Growing Good Schools

This is Life or Death

2011-09-11T21:17:00.000-04:00

I attended a student’s funeral last Friday. She was a tenth grader, a fifteen year old, and a young woman just beginning her life. She was murdered, shot in the head, while out after midnight in her neighborhood.

I believe it’s important to use this blog as a platform to share my experiences as an inner-city educator as we work to improve our school and our community. I wish I could share how exciting it has been to meet my students and the staff at our school. I’d love to say the first week went off without a hitch. But the truth is the first full week was rough. Grief counseling for students and helping to raise funds for a funeral was a higher priority than getting into classrooms and setting up my office.

Blogging doesn’t always have to be about what went right or went wrong in our schools. I think reading a principal or teacher blog can be an opportunity to see a glimpse of what a colleague in a different setting is experiencing. I want to share my experience at this funeral, but I wish I were a stronger writer, because I’m just not sure what words to use.

I wish I knew how to describe the feeling of watching my student’s teenage friends, classmates and neighbors walk slowly past her open coffin.

I also don’t know how to describe my emotions as I watched how heart wrenching it was for some students to confront their friend’s loss, and how it was even more difficult to watch other students expressions of absolute acceptance of the circumstances of her death. It never occurred to me that attending this funeral meant I would have to watch teenagers accept the death of another fifteen-year old girl as a normal everyday occurrence.

It’s impossible to describe the conflicting messages and the accompanying emotions we received at this funeral. The pastor attempted to lead attendees in a funeral service in which he framed that the deceased is in a better place. While he spoke and participants sang beautiful hymns and songs in honor of the deceased and God, members of the city gang unit watched the mourners carefully to ensure no trouble ensued. Local community organizers spoke directly to the gang members in attendance explicitly stating that gang affiliation and violence leads to more funerals like this one. And the deceased friends spoke lovingly and sadly about their lost friend, while proudly wearing gang symbols and speaking positively about happier times in their neighborhood. Each and every teen who spoke mentioned their other friend or cousin, or neighbor who had been shot, injured or killed. They spoke of these events in a matter of fact tone; in the same way I would talk about last nights’ meal or picking up my suit at the dry cleaners.

What a heartbreaking day. Partially because of all I heard and saw at the funeral, but mostly because I saw acceptance of this event on so many of my student’s faces. There wasn’t nearly enough outrage, anger or fear at the funeral, and frankly I searched for it. As a teacher and a principal, I can use outrage, anger, or fear to fuel the fire in our students. But acceptance is something else; and it’s far more difficult to engage students positively when they accept the violence in their midst as the norm.

Educating in the inner city is actually about life or death. When I was in high school, it didn’t matter if I had good or great teachers because I was headed for college regardless. I could make stupid mistakes and move past them with relatively benign consequences. It's just not the same for my students. A mistake, any mistake can lead to a funeral like the one I attended.

I believe that you readers who take the time to read this blog and others are some of the best teachers and leaders across this country. I read about your passion in your blogs and tweets. I hear your enthusiasm and commitment at edcamps. We need you at my school and other city schools across this country. School is life or death for our kids and we need the best teachers and leaders this country has to offer. What we do is so hard, but we need you to join us to help city kids imagine a different future than the one I saw at that funeral.

When we returned to school last week, we held a town meeting with all the students to give them one last time to speak about their classmates’ death. We had hospice and grief counselors on hand to speak with individual students who needed support. And then when it was over, we returned to the business of school.

It’s taken me all weekend to write this post and consider my emotions from this event. I checked in on twitter and my Google reader and saw how excited so many teachers are to start the year at their schools. I saw frustrated comments about standardized testing and excited posts about flipped classrooms and web2.0 tools. My start of the year was very different from what I expected. But for me, these events only served to strengthen my resolve about the work we do in inner city schools. After the funeral, I went home and hugged my five-year old son and tried to put aside all that I experienced that day, while he told me about his day at kindergarten. Then I held my five-month old son in my arms, and tried to push aside the images of young mothers carrying their babies by the open casket at the funeral.

I’m in the right place doing the only job I want right now. School for me this week means getting into classrooms and talking about teaching and learning with my teachers. I also need to find a ninth grade girl a pair of glasses. She can’t see the board or the books and she’s purposefully getting kicked out of class because she doesn’t want her teachers to know she can’t see. I also need to figure out where the local Costco is in my new city so I can buy some food to store in my office. One young man keeps on coming to my office to talk, which I love, but he’s also looking for food, because he comes to school so hungry. And he’s not the only one who needs some healthy snack options to get through the day.

I went to a student’s funeral and it was terrible for so many reasons. But I still believe that school and hope can be synonyms if we’re purposeful in our actions. So I’m headed back to work in the morning. I can’t wait to see the kids.

This is cross posted over at Connected Principals

CC Images:

Angel of Grief/Weeping Angel by elycefeliz

Crimes of Passion by Walt Jabasco

…Hope…by DazT {bad contact, no biscuit}

Time For A Change

2011-07-21T16:56:00.000-04:00

Every August, I lead the new teacher training in our district for all incoming middle and high school teachers. Most of the teachers aren’t just new to our district; they are embarking on their new teaching careers. First we have a crash course in how to be a city teacher, and then towards the end of our time together, I make sure they understand the importance of fitting into our district, and knowing that the Lawrence Public Schools is the right place for them. I explain that in our inner city setting, it’s so important to understand that we teach kids first and content second. So, if one of our new teachers perceives of herself as a teacher of Shakespeare, or as someone who loves teaching about volcanoes, then our district may not be the right fit. Connecting with our students and meeting their needs is far more important than specific content knowledge in the world of urban schools. I tell them, there’s no shame in leaving a place to find a better fit for your skill set, strengths, and interests.

A few weeks ago, I was listening to Bill Simmons’ podcast with David Kahn, general manager of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Kahn has made some questionable player/personnel decisions in the last few years. So many, that some experts consider him to be the worst general manager in the NBA. But as I listened to the podcast, I heard him speak about his decisions in the context of his organization and it was clear that he had made some thoughtful decisions. But they went wrong because of a different problem. There isn’t any alignment between what the owner of the team wants, the decisions the general manager is making, and the manner in which the coach utilizes the players. The result is one of the worst teams in the league.

It’s clear that organizational alignment is vital to the success of a professional basketball team and I would argue it’s just as vital in a school district, especially an urban district facing so many pressures to improve standardized test scores, graduation rates, attendance, and a myriad other issues. I’ve been thinking about fitting in to my district, and the organizational alignment therein for many months.

I’ve been an employee of the Lawrence Public Schools for eight years. Colleen Lennon, one of the finest principals I know, gave me my first administrative opportunity when she appointed me her middle school assistant principal seven and half years ago. And then, a few years later, seemingly out of the blue, our superintendent offered me the opportunity to lead the districts’ efforts to design six small high schools. We converted our 3,000 student comprehensive high school in a building more than one hundred years old, into six small thematic high schools on a state of the art campus. I had the amazing opportunity to lead six groups of teachers to imagine six different schools. And since then, I’ve both led and worked collaboratively to try and re-imagine teaching and learning at the secondary level in our urban school district.

As our work has progressed, my own thinking about what a school could and should be has evolved. I’ve spent the last year attending conferences like Educon, NTCamp Burlington, EdcampBoston, and next week I’m headed to Edubloggercon East. These events, and the wonderful people I’ve met face-to-face, and online, have dramatically and positively impacted my thinking about technology integration, school structures, teaching, learning, and leadership.

To return to that podcast and David Kahn, my thinking is no longer aligned with my district’s thinking. I think it’s presumptuous and more than a little arrogant to assume that my district should conform to my thinking about school, and the more time passes, the more divergent I am from the direction my district is headed. So, I’m taking my own advice and after eight wonderful years in Lawrence, I’ve found a better fit for the educator I am now. My family and I are headed to Cleveland, Ohio, so I can become a principal of a high school in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. I’ll be leading Design Lab Early College High School, in Cleveland’s innovative portfolio of schools. This upcoming school year will be the schools' fourth, and we’ll have our first graduating class. Design Lab is a STEM school, with design thinking as its’ central theme. Our partners are intended to be the Cleveland Institute of Art and the Engineering School at Case Western University. There’s already a strong partnership with Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) for dual enrollment programs for students.

My intent is to build an amazing team and imagine a new school together. I’ll use future posts to describe my thinking and our process. For now, what the school will be is undetermined. But I am hoping to install a fab-lab this year to get our students designing and applying STEM principles in hands-on applications of their ideas. And then we’ll see what happens next!

So, all that’s left to do is find a place to live in the Cleveland area, put our house in Massachusetts up for sale, pack up our home, move all our belongings, enroll our oldest son in kindergarten somewhere in Ohio, and change a million of our four month olds’ diapers. Oh, I also have to hire the rest of the school staff, build a school schedule, and actually get to Cleveland, all in the next four weeks. If you’re searching for me, I’ll be hiding under my desk.

If you’re looking to teach or be an administrator in an urban district in Massachusetts, I highly recommend you check out the Lawrence Public Schools. The kids and their families are amazing, and I can’t imagine working with a more passionate and dedicated group of teachers and administrators. It’s a place where being an educator means positively impacting students’ lives every day.

And if you know anyone nice in the Cleveland area, educator or not, let me know. My wife and I would love to meet them. Until March, I’d never visited Cleveland, and we don’t know anyone.

If you’re a teacher, an engineer, a designer, or an artist living in the Cleveland area, and you want to re-imagine high school with me, let me know. I’m starting to build a team.

