Passion

I have been thinking a lot this past year about what makes a good teacher.  For the first time in my career, I have been in the position where I am evaluating a teacher based on a year's worth of work.  It is something that I think is still very difficult to define.  Sure you can set rubrics of dos and don'ts and see if the teacher is implementing best practices.  I have seen teachers though who do everything right and yet their students still do not learn.  I have also seen teachers who approach instruction differently and they are very successful.  When I walk into a classroom, within minutes, I can tell whether a teacher does their job well or not.  It is hard to describe.  How do you measure engagement, excitement, energy, passion?  How do you truly measure learning?  These are all things I have been grappling with this year. 

I think the thing I took away from all this is that there is not a magic recipe to making a great teacher.  Sure there are basic principles that most good teachers follow.  There is not a prescription however.  Good teachers are constantly doing things differently.  What does make a good teacher however is how passionately they approach their work.  Kids are smart and extremely perceptive.  They know when their teacher cares about them.  They can tell when teaching is more than just a job to that teacher.  They can also tell when a teacher has given up or is just trying to make it through the end of the school day.  When the teacher gives up, many times the students do as well. 

I guess the point I am trying to make is to be a Superhero teacher, you have to teach with passion.  I was watching a show about the band Imagine Dragons and a quote from the lead singer Dan Reynolds stuck with me.  He said a piece of advice he was given at one point was that if he was to do music, he couldn't do it just because he wanted to do music.  He had to do it because he had to do music.  There is power in that.  To him music had to be his calling in life.  It couldn't be just hobby or a fun job that he wanted to do.  He needed to approach his music with passion.  I feel the same way about teaching.  There are very few professions where you make a lifelong impact everyday you go to work.  There is a huge responsibility in that and if you are not invested in it, it will show in your work.  The kids will know.  One of the things I am constantly thinking is that as a teacher, you will be remembered forever.  What do you want the students to remember about you? 

What is a teacher?

I know I haven't posted in a while so there are a lot of different things that I have been thinking about over the last few months.  Since I last posted, I have graduated with my Master's degree, finished the school year, started summer work on curriculum and other administrative items, presented at TEPSA about 21st Century Learning and Social and Emotional Learning among other things.  All this change has given time to reflect on what I am doing and why I am doing it.  It has given me the opportunity to reset and recalibrate my educational expectations.

About a month ago I was having a conversation with my wife (or complaining to her would be more accurate) about how as an administrator, I sometimes am not seen as a teacher anymore.  Her response was something like, "well you aren't a teacher anymore."  I got rather defensive when she said this.  Of course I am a teacher.  I may not have my own classroom and students, but that doesn't mean I stopped being a teacher.  My response to her was, "The day I stop being a teacher, is the day I should stop being an administrator."  I mean that too.  One of the problems I feel a lot of school have is that the leadership, whether it is campus leadership or central office, at some point along the way stop being teachers.  They start to view their role as something else, something loosely connected to education.  My first and most important responsibility is ensure that students learn.  That is the job of a teacher.  If I am not doing that as an administrator, then I don't believe I am doing my job.

So I am interested in other people's thoughts.  What is a teacher?  How should we define that?  Where do campus leaders fit in that discussion?

Campus Innovation

As part of my work for my graduate program at the University of Texas, I was tasked to do a Participatory Action Research project.  My project this year was to try and create an environment for ongoing professional learning on campus.  To do this, my principal Kelly Mullin and I created an Innovation Challenge to pose to our teachers.  This last week, our teachers had the opportunity to share which each other what they had learned throughout the school year.

To give you some context, what we sought out to do was to intentionally give the teachers time for self directed professional learning throughout the school year.  Once a week, we asked our teachers to put their planning on hold spend 45 minutes of their planning time on professional learning.  The teachers could pick a topic in an area that interested them, and on a topic that would help them become more effective teachers.  We also challenged the teachers to be innovative and connect their learning to the 6 C's of 21st Century Learning: Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking, Creativity, Cooperation, and Caring.  Teachers were also asked to complete two peer observations a month where they observed another teacher on campus to get new ideas. 

Last Friday was so exciting because we were able to see how the Innovation Challenge impacted the instruction on campus.  It was fun to see our teachers gathered around tables in our University Classroom on campus sharing their ideas from using Pinterest to supplement literacy interventions to Project Based Learning in Math.  Teachers started posting to their blogs like this one. http://blogs.utexas.edu/utes_socialstudies/

As we started this project, I was afraid that the teachers were not going to catch the vision and make the Innovation Challenge meaningful.  It is hard to find time as a teacher to dedicate to your own professional learning.  I saw that challenge.  Our teachers have many demands on their time.  I could see though the difference it made in the ones that put the effort to finding new ways to improve their instruction.  There was a different feel in their classrooms toward the end of the year than there was in the beginning.  I was very pleased and excited to hear how they began to crave time to collaborate with their colleagues.  This process has helped me become a believer in the power of self directed professional learning.  Thank you UT Elementary teachers and staff for making this such a humbling experience for me.

