Inspiration at Teacher Induction

Below is the text of the speech I gave at the Teacher Induction Program for new teachers. 

This clip by Taylor Mali is one of my favorites. I watch it before the beginning of every school year and it helps focus me on the work that we do to support teachers in our district. Yesterday, you heard from the members of the business community about their strong support for Henry County Schools and for the teachers we have here. Over the course of the past two days, you have heard about the vision to ensure the success for each student. You have learned about your area of curriculum, you have learned about classroom management, and you have learned about the importance of being passionate and engaged in the work you do every day.


As Taylor Mali points out so poignantly in his poem, teachers have with them an incredible level of influence and power to craft the experiences of young people. The vast majority of our Tipsters this year are secondary school teachers. As middle and high school teachers, you have a special and noteworthy challenge in front of you. You may hear some naysayers talk about how kids at 7th or 11th grade are a lost cause because they have already become who they will be. I challenge that supposition and I challenge you to do so early and often. From my own personal experience, the teachers I had in high school are the ones that had the most impact on me because I can remember them challenging me and allowing me to challenge them back intellectually. They helped to push me to find a course through life that would eventually lead me to here. You still have the influence, the power to make or break a child’s spirit.

High School teachers are near to my heart. My wife is a high school teacher here in Henry County. She teaches freshmen at Ola High School and coaches cheer leading. Every day she reminds me that our focus must be on supporting teachers here at the central office. She reminds me of how the decisions we make here, in our role of support those in the classroom, truly impact the work of teachers. I need to tell you a bit about my wife. I think my wife is phenomenal teacher. Not just because she is my wife, but because she is known as one of the toughest teachers at Ola. Kids dread going into her class as freshmen, but all the parents know they should be there. But she’s not a great teacher just because she lesson plans a 9 weeks at a time, she’s not a great teacher because she is the most amazingly efficient and effective grader I have ever seen, (its rare a paper isn’t turned back to a student with comments and entered in the grade book within 24 hours.) She’s not a great teacher just because she pushes kids to do more than they think they are capable of. She is all of those things. But what strikes me each day when she comes home is the stories she tells of how she is worried that her tone of voice or rushed end to a class may have impacted a student negatively. Her attention to those small details exhibit how deeply she cares about those unintentional moments that can so easily be overlooked.

Its not always the intentional things we do that impact students and their ability to be successful. So often, in the course of the day or the course of a semester, it is the unintentional things that we do that make a huge difference to a student. From the time the shy student in your class raised her hand meekly and you didn’t call on her and she never raised her hand again because you didn’t want to hear what she had to say, to the time you responded sharply with sarcasm to an incorrect answer and made a student fear opening his mouth again. Unintentional consequences from mostly harmless actions.

But it cuts both ways. There are the good things that come out of unintentional actions. The time you ask the trouble maker in class to be responsible for clicker that controls your PowerPoint and it pulls him into your lessons for good or the time you use a sample of writing of a student anonymously to demonstrate excellence and that student decides to become an author. Unintentional consequences surround us every day as teachers. Be mindful of the power and influence you have over the minds and spirits you are charged with every day. You have the power to change lives for good or for evil.

Every summer, the administrators from across the district come together for a leadership retreat. This past summer, I told the administrators that we are at a great cross roads in education in Georgia.

With the AYP waiver and the new CCRPI being put in place, with the adoption of the CCGPS, with the implementation of the POINT in Henry County, and with the increased prevalence of technology and the opportunities that new technologies offer we are at a place of great opportunity. We have the opportunity to take hold of educating our kids in ways that are innovative, transformative, and revolutionary. We have an obligation to create a school experience profoundly different from our own experiences for the students that come to our schools on August 6th.

We are doing that with a multitude of programs in Henry County. This year, we are launching Impact Academy, a full time enrollment online program for 8th, 9th, and 10th graders that allows students to take most or all of their coursework online, yet still be a part of their home school for electives like band or FACS or play on the football team. It is program built on flexibility, accessibility and customization that still maintains a high level of rigor for the students.

Here in Henry County High School, we house the Academy for Advanced Studies where students engage in CTAE coursework, dual enrollment coursework with local universities, and where they work to get industry certification to be job ready upon graduation. Next year, we will open the Academy for Advance Studies as a Charter College and Career Academy that will allow all high school students the opportunity to enroll in these programs while maintaining their enrollment at their home school.