If I’m being honest, I should say I’m a little scared to start a new adventure. But the truth is, I’m more scared of staying where I am, and becoming complacent, and of giving up on my vision of what school can be just to stay in the safe life we've built for ourselves. So we’re off to Cleveland, and I can’t wait to get there. I’ll use this blogging space to let you know how it goes…

CC Images:

Change by Alex Calderon

Puzzle pieces-2 by yann.co.nz

Cleveland by Cfour33

Panic by litherland

Road to volcanoes by Gabriele Nastro

The Art and Science of Teaching

2011-04-10T11:01:00.002-04:00

I’ve always been a good athlete. Playing almost any sport, except the ones where I had to be really tall or strong, came pretty easily to me. In high school, I picked up tennis to rehab a soccer injury, and before I knew it, I was the best player on my team. I was so proud when the coach made me the #1 singles player. And then I started losing…to everyone. I found a coach who agreed to hit with me to help me understand my strengths and weaknesses. On our first day together, I hit all my best shots to show him my tennis skills. When I strutted up to the net, I expected to hear how good I was, and instead he told me, nicely, respectfully, and honestly, that I didn’t know how to do anything. I’d never had a tennis lesson before. So I was using every inch of athleticism I possessed, but if I ever wanted to improve, we needed to start at the beginning. He asked me if I wanted to learn how to play tennis, and if I wanted to understand the game. When I agreed to let him teach me, we didn’t start by tracking down difficult shots in the corner, or serving as hard as I could. Instead, he started at the beginning, by teaching me how to hold a racket correctly.

I had a similar experience when I began teaching. At the time, I thought of teaching as only an art. I can’t play the piano or the guitar, but as a young teacher, I thrived in front of the kids. I felt like I could connect with the toughest students; pull inferences and understanding out of a hat, and lead disadvantaged students to the learning I wanted for them. I was an artist, with the classroom as my palate, and the students as the canvas. Then my mentor, over time, nicely, respectfully, and honestly, taught me that entertaining kids and teaching students are not one and the same. She helped me to practice the purposeful shift away from students memorizing what I told them, to students constructing and making their own meaning from the ideas we explored together. My mentor helped me to purposefully practice my teaching, just as my tennis coach had years before. Purposeful practice of specific instructional strategies was my introduction to the science of teaching.

In my administrative graduate program, Elliot Eisner asked us whether or not teaching was an art or a science? Are all good teachers born to it, or can good instructional practices be learned, practiced, and improved upon? I do believe in an IT factor; a quality that some great teachers have. Those of us who spend lots of time visiting classrooms know that every once in a while we stumble into a room where the teaching and learning is beautiful and it feels like art in the making. But we also know that a school year is a marathon, and plenty of days throughout a school year fall far short of anyone’s criteria of beautiful. Teachers who have IT can connect with angry, shy, brilliant, and struggling students. But IT alone isn’t enough to move student learning forward daily.

I believe good instruction is also a science. I know in urban schools, we give far more credence to the art of teaching than the science. We act like only those teachers with the IT factor can survive in urban communities. But the truth is, it’s the science of teaching that ensures whether or not all students learn. Each year, we hire close to twenty-five first year teachers on our campus of high schools. Many enter our schools like I entered the tennis court in high school or my first classroom, full of confidence. These new teachers are gifted entertainers, talkers, readers, or writers. But they don’t know how to teach, yet.

I’ve learned that new teachers, who are willing, start with practicing the instructional equivalent of learning to hold the racket, improve every year, and become some of our best. Those that believe the IT factor is all they need, either leave on their own, or ultimately we invite them to leave because they can’t meet our diverse learners’ needs.

I’ve spent more time recently thinking about the convergence of the art and science of teaching because my son is learning to swim. Every Saturday, we attend a thirty-minute lesson. His teacher is amazing. Watching her work with my son and the other beginner swimmers has me thinking about what I do and do not see in the classrooms I visit back at school.

Here’s some of what she does:

She gets the students excited about both swimming in general and the specific activity ahead
She acknowledges whatever fear the students bring to the pool, but she doesn’t let anyone focus on that fear
She has a clear idea of the skills she wants students to practice in each lesson
Every lesson is a balance between something the students can already do and something they are working to master
No swimming skill is ever finished being learned, everything is practiced and refined, and improved upon
There are multiple activities in each lesson, but they are all different ways to practice the same skill
She encourages, laughs, commends, and challenges the students each and every class
She makes time to instruct the whole group, but understands individual strengths and weaknesses
She pushes, and never accepts when a student says they can’t do it
Every student has the opportunity be successful; and how they accomplish the learning is a little different for each swimmer

At some point in our training most of us take an educational psychology course and study Lev Vygotsky and the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Each Saturday, I watch my son’s teacher find his zone. He is nervous at the beginning of every class and so proud at the end of the lesson. His teacher pushes him, meaningfully and purposefully, and I’m watching him learn to swim. His teacher has found the right balance between the art and science of teaching. She absolutely has the IT factor. My son talks about her all week long, and watching her instruction is like watching art in the making. But more importantly, she understands her content and is developing purposeful lessons to push the whole group and each individual student.

I see well-developed lessons regularly. But I don’t regularly see lessons that ensure all students are in their ZPD. Do you? Are you having conversations with teachers and colleagues about how to develop lessons to purposefully push student learning forward? I’ve written before about the hidden contract of urban schools when teachers, students and administrators agree not to push at each other. Watching my son’s swim lessons is a stark reminder for me of how often the school day just happens to our students. Despite our best intentions, students can experience a period, a day, or a week where real learning doesn’t happen. Without a doubt, they are exposed to new ideas regularly, but we have to be far more purposeful about designing learning experiences for students where new learning is the outcome. Attending class and completing seat time towards finishing the day, the week, or the course is not learning. Why does it seem easier to set up meaningful learning experiences for students in the pool, on the tennis court, or on the baseball field, but with those same students, it’s a struggle to set up purposeful and dynamic learning in English, chemistry and history class?

Are you having this conversation at your school? Do you emphasize the art or science of teaching in your community? Is learning about finding each student’s zone of proximal development in your school community? Are teacher teams designing learning opportunities for students in the way coaches help students improve their practice on the athletic field?

The fast pace and relative chaos of each day and the entire year in an urban environment contributes to our efforts to hire teachers who understand the art of teaching, and hope they pick up the science on their own. But growing a good school has to mean investing in teachers to purposefully improve instructional practices. Does your school make this commitment to teachers? Is improving instructional practice a clear component of what your school is all about?

CC images:

Art by viewerblur

Juggling skittles by Jarod Carruthers

Science ZONE by Jacob Earl

Swimming Lesson by Eric

tennis veld tijdens de les / tennis court during a lesson by tdietmut

The Circle Game

2011-03-28T21:05:00.000-04:00

"This world is too big for me to be trapped here” was one of the lines in the Circle Game, a student written play based upon the Joni Mitchell song of the same name. Students at the Performing and Fine Arts High School (PFA), one of six high schools on our campus were the authors and performers of this tremendous play.

I was in the drama club for a time in high school. I participated in light hearted shows and musicals designed to entertain. We laughed as we performed The Mouse That Roared, and sang our hearts out during The Sound of Music. We attempted to write our own musical based on the Poe story, The Masque of the Red Death, because…well I have no idea why we chose a horror story about a plague to frame a musical. Whatever the reason, the product was, if I may be generous, very weak.

So when I think high school drama, I think escapism. But that’s not what The Circle Game is. Instead, our students shined a light on their own experiences as Hispanic youth going to school and growing up in the inner city. In a thirty-five minute performance, the students addressed stereotypes and reality, and offered the viewer insight into their own experiences and identity.

Here’s a little bit of what these high school dramatists offered the audience:

In the school classroom scene, a disconnected white teacher focused on only one student, who the instructor believed cared about learning, while essentially ignoring the rest of the class. The teacher also tells the audience he’s glad Victor, one of his students, was arrested because life is all about choices and the student chose poorly.

A boyfriend physically abuses his girlfriend. When her friend tries to tell her she deserves better, the victim tells her friend, “I’m never going to college, I’m never going to get out of here. Who’s going to protect me? I need protection.”

One character tells the audience about being followed in stores for being Latino, and of being with his mother while being stopped by police and searched just in case they stole from a store. He remarked, “Society pretends we don’t even exist anyway. So I made a choice to use their fear against them, so I could feel strong”, and then he joins a local gang.

A mother returning home from a minimum wage job, exhausted, trying to talk to her son, and with fear in her voice asking “Are you going to end up like your father…dead?”

A senior girl receiving her acceptance letter to Brown University, without a scholarship, and believing she cannot go.

A gang member believing the only way to help the people he loves is by stealing money to pay the rent so his family isn’t evicted.

“I love my mom, but I can’t end up like her. I’m going to make something of myself. This world is too big for me to be stuck here.”

The play ends with a character potentially continuing the cycle of poverty when she learns she’s pregnant, and a gang member, who also happens to be a son, and a friend and a boyfriend, dies in a senseless act.

In the end, an actor looked out at the audience and asked if we, the audience, were putting them, the characters into our circle.

My eyes filled up at the end, in part because of the content, but mostly because the entire auditorium erupted with applause. All five hundred students in the audience cheered, and stood up to give the actors a standing ovation. For thirty-five minutes, we witnessed raw honesty; and the audience knew it. This play spoke to our kids, because it was an honest look at all of their lives. Every character represented someone in that audience. And it certainly wasn’t escapism, because so many of our students don’t feel like they can escape their lives.

