How Can I Help?

Last night I spent a few hours volunteering at a local organization in Minneapolis called FreeBikes4Kidz*. I walked into the warehouse and was floored. Literally thousands of bicycles waiting to be cleaned-up, wrenched and delivered to children in need. In effort to bring more awareness to Terry Esau’s effort to "Turn a dusty bike into a shiny smile" and the FB4K.com program, I uploaded the photo above this post to my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.

A friend replied on Facebook with one simple sentence. “How can I help?” It got me thinking of all the ways he, and his company can help. I started think about how I can leverage my network to help FB4K. As a former bike racer and overall bike nut, I know a lot of bike mechanics and shop owners. I also know many Principals and teachers. I know High School students can earn community service hours by volunteering at FB4K, schools and students can fund raise, school staff can come in as a team for a few hours to polish bikes. After all it is a great team building experience as evident by the smiles and laughter coming from the group of attorneys and staff from a local law firm. But I also started to think about the magic of those four words, “How can I help?”

As school leaders we often find ourselves mired in data, embroiled in budget decisions, curriculum planning, professional development delivery, state reports, grant applications, and a scad of other mind numbing administrative tasks. And don't forget the meetings, meetings, and more meetings…Its easy to forget that we are also there in service to students, staff and families in our school community. Our school community members often come to us with their problems both professional and personal. By responding with, “How Can I Help?” we are setting a tone of empathy and support. By starting with those four simple words we demonstrate to our school community that we do in deed care and are there to support them.

By asking, “How can I help?” I’ve seen the stress melt away from parents when they’ve come to me with bullying or other child focused issues. Those four words to teachers can change their feelings about a challenging student, or a strained relationship with a parent in their classroom community. Students feel safer knowing their Principal wants to help. Once we know we are not in it alone, we feel better and more hopeful about the situation.

“How can I help” grounds us back to one of the basic reasons most of us chose this profession. We care and want to help others. At the end of the day I can set aside the stress and intensity of this work knowing that I have helped a student, a staff member or a parent. I am reminded that I have the best job in the world.

*If you want to help FreeBikes4Kidz share the joy and freedom felt by flying on two wheels with children in need, please consider a contribution to FB4K.com

13 Ways for Teachers To Stay Mentally Tough

This morning I was touring my social media feeds when I came across a Forbes article called "Mentally Strong People: The 13 Things They Avoid."  I should thank Cheryl Conner now for motivating this post.  There's something here for those of us on the frontline in America's classroom.

Let's face it...you've got to be tough to survive in today's education environment.  Despite of the joy we feel when we really connect with a student, it can feel like a thankless job some days.  So how do those rock star teachers do it day in and day out?  I'm sure you have colleagues that you admire.  I certainly do. So often we are encouraged to look at what those teachers do.  This is a flip on that thinking.  Instead of looking at what they do, lets look at what they don't do.

The Forbes article I read is written for business folks, as you would expect.  The motivation for the Conner's article came from a post in Lifehack, a pretty solid self-improvement blog famous for articles featuring lists of what to do to avoid life's perils.  Check it out sometime.   Psychotherapist and adjunct professor of psychology Amy Morin deserves all the credit for this.  It was her article that inspired Cheryl Conner's Forbes article, which in turn set my mental dominoes tumbling.

While reading Conner's article I kept finding parallels for teachers so I thought I'd put down some thoughts.  Here's the list.

1. They don't feel sorry for themselves

You don't see mentally strong people complain about how hard things are, or why this or that isn't fair.  Look at those teachers you admire.  I bet they don't spend much of their mental energy feeling sorry for themselves. They understand and acknowledge that life isn't always fair and move on.  When things get tough they emerge stronger and wiser because they used the experience as a growth opportunity.

2. They don't give away their power

Mentally strong teachers don't let other people make them feel bad or inferior.  If you're like me, you've made plenty of mistakes in the classroom.  Some of those mistakes may have led to an angry parent or visit from your administrator.  Mentally strong people don't let those people make them feel like failures because the mentally strong know they are in control of their emotions and how they will respond.  If its a mistake they made...they own it and fix it.  If its a misunderstanding, they are able to articulate where the breakdown happened and make it better.