What does the Dad say?

A couple of days ago, my 4 year old son was coming up with a song (like he is known to do).  This day the tune was a spin off of What does the Fox Say.  He decided to substitute the word fox for the different members of the family.  He started with the baby and said "waaa", then himself saying "I love Star Wars", then to his mother who apparently says, "clean up you toys".  When he got to what does the dad say it was, "I'm too busy."  When I heard this I felt crushed.  I feel like I work hard to make him and my family a priority in my life.  I can see though where I get caught up in my own world at times. 

One of our professors in the UT Principalship Program, Dr. Nelson Coulter, started his class with us by having us write out the 4 most important things that we want people to remember from our lives.  He then told us to make sure those were front and center in everything we do.  (For more of this teaching, see Dr. Coulter's blog post http://www.nelsonwcoulter.com/2014/04/cluttered.html?spref=fb)  As I have worked throughout my first year as an Assistant Principal and in my final year of my Master's program, I think I have let that get away from me at times.  I am grateful to my 4 year old son for the subtle yet powerful reminder that no other success in life can compensate for failure in the home.

Teachers, as you look to teach like a superhero, make a list of the things that matter most, those things for which you would like to be remembered as a teacher.  If your students were making a song about you, how would they finish the sentence, What does my teacher say?

Stuck on an Escalator?

I have been thinking a lot over the past few months about how we can think about education differently and be more innovative in our teaching.  When I think about how we sometimes approach our job and life in general it reminds me the video below.

 

 

How often do we get stuck in rut where we continue to look at things the same way.  Do we get stuck on an escalator?  Do we get stuck looking at only one way of approaching various situations?  How can we better problem solve the issues that we inevitably face? 

 

 

At UT Elementary School, we are challenging our teachers to devote one day of instructional planning time a week to researching and learning about something that they feel passionately about.  The only requirement is that it has to help them become a more effective teacher.  They should learn about aspects of their instruction that they would like to improve and find ways to be creative and innovative in making it happen in their classrooms.  At the end of the year, the teachers will share what they have learned with their PLC groups.  As we begin to devote time to becoming innovative and creative, hopefully we can begin to find ways to get off the escalator and move forward with our students.

Teacher Burnout

Can you feel it teachers?  October has hit, and the stress levels are definitely on a different level.  The novelty of the school year you the teacher are long gone for most students.  Meetings, curriculum, grades, parent conferences, report cards, etc. are piling up.  It is easy to start feeling like you need to do more, you aren't measuring up to what you need to do, or that it is just too hard.  Right at this time of year, it is common for teachers to start to feel overwhelmed and, well, DONE!  Past done! Burnt!  I offer 3 suggestions to all teachers who are starting to feel the weight of October bearing down on them.

1. Invest time every week in meaningful hobby.  It is easy as a teacher to come home exhausted from a long day of work and just want to lay down and go to sleep.  It is important though to have a release from the worries that you carry with you from the classroom.  Some good hobbies are things like: exercise, reading (non educational reading), golf, video games, music, whatever helps you relax.  For me I set the goal that I will spend time on one of my non educational hobbies at least 3 times a week.  It helps keep me relaxed and alleviates a lot of my worry.

2. Focus on developing a strong home, work balance.  I was recently watching "Freedom Writers" for the first time, and while there were a lot of things I liked about the movie, there was one major problem that I had with the movie.  At one point, the husband of the main character leaves her because she didn't have time to work on her relationship with him because she spent all of her time either working with her students or working part time jobs to raise money for her students.  The movie made the husband out to be a villain since he couldn't handle the lack of balance in her life.  The problem I have with this is it perpetuates this mentality that in order to be a good teacher, you have be willing to devote everything to your profession.  This teacher is held up as the example or model of what a teacher who really cares about his or her students should look like.  You devote your entire life to your profession.  The problem with that is it isn't sustainable nor is it healthy.  It might work for a couple of years, but soon, teachers will reach a point where they are too tired.  Having a quality home, life balance will help keep the stress levels in a manageable range.  Family members often provide the support and understanding that few others can give.  To keep a balanced family life, teachers should, set a time limit on how late they will stay everyday.  Even if the lesson plans aren't quite finished or those tests aren't completely graded, setting a time limit on your work makes sure that you get home in a reasonable time so you can be with your family.  Another suggestion is to devote one night a week to exclusively spend time with your family in the evening.  Setting scheduled times to devote time to family keeps it a priority in an already busy life. 