It made me so happy to see a play that reflected our students’ experiences and it made me so sad to see our students’ experiences reflected in this play. The short scene in the classroom was painful to watch because the students were showing us what they feel in our classrooms. It was difficult to watch student beliefs about teacher instructional practices and lack of connection with students, acted out on stage.

I hear lots of talk from adults about kids who don’t care, and who are disengaged. But I also see teachers reading novels that they love, but that don’t speak to our students. I talk to frustrated teachers upset because so many students miss their first period class. But I also see older siblings dropping off younger siblings at school because parents are working the night shift and aren’t home or awake at drop-off time. I see angry boys fight, and I see the same young men cradle their mother, sister, or grandmother in the most tender moments.

We each have our own perspective on why students are or are not learning or engaged. But the students clearly have their own ideas too. And I think that’s easy to forget sometimes. It was heartbreaking to watch students tell us about what shapes who they are in this play. But it was so uplifting and wonderful to hear the strength in their voices as they told their stories.

That line, “this world is too big for me to be trapped here” reminded me of the book A Hope in the Unseen. I’ve written about it before in my contribution to blogs for educational reform. In the book, Ron Suskind, a Wall Street Journal writer, discussed a belief and a faith in having something better despite the words of those around us that “we can’t”, or “we won’t”, or “why bother” as a “hope in the unseen.” (Suskind, 1998). He retells the true story of a young man’s journey from the inner city to Brown University. Cedric, the main character defined the unseen as “a place, a place I couldn’t see yet, up ahead… an imagined place that I’ll get to someday (Suskind, 1998, pg. 330).”

All our kids, those up on stage and those in the audience come to school each day filled with that hope. Sometimes they wear it on their sleeves. Those that do are easy to reach and connect with in the classroom. But most do not. Their hope is hidden deep within them, and sometimes they’ve forgotten how to find it. It’s hidden beneath the fear and anger and frustration of feeling like life is happening to them and around them, instead of for them. Hope is hard to find in many of our students. But it was there for everyone to see up on that stage on Friday. Despite our students’ shared experiences of poverty and feeling forgotten and uncared for by society, they dream of a better day, of choices and of opportunity.

As the students cheered, I thought about how brave the kids were to write and perform this play. I often think about the courage it takes to teach and lead in inner-city schools, but I forget sometimes about the courage it takes to come to school every day, when a hope for something better seems out of reach. Our kids have courage, and strength, and dignity, and hope. It’s our responsibility to connect with them and turn that hope into action and results. I am so proud to work with and for our students, but we have so much more to learn to ensure we do better and are better as leaders and teachers on behalf of our students.

CC Images:

Let’s start the show by David

Performance by Dark Botxy

Magdalina Sara Jungck, as a School Teacher by Wisconsin Historical Images

ParentsPstcrd_060910.jpg by Carolyn_Sewell

Reflection. By Colin Wu

…Hope… by ĐāżŦ {bad contact, no biscuit}

I Like To Be In Charge

2011-02-20T11:38:00.000-05:00

I like to be in charge. More specifically, I like to be in control. I want to be the person driving the car, and I certainly want to be the one holding the television remote. I’m pretty sure my wife loves this about me. Or maybe I should say I wish my wife loves this about me.

Everyday, I work with teachers who also want to be in control. I can’t speak for suburban communities, but in the inner city, the term control is synonymous with power. In city schools, we seem to really care about showing who has the power in the school. Principals show their power by writing teachers up for anything and everything. Teachers show their power by throwing students out of class, giving out lots of F’s, and choosing to teach what they decide students should value. Students show us their power by not coming to school, not doing their homework, and choosing not to engage in class. We’re all so consumed with showing everyone else how much power we have, we lose sight of why became administrators and teachers to begin with.

Power and control is also evident in daily instructional practices. When I first learned to teach, I was an incredibly entertaining lecturer. I made sure every question, idea and discussion point came through me. It was my way of holding the television remote at my job also. Today, when I’m working with new teachers I use the image of a ball of yarn. If the yarn is unraveling every time everyone speaks, where is the yarn? In my early classrooms, an observer could have followed the yarn easily; from me to a student, back to me and to another student and back to me…

It took me several years to learn that learning was much better when the yarn symbolically moved from student to student to student and only seldomly came through me. I see this struggle in action every day when I’m in classrooms. Because we don’t really trust that students want to engage in our classrooms, we make sure any questions, answers or ideas are vetted through us; the instructors. The beautiful struggle that occurs when students are challenged with a new idea, or hear something from a peer they hadn’t ever considered, rarely occurs because of the implicit need to be in charge. Ultimately, almost every lesson is actually about power and control, rather than student learning, and the result is the teacher is in charge and the students are disengaged.

Yesterday, I thought about this classroom struggle for control when I began preparations to paint a bedroom. My wife is eight months pregnant with our second son, and we’re setting up the new baby’s bedroom. Now if you want instructional change to occur in your inner city high school, then I’m your guy to call. But I’m not who anyone would call if work needs to get done around the house. I try hard, but I’ll never be confused for a handyman or contractor. But painting is the one job around the house I really do well. I’ve painted every room, and I take pride in the task. So when my four year old and my wife said they wanted to paint with me, internally I balked. Out loud I said, “Sure, sounds great”, and then I began plotting ways to make sure they couldn’t help. I wanted to be in control and do it myself. My son was sure to paint the floor, and while my wife is perfectly capable, I just wanted to do it. But then I thought about the yarn, and I tried to imagine the benefits of us painting as a family… and I couldn’t come up with any. I wanted control. Every couple of months this happens to me. I have to look in the mirror and face the reality that I seem unwilling to make a choice that I ask teachers to make each and every day.

So I changed my painting preparations. I put more painters’ tape around the room than I ever would have before. I covered the entire floor with plastic, and taped it down so drips wouldn’t get on the rug, and I led us in a family painting cheer before we began. And you know what? It was great. Not only did we prime in half the time it would have taken me to do it myself, but we had so much fun. My son painted like a champion and followed every direction, and my wife, despite feeling huge, awkward, and uncomfortable, got to participate in the preparations for the baby’s arrival. I could tell that actively participating as something more than the incubator, meant so much to her. And the price was twenty extra minutes of preparation on my part.

There are so many necessary ingredients for good instruction to occur. But we often spend all our time focusing on materials, certifications, access to technology and class sizes. In inner city schools, our students enter our classrooms with so much baggage. For me the first day of school was and still is filled with the promise of incredible learning to come. For many of our students, the first day of school is filled with the promise of more frustration, disconnection and failures.

As leaders, we must model with our teachers the contract of trust, shared learning, and collaboration we want to see in classrooms across our schools. If we want teachers to give up control to their students, school leaders must create and live a culture where failure is not only accepted, but desired for learning to occur.

It’s easy to lose sight of our intended outcomes. I still want to hold the television remote, because I like to be in charge. And my wife, because she loves me, is willing to look past this character flaw. But when I considered painting the room, I lost sight of the goal. Because I’m busy, I thought of room painting as a task to check off the long To Do List. We do this in classrooms all the time. I need to get through the content, to get to the next piece of discrete content. But painting a bedroom, and teaching kids is so much more than checking off content or tasks from a checklist. We’re changing our family, and it is and will be a mess. My son is shifting from only child to older brother, and that’s going to take time. Our family routines and rituals will all dramatically change. In a classroom, learning done right is never clean, and it never happens quite the way you expect it to occur. There are drips all over the floor, it takes so long, and frankly it’s a mess.

Some teachers love the mess, and know inherently how to create this culture and climate in their classrooms. But not everyone does. As leaders, we set the tone. Speaking for myself, I can’t set a meaningful tone, if I’m not living my beliefs myself. This afternoon, we’ll have Family Painting Part II. It’s sure to be messy, and not exactly what I want, or how I want it. But the room will be beautiful in the end, and years from now, we’ll remember the process more than we remember the outcome.

Isn’t that what really matters?

CC Images:

Remote by kevinthoule

ball of yarn by chatirygirl

Paint by maury.mccown

Ingredients for dinner by Pingu1963

This piece is cross posted on Connected Principals

Don't Miss the Day

2011-02-10T16:42:00.001-05:00

When I was in high school and home for vacations during college, I used to sleep until noon, minimally. When I woke up, my father would tell me over and over, that I “missed the day!” When he was really feeling playful, he would come into my bedroom and pull off all my covers at once, yelling, “You’re missing the day, time to get up!” I never thought it was that funny, but his whole body shook with laughter, each and every time.

Today is the 4th anniversary of my father’s death. Harold Juli was an Anthropology professor at Connecticut College and the best teacher I’ve ever known. He was 59 years old when he died from an extremely rare form of cancer.

I think generally, when people find out they are dying, they want to do something, anything, just as long as it’s something new and different in their life; skydive, travel to Europe, or quit their jobs. Not my father. A few years before he became ill, my dad and I were talking about our jobs. He told me that this many years into his teaching career, he was still just as excited for the first day of school as he was the first day he ever taught. He said I must always love what I do, to have passion for my work. But it’s one thing to say that when healthy, and another thing entirely to live it when dying. When faced with his own death, all my Dad wanted to do was live the exact life he already had. No travel, no new adventure. Above all, he wanted to continue teaching. And he did, right up until the very week he entered the hospital for the final time.

My father never missed the day, not once, not ever. He woke up each and every morning, some time after five. He was always an early riser and at his desk on campus by 6:30 at the latest. I joked that as an Anthropology professor, he didn’t need to rush; everything he was studying had been dead for quite some time. But he was in such a hurry to get to work that he couldn’t afford to waste even a minute. He pre-tied all of his ties, so they were already knotted, and all he had to do was tighten them.

