Sometimes a GTA video, is more than just a GTA video. An open letter to my friends.

October has been a nightmare of busy for me, and not in a "I have a lot on my plate" sort of way, but a "Holy cow, for the first time in my life I have real, legit, can't sleep at night, stress in my life".  I was preparing for submitting my application on Thursday only to discover late Monday night that it was due in 2 hours and I had not yet started the video above.

I quickly scrapped whatever ideas had been cooking in my head and decided to go with what you see above.  It was almost effortless, as between twitter, and G+, I had built a massive account of people being there for me, in ways large and small, when I need them.  Watching the video now (though it does not capture it) I am so thankful for the recorded story that has been my use of social networks to problem solve over the past year. Before last summer,  I had never been into this stuff, so to reflect back on how essential things like Google Plus communities, Twitter, Google Hangouts, et al have become in my professional life are exceptional.

It could have been a 10 min video, full of strangers spending time, helping me...and then me, spending time, helping strangers.  Had I had more time (1 minute is really short) I would have added the following.

1.  Sometimes the best place to find oneself is when we are stretched beyond the limits of our own capability, and we are forced to look for solutions, support elsewhere...this is really important for "hard workers" more here #lovingthisbookrightnow

2.  People with sincere questions are just as important (or more so) as people with knowledge and answers.  The helpers out there are active, and people with questions, inspire, drive, and even help them learn.  So please, everyone.  Ask questions, lots and lots of questions.

3.  The habit of seeking help FIRST (and not waiting until one is out of options), leads to a cultivated skill of seeking help.  And people who are really really good at seeking help, are often the most valuable (though rarely most valued) part of the organizations they quietly contribute to.

Thank you to everyone who has ever responded to a G+ community post, spotlight on ChromebookEDU, Gorilla Learning, and Google Apps for Education 

Thank you to the contributing members to twitter chats I frequent, spotlight on #caedchat #norcalchat #kyedchat #sbgchat #tnedchat #napaedchat

Thank you to the people I work close with specifically in the hard working leaders around the North Bay CUE area that I constantly ping with request for GHO's, plan #pdparties, and in all ways lend their time for things that matter.  #Ithinkyou'regreat

This was a fun one,

Cheers

Pre=Adolescent Weight Lifting

Becoming a Genius in…. Share a general topic or idea worth learning about.

Weight lifting for young kids

Why I’m curious about   List any details about yourself that help us understand your interest in the topic

I have a 5 year old that is very into sports, mostly golf and bowling and soccer...at what age should he start doing some kind of training if he wants to stay competative..

Questions worth Asking: Spend 2minutes asking as many questions as possible about this topic/idea.  If you get stuck try improveing a question you already thought of to make it stronger, more challenging, more searchable, less obvious...etc.

is lifting bad for young kids or good?

what kind of weight lifting routines are good for kids

what kind of routines are bad for kids

what happens physiologically when young kids work out

What kind of research exsist for young kids that work out….and how it affects them later in life?

Notes on Learning Please include links to website where you found information

pre-mature bone fusion (epiphyseal fusion), and, as a result, irreversibly stunt growth.  What is this? According to both the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), prepubescent children can safely engage in resistance training, with certain limitations. These bodies have issued guidelines on childhood strength training. American College of Sports Medicine:  suitible to use weights that include the body mass as a source of resistance.  7 or 8 free weights.  Research shows that growth plate injuries do not occur when basic guidelines are followed. Allow at least one day of rest all muscle groups with full range of motion, 15 reps, no heavy lifting and specilized lifts This is a good article that lists myths and facts associated with youth lifting Solid article by Australia government agency on sports

Summarize What you Discovered write in paragraph format...5 of you will be picked to present so it should be a narrative format.

