Loose Change

Tuesday, July 1st, I was in the car on my way to work.  The first 30 minutes or so of the trip was no different than it had been for the past year; leave the house towards the highway, sip on my coffee as I pass the normal landmarks (beginning of the two-lane highway, Bass River Bridge, Burger King), listen to sports talk radio, and start to plan out the day ahead.  However, my trip this day would not end as it had each day the previous year.

 Instead, I was set to begin a new journey in my new home as the principal of the Forestdale School.  While only one exit different than my previous school, 4.4 miles down the road and still within the same school district, this day still signaled a significant moment of change for me.

I have not been a stranger to change.  In my relatively short career I have worked in four different school districts, six different schools, been a teacher and administrator at both elementary and middle school levels, had my job expand as part of two districts merging, and seen a few (said sarcastically) state and federal initiatives implemented.  In each instance, I have approached the change with excitement, a sense of ease and with no anxiety.  However, something about this change was different and I could not quite put my finger on it.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about why this change felt so different and have determined that the biggest difference this time is that I had not had that time to fully settle into my previous role before having to change.  Someone that I have a lot of respect for has told me that, "it takes at least three years in a new role before you can learn everything you need to in order to be effective at the level you want to be."  Having only been a principal for one year and then shifting to a new school did not provide me with the time to develop the appropriate comfort level in my first role.  As a result, my mind was not fully "open" to this change and I began to struggle with some of the common feelings associated with change; anxiety, loss, fear and unbalance.  However, this experience and sense of disequilibrium has afforded me the opportunity to think deeply about change and my role in guiding it as a leader.

Our district is in the midst of a significant change as we reorganize ourselves to best meet the needs of our students in an environment of declining student enrollment and a competitive school choice market.  Learning from my own recent experience, I know that many (if not all) members of our school community will experience some level of unease during this process.  While there is much uncertainty as we begin the next phase of this transition, there are a few things we can count on:

Change is coming

By this time next year, one of our schools will be closed and the three remaining schools will look and feel completely different than they did at the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year.  There is nothing we can do to stop this reality.  Just like the changing of the tides, it is going to happen and all we can do is be sure that we are not caught unprepared.  

We are in this together

These changes effect every single member of our school community in one way or another.  While some may believe this fosters chaos and that change should happen in small steps to small populations, I believe large scale change fosters solidarity.  It is easier to have empathy for our neighbor when we too are experiencing the same disruption in our life.  A good friend of mine shared an analogy with me that I think applies well here.  It is as if we are all launching boat from the shore.  Each of us has a hand on the boat, we are all pushing in the same direction and we all have the same goal.

Mistake will happen

This one by far is the most difficult one for me.  It is hard for me to admit that I will fail before I have even begun something; however, I do know that mistakes and failures are opportunities for learning.  We will face many challenges in this transition (and throughout the rest of our professional careers) and we will devise solutions to meet those challenges.  Some will work, some will not.  As long as we continue to take a problem-solving approach, as opposed to a problem-identifying approach, we will be able to learn from our mistakes and make the necessary improvements to guarantee our students the high quality education they deserve.  

We can do this, and do it well

Change is opportunity.  All great advancements have come throughout history when a group of people have challenged the status quo and looked for a "better" way of doing things.  We have an amazing opportunity which many educators will never see in their professional careers.  We have the opportunity to create two "new" schools.  We can work together to build every aspect of the school (configuration, community, culture, schedule, intervention, enrichment, professionalism, outreach, etc.) from the ground up and do so with a singular focus on the development of the best schools in the state.  

Engaged or On Task

Photo Credit: wordpress.com

I was fortunate enough to attend a professional development opportunity last month with Irene Fountas where we were discussing the role of a leader in literacy instruction. At one point in the day she asked, "What is the difference between students that are on task and students that are engaged?" She paused for a brief moment to let that ruminate and then moved on with the larger point she was constructing. I will be totally honest, I have no idea what she said for the next 4-5 minutes. This one seemingly innocent question had sparked a series of synaptic sparks that sent my mind racing. I have spent the last month thinking and reading about this question and have experienced a shift in my thinking.

One month and one day ago, I would have used on-task behavior as a synonym for student engagement. I would have said that the studenst being on task was the behavioral evidence that I could use to observe their engagement in the learning process. However, I now find myself asking that just because a student is busy, does it mean that she is actively learning anything?
I read this blog from Education Week where one of the thinkers interviewed gave this example:

Feel the difference between these two sets of instructions:"You're going to read the next three pages.  When you finish, you are going to answer the five questions that follow the reading." 