3. They don't shy away from change

Many teachers I know struggle with change.  They find comfort in the familiar, and let's face it...it makes a tough job easier.  Mentally strong teachers understand that the only thing they can count on is that things will change. They embrace it and make it their ally, not their enemy.  They don't fear change, they fear becoming stagnant, mediocre teachers.

4. They don't waste their energy on things they can not control

The best teachers in your building don't complain (much) about the new district mandate or lack of parenting they perceive in their students.  They focus on what they do have control over.  They know they can't fix the parents that don't follow through on homework or let their elementary age children stay up until 11:00.  Instead, they provide extra time in their day for those kids to take a break or to finish their homework.  They don't waste their time complaining about the new district program pushed on them, they look for the best ways to apply and leverage the new district mandate to their students' advantage.

5. They don't try to please everyone
Uh-oh...this will be a tough one.  Most teachers are pleasers.  It's taken me a long time to not to be.  Most teachers want to be liked by their students, parents, and peers.  Mentally strong teachers do too, but they aren't afraid to hold their students accountable or to advocate for their kids and themselves.  They speak they minds (in a controlled and respectful manner) in the service of their craft and the needs of their students.  They take the unpopular route when necessary without concerning themselves with being pleasers.

6. They don't fear taking calculated risks
The mentally tough calculate the benefits and potential problems before taking a risk,and they do it without fear. They've mastered the voice of negativity nagging their subconscious. Like growth minded individuals, the mentally tough know that if they fail despite of weighing the odds, they have an opportunity to get better at whatever failed.  The best teachers are aware of the pitfalls and potential gains before plunging into a new endeavor with students or their colleagues.

7. They don't dwell on the past
We've all made mistakes.  Some of mine are..well...never mind.  Let's just say risk did always result in reward for me!  But once I freed myself of the doubt and self-loathing over it, I was ready to grow and improve my practice.   Mentally tough people don't mire themselves in "what was", instead focus on "what might be".  They don't pine for "the good ol' days".  They do reflect on past experiences, but they don't wallow in it.  They put their mental energy into making today and tomorrow the best it can be.

8. They don't make the same mistakes over and over
Mentally strong teachers don't do the same failed lesson over and over expecting different results.  The best teachers in your school know when a modality is not hitting the mark.  They change their delivery, offer the content in a different format, or provide their students with multiple opportunities to demonstrate their learning.  You all know this as differentiation.  

9. They don't resent other people's success
You've heard her in the lounge, "Oh Mr. So and So thinks he's such a big shot after winning that grant...".  I bet Mr. So and So doesn't think he's a big shot.  He's probably an incredibly gifted teacher full of great ideas...one that just got funded.  The mentally tough celebrate their colleague's success and look for ways to emulate that success so their students or school might benefit too.

10. They don't give up after failure
If you haven't read Carol Dweck's "Mindset" or Paul Tough's "How Children Succeed" put them on your must read list.  If you don't have time, download the iTunes U sessions from the Aspen Ideas Festival's "How We Learn" section.  Dweck and Tough are both featured.  You'll learn a lot about growth mindset theory and how to apply it to your work with students.  It's a game changer...really.  The mentally tough seize every failure as an opportunity to improve.  They don't blame others for their mistakes.  They own them and move on seeking to make it better next time.

11. They don't fear alone time
They can be happy with others and they can be happy alone.  They don't need others to inflate their egos or make them feel good about themselves.  Alone time to the mentally tough is special time.  It is used for planning, reflecting and refinement.  Its also used for relaxing.  Go ride your bike.  You'll be amazed at what you come up with when you're out there.

