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.

Imp@ct

There is exciting work being done in our district.  We have just announced the launch of Imp@ct Academy .  This is our version of a full time virtual learning program.  With this first foray into full time enrollment online learning, our district is poised to meet the individual needs of a large segment of disruptive innovators.   We have decided that our best option that meets the needs of most kids is provide the opportunity to live in a blended world where students can take part in their education and academics online while still being "allowed" to be full time students at their home school.  Through Imp@ct Academy, students enroll in those classes that they want to meet core requirements, electives, and other academic requirements.  This isn't new and their are numerous examples of online academies throughout the state and nationwide.  Imp@ct is unique in that we make it a program of choice and not a stand alone charter or virtual school.  That allows students to participate in extracurriculars, athletics, and even some choice face to face instruction while taking the majority of their classload online.  It is really about giving students and parents the opportunity to begin to tailor their instructional journey to their needs and desires.  Bundling Imp@ct with the Academy for Advanced Studies and what it will become over the next two years means that students in Henry County now have the option to learn in the ways that work best for them, while taking a rigorous course load that will prepare them for college and careers.  It a break through for public schools to be flexible, creative, and customizable.

We are blending F2F options with online options and allowing students to change the game for themselves.  Now, you can play soccer at your home school, take 4 core courses online, take band at school, and then head over to the Academy for Advanced Studies to complete your pathway for culinary arts.  Its an open campus model, a customizable educational model, a way to make learning work for kids and it is the right work.
It is so exciting to be in the midst of this game changing work where we design systems and programs that allow students' needs to be met utilizing technology, creativity, and a devotion that learning is the constant. 

Articulation

For the past 8 months, I have been involved in an amazing educational experiment where we through the use of edge technology, we have attempted to bring to scale high power instruction throughout our school.  I have been tinkering around the edges of school improvement (thanks to Larry Cuban) as a middle school principal for the past seven years.  We have tried all the traditional changes including schedule changes, teaming teacher differently, working through using coaches to improve instruction, and looking at the design of the school.  Throughout all the tinkering, our focus more or less focused on ensuring there was good standards based instruction in the classrooms. We developed walkthroughs, did professional learning targeting areas that arose from observations and needs inventories.  We looked at the PLC work and tried to take those parts of it that we liked. We tried to do Understanding by Design and took the parts that we like. We set a mission and vision and belief statements.  Those have been consistent for us throughout the last five years and they all focused on mastery learning and our ambiguous definition of what that meant. We even put in place a pretty aggressive push for blended learning in all classrooms without any funding, without one to one computing, without a wireless environment, and without a significant amount of training on what is good instruction online and what isn't.  Through it all, we did have one primary focus.  We were going to teach kids from bell to bell everyday and we were going to do with an opening, a mini-lesson, student work time, and a closing.  That expectation stayed throughout all the other initiatives that we played with.  Then, along comes the opportunity to put some real structure and framing and consistency to the instructional design that ensured that there was tight task structure, that worked to decrease the cognitive load on my teachers, and that created changes to the instructional program that were proximal to students. 

The project required us, as a cohort of volunteers and then as an entire school, to adopt a common lexicon.  This shared language allowed us to talk about instruction using the same understanding about the work before us, but not making any assumptions. We hashed out our meaning as a school for what the lexicon truly meant.  We agreed upon a task structure that was organized and tight and had common components that John Hattie and Bob Marzano have proven in meta-analysis after meta-analysis are high power strategies that make kids learn. Basically, we created a common schema around what we must accept as the tenets of good instruction and then the edge technology we use helps ensure that we do those parts in every lesson we engage students in doing.  Its only take 8 months to do some really great work with our teachers.  I have changed my views on blended learning and believe that its more about how we are using technology to help support individualized instruction for our students.

Starting another school year...

In a two weeks, teachers will be back at school doing all the regular getting ready for Open House and the first day things that we do before welcoming students on August 1.  For the past three years, we have been attempting to create a blended learning environment for our students.  We have pushed our teachers beyond their limits of creativity, technological savvy, and willingness to work with dated machines and a lack of training and knowledge.  And they have risen to the challenge.  They have created meaningful work for students in our LMS, they have learned to manage it well, and they have learned that there is power to using software that promotes and supports learning beyond the school day.  They have also learned that limited resources truly limits what can be accomplished. 

I have lamented on this blog before, how difficult it has been to implemented our version of a blended learning school when we have 60 laptops (20 of which don't really work and another 10 that are missing so many keys that they might as well not work) and one computer lab for teachers to show kids how to gain access to the LMS, what the work is, what it looks and feels like, and maybe even to do work on.  It has been a mighty struggle to personalize education and to harness the power of an LMS and coursework and instruction that is digital and automated when kids can't get to it.  Its been even more of a struggle trying to turn my dedicated teachers into developers.  Our district doesn't have the funds to buy hardware and they surely don't have the funds or the will to buy content for our online course work beyond a great math intervention tool that is purchased for our special education students.