Assess your research

My Focus During Research Time

1	2	3	4
I was texting, looking around at random stuff online, etc. Spent very little actual time on my questions. wasted the majority of my time be distracted by one thing or the other.	I was generally researching, though not really focused on the topic.  Mostly reading stuff, looking at pictures, videos that were not really helpful.  I was often distracted by stuff online or the web, or Messaging people. I needed to be reminded by others (students or teachers) to focus on my work.	I was focused on my questions throughout the period.   I persued multiple questions or found multilpe sources for complex questions. I often recorded evidence/information from my research as I went I occasionally got distracted though was able to refocus quickly without anyone reminding me	Focused on questions throughout the period. I recorded new questions on the doc as they came up. I consistently recorded evidence from my research as I went. I had my phone away and was not distracted by it or random stuff online.

Overall letter grade below with explanation  (not just the research focus by also the quality of all parts of today’s Genius Hour,

Andrew Jackson, The Blink of an Eye, and the Power of Going Blind

For Andrew and Matt.  Where ever you two are, if you ever find yourself wonder why you havn't changed the world yet, remember that you already have.  

Prologue:  It's funny when we realize that the things we have worked so hard to become experts at, leave us with weakspots that are obvious to a novice.


Act 1:  The Ballad of Andrew Jackson,

Andrew was my archetype "idea student", B to B+ student who knows what it is like to "not get things"  that also is good with others.  I cherish these students as I can strategically put them with Marginal C students that after spending time with Andrew, suddenly make connections that can sustain them through the rest of the course.

One day while Andrew was hanging out with his girlfriend in my classroom, helping her with physics (of course he was) a student walked in and asked me, "What class should I take next year, Chemistry or Physics?".  After warning her that she was asking the physics teacher she followed up with, "I heard their is a lot of math".  I stopped her and suggest she ask a student...We directed the question to Andrew and I added the additional prompt.  "How did you do in Algebra, Andrew?"  To which he responded,  "I failed it twice, before I Aced it last summer".

I was shocked.  My favorite helper, an expert at explaining the math portion of the class, was a "bad math student".  How was this possible?  How glad was I that I didn't know this before I realized how valuable he was.  What if I had treated him like a "bad math student" before he got the chance to reveal himself as a resource?

Act 2:  The Blink of an Eye.  

I was hired by a near by district to co-teach a physics course one period a day.  The teacher that I would be teaching with (that I adore) mentioned to me in the spring that she had 4 students taken out of the course because she had them in chemistry and they were "lazy", "didn't try" or "couldn't do it".  To which I told her, we need to put all 4 of these students back.   What grace I have been provided kept me from seeing the list of students that had been taken out of the class and reinstated.

She also started to tell me which of the students in our course had the potential to achieve at a high level.  It was with the memory of Andrew Jackson that suddenly got it...slow, and nearly too late...I looked away from the class list and simply said.  "I don't wanna know anything about any of them.  Good or Bad..."

In the blink of an eye, I preserved the beauty of knowing nothing about the group that I was to call my own for the next 10 months.

Act 3:  The Power of Going Blind.

Three weeks have passed and I am slowly getting to know my students in that "I'm a secondary teacher and I only spent 56min a day with these kids" sort of way.  I have discovered some early favorites, and pleasantly surprised by the positive contributions of kids that initially showed the lame attitude that high school students occasionally adopt.  I still caught myself wondering...who are the 4?  I was pretty sure I knew, I mean...seriously?...the weaker students deficiencies are revealed pretty quick.

And then back to school night happened...

While greeting people at the door the parents of one of my students said "We are Connors parents...we think you let him in out of pity".  I didn't get it at first.  Pity?...Oh wait...they meant to say that HE was one of the four.  Connor.  the charming capable kid that is super engaged with all the weird self directed stuff we have been doing.  Came in before class to ask me if he could start an astronomy club if he promised to do all the paper work.  The kid who decided to work on "number of planets in the universe capable of sustaining life" during our initial approach to Genius Hour.  THIS was the kid that was almost left out...because he couldn't do it or was lazy?!!

