Author: Sean

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4 Reasons to stop the ‘countdown to summer’

I can’t support the “countdown to summer vacation.”  I’m not saying everyone should stop it,  just sharing why I think it’s a bad idea.
I love the idea of building positive momentum, but the countdown does just the opposite – it hampers momentum and puts some pretty negative agreements in place.  Some problems with “the countdown:”

  1. It promotes the idea that learning is an event, not a life-long pursuit.  I speak with our AIS staff frequently about how students show skills in isolation, but when dropped back into the classroom, they struggle to make the transfer.  The countdown supports the notion that we learn for school and not for life. This is the exact opposite of what we want students to believe.
  2. Not every kid is happy about school being over.  Sure, not everyone LOVES school, but plenty of students are walking into absolute uncertainty as summer hits. Some struggle knowing where their next meal will come from, others if they’ll see their friends, and still others if they will be safe.  The struggle our students face isn’t magically healed because it’s summer. “Celebrating” the end of feeds anxiety and trauma for many students.
  3. School isn’t a jail sentence.  There’s a phrase among prisoners serving life sentences: “You got nothing coming.” This may be extreme, but let’s get real, the countdown indicates that students are being “held” in school and that the future is “freedom.” I think this takes away from being in the moment and pushes the thought that tomorrow can somehow be better without school.
  4. The check-out behavior and disruption in routine are real.  Again, a chance to get real.  When students see the “end is near,” the poor choices ramp up.  This is for a variety of reasons from feeling like there are no consequences, to actively trying to detach from a teacher they’ve spent nine months with.  Kids and adults THRIVE on routines. With already varied routines at the end of the year, adding another layer of change creates even more challenges.

Again, I’m not stating the countdowns should be stopped, just saying it’s worth a conversation about why we do it and if it is even necessary.

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Caring classrooms

Every day someone tells me that students are coming to us with more baggage, more trauma, and more needs.  However, I noticed in my school that we have several students with severe trauma and needs who are thriving.

My thought is that addressing the needs of students has been a wonderful choreographed team effort, with a belief that how students start the day is critically important.  I set out for the last month to see the similarities between classrooms where students who have faced trauma are thriving.  Teachers in these classrooms do, say and ask almost identical things every morning.

 

  • Do: Smile!
    • Because how many of us want to enter into a 6.5 hour day with someone who is miserable?
  • Say: I’m glad you’re here!
    • Perhaps the second best thing than hearing your own voice is to see that someone is genuinely glad that you are present.
  • Ask: How did you feel about coming to school today?
    • I like this instead of “how was your night? or how are you doing?” because it puts the focus on the school day and the child’s emotions at the moment.  This also helps gauge the student’s desire, motivation and readiness to learn.

This may not be a longitudinal study backed by research and best practices.  I’m not a mental health professional, just a keen observer in practical ways that caring teachers are helping our students daily.

What other elements do you believe are necessary at the beginning of the day to assist students with emotional needs?

 

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Two Awesome Hours

Book: Two Awesome Hours by Josh Davis, PhD 

Key Takeaway: When moving on from a task, think of it as a ‘decision point.’ Maximize on these moments and CHOOSE what to do next. Do not run down a to-do list on autopilot.

Other big ideas:

  • Plan decision points in advance, don’t move forward unless you are consciously choosing the right one
  • Choose what to ignore (selective ignorance), you can’t focus on too much at the same time
  • Decide if you’re working for creativity or productivity
    • Creativity: get away from the ‘problem’ at hand, let your mind wander, listen to music, soft lighting
    • Production: focus, little to no noise/music/podcasts, plan decision points, bright lights

 

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Personal Development, then Professional Development

I’m learning that as a leader, professional development often means personal development.

It’s a unique role to be in. You are always on show to those that follow you; your strengths and your weaknesses.  As an educational leader, I’ve tried to grow by reading, viewing webinars and using twitter.
But, when I hear people talk about leaders, they rarely speak about job-specific functions or knoweldge; most feedback or discussions are about personality traits.

This week alone, I had someone mention that I’m shy, along with another person commenting that I am open-minded. Both are somewhat unrelated to my instructional knowledge or even my leadership abilities.

I made a list of the first few traits that came to mind about my past school leaders. Warm. Indecisive.  Funny.  Caring.  Inefficient.  These aren’t “education” terms – they are personality traits.