12. They don't feel that the world owes them anything
All right...if you're inclined to number one on the list (feel sorry for yourself), stop reading now.  You won't like what I'm about to say. If you're still reading, know that I'm one of you.  Here goes...There is too much entitlement in the teaching culture.  We do work hard.  Our days our long.  We do have some difficult, ungrateful students and parents.  We are often misunderstood by administration.  If you haven't noticed, not too my people outside of teaching really cares.  They have hard jobs, too.  They have long days, too.  They don't have or expect lavish benefits packages despite of their experience or level of education.  The sooner teachers stop thinking that we deserve something extra from society because of the work we do, the sooner we'll gain more respect as a profession.  Feel free to throw rotten tomatoes at me if you want.  I'm practicing number five on the list (don't try to please everyone). 

13. They don't expect immediate results
The mentally tough know better than to expect immediate results.  They know anything worth doing is worth the time investment.  They are in it for the long haul.  Mentally strong teachers know real change takes time.  The mentally tough teacher knows that the difficult student in their classroom will need more time to establish a meaningful relationship.  They will invest the time, practice patience and wait for them to come around. 

Which of these can you relate to?  Which do you need to practice more?  Which ever the answer, take pride in what you do and keep doing what you do to improve the lives of children.  It is the most important work in the world.

Secret Sauce Revealed @ Google...Opportunity for school improvement?

My Twitter feed is glowing today from the number of reTweets of Fast Company's story on Google's 9 ingredient innovation secret sauce.  We've been using the term secret sauce around my organization recently as we examine the structural, cultural and instructional practices that are creating game changing schools and making a big difference in closing the achievement gap here in Minneapolis.

Is there a way to leverage Google's formula for improving your school?  Definitely.

1. INNOVATION COMES FROM ANYWHERE

When is the last time you asked an Education Assistant for ideas to improve your school?  I did, and dramatically changed the environment in our noisy lunchroom.  Our EA staff were instrumental in reducing the number of behavior referrals coming in off the playground.  Give everyone in your school a voice and you'll find fresh ideas to improve your school where you least expect it!

2. FOCUS ON THE USER

This seems like a no-brainer, right?  We often hear school leaders and teachers say they put the needs of kids first.  Do we really?  Most structures in our schools are designed for adults.  Most contracts for example make it difficult to extend the learning day or calendar.  Innovative learning technology goes untouched in most classrooms because the grownups are intimidated by it, don't understand it, or simply don't care.  Testing schedules tend to disrupt our most vulnerable students schedules taking them away from instruction for 2-3 weeks.  I could go on for pages on how we don't focus on the user.  We need to Re-Focus on the user...our students.

3. AIM TO BE TEN TIMES BETTER

Mindset is a powerful tool.  Think big.  Teachers and school leaders that set B.H.A.G.s (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) set the bar high for themselves and their students, then backward plan to animate their plans, aligning vision, data and resources to get them there.  

4. BET ON TECHNICAL INSIGHTS

"Every organization has unique insights, and if you bet on it, it leads to major innovation."   That's right, go back to number one on this list.  You've got brilliance under your roof.  Engage your leadership team in a design thinking process.  Ask big questions about sticky teaching and learning problems with your leadership team.  Amazing things will emerge from the process leading to increased student engagement and invigorated teachers.

5. SHIP AND ITERATE

"Ship your products often and early, and don't wait for perfection..."  I'm working with a Principal and team of teachers at Hiawatha Academies in Minneapolis right now to implement a blended learning program with Kindergartners.  We are being thoughtful in our planning, but we aren't going to wait for perfection before we launch.  In three weeks we will have kids engaged in adaptive online learning.   Every six weeks we plan to evaluate student progress and our implementation to make sure we're on target, and to prepare for scaling it out to more classrooms.  Ship it and iterate.

6. GIVE EMPLOYEES 20 PERCENT TIME

So this is where we might run into some issues.  Google theory holds that employees should be given 20% of their time to explore ideas outside of their work assignment, or even beyond the vision of the company.  What if we gave teachers the opportunity to do the same?  Will innovative practices emerge, or will we lose 20% of critical instructional time?  I believe that depends on the culture of your school.  Do your teachers feel empowered to explore new approaches to teaching and learning, or does your school or district have a strict culture of compliance, mandated curriculum and inflexible leadership?  What if we loosened the reigns a little?  Will creativity overcome the belief of many that teachers can't make their own decisions?  I bet great things can and will happen.  