Vs. 

"When I tell you to begin, you will have 1 minute 45 seconds. You are going to read the next paragraph looking for the main point.  As you read, you are going to highlight any words or phrases that support what you believe is the main point. When you are finished, be prepared to share with a partner or with the entire class.  You may begin."

I could observe the students in both classes and say that they are on-task, but which two approaches are more likely to lead to active engagement by students?  In the second example, there is a more concrete, time-bound expectation for student thinking and action.  The task is in a smaller chunk which allows less opportunity for students to disengaged and there is an expectation that students will publicly share their thinking.  In one class period you could accomplish the first task with a group of third graders, or you could do the second task 3-4 times in the same period with different paragraphs.  Which would be a better approach for teaching main idea?  Which approach would likely have more students thinking, talking and writing about main idea?  Which approach would be more likely to result in learning that would last beyond that class period?

Engagement means agency for students.  It means that they are actively involved in and contributing towards the learning process.  It means that they are working hard; engaged students go home tired at the end of the day.  Engaged learning looks like a classroom where students spend the majority of their time thinking, talking or writing about content and/or ideas.  While teachers are presenting students with new information and coaching the learning process, they are not doing the thinking for the students or spending the majority of the lesson speaking at the students.  

Planning for Engagment

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

The most important question we should always ask ourselves before planning a lesson is: "What exactly will the students know and be able to do, or do better, by the end of this lesson?"  Determining the learning objective and clearly articulating it for ourselves helps us to examine activities we have planned to ensure they support a student's active engagement in that skill.  The internet provides us with a plethora of ideas, ready made activities, and fully developed lesson plans.  However, as educators we are responsible for curating these resources and making purposeful decisions about their effectiveness in supporting our students' active engagement in learning.  A fancy worksheet downloaded of TpT that keeps kids busy at a center for 20 minutes, may be nothing more than a really fancy low-level activity that turns students into passive learners.  There is an expression that says, "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig."  Let's make sure we are not dressing up any pigs.  Let's design lessons that engage students in higher level thinking like categorizing, evaluation and creating.  I discussed the idea of higher level thinking at the elementary level in an earlier post here.

Literacy: A Principal's Perspective

In the late 90's there was this television show that was a guilty pleasure of mine called "The Pretender."  The gist of the show was that there was this lead character, Jarrod, who had been a child prodigy.  In his adult life he was on the run (from some super secret cliche government shady organization) and he would hide in plain sight by pretending to be these other people.  One episode he would be a doctor who would end up saving someone's life in this miraculous surgery and in another episode he might be a race car driver that would help some struggling race team to win the big race and get a national sponsor.  Each episode was a new career that Jarrod had to master in order to successfully navigate the challenges he faced during that 60 minute episode.  During my first 8 months on the job as a principal, I see a lot of parallels between "The Pretender" and "The Principal."

Now let's be clear from the start, I am no child prodigy, I can't perform surgery and while I like rev the motor on my 4 cylinder Honda Civic... a race car driver I am not.  However, I have learned that a principal is expected to be a master of many different things.  In a given week the principal is asked to provide advice and/or make decisions on a variety of items that span a wide range of topics from the best approaches to teaching reading to a child with ADHD to the best way to change traffic flow in the building when your school will be used as a voting location.  While I accept and enjoy this challenge, it does often make it difficult to focus on any one topic for an extended period of time.  I recently had the opportunity to spend four days at Lesley University exploring the role of principal in the Literacy Collaborative Model.  This uninterrupted period of time helped me to deepen my own knowledge of what a quality system for teaching reading and writing looks like; it also afforded me some time to reflect on what role I can play in supporting that as a principal. From that reflection came four big ideas that will drive me moving forward.

Support your Coach

I have worked in several districts during my career in education, but this is the first time I have been lucky enough to work in a district that supports the funding for coaches.  While some districts may have coaches for particular content areas and not others (as we do), a coach's greatest benefit to a school is not in his/her knowledge of the content area.  Rather, a coach best serves a school through his/her ability to do three things: carefully observe pedagogy, ask questions that encourage reflection and support teachers (and principals) as their thinking continues to evolve.  The coach is able to provide this experience in a way that is not connected to a professional's evaluation.  The teacher does not need to worry about his/her job performance when meeting with the coach, rather the teacher has the opportunity to completely open himself/herself to the learning experience inherent in coaching.  In their meta-analysis for the book Classroom Instruction that Works, Marzano, Pickering and Pollock showed that specific and timely feedback that is connected to clear criterion has a dramatic effect on student learning.  It would be foolish to assume that this does not also apply to adult learners.  Every professional can benefit from the information, feedback and reflection that they get from the coaching experience.  Any educator who thinks he/she has "got it" has not truly considered what it means to be a learner.  Learners know that there is no end on the journey of learning.  Theory evolves, science makes discoveries, experiences are collected, children change, communities change and on and on... can we honestly expect we have learned it all when the "all" is constantly changing?  