Sometimes, the best professional development we can give ourselves is personal development.  When I think about the most powerful best books I read this year – most are about becoming a better person. (see that list here).

School leaders need to be instructionally sound – keeping up with recent research and practices. But we can’t ignore the fact that personal development makes us better leaders; more suited to take on the challenges that instructional leadership brings.

I believe a next step is fostering this sense of personal development in others.  I’ll be thinking about how to do that in the coming years, and welcome suggestions.

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2017 books

I set a goal in 2017 to read one book per month.

But, 2017 was a year of productivity and personal development.  I gave up TV for forty days and social media for four months – leaving more time for reading – a total of 34 books this year.

I hope to get 5% better next year and read 36. Because I read quite a few, I decided to put them into categories, with my two favorites listed under each category. This rating is solely based on whether the book provided actionable advice, or change my thinking in some way. My complete list of books can be found at the end of this post. Over the holiday recess, I plan to create short summaries of these books (I have copious amounts of notes sitting in Evernote right now!)

What books do you recommend for 2018? Please drop a comment below or message me on twitter!

Best book I read all year: ‘Finish! Give Yourself The Gift Of Done’ by Jon Acuff

Runner-up: ‘I Am Number 8’ by John Gray

Leadership:
1. Leaders Eat Last – Simon Sinek
2. Extreme Ownership – Jocko Willink & Leif Babin

School Leadership/Education:
1. The Innovator’s Mindset – George Couros
2.  Leverage Leadership – Paul Bambrick – Santoyo

Productivity
1. Organize Tomorrow Today – Jason Selk
2. Deep Work – Cal Newport

Personal Development/Health
1. Whole 30 – Melissa Hartwig
2. Food Freedom Forever – Melissa Hartwig

Spiritual
1. Jesus: A Pilgrimage – James Martin
2. Sun Stand Still – Steven Furtick

Hobbies
1. Understanding Exposure – Tony Northrup
2. Adobe Lightroom CC For Digital Photographers – Scott Kelby

Full list here

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Finish! In 89 Words

I recently finished (pun intended) Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done by Jon Acuff. Though the ideas may not be completely new or revolutionary, it gave me, a recovering perfectionist and control-freak, some much-needed perspective.

Key point: It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just needs to be complete. 
Other Key Takeaways:

  1. Perfectionism magnifies your mistakes and minimizes your progress
  2. We often engage in planning fallacy – underestimating the time it will take to complete a task
  3. There will always be a ‘Nobel cause’ that distracts you from your goal
  4. There are hidden rules to perfectionism, they stop you from succeeding
  5. Our memories constantly edit themselves – data tells the real story
  6. When you’re tempted to quit, ask yourself “what do I get out of not finishing?”

I found value in this book, understanding that we often quit goals the second they turn out to be less than “perfect.” If you’re interested in goal setting or struggle with completing goals, this is a good, quick read.

 

 

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rethinking student goal setting

Student goal setting is powerful and has been backed research.

As with anything, there are multiple ways to use current research in a classroom.  After reading EXECUTIVE TOUGHNESS, I lean more towards the idea of challenging students to create process goals instead of results-based goals.

What are wrong with traditional goals?

  1. They can undermine happiness or sense of accomplishment.  A student who sets a goal of a 90% might never feel good enough until they accomplish it.
  2. Product goals create emotional highs and lows. Students either feel good because you “hit” a target, or feel like  a failure for coming up short.
  3. They suggest you can control things that you don’t have control over.  A fifth grader who makes a goal of jumping 2 reading levels really can’t control that.  Can they take steps to make that happen? Sure, but at the end of the day, this goal is really outside of their control.

Instead, let’s set process goals.  Have students create goals based on things they can control, and focus on the process. Teach students that they can be happy with who they are, but still strive to do better.

A proposal for goal setting:

Traditional Process Goals
  1. Think of a goal (Perhaps smart goals)
  2. List 3-5 Steps to help achieve the goal
  3. Post the goal in a prominent place so it ‘motivates you’
  4. Revisit the goal
  1. Identify a goal (maybe using smart goals)
  2. Identify the systems and processes that need to happen to achieve that goal (2-3)
  3. Focus on the process, revisit the systems and use the process as the goal
  4. Occasionally revisit the product/traditional goal.

I’m not slamming traditional goal setting, I’m just thinking, this may be a better way.  If we can get students to commit to a process, then the traditional goal will come along, and they’ll have developed powerful habits along the way.