7. DEFAULT TO OPEN PROCESSES

Android was designed on an open platform to encourage other developers to improve the product.  Education is getting better at this, but still has a long way to go.  This week I was writing a 2nd grade interim assessment.  Interim assessments are proving to be powerful tools to target and improve learning outcomes.  I know we're not the only school doing this, and I bet others will share their work.  The challenge for educators is the limited platforms for sharing.  Pintrest is an awesome start, and other platforms like Sophia Learning are getting us closer, but there's a greenfield opportunity untouched in this space right now.

8. FAIL WELL

Nobody likes a loser, right?  And most teachers I know are perfectionists that don't like to admit their mistakes.  This is a huge problem, as well as a huge opportunity for educators to stop hiding behind their flops, and embrace them.  Every crappy lesson is a chance to improve your practice and improve learning opportunities for your students.  A new school in Minneapolis called Venture Academy is wrapping their arms around this concept and making it a core value of their adult and student community.

9. HAVE A MISSION THAT MATTERS

We all read and hear about how important mission and vision statements are to drive success.  But most people can't tell you what it is.   Take a look at what happens when leadership has a laser focus on their vision.  The Kettle Moraine School District just west of Milwaukee, Wisconsin's vision is "Learning without boundaries".  It drives everything they do.  As a result they are quickly becoming a national model for personalized learning through innovative practice.

We're not Google, but that doesn't mean their secret sauce can't make your school a great(er) place to teach and learn.

How Was Your Day At School?

"How was your day at school?"  That's a pretty common question for every parent with school age children.  But who is asking you about your day?  Today I had the pleasure of meeting (albeit in a Google Hangout) Nathan Eklund of Eklund Consulting.  Nathan is a former High School English teacher from Minnesota, and current lead strategist at a charter school in New York city.  His consulting group is focused on one thing: making schools a great place to work.  His book is entitled, "How was your day at school?" and he's not asking kids.  He's asking that of teachers and other adults working in our schools.

Look, teaching is hard.  Really hard.  No...I mean REALLY hard!!  It is a whirlwind experience that will make your head spin off.  Planning instruction, designing curriculum, meeting performance goals, managing student behavior and parent relationships, tying shoes, zipping pants, wiping tears and noses, grading 100s of papers.  Don't forget the committees your on, or that team you coach.  This is complicated, exhausting work.  Now imagine you arrive at your school everyday and you are met by a pit viper behind the building secretary's desk, you have to avoid a staff bully in the lounge, or a team member that constantly complains about the administration, "pointless testing", "those kids" and "those parents, that "ridiculous" district mandate, and constant bickering.  You are afraid to open your mouth because you don't want it to be misinterpreted and used against you later.  Your classroom neighbor yells at her kids all morning as a behavior management strategy. 

Probably not what you signed up for when you decided to pursue education as a career.  Most teachers love their work and their students, but many will describe a highly dysfunctional work environment where the only recourse is to show up, walk into their classroom and shut the door.  Teachers at theses schools avoid eating in the lounge because of the radioactive pollutants that seem to grow and fester there.  Teachers at theses schools are laying rubber in the parking lot at 4:00 to get out of there.

What, instead, if you were greeted by a radiant mile in the office (like my secretary in Kettle Moraine) everyday?  What, instead, if there were no bullies in the lounge, your team members are driven by questions that push and support you in your work with students, data was embraced as a powerful tool to guide instruction, and the lounge was a place for collegial discussion and a place to relax with your co-workers?   

There is a formula to make any school hum with the effort of engaged, motivated and satisfied staff.  

This does not happen without effort, significant effort.  But the pay off is incredible.  Staff feel valued and invested.  The hard work is worth it because you feel good about your work and day.  From 2005-2007 I was a Lead Teacher at Valley Crossing Community School.  Valley Crossing is intentional in their effort to support a positive school environment and the results show.   VCCS earned an E. Boyer Foundation Award in recognition of professional collaboration in 2003 for their effort and continues to be an amazing place to work and learn ten years later.  