Here in Henry County, we have students who graduate from high school in four years and at the same time they received an associate’s degree through our dual enrollment and articulated coursework. They have two years of college paid for and completed as they walk across the stage to receive their high school diploma.

Here in Henry County Schools, we have nationally acclaimed ROTC teams, bands that have traveled the world to play for royalty, and Zell Miller Scholars receiving full ride scholarships to Georgia Tech. We are a district focused on ensuring success for each student and we take that charge seriously.

I shared yesterday that I left Henry County in 2003 to pursue my Master’s degree at Harvard University. Upon graduation, I had the opportunity and choice to go anywhere in the world to make use of that degree. I chose to come back to Henry county because of the school system and the belief that I had then and still hold today that this is a great place to teach and to learn because it continues to get better each day in every classroom. Each year we welcome new teachers to Henry county Schools through TIP and encourage them to make the most of each and every day they have with our students. This year you join the ranks of accomplished educators. As you step into your classroom this year,

I charge you with becoming the best teacher you know. I encourage you to own the title of teacher. I dare you to sculpt your classroom in the image of success and excellence that every child in Henry County deserves. Finally, I challenge you to be miracle worker everyday.

Educators are afraid of BYOD because they don't do it themselves

Recently, Cobb County's BYOD inititative made it into the AJC Get Schooled Blog moderated by Maureen Downey.   The interesting part of the article wasn't the push in Cobb, which isn't new in the metro Atlanta area as Forsyth, Henry, and several others have similar initiatives, but rather the back lash that you read in the comments to the posting.  The view overwhelmingly is that technology in the hands of kids will distract them and make it so they can't/won't learn in school.  It makes me wonder whether that view comes from one of ignorance about what smartphones can do and how kids are comfortable using a phone or a tablet for work and play or whether it arises from a less conscious fear of becoming irrelevant.   Ultimately, I think it is a lot of both. 
I think the first part is really a lack of knowledge and experience with technology and that creates fear for educators.   Can kids text each other answers and tweet about class?  Yes.  Are they already doing it? Most certainly, you just don't know about it because you aren't following any of your students.  (some of you are lost with what the idea of "following" is and that highlights deeper issues.)  Will kids use Facebook as a place to say mean things to others?  Yes, they already are doing so, just like they are saying mean things in the cafeteria or the hallway.  But, kids are also using Twitter and Facebook as places to share and collaborate on difficult homework problems they don't know how to do on their own. They are using microblogging and global publishing sites to put their essays, stories, and other writings out in the public domain for more than their teacher to read and critique.  They are studying together, sharing ideas together, and building their own personal learning networks (PLNs) without the guidance and support of educators who could make that work and experience so much richer if they engaged in it.

Not only do schools need to allow and encourage BYOD initiatives, but the need to use and leverage mobile technologies in ways that support the educational goals and standards we want kids to meet in the Common Core and in life.    Over and over again, business leaders tell school leaders that prospective employees need to be innovative, need to be problem solvers, and need to be able to communicate effectively via written communication. (email,etc.)  Mobile technologies offer a way for schools to harness the power of a device in every student's hand and to do it at minimal cost to the district. 

However, the technologies used must have a purpose in schools and in the lessons teachers craft.  Teachers must consider using services like Poll Everywhere to create formative assessment feeds that inform their next steps in direct instruction in the classroom. They must ask students to do work that can't just be looked up on Google or Wikipedia.  Teachers must become aware of Twitter and PLNs and Instagram and the thousands of websites kids access everyday.  Instead of blocking out of fear, we need to learn how to use it ourselves so that we can teach kids the best ways to use technologies for productive learning.  YouTube can offer thousands of videos to help learn how to do any number of activities and it offers hours of inspirational speeches and lectures.   But right next to the TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson on creativity in schools there can be a link to a dancing flamingo.  We must teach students how to wade through the millions of bits of information now at their fingertips and to make decisions about what is meaningful and important and supportive of learning.  By blocking technology, by not engaging in it with them, we only teach them that there is a world out there that adults don't want you to see.  As a teenager, that means there must be bad stuff and I got to get to it. 

I strongly encourage you to get a Twitter account, if you don't have one and begin to follow educators around the world to learn how they are using technology effectively.  Begin by connecting with someone you know and by looking at #edchat or #cpchat.  Jump into the world your students are already engaged in and begin to change the way you integrate tech into your life.