I was shocked, saddened, angry, and eternally thankful all at the same time.  The power of living blind was at work again as Andrew Jackson, yet again, found his way back into my classroom.

Epilogue:  Biases, Prejudice, and Remembering What it Means to be Human.

If there is one thing Phillip Zambardo and the Stanford Prison Project taught us it's that its not the outliers that are dangerous.  Those capable of extreme evil, bias, and prejudice in an extreme way.  Its the circumstances that draw our the natural capacity within us all for these negative traits.  The places and situations that turn us all into "bad apples".

Had I spent a year with these kids and somehow gotten off on the wrong foot, it would have been very hard for me to cheerfully welcome them back into my room for another year of predictable struggle.

We are human with brains that constantly work to make sense, sort, and organize all of the data we regularly take in.  We cannot escape the patterns we have encountered in the past.   If I learn that a certain type of student, from a certain type of background, that looks or acts a certain way.  I am going to be drawn to the conclusions that my own experiences have told me are true.

So I have to engineer ways to go blind.

Be it ignoring the behavioral history of SIS files, having students write their names upside down on the bottom of homework assignments and tests,  or finding ways to make work anonymous, I have to fight my own ability to avoid biases formed from my past history that comes with becoming an expert.

The stories I told are all true and left a significant impact.  However the knife that cuts the deepest in my pride of a caring expert is this.  I had students work in pairs on a practice test.  Anonymously.  On a Google Doc.  When I realized I had no clue who I was giving feedback to...I realized often in the past I relied on my own view of the student when grading assignments.  Please try this.  It was both fun, hurt a little, and was entirely worth it.


Cheers.

Innovation and How Little it Matters. #LeadershipDay14

Prologue:  The Next Big Thing

I love this commercial.  It's funny, surprising, and it is well written.  However the reason that I played it during a recent keynote is because it demonstrates a business model of idea generation that has no place in 21st century education and this blog post is a play in three acts that explains exactly what I mean by that.  Enjoy.

Act I:  Once Upon a Time...

...in education, new ideas were hard and having innovators mattered.  Organizations were by in large bound by the quality of the ideas that came from within.  It would not be uncommon to hear a teacher say something like "Ya, we do PLCs, but I'm the only ________ (insert random course/grade level/role) teacher at my school".  Even if a school or district had innovative teachers and leaders, the isolating nature of education often kept those ideas on a short leash.  

In the same way it can be hard to see the forest through the trees of one's everyday life, the end game of this scenario is that an individuals capacity to be creative at work was once bound by the ideas that they could generate themselves or were exposed to by others in close proximity.  This lead to over valuing "creative" educators as loosely modeled by Seth Rogan and Paul Rudd.  

Act II:  The Problem with Innovators...

...is that they are hard.  Hard to understand why they are innovative, what makes them that way, what are the conditions that drive it, etc.  Sometimes people are innovative because of the organizations, systems, and environments support it.  Other people are innovative because their organizations, systems, and environments are so unhealthy it becomes a necessity.  What is certain is that it is almost impossible to know you are sitting across from one at an interview table no matter how carefully one crafts their questions and works to gauge responses.  The final note to this idea of coveting innovators is that it is a behavior that is very hard to make systemic because by in large most people don't see themselves as "creative"....more on that later.  

Act III:  It's a Good Thing None of this Matters Any More.

In 1965 Ford released the Mustang, sold 22,000 units the first day and shattered annual sales records for the industry at over 400,000 cars.  It was amazing...and other companies noticed.  The years that followed saw the release of the Chevy Camero, Pontiac Firebird, Dodge Charger and countless other "muscle cars" in the style of the Ford Mustang.  Guess what?...they all did really well and two of those three copy cats continue to be the lead model for that makers class of car almost 50 years later.  Unlike market economies, all the arrows point in the right direction in education.  Had the "1965 mustang", been a "2014 classroom innovation", the designers from Ford would have called the designers at Chevy and let them know what they were up to and asked them for help.  We are not trying to outsell each other.  