As a principal it is my responsibility to ensure all my staff are taking advantage of the coaching experience.  If my coach is not running around like a chicken with his/her head cut off trying to get to all the people that want coaching appointments, then my staff is not growing and I am failing.  The staff and the coach need to understand how much I value the coaching experience and the value I place on it for our continued growth and success.  

Support your Teachers

While I do remember an episode when "The Pretender" was a teacher, the principal is not going to be teaching the students to read and write.  It will be the teachers in the building that do.  In the same book referenced above, Marzano, Pickering and Pollock found that single most important factor that affects student learning is the teacher.  So what does this mean for a principal?  It means that a principal's single most important job is to make sure his teachers are the best they can be and that they continue to get better.  This is not accomplished by hard-line tactics, negative evaluations and leadership by decree; however, it is also not accomplished by sitting in your office, hoping for the best and trusting that it will all work out.  A principal supports his/her teachers when he/she is seeking opportunities that will further teachers' knowledge, challenge assumptions about learning, create opportunities for teachers to meet, and develop common beliefs and understandings around teaching and learning.  He/she empowers them to be the professionals our students and families deserve and holds them accountable to those standards

Listen

Not to beat a dead horse, but the principal can't be expected to know all things.  However, the principal is the final decision maker in a school; therefore a principal is left with two choices: either make uninformed decisions, or ask some questions and listen to the people who know more than he/she does.  Knowledge presents itself in a variety of ways; experiences, schooling, reading and many other factors add to a person's knowledge.  A principal would be foolish to assume there wasn't something to learn from each person he/she came into contact with.  Therefore principals should take the time to listen to the thoughts, ideas and concerns of his teachers, parents, coach and interventionists.  Each person brings a unique set of experiences and their own perspective to each challenge the school faces.  When exploring the best way to schedule a literacy block, plan for intervention, monitor student growth or improve the quality of students response to writing the principal is obligated to not only hear the voices of the staff in the building, but participate in quality active listening that will allow him/her to deepen his/her knowledge base and broaden his/her perception, so as to make an informed decision that best meets the needs of students.

Model Learning

There is a quote from Albert Einstein that I love.  It states, "Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death."  The teaching of literacy is a constantly evolving paradigm; brain research, educational research and the day-to-day interactions between teachers and students continue to inform our practice.  The most effective teachers are and will continue to be those that understand that there is always more to learn about the science of teaching and that (like doctors, lawyers and accountants) teachers are professionals that must stay up-to-date on current thinking in their field.  I would not feel comfortable going to see a doctor who had not been to a conference or read a medical journal in five years, and nor should parents feel comfortable sending their child to a teacher that has not attended a conference or, taken a class or read an education article in five years.  As principal, it is important that I communicate this belief regularly and take the same approach to my own learning.  Of these four big ideas, this one comes the most naturally to me.  Whether it be leadership theory, literacy, math, changing the brakes on my car, or french braiding my daughter's hair I know there is a lifetime worth of learning in front of me.  I feel compelled to share this information with the staff in my building.  I find myself shooting off emails about a great video I saw on math instruction to my kindergarten teachers on a Sunday morning, or a thought provoking blog on "close reading" to my upper elementary ELA teachers on a Wednesday night (usually from a School Committee meeting).  I start getting antsy if I have not tweeted something on my Twitter account, not because I have a lot of followers (because I surely don't) and I feel like they are missing me, but rather that this is a sign to me that I have not been keeping up on my own learning.  I tweet what I learn, so no tweeting means no learning and that is not OK.
The locations from which an individual can access knowledge in today's world are endless.  Some of my favorites are books (yeah those things still exist), YouTube, Twitter, email newsletters, conversation, and TED Talks.  Regardless of where new learning comes from it is important for those of us in education to continue to seek it out, share it with others, challenge our own assumptions and reshape our perceptions.

