we feel rejuvenated by time away from our passion and become hungry once again to teach and learn with kids.
We need to cure what ails us, and...
...collaboration is the best medicine
These two conferences were instrumental in rekindling that fire in me. The sessions I attended solidified my beliefs that we are on the verge of crisis in education. National mandates pushing the testing agenda are coming up against what we know are best practices of collaborating, creating, sharing, and making education relevant.
At the ISTE Conference, the closing keynote was delivered by Adam Bellow (Adam's entertaining talk starts 23 minutes in) who invited us to change the world by making education relevant to the lives of our students. We were reminded that technology shouldn't be the icing on the cake, but rather mixed into the batter. But the most striking point he made was that we as schools need a startup culture. We must move towards problem based learning and come to RESPECT FAILURE AND EMBRACE CURIOSITY. As a system we have become almost systematic in killing the natural curiosity kids while teaching them the game of school. If you want to rethink what we are doing as profession, take the hour to watch that closing keynote. If it doesn't inspire you to do better, then you may not have a pulse!
The at Great Plains Google Summit opening keynote was delivered by Chris Lehmannis the founding principal of the Science Leadership Academy, a progressive science and technology high school in Philadelphia, PA. In a room filled 500 educators he lamented us to answer this question regarding the efficacy of the high stakes testing environment we are currently in compared to inquiry driven models we are discovering to much more effective. His exact question was: "By a show of hands, how many of you think we are getting it right in school today?" Not a hand went up. My first reaction was shame. Shameful that we are wasting our only chance with the kids of today. We don't get any mulligans. These kids don't get a second shot at the best we have to offer them. That shame however morphed into a resolve to do what I can do to change the world as Adam Challenged us to in San Antonio.
Learning about turtles was one the best lessons of the summer with my kids.
This day and age of pervasive technology has given us so many tools, that we have no excuse for why we can't have kids engaged in inquiry based environments. My two and four year olds at home still love to learn about bugs, shapes, colors, how things work. They are sponges without a saturation point. Why? Because learning is relevant to their world and it is fun. I hope we never kill that curiosity. It is my hope that we can shed the shackles of high stakes testing to engage kids in real world problem based learning. Lets make school and learning a place where things are done with kids, not to kids. I am ready to tackle the 2013-2014 school year with as much zeal as I have ever had. I will seek to change the world. Who is with me?