The staff and school leaders understands it begins with the adult community.  As a school wide Responsive Classroom school, Valley Crossing plans and implements structures that supports success for kids, but also plans and implements structures that supports a strong adult community.  Staff and parents have a vehicle for their voices to be heard through a shared decision making process.   Teachers have additional time to plan and work with their teammates to improve instruction every day.  Staff members celebrate each other's hard work formally and informally.  All staff socials are held monthly before school starts to provide a healthy way to start the day and bring the entire staff together to show that they value each other (often with a fun theme).  Norms of collaboration are established, shared, and revisited throughout the year.  Teachers are given the opportunity for leadership by leading curriculum teams, as members of the "Lead Team", or by serving the Shared Decision Making Council.    

Lots of schools are deliberate about their adult community.  It does take effort and has to be well thought out, but the pay off is visible in the reduced stress levels of the staff, and the success of the students.  What does your school do to promote a healthy and positive adult community?

Pollyanna or Panacea? Competency Based Learning

We should all be wary of any technology or innovation that boasts too loudly to be the silver bullet to save a crumbling system.  However, I am deeply intrigued by the potential of competency-based learning to address systematic problems in our public schools.   Leaders of competency-based learning, also know as mastery-based learning are quickly finding positive results by providing student centered instruction where the learning is fixed (standards aligned), but time is not (students move at their own pace to meet learning targets).


Up in my neck of the woods the need for new models of teaching and learning has reached a crisis level.  Here's an excerpt from an editorial in the Minneapolis Star Tribune earlier this month:

The statistics paint a stark picture: Minnesota has the lowest high school graduation rates for Latino and Native students in the nation. Put simply: no one does it worse. That 58 percent of third-graders are proficient in reading masks the fact that 87 percent of white third-graders are proficient while just 36 percent of Latino students are. A shocking 12 percent of African-American fifth-graders are proficient in math.

Minnesota Public Radio also gave supportive attention to this issue here, highlighting efforts to increase Minnesota teachers' cultural competency.  According to the story airing March 20th:
The state Department of Education estimates that less than 4 percent of Minnesota teachers are people of color. Yet more than a quarter of Minnesota's students are nonwhite.

Clearly radical systems change is needed.  In Minneapolis Public Schools where graduation rates of non-white students is among the worst in the nation, the approach to addressing the achievement gap is focused instruction.  It is also known as managed instruction.   Let's think about that name for a minute...managed instruction.  After conversations with teachers in the district this year, it appears that what is being managed is the teacher, not student learning.  No one will argue that data driven, differentiated, standards aligned instruction is good teaching.  However, the missing component in the focused instruction equation is the student.  Focused instruction is not designed as a student centered instructional approach.  It is designed as a systems control mechanism, so administrators and upper level district management can use terms like "consistency" and "equity" and "fidelity" to stay in compliance with RtI and NCLB, and to quantify value-added teacher evaluations.  Requiring all schools to use focused instruction prohibits any other approach.  President Obama is promoting entrepreneurial thinking to move our nation forward.  However, in  Minneapolis Public Schools (and St. Paul Public Schools), innovation is not welcome.

Like focused instruction, competency based learning is standards aligned, differentiates for all students, and is data driven.  Unlike focused instruction, competency-based learning is student centered.  Unlike focused instruction, competency-based learning requires massive systems change, moving away from the failed factory school model.  Clearly there is major heavy lifting to move to a competency-based learning model.  That is a fair criticism.  But it is being done in large systems, and given the massive potential, and tragic failure rate for non-white students in Minnesota, we can't afford not to.

Competency-based learning is getting a lot of attention, gaining traction and reaching broader audiences as evident by recent articles in Forbes by Innosight Institute founder and co-author of Disrupting Class Micheal Horn, and through NBC  and CBS.  District and state wide models of adoption are emerging in New Hampshire, Oregon, Alaska and Massachusetts.   Recognizing that legislated "seat time" requirements are impeding progress towards implementation, states like Michigan and Ohio have changed the seat time requirement.   Horn and other supporters observe that competency-based learning increases student motivation, and increases teacher capacity to meet new challenges brought on by the Common Core State Standards. That seems like a win-win to me.