I don't ever remember an episode where "The Pretender" ever assumed the role of "The Principal", but if he had I don't think it would have made for very good television.  And while Morgan Freeman played a compelling and motivating character in Lean on Me, I think the keys to fostering a school environment that supports students on their journey to literate life is best done through these four (no so Hollywood) ideas.  

Education's Four Letter Word

The winter break provides educators an opportunity to unplug from their roles within the school, to recharge the batteries, deepen their relationships with family and friends, and to steal a few moments of quiet reflection.  In one of those quiet reflective moments, I found myself thinking about my first 6 months as building principal.  And while these months can be simply summarized as a game of survival, I realized that I have recently been able to think towards the future.  As I think about the future for our school, our district and the field of education as a whole, I see one thing as a certainty; change is the new norm.  Gone are the days when we could look at our field as predictable.  School choice, technology, education research, state/federal programs and mandates, public accountability, grant funding, a sluggish economy, 24 hour news networks and a plethora of other factors have placed an enormous amount of pressure on our field to evolve. This should not come as a surprise.  If we think of any other major institution/industry (automotive, airlines, higher education, entertainment, medical, telecommunication, etc.) and consider what that institution/industry looked like 10 years ago, we would be hard pressed to recognize the similarities to today's iteration.  Do we feel that education is immune to such evolutionary forces?  Should our students expect any less?

If we are willing to accept change as the new norm then we must next come to the realization that we may never feel settled again.  We are likely to spend the rest of our professional careers in a state of flux, and the expectation will be that we are willing and ready to learn more, that our students will perform better, and that our profession will progress at a rate equal to that of the world around us.  Now anyone that has been in education for more than ten minutes knows that after reading the above two sentences nearly every educator (be it teacher, principal, superintendent) will immediately ask, "When are we supposed to have the time to do this?"  And there we have it, the four letter word of education: TIME.  Let's talk a little bit about this elephant....

Ground Rules

Before engaging in a conversation on time, I need to establish some assumptions.  These are the assumptions that I operate under.  I welcome challenge on these assumptions, but they are foundation assumptions that help to shape the conversation to follow.  

1. Time is fixed - My rudimentary understanding of astronomy helps me feel confident that they day is not likely to extend beyond 24 hours any time soon.  Also, while some charter and magnet schools are experimenting with longer school days/years, we are not likely to see that type of a change in a widespread fashion in the next 5 years.
2. Accountability - Taxpayers have supported increased education funding for years (per pupil) and there is a very real pressure to ensure this financial support is producing results.
3. We are professionals - Educators operate in jobs that require certification, an advanced degree and license renewal.  This is no different than a lawyer, doctor or CPA.  No one would expect their lawyer, doctor or accountant to operate solely on the knowledge they gained in school.  We expect these professionals to stay current in their field, adapt their practice to match current thinking, and incorporate technologies that make them more efficient and effective.  As professionals, educators should be held to the same standard.
4. The school day is short - A typical student day consists of six and a half hours.  If you remove 20 minutes for lunch, 20 minutes for recess (elementary), 10 minutes for homeroom, at least six transitions of five minutes each for lunch, recess, specials, class/subject changes, and dismissal you are left with only about 5 hours for instruction.  

Each Day is Precious

What happens in the classroom each and every day is the responsibility of the classroom teacher.  As a building principal, I have a responsibility to be in classrooms and I am responsible for constructing a schedule that meets the academic needs of our students; however, it is the classroom teacher that determines how that time is utilized each and every day.  We get such limited time with our students.  There are only 180 days in a school year.  The average teacher misses between 5 and 7 days of school, reducing the 180 to 173.  Add assemblies, field trips, half days, and the first/last day of school and teachers are lucky to get 160 quality days for instruction.  These are precious days and as a teacher, you must consider how to best spend these days.  

We must be willing to ask ourselves hard questions if we are going to move our profession forward.  For example, it is "conventional wisdom" in elementary schools that the day(s) leading up to a vacation are for parties, fun activities, craft projects and performances.  In my experience this practice stems from a belief that attendance before the vacation will be poor, therefore as a teacher I shouldn't waste my time with important content.  The problem is that attendance records do not support this belief.  Students come to school on these days because their parents are already scrambling to work out child care for the school vacation and are not going to add to this burden unnecessarily.  So we need to ask ourselves, if students are going to get 10 days off from school for a vacation, do they need "pre-vacation" during the preceding days? 