There is high hopes that we will be able to do more as the special purpose local option sales tax is floated to the community in November that we will raise the money to outfit schools with the basics needed to really start to fly.  But, we aren't there yet. 

As I watch the two symposia responsibility for assessment under RT3 and I watch our state DOE develop evaluation systems based on survey data and value added growth assessments and I watch the cheating scandal in Atlanta unfold, I am struck that technology could really provide efficient and effective tools to combat some of the logistical problems associated with all of those items.  The discussions and cultural shifts that go along with the logistical issues are clearly leadership challenges that will push our ability to understand adult learning theory and change theory.  But, many of the solutions that technology answers require their to be end user devices in the hands of the students and teachers.  It requires their to be bandwidth to give students with those devices to access the Internet and the web-based tools they need to do the productive work of learning. 

We have a fairly well off district.  We are not considered poor, although we are inching our way in that direction as the housing boom continues to send after-shocks from the fall out.  We are better off than most in the State of Georgia.  We have been good stewards of our dollars.  There are one hundred other districts in Georgia in a similar or worse position.  There are countless districts around the country who may have the will, but not the way to adopt technology tools that could really disrupt and innovate. 

I am waiting for it....

The movement... thoughts on the National Charter Schools Conference.

Just finished with the general session on Day 2 of NCSC 2011 and feel definitely inspired by the key notes.  Marian Wright Edelman and Doug Hense spoke eloquently, passionately, and intelligently about the role we play as educators in making the lives of children better.  I was struck by the references to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and how the promises of Dr. King and the Freedom Riders are still there as promises and not so much as realities for so many American children. Although we have made great strides in opening schools to all children, in providing more equitable access to educational resources to all children, and to opening doors of opportunity, we have not done a satisfactory job of pushing the beliefs into children's minds that they must do better.

Its challenging to think of educators and schools where the belief is that only some kids will achieve.  Its frustrating to believe that the view of so many who are so influential in the lives of students is that there are winners and losers in the game of life.  I see so many that believe that motivation is the key to success and that kids are not motivated and that is where their failure is rooted.  But, they don't ask the questions or worse yet, only rhetorically ask, why are the kids not motivated.  Edelman told the story of a 12 year old black male student she spoke with in the DC schools in the days just after Dr. King's assassination who she was imploring to not but his future at risk and go out and loot and riot and get arrested.  He looked in her eyes and said, "But, I ain't got no future, I have nothing to lose."  He saw no reason to get an education, no reason to push through what could be the challenges of reading, math or history because the promise of segregation and walls he had no control over were all he saw.  Today, those walls of law and tradition have been torn down, but the image of students still creating those walls in their minds persists.

Our role as leaders of schools, whether it is a grass roots charter in downtown Atlanta or a traditional school in the suburbs or a "failing" school in any city is to provide BOTH the motivation and the path by which kids can be successful.  Schools must be a refuge for strength, sanity, routine, and success in the lives of so many kids that experience the opposite outside of schools.  Schools and educators must be the influences that push kids to be more than they want to be. 

There are many paths to success for schools.  Best practices of good instruction breed success which breeds pride which breeds high expectations for students.  Poor practices breed failure which breed excuses which lead to low expectations.  The behaviors of successful schools and students create the mindsets of success.  That is what you see in good private schools, good charter schools, good traditional schools.  That is what is scalable and possible.

20 minutes to boot up and Icloud...

We have this old computer, by old I mean nearly 10 years,  that sits upstairs in the office that we rarely use now that we have wifi and laptops.  This old e-machine takes 20 minutes to load because I haven't run anti-virus on it in 2 years as it only gets booted up when we find a song we thought we had purchased through Itunes is saved on it or if there is a document we neglected to transfer when backing it up to thumb drives. 

Last night, I had to boot it up because my wife got a new Iphone 4 for her birthday and her original Iphone information is synced to the old geezer machine.  So I trudge up there, bringing the modem and wifi router with me that is normally downstairs to provide better coverage in the parts of the house we use. Of course, the desktops have no wireless so I have to hard wire it into the modem to be able to get to Itunes to be able to make sure that the sync is done correctly on the old phone so we don't lose anything.

As I am waiting for the machine to boot up, I start reading on my lap top about iCloud and I get really excited that all this syncing to the old geezer may be a thing of the past.  As I am reading about it, I am syncing the old Iphone 3 that is now my son's Ipod Touch with my new laptop and I have my Iphone next to me and my work BlackBerry next to that.  So there I am with 4 smartphones, a lap top and two desk top computers and I realize that maybe I need a break.

Not that iCloud is the best thing ever, but it did all the sudden allow us to sync my wife's new Iphone 4 without having to plug it into a computer. We got her music, her contacts, her videos, and her apps without any hassle.  The pictures haven't worked yet, but it was a blessing.  I got to boot down old Bessie and maybe never have to boot her up again.  It will be said to say goodbye to the machine that built so many memories with digital pics of my sons first 2 years and our first 4 years of marriage, but I won't miss the 20 minutes it takes to get to them.

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there...