On my father’s deathbed, in the days before he lost consciousness, he was speaking with one of his many visitors, and someone asked him if he was angry. My father’s response was simple, and I will still consider it for many years to come. He said that he wasn’t angry at all. He said he knew who he was, regardless of his having terminal cancer. He was incredibly proud of his personal and professional accomplishments and cancer wasn’t taking any of them away. He said every day, whether sick or healthy, we must wake up, think about who we are, and what we have to accomplish that day. My father knew who he was. Cancer didn’t change who he was, at any time during his illness.

I think about knowing who I am and what I have to do all the time. And it’s why I’m writing this post. In my understanding of leadership and in my context, knowing who I am, and what I have to do today, is essential to doing my job well. On most days, from the moment I arrive at school, until I exit in the evening, the day is crazy. My colleagues and I joke that if we tried to pitch to a book publisher what happens in a regular day in our urban schools, no one would believe us. So I think it’s vital in the context of the daily craziness around here to know where we’re trying to go, and how we all fit into getting us there.

As leaders we have to know ourselves, and we have to know what we want our schools to become. If we can’t name it, clearly and articulately, how can our teachers imagine our future school with us? If our teachers aren’t invested in a collaborative vision of the future, how can we connect today to tomorrow and beyond with and for students?

In addition to being an Anthropology professor, my father was also an archaeologist. He didn’t do archaeology every semester, but I was fortunate to participate in several digs when I was old enough to know what was happening. Watching my father lead an excavation was like watching a beautiful piece of art come together. When I teach teachers, I work to help them develop real word applications to their course content. Digging with my father was an opportunity to see the past transformed into a relevant, hands-on curriculum.

He combined thoughtful research, hard work, organization, strong excavating techniques, technology, and humor on every dig. My leadership style is modeled after the way my father ran a dig. He made time to teach and learn every day. He organized the day, and ran the show, but made sure to spend meaningful time moving the dirt just like everyone else. He made decisions on the fly, and included everyone in his process, so we all knew why decisions were being made. And best of all, I got to watch him hold a dirt covered artifact in one hand and a turkey sandwich in the other. He’d lick the artifact as his own technique to date it, and then take a bite of the sandwich virtually all in one motion.

I know that teachers and leaders work incredibly hard everywhere. But the task here, in an urban district is so daunting. To make meaningful, purposeful, and visible change to benefit student learning in my district, I have to know who I am, and what I want to do today. I have to be able help others to envision themselves as actively engaged in defining and creating the schools we want to be. I remain just as excited and passionate about this work as I was my first day as a teacher in Jackson Heights NY. I know from my father that passion is one part of what I need to do this job well. But passion alone isn’t enough. Amidst the sadness of today, and the regular craziness of everyday, I have to know how to lead us forward. Sometimes it’s easy to say aloud, but it’s never easy to put real change into action.

So tomorrow, I don’t plan on missing the day. I’ll wake up early, either a little before or a little after my four year old son comes to visit us, and I’ll make the time to give some thought to who I am, and what I plan on accomplishing. Then, I’ll put one foot in front of the other, just as my father taught me. It’s the only way I know to make meaningful steps towards the change our students need.

CC Images:

Sunrise on Black Sea by tonigri

I’ve Reached the End of the World by Stuck In Customs

Walking Away by JosephB

Dig the Past Sarasota-11 by sokabs

This is cross posted on Connected Principals

I'm No Good at Technology

2011-02-08T22:23:00.000-05:00

I always considered myself to be a struggling math student. I was either scared of my math teachers, or scared of the content, or I thought I understood what to do when I really didn’t. At Syracuse, when I was an undergrad, there was a Math or Foreign Language requirement, which made perfect sense to me, so I took Spanish. And I happily told people that, “I’m just not a math person.” The truth is, almost everyone accepts this statement as fact because they either feel the same way, or hear this statement from others regularly. With relative ease, I could put together a group of like-minded colleagues who also view themselves as Not Math People.

A few years ago, I was in a National Institute of School Leadership (NISL) session, for administrators in my district. The topic was Leadership in the Mathematics classroom. The instructor asked us directly who thought of themselves as math people and who did not? More than half the group, including me, raised their hands and defined ourselves as Not Math People. His second question was, “Who doesn’t think of themselves as a reading person?” No one raised their hand. Why is it socially acceptable and reasonable to think of ourselves as Not Math People, but it’s completely taboo, embarrassing and inappropriate to define ourselves as Not Reading People? The Not Math People I know carry their Not Math Peopleness as a badge of honor. But to define myself as Not a Reader, or uncomfortable with literacy, just isn’t okay.

This lesson struck a chord. In fact, I felt a little ashamed to have used the Not a Math Person vocabulary for so long. I’ve proudly defined myself professionally as a problem solver for quite some time. So now, when faced with math in my daily life, I try and view it as a problem to be solved. I’m not yet the mathematician I want to be, but I’m improving.

Now I regularly meet I’m No Good at Technology. I’m No Good at Technology is someone who is usually comfortable with a few Web1.0 tools. But anything beyond email, and Microsoft Word, and I’m No Good at Technology tells you it’s not their thing. Would I’m No Good at Technology find it acceptable to not be a reading person or a literacy person?

As a leader, I’m struggling with how to address this issue with my colleagues. I want to push gently, introduce tools one at a time, and build comfort and confidence with Social Media and Web2.0 tools in the classroom and with my administrative colleagues. But I also feel a sense of urgency. In my urban district, students drop out every month. We have to engage students where they are, and the truth is, even in high poverty areas, students are online. Furthermore, while schools may be measured by their standardized test scores, students, after graduation, are not. Out in the world, they are measured by their ability to create, collaborate, write, innovate, use technology and be successful in blended environments. We don’t have any more time to wait for I’m No Good at Technology to slowly feel more comfortable. I can set up Google docs at work, point teachers and administrators to specific blogs and posts to read, encourage teachers to use Diigo and Delicious, but I can’t make teachers and administrators use these tools, and forcing the culture to change on my terms isn’t what I’m looking to do.

That’s why John Carver’s tweet today struck such a chord with me. He sent out an article entitled Three Trends That Define the Future of Teaching and Learning, by Tina Bardeghian from Mindshift.org. The author framed three key trends in teaching and learning. Teaching and Learning is Collaborative, Tech-Powered and Blended. I like the article, and I like the terms because they are tangible terms with clear definitions for I’m No Good at Technology to grab onto. I won’t summarize the entire article, but like John Carver, I think it’s a must read.

Here’s what I think is most important for change to occur in my context. As a leader, I need to name the change I want to occur. Using the term technology isn’t getting us anywhere. In the same way the word math was intimidating for me, the term technology is a nameless, faceless behemoth that equals fear for some of the administrators and teachers in my district. If technology is the answer to every question, it’s not an answer at all. It’s just like highlighting every word on the page in the book. It’s no more useful than highlighting nothing.

One of the biggest challenges I faced when I left the classroom and entered administration was learning to work with teachers around what would work for them, and not what I would do in any given situation. My style, my way isn’t the right way. It’s just a way. I had a vast instructional toolbox to meet the needs of my students in my teaching style. I had to increase my toolbox to be able to support teachers in their own style of instruction. As I write this, I think I’m in a similar place now with tech tools. I’ve only been on twitter since July, and blogging for an even shorter time. I know how I am learning, and how I want to use Social Media and Web2.0 tools, but I haven’t yet expanded my toolbox enough to have an answer for all of I’m No Good at Technology’s questions to help them feel more comfortable and ready to meaningfully apply tech tools in the classroom.

Here’s what I do know. As a district, we need to rethink how teaching and learning is occurring and we need to be purposeful about the why of technology. To move forward, we need I’m No Good at Technology to engage in the conversation. We need to understand that in the same way it hasn’t been acceptable for me to be Not a Math Person, “technology” is a vital component of teaching and learning. But I have to practice how I speak about tools. I need to practice being more purposeful about why tools are relevant in the context of student learning. As a leader, I need to build a bridge between using Social Media, using Web2.0 tools and the skills students need to be successful in their future. I have to continue to build my own toolbox to speak about these issues more articulately so we can move forward as a district.

Is anyone else having a similar struggle? How are you handling these challenges?

CC Images:

Alan Guth Equations by opacity http://www.flickr.com/photos/opacity/4028771622/

Logo2.0 part 1 by Ludwig Gatzke http://www.flickr.com/photos/stabilo-boss/93136022/

Tool Operator by Chewey Hooey http://www.flickr.com/photos/jrvogt81/4264575563/

Bridge over Tara by daninho _ibk http://www.flickr.com/photos/52084241@N00/1878397461/

This post cross-posted on the Connected Principals blog

The Hidden Contract of Urban Schools

2011-02-05T16:53:00.000-05:00

This week, I read on the TeachPaperless Blog Shelly Blake-Plock’s post entitled "Example of a Paperless Exam". I’ve been reading TeachPaperless for more than a year, and it’s one of my favorite blogs. Shelly has inspired me to significantly decrease my paper usage, but the posts I like the most are the one’s in which he describes what he’s teaching and how he’s assessing learning. I love the exam he offers in this post. It’s a great example of using content to apply skills, rather than the exams I see all the time, which are only assessing content, usually through matching, short answer and fill-in the blanks.

For me this exam exemplifies what I want teaching and learning to become in my district, and it also shines a light on all that is difficult about teaching and learning in an urban district. I work on a campus of high schools. These aren’t schools within a school; they are six distinct high schools, with their own staff, students, leadership and themes. There are about 280 teachers combined across all six schools, and I’m responsible for overseeing curriculum and instruction across the campus. Essentially, I’m a principal without a school, and my responsibility is for teaching and learning. My office is on our campus, so I’m in classrooms, working with principals and connecting with students every day.