Another example involves reading instruction.  Our reading curriculum centers around regular guided reading practice with a trained professional.  Students need regular practice with reading in order to become better readers, and directed instruction from a teacher in small reading groups around specific skills is the best way to guarantee student success.  If a teacher decides to take one day a week off from guided reading (it is almost always a Friday) so that students can "catch up" on center work or other projects left from the week, there are approximately 30 days of reading instruction lost over the course of the year.  The question we have to ask ourselves is, "How many of our struggling readers can afford to miss 30 days of reading instruction?"

Are we willing to reclaim this time?  These are the tough decisions that professionals have to make.  If we are going to out this four letter word, we must be willing to take a hard look at how we use each of our days.

Look For Efficiency

Each of us does things in our professional life because we have always done them that way.  However, many things in our lives we could do more efficiently.  For example, do you hand out papers to your students?  If so, how do you do it?  Do you walk around the room and hand one out to each child?  If you do, it probably takes about 3 minutes each time you do that.  Let's say you do it 5 times a day.  That is 15 minutes each day, 75 minutes each week and 2,700 minutes each year that you are not teaching.  If you changed this practice to shave 1/2 that time, you would gain 1,350 minutes of instruction back.  

How about attendance?  Is there a system that you could set up in your room that would put more of the onus on the students and free you up to meet with students.  This can be done in any grade.  I saw a kindergarten teacher that created a question of the day for her students to do when they first arrived.  The question always had two choices and students had to move a magnet that had their name on it under one of the answers.  The teacher trained the students in this procedure early in the year.  Students completed this activity after entering the room each morning.  The teacher could quickly see if all the students were present by examining the question board.  While students were completing this task and other morning work, she was able to conference with students individually.  

Technology has brought efficiency to every other profession in America, it should be doing the same for ours.  Do not fear technology.  Look for ways to embrace it and allow it to make some of your more mundane tasks easier.  Do you take a lot of time averaging student grades at the end of the year?  There's an app for that.  Want an easy way to keep current on education topics?  There is an app for that.  Want to be able to access your documents, pictures, videos, etc. from any Internet enabled device?  There are several apps for that.  Technology is not just a tool to support student learning, it is also a tool to support us in our professional lives.  Be sure you are leveraging it to your advantage.  

Eat Your Frog

There is a motivational book by Brian Tracy entitled Eat That Frog.  In the book he provides ways to accomplish your goals and one piece of advice he offers is around the idea of eating your frog.  The frog represents the one task that you have to get done that is likely to be the hardest and least desirable task of the day.  To "Eat Your Frog" is to take on that task first thing.  It is essentially the opposite of procrastinating.  We all know that there are things we need to get done and things we would like to get done.  Eating your frog in part means that you are prioritizing the demands placed on you (because time is fixed) and you are taking on your toughest challenges first.  This approach frees your mind of the burden of your "Frog" and allows you to move through your other tasks more efficiently.    

Whether or not you are a believer in the frog metaphor, being a professional requires us to make difficult decisions.  We are required to prioritize our own time, because there is not enough time to do everything. However, not everything needs to be done.  Some tasks can be reassigned to other people.  Some tasks can be done more efficiently.  Some tasks can be stopped all together.  There are places in all of our lives where we can grab more time, but it will not happen without an examination of our current practice and it has to come from within.  We can not use time as an excuse if we are not willing to examine the ways we are using the time we are provided.  Teachers must understand that they are empowered to make these decisions on their own.  They can look for ways to better utilize time and will never run astray as long as they make decisions based on the best interest of their students.  

Predictions - Be Careful

Predictions - Be Careful

I was thumbing through some pictures the other day (by thumbing I mean using my thumb to swipe on my iPhone) and I came across this one of my son.  I was doing this on the way home from the Literacy for All Conference in Providence, Rhode Island mostly as a means for keeping my hands and eyes busy while my mind was mulling something over.  During the day, I had attended a Keynote address by Peter Johnston where he said, "Once we start making predictions about a child's future, we start treating them different."  Johnston went on to challenge the audience to examine their thinking relative to attribution theory.  He asked us to examine our own beliefs about intelligence and whether it is innate and fixed, or a product of experience and something that can grow; these two beliefs of intelligence can be summarized as either a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.  I have been firmly planted in the growth mindset camp for awhile now, but something about this quote was sticking with me.  Like a fly stuck in the rear windshield of a car, this quote kept buzzing around in my head with no hope for escape.  But why?  Why was this thought causing me such cognitive dissonance?  Then I saw this picture and stopped wondering.