The point is that now that sharing is easy, we don't have to sweat any more for good ideas.  Social networks, the web, blogs, even email are all operating systems that allow for the fast exchange of ideas that break down the innovation-value paradigm have put skills like seeking, network building, and curiosity at the new frontier of professional growth.  Best of all the capacity to find new ideas is SOOOOO much easier to scale than the ability to be creative or innovative.  Fearless, daring, reflective REPLICATORS will always be more valuable in a world where good ideas are no longer scarce.  

Prologue:  The Power of Public

This was the title of my keynote and the close to this blog.  Leaders, make a concerted effort model the movement of professional learning into public spaces and design public space systems at your schools and in your districts where others can observe, contribute, and learn.  Our days of being alone-together are over,  we just need our leaders to remind us of that from time to time.  

Cheers.

Trust, Things that Suck, and the #PennPDparty

Act 1:  "In 3 hrs, we fed them dinner and everyone stayed around and learned until 7pm, and all but two of our teachers showed up" 

Why this quote matters is a story that starts in my first year of teaching.  I got hired in 2008 and the high schools in our district had just won a 5 million dollar grant around SLCs/PLCs... much of which was to be spent on professional development (PD).  I was shocked to observe how hard of a time our principals (3 in 5 years) had at getting teachers to attend any of the district PD sessions.  I will be the first to admit that this was not "great" PD... however, for a new (relatively crappy) teacher, I figured:

 "If I can pick up one or two good ideas a day, I am doing pretty good"

Since then I have learned that teachers are 'time-poor' and in general will not suffer bad PD.  More importantly, it seems to me that the impact of bad PD has a lasting effect on teachers.  These observations may be the primary reason I am no longer in the classroom.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Act 2:  Things that suck at #edcampsac

I had the privilege collaborating with two bad@$$ educators this in Jan, both of which were engaged in a significant PD experience for their respective schools.  Educator A:  Doing an off site training with a team of teachers and their principal, working as a team and deciding some direction for the school.  One comment that stuck:

"After last week, I am just going to stay quiet, it is not a safe place for me to share and I feel alienated"

What would it take for you to feel that way?  Think style of leadership and measure of relationships between the principal (who was with the group all day) and teachers.  At edcampSac I attended a session called "things that suck", the final topic was PD.  The discussion that emerged was focused around the following idea:

Every time-expensive, bad PD experience, makes a teacher less likely to engage in something new in the future. 

 Bad PD is my number one competitor in my mission to find ways to help all teachers be their own personal version of great.  (read: why I left the classroom)

Act 3:   "Why are you thanking me...you did all the work"

While Teacher A was opting out of contributing his great ideas to the direction of his school, I was answering an invitation to lead a voluntary 3 hour session at a friend's elementary school.  The night was beautiful!  The entire staff (all but two teachers showed up) dedicated their evening to a session on leveraging their modest computer lab.

When I thanked the principal during a quick debrief after the training, she responded with the title quote of this closing act.  I briefly explained how much it says about her school and herself as a leader, that so many of her teachers trust her with their time.  There are few bigger compliments that a staff can pay their leader. The road to making a voluntary training like this happen has been slowly paved through the encouragement, support, and devotion over the time she has been there.

Epilogue:  #Relationshipsmatter

I can say that in both examples I know the principals very well and have had the honor to learn from both of them.  Both are capable, intelligent, and care deeply about their schools.  Why the difference?  What type of relationship should leaders strive for to get the most out of their teachers?  How does one build true and honest trust that keeps people from saying things like....

After last week I am just going to stay quiet, it is not a safe place for me to share and I feel alienated"

I have no answers to these meaningful questions, though I am excited to selfishly surround myself with leaders winning the relationship game.  After all...

"I figure if I can pick up one or two good ideas a day, I am doing pretty good"  

#teamnorthbay

Cheers