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Educational Leadership Lessons Learned at Summer Camp

I have spent nearly two decades, working, attending or volunteering at summer camps.

When I was getting my master’s, I ended up overseeing the logistics and staffing at a large summer camp, with over 600 campers.
One (of many) reasons I went into educational leadership was the spark that was ignited when I accepted my first leadership position at this summer camp.  Below, I’ve outlined the most powerful lessons learned over those years that have been invaluable in my work as a school administrator.

  1. Provide excellent customer service
    • I truly believe in creating raving fans.  I hate the idea of “under – promising and over-delivering”. It’s best to make your vision clear, and then deliver it, 100% of the time, with excellence.
  2. Create and sustain a vision
    • Every camp can be exactly the same.  I learned from my old camp director, that it’s important to see a place/person/company for what it can be, not what it is.
    • In just 3 short years working for my YMCA camp, I saw it grow.  It expanded from 150 campers, 30 staff members, and a small pool…. into two giant pools complete with waterslides, 3 Jet boats for water skiing, a zip line, rock wall and sports-specific programs. That kind of change doesn’t happen without vision.
  3. It’s ok to be the “bad guy.”
    • Someone has to tell the 19-year-old counselors that their idea is dangerous, or that it doesn’t fit the vision and mission of the camp.  Someone has to be the one to tell parents that their child will be asked to leave for hurting someone (‘Oh, and by the way, you aren’t getting your deposit back’).  Having difficult conversations became a part of my job, and I’m thankful for that.
  4. “Everybody” and “Somebody” are both myths.
    • There are l,000 + jobs that need to get done at camp on any given day, just like a school. “Somebody” has to do them.  There is an old story that sums up my feelings about this:
There was an important job to be done and
Everybody was asked to do it. Everybody was sure Somebody would
do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.  Everybody
thought Anybody could do it but Nobody realized that Everybody
wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when
Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

Honorable mention: Scheduling & Budget

  • We put together a master schedule with 40 groups, 6 special areas and somehow included swimming, waterfront and rock wall times.  Learning how to do this before I stepped into my first administrative job was not only helpful but crucial.
  • Likewise, we had an operating budget of over $1,000,000. Managing that wisely was key, especially because in public education – you are managing tax-payers hard-earned dollars.
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a new kind of kindergarten orientation

What if we could teach and inspire families all while giving them important information and sharing our values?  During this year’s kindergarten orientation, we tried to do just that.

This was my first event as an leader at my new school.  A few leadership lessons that were taught/reinforced:

  1. Start with why – Simon Sinek
  2. First who then what? – Jim Collins <—-BIG TIME, we have a great team!
  3. Scripting the critical moves – Heath Brothers

Our goal – stay student-centered all while providing the information that families need to know.

Instead of the standard ‘sit and get’ that most parents experience at orientation, we tried a station model, and the results were powerful.  Students were happy, families had the chance to get their questions answered, and teachers were able to form powerful relationships.

Our rotations were simple, yet effective. Our ideas may not be original, but they were original to my school.

  1. Students came in and were given a map of the school with a group color and center rotations on the top (see below for a sample group map)
  2. We kicked off with some music and an announcement.
  3. After each station, familes rotated to the next station.
  4. There were never more than 16 families at any one station.
  5. At the end, we said thanks for coming, and our wonderful PTA handed out shirts and other goodies for the kindergartners.

The stations were set before I even came aboard, and worked flawlessly.  Flexibility was key, as we needed to adjust the times (each session ended up being too long), and tried to incorporate new ideas as they were suggested.

Our rotations were:

  1. Meet your teacher – (We ended up with no more than 5 families in a class due to the randomization of the groups)
  2. Administration –  code of conduct overview and Q & A with our School Nurse Teacher
  3. Transportation – Bus safety and bus ride, along with decorating the front entrance with sidewalk chalk
  4. Potpurri – Cafeteria exceptions, RAPTOR sign in, and volunteer forms.
    •  Since our cafeteria is next to the main office, we had the kids go though the line, get a snack and then head over as a family.
    • We use a RAPTOR system for visitor management, so we called this ‘express registration.’
    •  Fill out ‘PTA connect’ forms.

There were of course challenges – the rotation was new for many families. Did families show up late and miss some rotations? Sure, but every kid was able to meet their teacher at the end of the day.

We collected feedback and are looking forward to making it even better next year. Here’s a sample schedule for the ‘blue group.’

 

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