I have a son that was diagnosed with Asperger's a little over a year ago.  In the past year, my ideas around a growth mindset have shifted from ephemeral educational theory to a very concrete reality.  The picture above was taken just about the time we received his diagnosis, and when I think about the growth we have seen from then to now, I am brought to tears.  Due to the tenacious work of his amazing team of teachers and support staff at school, he has made years worth of growth is is on track to enter kindergarten next year with a minimum amount of supports.  When I think back to the day when we got his diagnosis and the conversation in the car on the way home, I remember the concern from both my wife and I about how this new "label" may affect him as he went out into the world.  What I realize now was that I was not as worried about the label as I was about the predictions.  What would people think he could or could not do?  Would his teachers challenge him to grow, or would they set lower expectations for him because 'he is not capable of that'?  I was worried, because like Johnston said, "once we start making predictions about a child's future, we start treating them differently."

I have been lucky so far, my son has worked with an amazing team that has not made predictions about the future of a 5 year old.  They see his potential as not yet determined.  As a result, they encourage his continuous growth.  In the short time we have been working with this fabulous team they have adjusted his goals 4 separate times.  They see each milestone is an opportunity to set a new ambitious goal.

As a principal, I am faced with the challenge of ensuring each of the 800 children in my school are afforded the same opportunity my son has enjoyed so far.  I know that the process of creating a school culture that believes in intelligence as malleable and ripe for expansion will take time.  I know I will have to present compelling evidence, challenge assumptions, push thinking and change policies and practices that reinforce a fixed mindset towards intelligence.  Today, I start with this challenge for my staff and any others that read this post.  I challenge you to suspend your expertise.  I challenge you to think about everything that you "know" about students based upon previous learning and your extensive experience and put it aside.  Whenever you are thinking about a student and his/her "ability" to meet the demands of your class, ask yourself 'do I believe in unicorns?'  If the answer is no, then you probably also don't think you have the power to predict a child's future regardless of whether they are in kindergarten or even grade 8.  So if you can't accurately make a prediction, what is the point in trying?  All you are doing is setting yourself up to change your behavior in a way that matches your own prediction, and then you are no longer a believer in fate, you have become fate itself.  Instead, I challenge you to believe that you are a powerful instrument of learning.  I challenge you to believe that there is no more powerful impact on the learning of a student than his/her teacher.  I challenge you to believe that every child has the ability to learn at high levels and you have the ability to make that happen.  After all which is more dangerous for the child, to inaccurately predict he/she is 'not able' or to be wrong about growth.

Is It Worth the Effort

I have an old Jeep in my garage that I tinker with from time to time.  I have a goal to completely restore the Jeep.  While I am making slow progress towards that goal, my confidence in my ability to complete this project stems from a conversation I had when I was 22 years old.  At that point in my life, I had just started my teaching career and like most young teachers I had a summer job.  That summer, I was a lifeguard at Nauset Beach in Orleans, MA.  As a part of that job one lifeguard each day had to patrol the outer beaches as a ride along with an enforcement officer.  During 8 hours together in the truck, several conversations take place.  During one of those conversations, the enforcement officer  and I were discussing the fact that he and his sons were rebuilding the transmission on their Ford pickup truck.  I remember saying, "I wish I knew how to do that stuff, I have never been good with mechanical stuff."

At that point he said something to me that continues to influence my thinking today.  He said, "Do you think that we are any smarter than you are?  Do you think the mechanics that work down at _____ are any smarter than you are?  We just try different things out and try to figure it out.  If we can't figure it out, we ask someone or look it up.  We just keep trying until we figure it out."  I will remember that moment for the rest of my life, because since that moment I have thought differently about innate ability and the role effort plays in success.  I realized that I wasn't born "bad" at mechanics, or that I was "dumb" about engines; rather, I had not put in the effort to learn about them.  I had not tried, failed and tried again....but I could.

Grit

In the years since that moment, I have learned that many people have made the same realizations that I had made.  I learned that others have dedicated years of research to determining what factors separate the successful from the unsuccessful, and what factors most influence learning.  Researchers like Carol Dweck and Angela Lee Duckworth (video below) have done extensive research and determined that effort and perseverance (or grit as Duckworth describes it) are the best indicators of success.  Duckworth's research indicates that grit is the number one determiner for success in school and recognizes that we as a group do not know how best to develop grit in students.  She does say that grit is not a product of talent and that talent is often inversely related to grit.  Both Dweck and Duckworth make compelling arguments that perseverance through effective effort should be skills deliberately taught in today's schools.  

So What Do We Do?

