writing in the open spaces

An early morning brain dump: Why not….

• eliminate grouping by grade levels. Let students move through outcomes and benchmarks at their own pace.
• hire teachers year round for a substantial increase in salary. Most effective work needs to happen when students aren’t in class. Teachers must stop thinking of their day as time spent only with students. Teachers must have time to read, work together, be inspired and creative, reflect, and plan. Every year. Always learning.
• re-think the school day. Why not spend less time together and more time asynchronously?
• allow students to learn math, English, science,and art around a passion: say sailing? woodworking? astronomy?
• eliminate grades for conversations and portfolios. Sorting and ranking creates a society of winners and losers (and power struggles)
• develop ways to help students understand that effort, real effort, pays off
• ask the questions instead of giving the answers
• think of inquiry as central to learning

inspired by looking through a different lens

 

photo © 2008 dierk schaefer | more info (via: Wylio)
I am listening to Opening to Our Lives with Jon Kabat-Zinn, a podcast about mindfulness tweeted by @micwalker this morning. But I am also writing this post.

Kabat-Zinn asks: Can you hold this moment in awareness?

No, I can’t.

And I wonder if all this multi-tasking is having a profound effect on my memory. This weekend I attended Educon, a fabulous unconference at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. Like-minded folks gathered to talk about teaching and learning–and using social media tools to enable this shift we’d like to see.

But that’s not what I want to focus on here. Instead, I want to share two moments of the weekend when I totally forgot a conversation I had had. And it scares me.

One was with my friend @ehelfant, whom I was catching up with at the end of a session.

“Hey,” I asked. “Do you want to walk back to the hotel with us after the next session?”

“Sure,” she responded.

I looked forward to having a few uninterrupted moments to chat with her. And yet, as the next session ended, I wandered downstairs, connecting with two other friends who were waiting, and headed back to the hotel.

“Where are you?” she texted later.

Oh. My. Gosh. I had totally forgotten.

The second incident involved my husband, who called Saturday night to tell I had forgotten the keys to the house. He told me he would leave the house open for me. Yet, as I rode the train on Sunday, I panicked because I realized I had forgotten my keys. I called a local friend who happens to have a key to my house and stopped on my way home.

Later my husband asked: “Didn’t you remember our conversation? I told you I would leave the house open.”

I was stunned. And, frankly, I felt a rush of fear race through my body as this has been happening frequently to me. Alzheimers? Careless thinking? Laziness? Or is it more? Could it be my habits of mind lately–the reading while I’m listening, the talking while I’m texting, the writing while I’m searching–are the cause?

New York Times reporter Tara Parker-Pope wrote about this last year in “An Ugly Toll of Technology: Impatience and Forgetfulness.” She interviewed Dr. Elias Aboujaoude, director of the Impulse Control Disorders Clinic at Stanford, who said: “We’re paying a price in terms of our cognitive life because of this virtual lifestyle.”

Dr. Aboujaoude also asks whether the vast storage available in e-mail and on the Internet is preventing many of us from letting go, causing us to retain many old and unnecessary memories at the expense of making new ones. Everything is saved these days, he notes, from the meaningless e-mail sent after a work lunch to the angry online exchange with a spouse.

“If you can’t forget because all this stuff is staring at you, what does that do to your ability to lay down new memories and remember things that you should be remembering?” Dr. Aboujaoude said.

On the podcast now,  Kabat-Zinn is talking about how choice, too, contributes to these cognitive issues.

(See I’m doing it again.) “It’s intoxicating,” he says. You feel powerful because you can make multiple decisions at any given moment–but you lose clarity and focus.

Hmmmm. I am going to take his advice and stop here. I want to attend to what he is saying about finding my center.

I really don’t want to lose my mind.

 

photo © 2009 Lucie Provencher | more info (via: Wylio)
I awoke today in a bad mood.

Tossing and turning all night, I couldn’t get comfortable. The cat might have had something to do with it.

My feet were cold, too, so when I hit the icy floor, the chill spread throughout my body. I did not want to go to the gym, even though it’s our morning routine. My poor husband could tell something was wrong as I stormed around the house, gathering my workout clothes, downing some coffee, and looking for my gloves.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“NOTHING!” I barked, knowing full well I was in a simply, horrible, very, very bad mood.

Upon returning home, I ate my bowl of oatmeal and read the headlines in The Free Lance Star, feeling my bad humor dissipate. I hate that feeling (and I’m sure my optimistic, happy husband does, too).