3.  Structure your day to use your time more efficiently while you are at work.  Time management strategies can alleviate much of the stress that teachers begin to feel starting in October.  As teachers make the most of their time during the work day, stressing over unfinished projects or finishing grading papers at home instead of spending time with friends and family can be avoided as teachers structure their planning and preparation time to maximize the work done with the time they have.  There are various time management tools to help structure what needs done.  My personal favorite is using my Outlook Calendar and keeping a list of projects in Outlook where I can order them by the most important to the least important.  This helps me focus on what are the highest priorities on my to do list and what projects I can wait to do a little later.  Spending time on the most important things, keeps everything running as it should.

By dealing with the stress of school year, it is important for teachers to remember that not only will they live a happier life by achieving a better balance, but they will also be better teachers.  When you have your personal life in order, you are more able to focus on your students while you are on the job instead of feeling that you are inadequate in other areas.  You will also have the continued energy to keep going throughout your career.  It has been said that it takes a lifetime to master the art of teaching.  If we are working so hard and focusing so much on our teaching that we can only do it for 3 years until we are burnt out, teachers will never have the time even begin master teaching or education.  By working harder on keeping a balanced life, we can keep good teachers in teaching and continue to provide high quality instruction to our students.

Grit, Discipline and Grades

I posted a couple of weeks ago about the importance of students learning to not give up and develop a sense of stickwithitness in order for them to be successful not only in school but also in their professional lives or college.  In reading from Paul Tough's book How Children Succeed and from the work of psychologist Angela Duckworth, some of the traits that have made students successful in school and beyond have been identified.  Angela Duckworth identified the leading trait for success as Grit.  She argues that for students to be successful, they must develop the character trait of grit, of being able to stick with something even when it is hard or unpleasant.  Looking at some of the most successful people in history, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, they all possessed a high level of grit.  They didn't give up even in the face of multiple failures.  We need to help our students develop this grit, this attitude of not giving up no matter what. 

The second part of this post goes along with this idea of grit.  Students in order to be successful much also have discipline.  When I say discipline, I am not talking about what I do with students who are in trouble all day as an Assistant Principal.  I am referencing more to the self control that one needs to develop.  I think of a successful football team and how they play with discipline.  I am not an Alabama football fan, but it is no surprise that Nick Saban's football teams have won 3 out of the last 4 national titles.  His team doesn't make mistakes.  They play disciplined football.  They don't miss assignments or try to make the flashy play.  They do the small and simple things that they need to win.  They play disciplined football.  In order for our students to be successful, they must demonstrate the same level of discipline.  They must be able to work through difficult situation and demonstrate self control.  In Tough's book, Duckworth mentions in her research a study from the 60's called the Marshmallow Experiment.  The Marshmallow Experiment is a research experiment in which researchers put small children through a challenge.  The kids were given a marshmallow but told if they could wait and not eat the marshmallow for 15 minutes, they would be given two marshmallows.  There were some kids that waited and some who didn't.  The research became interesting in that years later, as the researchers followed up with the kids years later, those kids who were able to wait for the second marshmallow in general made higher salaries, graduated from college more quickly, and had better family relationships.  Self Control and Discipline proved to be a key component to being successful not only in school but in life. 

Because of this, I think that character education is very important.  Schools cannot simply teach content and students have to learn more that Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.  If we are to teach life superheroes and prepare our students to be successful in life, they must learn certain character traits that will set them up for success.  Which bring me to my final point.  Grades. I know that in many circumstances, grading policies are not necessarily the most accurate assessment of student learning or student mastery of content.  The interesting thing, however, is grades are the number 1 indicator of how likely a student is to graduate college or not.  SAT and ACT scores are traditionally viewed as more important by universities for admissions and scholarships, but GPA is a far more accurate indicator of student success in college. Why is that?  If ACT and SAT theoretically measure student mastery of content more accurately that GPA which is subjective to the schools and teachers the students have, why is GPA more accurate in assessing student success in colleges?  What do grades measure if they are not measuring learning?  For students to get successful grades, they do not need to have great mastery of the content in many circumstances.  It does however require high levels of grit and self control.  So while I think our grading policies can be changed to better reflect how effectively students are learning content, there is something to be said for students who are disciplined enough to stick with something and not accept anything but a high grade.  I know that this is kind of an old school attitude toward education, but there is something to be said for kids who are willing to stick with difficult tasks and not accept anything less that excellence in their work.  The challenge is for us as educators to teach these important traits to our students beginning at a young age.  It has to be about more than just content.