The first step requires a self-exploration.  You must start by asking yourself what do you believe.  Is intelligence fixed?  Do you have students that will come to you that can not learn?  Students that at 5,7,12 are destined for a low wage menial job and have a fixed ceiling for their "smartness"?  Do you believe that an IQ score is a reliable predictor of someone's intelligence?  You may be surprised to find that Alfred Binet himself did not believe his assessment provided information about a permanent innate intelligence level. He stressed that intelligence was too complex and involved too many factors to be measured this way.  So, if the creator of the IQ test did not believe intelligence was fixed, why should we?  Perhaps it is more realistic, based upon our experiences, our research and the wise beach enforcement officer I rode with that summer that we all have the opportunity to learn if we are willing to put in the effort. 

The next challenge comes when we try and think about how we create this ability and belief in our students. As with most things in education, the answer is not clean.  At some point, perhaps there will be enough research conducted to say, "if I do this...., then the students will develop grit and persevere in their learning," but unfortunately that day is not yet here.  Not all is lost however, research conducted by Carol Dweck has shown that the way people think about intelligence can be altered.  Her research has shown that students who are given specific praise for effort and perseverance rather than for being smart are more likely to stick with learning experiences when presented with challenge.  It is important that we create environments in our classrooms where students can see that there is a direct correlation between the effective effort we put into something and the results we see on the other end.  As educators, we all recognize that some students have a natural facility with academics, which effects their rate of learning, in the same way that some people are genetically more athletic than others.  However, all students will face a moment in time when they will struggle and fail.  It is important that we have instilled in them a belief that with the proper time, support and effort they can succeed where they once failed.  Failure is not a sign of "dumbness", rather it is a situation we have not figured out YET.  

In the Classroom

In my reading, watching and conversing on this subject I have come across some useful tips for creating a culture of grit in our classrooms.  This list is by no means all inclusive.  As Dr. Duckworth mentions in her TED talk, this is a complex issue and we need to "be gritty about getting our kids grittier."

• Avoid starting a lesson with, "We are going to start with some easy ones."  If a child struggles with the easy ones, he/she is likely to believe that he/she is not smart enough to do the rest.  Instead perhaps you could start your lesson with something like, "We are about to learn some very difficult stuff.  I know that you all can do it, and I am here to help you.  It is going to take some hard work on your part, and there is a chance some of you will not get it right away, but if you stick with it, keep trying, and use the strategies I give you ,you can do it."
• Be careful with the word smart.  If we are always telling students that they are successful because they are "so smart", what happens when they meet failure?  Is it because they are not smart about that thing?  If that is what they believe, then there is no point in trying anymore, because they were not born to do it.  This is where the thinking of "I am not good at math" gets started.
• Be specific in your praise.  "Good job," "Nice Work," and "Excellent" all have their place in the classroom, but they do not provide the student with a lot of information and can be missed opportunities to build a culture of grit.  You will get more with specific targeted feedback.  Try statements like, "I love the way you stuck with that problem when you didn't get the answer the first time.";  "Johnny, I was so happy to see that you used your math notebook and experimented with some of the strategies we discusses in order to help you solve that problem."; "I am noticing that Sally has slowed down and is really concentrating to make sure she is forming her letters correctly."
• Provide opportunities to learn and grow from failure.  It is one thing to have high standards for academic learning, it is another to have expectations that all can achieve those standards.  When examining your grading practices, be sure to ask yourself about the purpose of the grade and how that compares to the purpose of education.  If a student fails a test, is that the end or just the beginning? Do you have opportunities for that child to try again?  If you do not think they should have that opportunity then let me ask why not?  Is it important that the students learn the material, or is it important that the students learn the material according to your schedule?  I am not suggesting that you hold all other students back, or that the student does not have responsibility in their own learning, but have you created opportunities for students to put forth that extra effort and try again?
• Share information with students that correlates effort with success.  A great example I read related to this connects homework with exam grades.  After giving an exam, this middle school teacher shares the class profile with all the students, but she doesn't just give the standard, "x students got an A and y students got a B..."  Instead she organizes the data by how many completing their homework.  She reports, "of the students that did 100% of their homework, the average score was a ____, and of the students that did between 75% and 99% of their homework the average score was a ___...."  She then leads a short discussion with students around the correlation between completing homework and the grade on the exam.  This connects to her on-going conversation about effort and success.  

Regardless of our approach, technique or language choices, educators have a responsibility to ensure each student believes in his/her own success.  We must be deliberate in our planning and create a culture where learning is the ultimate goal.  If we simply teach it, test it and move on we are continuing the belief that some people are cut out for this school stuff and some people are not.  To do so would marginalize the impact of quality education.