Fortunately, a number of students in Minneapolis will have the opportunity to have a student centered learning experience through a competency based model.  New and highly innovative schools like Venture Academy opening in Minneapolis in the fall of 2013, will meet the challenge of closing the achievement gap through a competency-based and personalized blended learning model.  I am excited to see the results of this effort, hoping for scalability so we can get learning right the first time every time for every child.

Design Thinking Process: Bringing Creativity Back To The Classroom

Many educators and non-educators agree that new and transformational practices are necessary to prepare our students for the future.  21st Century Learning skills emphasize the need for teachers to prepare creative thinkers and problem solvers.   At the same time, teachers are pushed and expected to perform on standardized assessments.  Many teachers accurately identify a creative vacuum in their classroom.  As a Principal I observed this day in and day out in.  Feeling the pressure to meet growth goals measured by MAP tests and cover mandated curriculum, teachers cast aside learning opportunities for their students that embed creative thinking.  It is not hard to figure out how we got here.  Enter Design Thinking. Design Thinking is an emerging learner-centered process that may provide the answer to the need for educators to prepare students for success on assessments, and prepare them for success in a complex world where critical and creative thinking is necessary.

Is it enough to create Problem Solvers?

Design Thinking, according to No Tosh CEO and founder Ewan McIntosh, allows us to move away from teacher focused instruction to learner centered classrooms.  Recently there has been great emphasis on creating "problem solvers".  Instead, McIntosh encourages us to create "problem finders".  He presents the concept of creating "Problem Finders", not Problem Solvers through the Design Thinking Process in his November 18, 2011 Tedx presentation.

Design Thinking: 5 Step Process

Design Thinking Process follows five steps:

1. Immersion: Observation and Empathy 
2. Synthesis
3. Ideation
4. Prototyping 
5. Refinement

Immersion: Observation and Empathy

Through teacher chosen "epic" themes, students engage in developing questions to real world problems  based on their observations of the world around them--often observing experiences of others outside of their day to day experience.   The development of empathy occurs as students ponder the problem they have chosen to solve through the eyes of those that live it daily.  The themes are broad, yet allow teachers to consider and anticipate where the opportunity for curricular connections may exist.

Synthesis

Through the Synthesis process, students begin to see themes emerge as they brainstorm possibilities.  

More questions are often generated during this process allowing your students to bring their thinking together as it aligns with the overall theme.  The divergent Immersion process continues to create the messy business of learning as students further develop their understanding of the problem, leading them down the path of convergent thinking during the Synthesis process.

Ideation

This is the part of the process where convergent thinking begins to grow into real solutions, not just possibilities.  Student engagement is fully developed by this stage as students have shifted from the divergent thinking to solutions-based thinking.  Here's the problem...now solve it!  This is where the teaching and learning has formalized in the five step process.  

Prototyping

Students have made their observations and developed empathy through the Immersion process.  They generated ideas, shared them, and learned more about the issues relating to the problem through the Synthesis and Ideation process.  Now it is time to create a model to test the idea.  The Prototype phase is the part of the process where students realize that they are done talking about it.  It's time to do something about it.  Abstraction is transformed into action!

Refinement

As educators, we are constantly reflecting on our work.  This is a critical skill to develop in our students.  Refinement, the final step in the Design Thinking Process, is the point in which we turn the experience back to the student for reflection.  How did our solution meet the need?  How can we improve on our success and failed effort?  

Teachers that engage in this process report increased engagement and highly-motivated students.  Students are making choices about their learning as teachers let go of control of the learning process.   Ewan McIntosh writes and reflects on the process through his Design Thinking blog.

Stanford University's D.School

Ewan McIntosh is not the only resource on this topic.  Standford University School of Design is working with school districts throughout the country.  Their resources are deep!  For an overview of their model start here.  Still hungry for more?  Download the Stanford Design Thinking Workbook.


Have you used Design Thinking in your classroom?  Share your thoughts and experiences!