We have a few teachers who may want to give an exam like this one, but for most teachers it isn’t something they are considering at all. But it isn’t because they don’t care about kids, or they aren’t good teachers. The context of our school community is so important to understanding the challenges of teaching and learning in city schools. Our students come to us with so much baggage. When I entered high school, I was a sponge. I just wanted to learn everything. I had experienced, good, great and mediocre teachers, but my fundamental belief in school as a positive place was clearly embedded in my psyche.

The average student in my district has had a different experience. He/She reads 3-4 years below grade level. Most ninth graders entering our schools have not experienced success in school. The textbook has been too difficult for as long as they can remember. As Hispanic students, primarily from the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico, they cannot find themselves in any of the curricula we teach. For the English Language Learners, school has been a confusing mix of academic vocabulary with multiple meanings, and lessons taught from the Speak English Louder School of instruction. A culture of low expectations permeates their school experiences. Students don’t think they’re going to be doctors and lawyers, they think they will be medical technicians and paralegals. Most will be the first in their family to graduate from high school; virtually all will be the first to attend college.

The Hidden Contract dominates decision-making in an urban school. In many schools, the implied contract between teacher and student is the following. You the teacher will agree to not challenge me, force me to work hard, embarrass me, or make me struggle, and I the student will not act out, disrupt the class, embarrass or challenge you in any way. This same contract exists between Principal and Teacher as well. If you the teacher do not disrupt my day, excessively ask for students to be removed from your class, push at what should and should not be taught, then I the principal will support your decisions, evaluate you positively and leave you alone. Essentially, between and among all parties;

you leave me alone, and I’ll leave you alone.

I see these contracts in action every day; passive students, sitting in teacher-directed classrooms, answering lower order questions that challenge no one. Students without pencils or paper, teachers without challenging plans, and everyone surprised if a student, a teacher, or administrator wants or expects more from a class. I understand why classrooms are this way. Students are used to failing. They don’t know what success feels like, and failure is no longer scary or painful, it’s become the norm. Teachers want to connect students with whatever passion it is that brought them to the subject they teach, but they are faced with vast gaps in students’ content knowledge, and so called basic skills are so low. Additionally, the reality of poor standardized test scores causes incredible fear. Each teacher faces incredible pressure to teach to the test to give students the best opportunity to pass and earn their high school diploma.

It is in this reality that I view the great exam that Shelly Blake-Plock offered in his blog. How do we change almost everything about the way teaching and learning occurs to bring us to a place where that exam is the norm, rather than an exam offered in some other school with someone’s else’s kids? Do I show teachers this exam to give them a clear picture of where we want to go? Or, will showing this exam to teachers offer a stark reminder of the Grand Canyon between our schools and his?

Relentlessly attacking this hidden contract is where leadership begins in urban schools. As leaders, my colleagues and I have to grab hold of the hours teachers and students are with us, within our shared walls. Every year during the hype leading up to the Superbowl, I think of leading in an urban school. Coaches must find a way to get their players to ignore the hype. They must keep players away from all the opinions, facts, and beliefs about their team and the game ahead. A Superbowl coach must ensure the players hear his voice above the cacophony of the media and the fans.

It’s the same in an urban school. We must find a way to turn the state standardized test scores, the federal calls for turnaround schools, and the local media attacks into white noise for our teachers. We must protect them, nurture them, cheer for them and create a school where failing at student engagement is okay. Until teachers feel safe to fail at engaging their students, we cannot be successful. We must lead efforts to do the same with our students. Together with our teachers, we must create an environment for our students where their past failures and current struggles are irrelevant to the learning occurring in our classrooms. Teachers must be the eye of the storm in our students’ lives. Together, we must give name, shape, and form to the dreams of the better future our students have, but are afraid to say aloud. And once those dreams are named, we must offer a roadmap to achieving them.

We have so much to overcome. But speaking from my own experience, when urban students engage, when the classroom becomes a door to connecting with the world, and students for a moment, or a period, a week, or a semester, see options and choices in their future, it is a profoundly beautiful experience. Ensuring this occurs for all our students and not just those in one classroom is the challenge I love in the work we do.

If we could find a way to get groups of students to succeed on Shelly’s exam, we would hear the hidden contract of school breaking, like a thousand mirrors crashing to the ground. But to get there, from where we are today, is an incredibly long journey.

So I’m struggling this weekend. How do I use this example exam? I need a way to make it an encouraging discussion. We need teaches to leave the discussion feeling empowered, despite our context. We need to turn the discussion away from the abstract and to the concrete, so new and veteran teachers can feel empowered to shift away from content only classrooms. We need to move beyond drill and kill, to meaningfully connecting our students to the world, and engaging them. We need to give up the standard urban classroom relationship of teacher as all knowing and student as empty vessel to be filled. I see all this and more in this one exam example. But I need to make it accessible to our teachers, so I’m still thinking.

Any suggestions?

CC Images:

Bluebell Railway Luggage by Daves Portfolio

Our Direction by B Tal

32-pl by Zephyrance

Edcamp or Standard PD? An Edchat Reflection

2011-02-02T12:28:00.000-05:00

Yesterday’s afternoon #edchat asked the question “ Edcamps and TeachMeets are becoming a movement for professional development, is this a viable alternative to standard PD?

I logged on expecting to participate in a lively chat and the discussion was certainly lively; I just felt like I couldn’t participate, because the stream was so one-sided. I love #edchat. Patrick Larkin introduced me to twitter and #edchat in July, and I’ve used the weekly chat as my primary tool to grow my PLN, and practice tweeting. My colleagues might argue that I struggle to say anything in 1,400 characters; so making my point in 140 characters has been a steep learning curve.

Mostly, the chats are so engaging and I love the give and take between and among people I’ve never met. But every so often, the chats become teacher versus administrator. I think it’s unfortunate that we transfer this us/them mentality from our workplaces to being online. I don’t know why I think this, but it feels like offline baggage shouldn’t make it into our online spaces. But that isn’t what stopped me from engaging either. This time I felt the teacher/administrator divide, but I also felt the urban versus suburban district divide.

Chat participants overwhelmingly spoke in favor of Edcamps and TeachMeets as a viable alternative to standard PD. Here’s my struggle. I don’t buy the either/or construct of the question, and I feel like the word “standard” is code for boring.

Bad Professional Development is horrific, and I have sat through way too much of it. I particularly loathe when I have to role-play as a child in a classroom. Why can’t someone teach me about instruction or leadership without forcing me to act like a child in class? Can’t I be me, as an adult, and still learn? There’s no question that a principal, district administrator, or outside consultant leading a one-shot session is a waste of time. But that’s not how I view professional development.

First off, I don’t buy into the term professional development. I plan and lead sessions monthly, and I don’t have any idea how to develop anyone. What I know how to do is teach, and encourage learning, and introduce new ideas, and create a safe environment for discussion and sharing. So I lead professional learning sessions, not development sessions.

My urban district values professional learning. New teachers have three full days of learning in August, and all staff have two more days together before students return. Then we have ten Wednesday’s, (one a month), when students have early dismissal and teachers stay ninety minutes beyond the regular day for school-based learning. Combine those fifteen days with weekly team meetings, collaborative planning time and monthly faculty meetings, and a school leader can and should put together a coherent yearlong plan to meaningfully move his/her school forward.

I love the passion, the enthusiasm, the autonomy, the sharing and the collaborating that an edcamp offers. We need all of that in urban professional learning sessions, but not without a coherent vision of school improvement to move teaching and learning forward for student achievement.

Here’s a few selections from yesterday’s #edchat:

Edcamp/TeachMeet is grass-roots PD. Teachers sharing their passions & knowledge w/ each other. #edchat

It is logical that the most productive PD would be created, developed, and run by the teachers who need it. #edchat

Traditional PD is fine when you have a message that everyone in your school just needs to hear. But how often is that? #edchat

Traditional PD can be replaced by the edcamp model at any school - find educators interested in sharing and learning = good to go! #edchat

Other participants wrote about autonomy and choice of sessions, and letting teachers do what they want because they will choose what’s right for their learning and their students’ learning. I don’t doubt that all this is true in the #edchat participants’ schools. But it isn’t true at the secondary level in my urban district. Let me be clear, the leaders I work with, including me, need to do a better job of structuring and leading professional learning sessions. What I know about edcamps/teachmeets, and what I learned reading the #edchat made it clear that so much is positive about the model. I work with principals who treat each of our professional learning sessions as a one and done session, with no coherence from month to month. This must change. But I also work with teachers who cross their arms at each session and scream with their body language, “I dare you to engage me.” We also have so many first, second, and third year teachers. They are learning their content and trying to build relationships with their students, while struggling to navigate the challenges of an urban school day. To expect them to lead sessions and know how we need to move forward isn’t realistic. Any new teacher rides a roller coaster in those first few years, but this is especially true for new urban teachers.

Our schools are skewered in the local media for having low standardized test scores. Teachers feel incredible pressure to teach only basic skills and prepare students for the test. The result is content focused classes with little or no connection to students’ lives or our changing world. In this context, we need incredibly strong principals and teacher-leaders to develop a yearlong coherent professional learning plan to move the school forward. We need to use monthly professional learning sessions to drive the agenda forward, to imagine our schools as better than they are today. And then we must use collaborative planning time, prep time, and team meetings to engage, support, and teach, so every teacher shares in the task of moving the school forward by applying what’s being discussed in professional learning.