When I can’t stand myself any longer, I have found these simple things to be helpful:

• Go workout anyway. Physical movement can sometimes move the angst out
• Remember that it’s all in my head, and I have control over how I feel
• Focus on the good. Gratitude can work wonders

How do you get yourself out of a bad mood? What are your tricks?

 

If part of your work means helping folks understand the shift in educational reform/revolution and the necessity for change, then this may help.

I stumbled across this e-book by Rick Maurer recently, and his suggestions for helping implement change seem simple yet profound.

He says there are three reasons why people don’t change.

1. Level One: I don’t get it.
2. Level Two: I don’t like it.
3. Level Three: I don’t like you

These three levels, he says, are alive and either working for you or against you. To move things along, he says you should:

1. Level One: Make your case.
2. Level Two: Remove as much fear as you can and increase the excitement.
3. Level Three: Rebuild damaged relationships and tend to neglected ones.

“Making a compelling case for change is the most important thing you can do–and the most neglected,” he says. “Avoid the trap of moving to HOW before WHY is answered.”

His e-book is here (about halfway down the page) and contains many specific suggestions (unfortunately he starts talking as soon as you hit the page, so turn down your speakers if you are in class!) The book (a PDF) addresses each level, so you’re not left with the “yeah, but how do it?” For example, he addresses how to “build institutional muscle.”

I’ve been saying personality plays a role in whether or not people seek change. And that may be. But we can’t change personalities, so these suggestions may help.

 

I’ve been hearing a lot about having “no time” lately. I”ve been there, too.

And I love Edward Hallowell’s advice in this HBR essay. He say, Never before in human history have we asked our brains to process as many data points per minute as we do today.

He offers these three suggestions:

Remedy # 1: Take back control. You gave it away, you can take it back. People tell me every day that they have no control, that their lifestyle demands they rush, that their boss demands they be crazy busy, that the culture they live in forces them to overcommit. To which I say, “If you really look at how you spend your time, you’ll find ways to save more of it for what really matters to you.” The chief culprit? A habit I call screensucking. Mindless time spent online, on your mobile device, on whatever, sending and receiving inane messages, taking on more obligations than you want, or otherwise making poor use of your most precious asset, your time.

Remedy # 2: Build boundaries. Technology has torn down the boundaries that used to naturally protect our time. But now, theoretically, our day has no end. People don’t have time to think. Ask people where they do their best thinking. Rarely will they reply, “At work.” The most common reply I’ve received is, “In the shower.” It’s one of the few places left where a person can’t be reached! Now that we’ve removed boundaries, we need to reconstruct them according to our own best interests so we don’t get overwhelmed.

Remedy # 3: Prioritize. This is a fact: if you don’t take your time, it will be taken from you. It is now imperative first to know what matters most, and second to reserve time to do it. It is easy in the tsunami of modern life to get so overcommitted and overwhelmed that you do not make time for what you, yourself, really want to make time for. Decide what matters most, then do it!

I can wallow in the “feel sorry for me” syndrome of “busy-ness” too, but we make choices about time. We should make time for what we value. And if we are in a position where we are feeling stress because we are asked to give time for something we don’t value, perhaps we need to be/do something else instead of complaining about it.

image credit

 

I don’t like to complain.

But ever since I started working from home, my house has been turned upside down. We decided to tear off a porch, remove a wall, and extend the living room. That means, of course, all the furniture is piled in the dining room, where I’m trying to work.

The eight week project has turned into 12, and it’s still going.

Oh, I’ll love it when it’s finished. But in the meantime, my neck hurts from sitting at the wrong angle, the paint fumes are making me hallucinate, and the dust causes me to sneeze constantly.

If I start writing weird posts in the next few days, you’ll know what’s going on. Just thought I’d give you a heads up.

image credit: By bucklava

 

Today’s CEO is not social, says Forrester Research’s CEO George Colony–in a study reported today on the Mashable site. I pulled one of the quotes that made me think about administrators in our schools:

Colony has concluded that, “None of the CEOs of Fortune Magazine’s top 100 global corporations have a social profile.”

Wow. None. But should we be surprised? Very few school principals, Heads of Schools, or even high-level administrators have a social profile. George Couros, whose fairly recent jump into social media has propelled him as a leader in this area, started Connected Principals to share those that do. But until the past few months, I saw few administrators willing to take the perceived risk of being “out there.”

I find social media fascinating. I can’t imagine not sharing and learning online. But it seems people either get it or don’t.