"I have not failed.  I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work." ~ Thomas Edison

Into the Summer

As the year comes to a close, I am sure most of us have our mind's eye on something that looks a lot like this picture.  As teachers and leaders, we have chosen a profession that challenges us each and everyday.  A profession that pushes us to grow, reflect and question.  We pour our heart and soul into this job, and while we are rewarded each and everyday by the smiles and laughter of our students, it is exhausting!  The summer is a time to recharge the batteries, clear our minds and pursue our hobbies.  It is also a perfect time for professional growth.

The summer months provide us with something that we all crave throughout the school year.... a four letter word that has has challenged quality professional development since the days of the one-room schoolhouse; TIME.  The summer provides us with blocks of uninterrupted time.  Time when no one is asking us if they can use the bathroom, when no one is crying because of an incident on the playground, no one needs their noses cleaned and no one is asking how to spell a word that has been on the word wall since September.  And while summer is a time to get away from school and clear our heads, it also provides a great opportunity that we should not let slip away.  We live in a dynamic time where information is growing at breakneck speed, society is changing, and people are interacting in new ways.  Educators need to stay current on societal trends, educational research and educational theory.  To stress this point, I have often asked the following question of individuals, "Would you want to go to a doctor who had not read a medical journal in the last 10 years?"  Should we expect any different from those in the field of education?  I believe that our profession requires the same degree of continuing professional growth, and with that thought in mind, I offer a few suggestions to help everyone on their journey of professional growth.

Read a Book

How many of us have time to dive into a professional book during the school year?  Don't everyone raise their hands at once.  I suggest that when choosing a book to read, you look for something that might change your thinking, shift your perspective or broaden your view.  The summer is a time for reflection and thought; you should select a book that encourages this.  I would suggest authors such as Daniel Pink, Sir Ken Robinson, Carol Dweck, Thomas Friedman and books like Whatever It Takes, Creating Innovators, and The Happiness Advantage.  Don't look for a book that is narrowly focused on one teaching technique or practice.  Those types of books are most worthwhile when you can practice with the concepts immediately and I don't think the neighborhood kids will be too psyched if you try and organize them on a hot day in July so that you can practice Talk Moves.  Save those more focussed pedagodical books for the school year, when you can read a chapter and "practice" the strategies with your class.

Play around on the internet

Ever wish you could use technology more productively in your classroom?  Ever thought it would be nice to have a classroom website?  What has stopped you?... my guess ... that pesky time thing again.  Occasionally it rains during the summer and you can't go to the beach, camp or mini-golf.  Take a rainy day and build a website (I promise once you get started you will be surprised how fast it goes).  Pick a service that already has pre-made templates where you can just fill in the information that is specific to your class  One where the colors, organization and styling is already taken care of.  Some great free services include Weebly, Google, and Yola.  A rainy day in the summer is also great for surfing... web surfing that is.  What units would you like to beef up?  Open up the Google search engine and type something in.  I usually just type my whole question, "What is the best website for teaching place value?"  For the sake of this post I typed, "Can I take a virtual field trip to the Grand Canyon?" into Google.  I stumbled upon the most amazing resource put together by the National Parks Service where you can take a virtual field trip with 360 panoramic views that you can control.  Find those amazing sites during the summer when you have the time to surf without the pressure of a class about to return from lunch!

Experiment with social media

Have you made it onto Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn yet?  If not, the summer is a great time to play around and learn.  You may be a bit leery of using these services, and I can understand/appreciate that, but you would be surprised the amount of valuable information and support you can receive.  While each of

these services can be used to share the most mundane and/or inappropriate aspects of people's lives; they also can be used to collaborate with people all around the world who are working on similar problems as we are.  What everyone has to remember is Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media platforms are tools.  Just like a hammer can be used to build a house or as a weapon on the next episode of CSI, how the tool is used is in hands of the person.  You can control how you use social media.  For example, I use my Facebook page to stay in touch with family and friends, but Twitter and LinkedIn serve my professional life.  I have used those two services to develop networks that I access for information, opinion, conversation, collaboration and as a means to stay current on the ever changing trends in education.  

Don't miss the opportunity

Once September returns, and the school year commences, there will be plenty to distract us.  Use the opportunity that the summer affords us to get to those things that you have not been able to.  The pursuit of excellence requires growth, and it is up to each of us as professionals to pursue our own growth.