I plan on attending Edcamp Boston in May, and I hope anyone reading this will attend also. We need Edcamps to inspire and engage and connect us with current and future members of our PLN. But I’ll bring back what I learn and apply it within the context of the coherent professional learning plan my colleagues and I have developed for our district. One teacher having a phenomenal Edcamp experience and applying new ideas to his/her classroom is wonderful. But it isn’t enough in my district.

I want to figure out a way to bring the Google 20% thinking into my district. I want us to have teacher developed sessions that engage adults across our schools. I want conversations to inspire, and ideas to grow. But the status quo of our schools is unacceptable. We’re better than we used to be, but we’re not where we need to be. So for now, strong leaders have to use professional learning to drive the agenda. Professional Learning must set a path to move student achievement beyond improving test scores and create a roadmap to change the status quo of urban schools.

I didn’t know how to say all this in 140 characters in #edchat yesterday. And I’m not sure I’m saying it well now. So here’s another attempt:

Edcamp style is amazing-in urban district we 1st need nonstandard sustainable pl 2 change T Bliefs and expectations for S success #edchat

CC Images:

On his face a map of the world by Riana Raucci

The Dragon Roller Coaster, Ocean Park by the wamphyri

Educon Reflections from an Inner City Administrator

2011-01-31T16:26:00.001-05:00

I just returned from my first Educon experience. The sessions and panels were great, but what I really loved was watching and listening to the SLA students. My tour guide on Friday, the educoncierge, the coat check team, and food crew were all passionate about their Educon role. They were so invested in ensuring that Educon went smoothly, and their enthusiasm and ownership of the conference offered insight into one of the contributing factors towards SLA’s success. The kids just know they can do it. It doesn’t really matter what the “it” is. The culture of SLA is such that whatever needs to be done, or whatever students want to do can be done. I think if Chris Lehmann met with his students today and said he intends to hold Educon 2.4 on the moon, the students would smile and say, “Let’s get to it.” In inner-city schools, we often pay lip service to this ideology. But believing that all kids can do “it” and living that belief are not synonymous. The SLA kids were inspirational. The challenge to change this culture in my district is daunting.

SLA is certainly different than high schools in my district. We serve 3,000 students across six high schools. We accept everyone; whether they arrive on the first day of school or the 101st. Our average student is 2-3 years below grade level in Reading and Mathematics. Virtually all of our students will be the first in their family to graduate high school and attend college. 85% of our students speak a language other than English at home, and each year, we enroll about 250 students who are new arrivals to the country without any English skills. These students never enroll at the start of the school. More often than not, they enroll now, and figuring out how to integrate new, English Language Learners is an incredible challenge for teachers. My experience as an educator is certainly different than what educators experience at SLA.

But we have so much to learn from SLA. Instead of infusing our culture with living/breathing evidence that all our students can accomplish whatever they set they minds to, we spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on issues outside of our control. Our students do live in poverty. Most do work to help support their families, leaving less time for homework. Most of our students’ parents are working several minimum wage jobs and are not available or because of the language barrier are not comfortable engaging with teachers and the school. This is our reality. I thought about these truths during the Design Thinking: 21st Century Skills for the Real World session I attended. The facilitators asked us to think about problem solving as a call to action. We applied the Design process of Discovery >Define > Brainstorm> Prototype >Test. I think the hardest part of this process is meaningfully defining the problem. In every school I’ve been in, this step is a battle. We often jump right to solutions, without really taking the time to define our actual problem. What if we did this? What if you tried that? We focus so many of our solutions on the problems we really can’t control, like the socio-economic factors listed above. This session re-emphasized for me the need to focus our efforts on what is in our control. We can’t always fix what happens before and after school in our students’ lives. But we can develop stronger problem solving skills and apply them to the issues of improving school structures and teaching and learning in our classrooms.

The panel on Friday night offered a nice link to many of the struggles we face. The Ben Franklin quote about the immovable, movable, and those that move is a nice statement reflecting a city school reality. Making change, real change in the inner city, feels like trying to move a mountain. We push at it daily, and even though we leave each day absolutely exhausted, we wonder if we moved anything at all. In that context, I loved what Trung Le had to say about creating a new language for school design. The word School carries such a negative connation for our students and their parents. I grew up on a college campus, with two educators for parents. All I’ve ever known is school, and it’s such a joyous, safe and engaging place for me. But not for everyone, and certainly not for the students and parents in my district.

The same is true for the word Classroom. Today, in some city classrooms, the word is about power, not learning. As the adult, I have control here, you will learn what I say, and you will follow my rules. Economically, our nation cannot afford to have so many city/minority students dropping out. We need to redefine school and its’ associated vocabulary to achieve different results. After hearing Trung Le, I’m even more convinced we need to change the language we use to define these walls, if we want different results.

I loved the Project-Based Learning in a Math Classroom Conversation. Two SLA students, Taylor and DaVonte, spoke eloquently about their math projects and their ownership of their own learning. Interestingly, some of the discussion mirrored conversations we have in my district. If we use PBL, don’t we also have to teach content and basic skills separately? I hear this regularly. Teachers say to me they can offer a good project, once their students’ basic skills are better. Students are so far behind, we can’t possibly get to the point where we will apply math until much later in the course. As I see it, we teach basic math concepts to struggling students year after year. If it were going to work, wouldn’t it have worked already?

Taylor and Davonte’s voices were so powerful on this topic. Gently, but firmly, they told participants they were thinking about teaching and math learning incorrectly. DaVonte explained his points about math content by pointing to the content embedded in his project. Taylor finally said to us, “It would be much harder to remember an equation, than to remember the project I use the equation in. I can just look up the equation, I remember projects I did, not the equation on its own.” It was fascinating to watch a few participants try to impose their personal biases about math instruction on these two students, but no matter what was said, the students wouldn’t waver in their beliefs about how and what they are learning. I walked away from that conversation trying to find another way to enter the PBL dialogue with our teachers.

I enjoyed the Connected Principals conversation, but I left wanting more. Thanks to Patrick Larkin (@bhsprincipal) I’ve been on twitter since July. I have this blog, but I’m struggling to write regularly and find my voice in the blogosphere. I love #edchat, #cpchat, and the Connected Principals site. But my city colleagues and I just aren’t represented in what’s out there currently. I find it be lonely to be a leader in a district, where very few people think as I do. I’m contributing to moving the mountain each day, with almost no one to connect with face to face. I use Social Media to connect with like-minded people, but also to find ideas I can’t imagine yet. I love the feeling of reading a blog or seeing a tweet that sharpens my own thinking or introduces me to something entirely new. But the chaos of inner-city schools can be overwhelming. For many of us, the day, every day, happens to us. If more city administrators are going to participate in Connected Principals, we need our experiences to be represented there.

Since I’ve already written plenty, here are just a few other bulleted thoughts:

I really liked Bill Fitgerald’s (@funnymonkey) thinking about crowd sourcing the death of the textbook. It seems to me that city schools are the perfect place to try his ideas. We don’t have enough money and not buying textbooks would be great. Plus creating culturally relevant resources at appropriate reading levels will help student learn. A challenge though is this; everyone thinks they are an education expert because everyone went to school. We’re all used to having a textbook as the course anchor. How do we change this extremely traditional mindset? It seems like city schools would be the perfect place to make inroads.
I loved what Stanford Thompson had to say. In city districts, we live in such fear of being labeled a failing school because of low standardized test scores. To hear that playing music in an ensemble is improving attendance, learning, behavior, and engagement is so heartening. Now how do I get his program here?
I loved meeting people whose ideas I read and value. It was great to put actual faces with avatars and to meet new people. Whenever I go to a party and people find out I’m an inner-city educator, the reaction I get most often is surprise. I seem smart and nice, why can’t I get a better job? I didn’t feel this at Educon. The people I follow on twitter and through RSS are so different from those I interact with daily. Our experiences, in some cases, couldn’t be more divergent. But we can all still learn from each other. For many of you, your schools work as they should. We’re not where you are yet, and we don’t always want to get to your destination. But I have hope that your ideas and actions will help move us forward too. I’ll be sure to return to Educon next year to challenge your thinking and my own. I just hope I can bring a few of my colleagues with me.

Defining and Solving the Right Problem

2010-12-22T09:59:00.000-05:00

Too often, we don’t take the time to define and solve the right problem in schools. Because we have great intentions, we jump right to possible solutions instead of being thoughtful about defining the specific problem to solve. We treat most problems generically and solve them with new books, new software, new policies, or even new teachers or new leadership.

In my district, we treat low student achievement like a dartboard, and throw everything we have at it, without taking the time to define the specific problem to solve. We have no shortage of solutions, but we rarely stop and focus on defining the specific problem we want to solve.

Solving the right problem means taking the time to think about the root cause of the issue. Edwin Bridges, one of my graduate school professors, taught me how to define a clear problem statement, without jumping right to solutions. He offered this as an example of defining the right problem. Initially, the homeowner decided in advance that the solution to his garage door problem involved repair. By not taking the time to define the actual problem, the homeowner essentially threw solutions and money at the dartboard and hoped one would stick. Identifying the actual problem, led to an easy cost-free solution.

A man lived in a neighborhood south of San Francisco. His garage door was opening at odd times throughout the day and night. He threw money at the problem, calling for a repairman, changing parts in the opener, all without success. The garage door continued to open and shut randomly. Some time later, the man was at a neighborhood barbecue, where in conversation, he learned that several of his neighbors were experiencing the same problem with their garage door opener. This new information reframed the problem entirely. Now the problem was that many garage doors were opening and shutting at odd times. This new information led the man down an entirely different path He learned his neighborhood was on the flight plan for airplanes landing at the San Francisco airport. One airline used the same frequency for landing as the garage door opener. With this new knowledge, the solution was to simply switch the channel on the back of every garage door opener, changing the frequency and ending the problem.

In my urban district, we face another hindrance to defining the right problem. We allow the real socio-economic problems we face to cloud the issues of teaching and learning. The fact is we are teaching in a community that is extremely poor. Our students are hungry sometimes, they are coming from single parent homes, students are working long hours after school to help support their families instead of doing homework. Our students do not speak English at home, and they come from families that have not experienced academic success of their own in the past. These are facts. But they have nothing to do with what is in our control and that’s the daily instruction we are responsible for offering daily. These socio-economic factors certainly effect our students, but they do not mean we cannot reach students instructionally. But I am involved in so many conversations where teachers point to these factors as reasons students cannot learn. To be clear, there’s no question these factors influence student learning, and more often than not the influence is negative, but socio-economics are not a reason we cannot offer specific instructional support to our students.

Somehow, the culture in my school district allows us to believe that good teaching is a mystery. A good teacher either has it, or doesn’t. The “It” factor is hard to name, and impossible to define and teach. We treat good teaching like it occurs in a fog or a haze behind the curtain. While many teachers may have innate teaching ability, the truth is teaching is like any other skill. Practice, lessons, and learning make the participant better.

This is a difficult conversation in my district. If good teaching is a mystery, then successful student learning must also be mysterious. Some students get it, most don’t, and neither the teacher, nor the student is to blame. Instead, let’s blame Poverty, that nameless, faceless creature prevalent in urban schools. The result of this culture and construct is that we plow through content and students either get it or they don’t. In this construct, all our students fall into several distinct categories. They either learn something the first time-these are the smart kids, are behavioral problems-these are the bad kids, or are compliant kids- these are the nice kids who will pass regardless of whether or not they have actually learned.

We have to change this culture. Instructional practices and interventions to increase student learning can and must be named. If we articulate clearly the problem we want to solve; what is it students need to learn to understand this concept, and we teach it, and reteach it, student learning can and will improve.

Thanks for reading-Happy holidays to all.

Blogging for Real Reform: Name Your Reform

2010-11-22T17:35:00.000-05:00

At some point reform became a catchall word. Whether it’s the media, politicians, or unions, reform is most often used to define some us versus them relationship. So much of what we read about or hear about sets up educational reform as an either/or relationship. I’ve spent my career wishing most of the dilemmas I face were either/or scenarios. Rarely is teaching and learning, budgeting, or staffing so simple to solve as “Either this… or that, choose one option.”

I thought yesterday’s New York Times article, “Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction” (NY Times, 11/21/2010), was a great example of this either/or relationship. The author set up a construct in which students are either engaged in the content-based learning in school and are successful at warding off technological distractions, or technology has grasped poor unsuspecting teens and is thwarting their best efforts to be successful high school students. Articles like this don’t tell the story of classrooms across the United States where teachers and students are struggling and succeeding to meaningfully integrate technology. I read teacher blogs and tweets all the time, and so many teachers are succeeding at engaging students using new media, tools, and classroom paradigms. Anyone who has spent even one day in a classroom knows that some days it works, and others it doesn’t. Technology integration in 2010 cannot be distilled into “on the one hand” and “on the other hand” sound bites.

Good teaching is another reform issue that cannot be distilled into either/or statements. A school committee, superintendent, or principal who bases an entire teacher evaluation on a ten-minute snapshot in a classroom, or a standardized test result cannot begin to understand the myriad issues, decisions, actions that every teacher must make each and everyday. Distilling classroom reform into test results or one quick evaluation cannot begin to address the depth of understanding required to make meaningful decisions to improve the quality of teaching and learning in a classroom.

I recognize the current education reform vocabulary as the same terminology I use when I talk about getting in shape. For years I’ve tried to improve my own health and wellness by talking about going to the gym. I understand that actually working out and eating less would significantly increase my chances of being healthier, but that’s much more difficult than just talking about action. Education Reform has been the same way; lots of words very little action. I’d recognize my strategy anywhere. I don’t have a solid strategy for getting into shape and I can only speak in generally ambiguous terms about increasing exercise and decreasing late night snacking. But when it comes to school, I do have details to offer. I don’t believe there ought to be one definition for Real Reform, but I do believe that the people with the experience, those with the ideas and good sense to know how and when to try ideas, have been relegated to the fringes of the conversation. It isn’t always the case, but the loudest voices in the debate seem to know the least. Everyone reading this post already knows what the loud voices are calling for regarding high stakes testing, charters, and the other hot button issues. So in the spirit of the day, here’s one more small voice, attempting to contribute some substantive ideas for Real Reform.

The traditional high school model in this country is fundamentally broken. High Schools are considered successful when many of the graduating students do not pursue post-secondary education or do not graduate. The bell shaped curve defines our notion of success. If some people get F’s and others get A’s what we are doing must be fair and equitable. This model was fine when a high school diploma could still be a ticket to the middle class, and there were jobs for all those students. But most of those jobs simply no longer exist, and we keep on feeling positive about the bell shaped curve.

The comprehensive high school model does not work for most inner-city students. I don’t know which model is the right one, but the shopping mall high school just doesn’t work with the students I know.

There isn’t one right reform model. Making positive change in schools requires knowing your students and your community. What’s right for me may not be right for the kids I serve. What’s right for my students may not be right for your students.

The New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) 2011 Standards offers a positive template for meaningful reform. No matter where you may be in the country, if you are reading this post, check out the new standards at http://cpss.neasc.org/downloads/2011_Standards/2011_Standards.pdf

I do not believe these standards offer the way to reform schools. They offer a roadmap to developing a school aligned to what each community wants and needs. The standards don’t cover everything. They fall far short in defining meaningful technology use at the high school level. But here’s what they do define that I value:

The first standard requires a clear statement of Core Values, Beliefs, and Learning Expectations. The authors say “effective schools identify core values and beliefs about learning that function as explicit foundational commitments to students and the community.” (NEASC Standard 1, 2011) When done correctly each school is identifying their own core values, beliefs and learning expectations. Asking the question, “What are your beliefs about school?” is so different than stating “These should be your beliefs about school.” NEASC further requires that the school define their own 21st century learning expectations. While some schools may take someone else’s laundry list of skills, the opportunity is there to define 21st skills meaningfully for your community.

The curriculum standard shifts the learning outcomes for each course away from content knowledge and towards using content as the vehicle to learn skills. In my view, this is an example of naming Real Reform. In an economy and technological age where skills are valued more than content knowledge, we need practical and meaningful tools to make the shift. NEASC provides language and a roadmap to make this happen.

Assessment is meant to inform students and stakeholders of progress towards meeting the schools’ 21st century skills. There must be assessment of and for learning. Assessment cannot be just a restatement of facts. If the school values problem solving, how can a teacher set up scenarios that both value and assess problem solving as a skill? Furthermore, assessment cannot only be summative. Formative assessment is informal daily assessment to ensure that all students, not just the vocal ones have learned what was intended today. Formative assessments ought to inform instructional decisions tomorrow, not at the end of the unit.

When I’m at a party and strangers learn that I’m an inner city educator, they often make broad statements about inner city families, students, and schools. I try not to let this pass. In a non-confrontational way, I try to name what occurs in the schools I know, to address these broad statements about urban education. This is what I hope today is about; naming the reforms we value. Reform is rapidly becoming a non-word because it means everything and nothing at the same time. I don’t know that my thinking is right, but I do know I rarely come across an educational idea or dilemma that simply requires an either/or construct. Together, let’s ensure that calls for reform are articulately naming specific and concrete steps. Otherwise we either reform or we don’t.

Rebel Education Reform-An Inner City Perspective

2010-10-17T09:34:00.000-04:00

Ron Suskind, a writer for the Wall Street Journal gave a name to the current education reform dialogue. He discussed a belief and a faith in having something better despite the words of those around us that “we can’t”, or “we won’t”, or “why bother” as a “hope in the unseen. (Suskind, 1998).” In his book, A Hope in the Unseen, Suskind retells the true story of a young man’s journey from the inner city to Brown University. Cedric, the main character defined the unseen as “a place, a place I couldn’t see yet, up ahead… an imagined place that I’ll get to someday (Suskind, 1998, pg. 330).” It’s this hope in something unseen that frames my current thinking about education reform.

Tom Whitby has called for posts about positive educational reform today. I wish I could sit down and craft an answer. I wish I could combat all the negative voices on either side of the debate in regular blog posts. I’d like to speak to all constituents in the debate in my regular writing. I wish I had a clearly articulated position that addressed what I agreed with and disagreed with in everyone’s arguments. But I don’t. I am in awe of all of the bloggers participating in this event today. Many of you are such prolific writers, and I am the mayor of procrastinator city. I just haven’t been able to make blogging part of my daily or weekly routine…yet. Part of my struggle is procrastination, but another component is I struggle to find myself, the teachers I work with, or the students I know in anything I’m reading or seeing. The true experience of education reform in the inner city isn’t in the newspaper, or on the nightly news. It’s not in the education nation discussion, or on twitter. What I read each day in the media is so negative, and what’s in many blogs is so positive. My experiences as an inner city educator cannot be summed up with positive blogs or negative press. Inner city education is about living in a shade of grey, and my thoughts on reform are influenced by these experiences.

I know that education reform in action in city schools is like trying to move a mountain. So many factors are stacked against us. It’s difficult to step back from the mountain and provide statements of fact about what I know to be true. So here are two offerings. First, what I experience as it relates to the reform discussion, and second, a set of belief statements that I think are applicable to the reform dialogue. Hopefully the readers will interpret these words as a positive contribution to the discussion.

Education reform is about ignoring perception and beliefs. I love working in city schools. I am passionate about the work I do and the choices I’ve made. But when I meet new people, many assume I’m in city schools because I must not be able to get a job in a better school system. I work in a district where the local newspaper thinks we’re terrible, the school committee says the principals and district leadership are all awful, and the surrounding communities think we are a haven for illegal immigrants. On the days that I get to school ninety minutes before school starts, I feel like I’m one of the last people to arrive. Education reform is about putting in the time to make the changes we expect to see in our schools. Our teachers and administrators are at school before the sun comes up, and they leave long after dark. We know positive change and reform starts with showing up.

Education reform has to be about great instruction and I work with some master teachers. I know a Science teacher who makes inquiry an art. He gets kids to ask questions and think and wonder as they have never before. I know an English teacher who makes words come alive for students. She encourages students to find their voice as writers. She gets students who have never been proud of a sentence they’ve written to publish their work and present before a room full of teachers, writers, and parents. I see teachers who are the eye of the storm for our kids each and everyday.

Despite the negativity associated with the statement, education reform also needs to be about getting bad teachers out of the classroom. What we do in city schools every day is about life and death for kids. When I went to public school it never occurred to me not to go to college. Most of the kids in my district will be the first person in their family to graduate from high school and virtually all will be the first person to attend college. So we can’t afford to have anything but master teachers. But I know plenty of teachers who aren’t. I work with teachers who are bad for kids. I know teachers who don’t believe that our students can be successful. I know a teacher who picks a student to intimidate each year to keep everyone in line. I know teachers who have hit kids, who curse at them, who have decided that the best way to teach English is to yell English louder. I know too many teachers who are immersed in a culture of low expectations and a component of education reform must be about moving these teachers out of the profession.

Education reform has to have room in the dialogue to expect more from your principal, your superintendent, your teachers, your students and your parents. Yesterday, Patrick Larkin asked on the Connected Principals blog if administrators are proud of their schools. Sometimes I am, but I’m not everyday. What a blasphemous thing to say as an educational leader in the blogosphere! But I’ve had parents and students arrested far too many times to always feel proud of what we do and don’t do. I’ve come home from school with blood on my clothing from fights and wondered how this could happen in a place called school. I’ve watched students throw their potential away by dropping out and I’ve felt totally incapable of solving the myriad problems our students bring to us daily.

There are also days that I’ve felt unimaginable pride for students and my school. I’ve watched students I taught graduate from high school and move on, against all odds to some of the best schools in the country. I’ve known students who made me hope that my son would grow up to be like them. I’ve watched with admiration and pride as teenagers work long hours outside of school to help pay the rent and put food on the table and still find the time to write a history paper or do their math homework. I’ve known our school community to come together to help families in need and rally around teachers and principals who need support. I feel pride for the students who find a way to get to school no matter what is happening in their lives. I feel proud of the knowledge that we offer a safe place for kids each and everyday.

Education reform has to be about more than test scores. Whether your perspective is in an urban or suburban school district, as a teacher or principal, or working with Kindergarteners or twelfth graders, we must be united around refusing to accept that test scores are the result we desire. Education reform must be about changing the dialogue. In my own job, I allow myself to engage in these conversations about whether or not teachers or principals or poverty or standardized tests are the problem. The problem is all and none of these issues.

I attended my son’s preschool open house this week. The director offered these “What We Believe” statements about my son’s school. I’d like the Director to come and give the same talk to the principals and teachers I work with to help us frame what we believe. Here’s part of what she said:

“We believe that all children are interesting, capable beings with much to contribute.”

“We believe children thrive when they are given abundant opportunities to play [and learn] in an aesthetically beautiful environment.”

“We believe each child’s learning is unique and important.”

“We believe children’s work and experiences should be document and valued.”

“We believe that emotional competency is an important factor in school success and overall contentment.”

“We believe play is the work of children and that children thrive when play and creative expression is not only permitted but encouraged.”

“We believe that learning about reading, writing, and math should be enthusiastically facilitated within the context of children’s projects and natural interests rather than as separate academic areas.”

“We believe in building positive relationships between educators and parents.”

“We know that educators are the single most important influence in a child’s experience in our [school].”

(What We Believe, October 2010, JCC Early Learning Centers)

These belief statements begin to give shape to that “hope in the unseen” for me. My experiences as a city educator have taught me that rarely is there a problem with one clear right answer. I just can’t buy the paradigm that either this or that is the problem we have to fix. In my experience, education has very few absolutes and a whole lot of grey. For me, positive education reform begins with elevating the dialogue and redefining our expectations beyond test scores. My son’s preschool director offered up one example of belief statements to elevate this discussion. I have no doubt that I will read more in many of the posts today.

Thanks for taking the time to read my thinking.

My Ideal School...

2010-08-04T21:16:00.000-04:00

In order to grow a good school, I have to have some idea of what I want it to be and how it ought to feel to be in the school. I'm eternally frustrated by superintendents, administrators, and teachers who are extremely articulate about what they do not want to see. It's another thing entirely to envision everything a school or district could be, name it articulately, and put that vision into action to make it a reality. My vision of an ideal school is a work in progress, and I recognize that there isn't any one model.

In my minds eye, I imagine a place in some city's poorest area. The school building is open from early in the morning until late at night. It's a public school, grades 5-12. The schools' mission is to develop a community of caring dedicated to addressing the academic and social/emotional needs of the students in a college-preparatory environment. We will offer a rigorous and practical school program through authentic problem solving, application of knowledge, and meaningful tech integration. We'd model curriculum and instruction similarly to what occurs here, and here. Assessment would be grounded in real-world problem solving.

The school would also be a community resource center charged with offering services to the community before and after the school day. Through collaboration and community partnerships, we would prepare our students to chart their own path toward post-secondary success.

A key piece to all this, and one I'll hit on again and again in future posts is the need for the school to be replicable. I've taught at good schools, visited others, and read about so many more, but they are one school in a city or town, and so often they are dependent upon the vision of one leader, or one group of teachers. I believe that for education to change, really change meaningfully, we can't rely on the successes of stand-alone schools across the country. While there doesn't have to be one model that works, we need to be able to point to districts that are dramatically changing teaching, learning and student success rates, not just individual successful schools. That's why I work in an urban district and not at a great charter school somewhere. I want to be a part of turning around a district to show that it can be done.

I could write pages about the specifics of the school I envision. But writing it doesn't make it a reality. It's enacting the vision that is the real work. With the school year rapidly approaching, I'm focused on deciding which tools and strategies to use to ensure visible progress is made this year towards growing our good schools in Lawrence.

Getting Started: My first post

2010-08-03T16:13:00.000-04:00

A little background:

Last October, I stumbled upon my first blog when I discovered Robin Cicchetti's Concord Carlisle High School library blog. Her words inspired me to set up my own RSS feed, and begin exploring the edu-blogosphere. I've been a blogging voyeur ever since. This summer, Patrick Larkin, @bhs principal on twitter, reached out to MA administrators to expand his own PLN. He showed me how to join twitter and I decided it's time to join the conversation, instead of just observing from afar.

What's this blog about:

I intend for this space to be a place for me to reflect, discuss, learn and struggle. I am both a district leader and a member of a campus team. We have six distinct high schools on our campus of schools. Each school has their own building, administrative team, staff and 500+ students. I'm leading efforts to try and change teaching and learning on campus from a traditional comprehensive high school model to something distinctly new. I must lead, but also follow because each principal and each school has their own voice, and their own ideas about how these schools should develop. What we become must be collaborative for it to be successful.

Fundamentally, I believe that high school, as it has been traditionally structured just doesn't work. In my experience, the comprehensive high school model certainly doesn't work for urban students who, in many cases, will be the first person in their family to graduate from high school or go to college. I used to use terms like "reform", "restructure", and "reinvent". But I no longer believe these words apply to what we're trying to do.

The title of this blog, "Growing Good Schools" refers to the slow, nurturing process that is required to grow anything successfully. Now full disclosure, last summer my wife and I managed to grow a tomato. That's one tomato for the entire year, so growing anything isn't necessarily the analogy I should be using. But I've learned that changing urban schools is like nurturing a garden. We certainly have successes, but we don't see obvious progress daily. I believe that growth in the garden doesn't happen overnight, and I know it doesn't happen overnight in schools either. This blog will hopefully be a place for me to discuss how our growth is going.

Moving Forward:

I've been trying to exercise regularly this summer. I managed to ride 180+ miles in July, but most of it was on a rail trail that passes through my town. This weekend I decided to take a 15 mile loop out on the roads. About three miles in, I realized my heart was pounding. It wasn't because I was out of breath, or tired. Instead, I realized I was scared. I knew that several miles ahead was a massive hill, and I wasn't sure I could climb it. Initially, I decided to turn around and head back on the more comfortable path. But then I thought about all the #leadershipday10 posts I read this weekend. Teachers from around the country called for administrators to lead, to try new edtech tools, to open up blocked sites, and let good innovative learning occur. I thought about all the times I have asked teachers to change something about their practice, and step out of their comfort zone, and I knew avoiding the hill was out of the question. I climbed it, thought I would die, cursed it mercilessly, and with a little walking, succeeded.

I was scared to climb the hill and I've been scared to enter the conversations I'm reading in blogs and on twitter. But growing good schools requires stepping out of our comfort zones and making changes. If I plan to lead, I'd better be willing to be in the discussion. So with that in mind, I'm hitting the publish post button and I'm headed out towards that hill on my bike.