Educators are no different in that regard. But those administrators who have jumped report great satisfaction in their transparency with parents and families. Check out Larry Fliegelman’s latest post about connecting with his parents. Josie Holford, head of Poughkeepsie Day School, keeps her families up to date through her blog, Twitter, and Facebook.

So as I read the post on Mashable, I wondered….how different will our “school world” be when administrators around the world will feel as LIVESTRONG CEO Doug Ulman does. In the post he says,  ”perceptions around social media being too risky for CEOs are beginning to change.”

“I would predict that more and more executives will see this as an opportunity rather than a risk,” he says.

I hope more school administrators will soon discover the possibilities.

image:By Pranav SinghPranav Singh

 

I once told Sheryl Nussbaum Beach I didn’t feel moved to change the world.

We were chatting about all things education–and how some folks are comfortable presenting to large crowds (I’m not), and some feel compelled to change the world of schooling (I wasn’t).

At the time, I felt that my personal line in the sand, which I drew in the sandbox of a classroom, was enough. I could individualize instruction, buy netbooks for my kids, create an inviting atmosphere, offer a variety of ways to assess children, and focus on what worked.

I became comfortable in my own small, corner of the world.

And then last spring, I found myself taking over conversations in department meetings, dinner parties, and family gatherings. Whenever the chats turned to school (and specifically social media), I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. My frustration with how we “do” schools bubbled over. During our last week of vacation, my uncle turned to me mid-rant and said, “Ok then, how do we fix it? How do we make schools better?”

I didn’t have all the answers, but I found myself listing everything that matters to me: giving students voice; empowering teachers to work together and reflect upon their practice; offering choice in curriculum and ways to learn; allowing charter schools (with proper direction and guidance) to flourish; changing the way we sort and rank students.

Ok, so I care. Changing the system seems overwhelming at times, but it’s worth it. Our kids deserve more from us.

These are the folks I’m following these days, watching and learning from them:

Coalition of Essential Schools

Big Picture Schools

Ideal Schools

IDEA

Not perfect, perhaps. But at least they are doing the work and not just talking about it. Who else should be highlighted?

 

For years, I’ve been telling my students I don’t grade for effort.

“It doesn’t matter how hard you work,” I’d say, “if the end result isn’t up to speed.”

This I would say this after my long discussions with them about the journey–and the process–and the learning–being what mattered in my class. I mean, I’ve been pushing Alfie for a long time.

Yeah, talk about sending a mixed message to my students.

Today I was reading Seth Godin’s book Linchpins and the proverbial light bulb went off in my head: effort, of course I want effort to matter.

See, this is where I was coming from. I have students who argue that even though they didn’t edit the paper, complete the paper, or finish reading the book, that any effort they put into the assignment should count. And I resented that they wanted credit for not really working, for turning in half an effort, for not really caring about our work. So I would tell them, “effort doesn’t count.”

But I also have fully capable students who “do school” with ease. They write well and produce competent (but not necessarily inspiring) essays; they read well and quickly; and they complete all assignments within an appropriate time frame. These are the students who generally earn good grades–but it’s not because they care about their work (though some do). Often, these are the students who have been taught how to follow the rules and do what they are told, as Godin says. And I was rewarding them for that. Plus, there may have been other unintended consequences.

My epiphany was when I realized that many of these students are no more eager to learn than the other group. The products just come more easily to them.

The students I want to encourage are these: the ones who write papers with original thought, even though they may not be grammatically correct; take longer to finish the book because they’ve put post-it notes and margin notes wherever they stopped to think; ask questions in class that make me ponder another scenario, a new direction, or a fresh approach to what we are doing. The ones who show effort because they are curious.

And, in fact, I do give those kids credit for effort. Rather, I give them credit for wanting to learn, even if they haven’t quite mastered the outcomes yet. I loved when one young man stayed after class to tell me how one of the characters in our book was “a man’s man, isn’t he Mrs. Carter Morgan.” What 13-year old uses that phrase? Or when a young woman told me what she valued most from my class was learning to be patient with her own learning. This from an athlete, an A-typer who has little patience for incompetence in any form. Or the quiet one who came to class grinning, sharing with me her “perfect thesis” she had thought of late the night before, trying to fall asleep.

As I’ve written before, my model of schooling would be a collaborative means of assessing growth that Sylvia Stralberg Bagley from Mount Saint Mary’s College in Los Angeles  describes here: