Monthly Archives: August 2007

Blogging Blocked

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Blogging has been a professional practice for me for over a year now. As I’ve been transitioning into a new position this summer, somehow I’ve lost that practice. I’m not really sure why, if it’s that I just haven’t gotten into the groove of the new job or if superintendents (and assistants, in my case) have different responsibilities that just don’t lend themselves to blogging. Maybe this is why our own superintendent has struggled with writing on his blog. I’m definitely experiencing some sort of “blogger’s block”.

I have more new territory to consider than before so the practice of blogging to define my thoughts would be helpful. Maybe it’s that I’m actually mourning the loss of my principal position. It bothers me that I won’t be opening school for “my” teachers and kids this year. At the same time that I’m working on new initiatives and learning this new job, I’m conscious of my old duties too and my brain keeps drifting back to them.

I’m confident that my replacement will do as well or better than I did. I have known that the responsibility for our 9-12 building, and every person in it,  ultimately rests squarely on my shoulders. That’s a big job to give up. And heck, the guy just started a week ago. As he picks up steam and assumes those duties that I’m concerned about, I’ll be able to mentally leave the job to him.

Working Together

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Maybe it’s my personal staff development in Thoughtful Classroom training with Harvey Silver this summer. Maybe it’s my own style of management that includes processing ideas in discussions with others and sharing decision making. Maybe it’s all of the reading I’m doing on-line and in educational journals this summer.

I’m more convinced every day that our professional collaborations must grow and that our professional relationships, teacher to teacher, are the only way we can become our best selves in the classroom. I’m more sure of my personal vision for my position of assistant superintendent every page I turn and every RSS feed I read. As Harvey Silver said, it’s “Teachers Talking to Teachers about Teaching”. My plan is to foster this collaborative concept this year, to make it grow, to watch us all learn and collectively improve for our students. The days of teacher as independent contractor are long gone.

Difficult Parents

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It occurs to me that sometimes we (those of us in public schools) avoid difficult parents. This is absolutely the wrong approach. Difficult parents are tough for lots of reasons, but usually, the primary reason is a frustration with our school through a lack of understanding, their own bad memories from a personal experience, or our lack of good service.

The toughest parents are the parents I should be spending more time with in an effort to eliminate that lack of understanding or memory. They should see us as employees who are here to help them navigate a system that may be foreign to them, or worse, one in which they personally met with little or no success. Tough parents are often difficult because life is tough for them.

When I started in administration at Frontier Middle School, I worked with an incredible school social worker named Dottie Laettner. For many reasons, most of all her passion for families, I learned a lot from her in the year and a half we worked together. There was something Dottie said to me that’s never left me. 

Dottie said, “Kim, even bad parents love their kids.”

They may lack the skills, the role models, or the emotional stability to get it right. But they love their kids. Honestly, it seldom bothers me when a parent comes at me in a tough way because I’m always thinking, “she’s just fighting for her kid.” Our parents may not always choose the most appropriate way, but heck, I’m glad to see them advocating for their child. That’s the most important thing they can do, that and loving them, and if we’re getting it right then they don’t have to come in “guns a blazing”. When it is our mistake, we need to own that too. Difficult parents understand that we all make mistakes, what they don’t accept is when we try to avoid it.

cross posted at LeaderTalk

The Book I’m Reading Now

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I’ve written here about how much I read, especially during the summer. I’m not sure I’ve ever posted about a book before, but I’ve got to say how much I’m enjoying Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.  It’s the kind of book I want to read slowly, underlining and making notations. I’m looking at the copyright date of 2005 and figuring I missed any blog conversation that went around when it came out. However, I have added the rss feed to my bloglines account–seems these authors maintain a current New York Times blog. Nice.

One of my teachers gave the book to me at the beginning of the summer and said that he thought I’d really like it. Well, he was right. I’m fascinated by the chapter, What Makes a Perfect Parent?, in which the authors look at the correlation between a child’s personal circumstances and his school performance. Made me sit back and think about our school improvement efforts and the impact they may or may not have on achievement.

It’s a thought provoking, interesting read. . . if you’re looking for something this summer. 

My Eight Random Facts

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Chris Lehmann , Christian Long and Lisa Rosendahl tagged me and since I’m bored stiff by the movie 300 that my son and dad are watching, I’m glad to play along with this meme.

First, the Rules:

  1. Post these rules before you give your facts
  2. List 8 random facts about yourself
  3. At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them
  4. Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged.

Here are my eight random facts:

1. I grew up in a small, coal mining town in Pittsburgh. Yep, I’m a coal miner’s daughter.

2. I worked retail and cocktail waitressed my way through college.

3. Had an honest to goodness epiphany once. While working retail, a woman wigged out on me because there weren’t any bingo markers on the shelf. Watched her rage and thought, “this cannot be the most important thing I do with my life”.

4. Love to drive really fast. Not ride, drive.

5. If sunbathing didn’t equal skin cancer, I’d bask in the sun every possible moment, with Lisa next to me, even better. But alas, I’ve learned that lesson.

6. Many times, I prefer solitude.

7. I strongly dislike Mariah Carey.

8. Tommy Boy and The Notebook are my all time favorite movies.

And I tag the following eight people.

1. Neil Rochelle

2. Steve Poling

3. Mike Waiksnis

4. Rick Weinberg

5. Damien Bariexca

6. Ilana

7. Repairman

8. Charles Rinaldi

How’s that Lisa–I’m not screaming any more! 🙂

The Good Old Days

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1980, Boy meets girl, talks to girl, asks for phone number. Boy calls girl on her home phone, they talk until someone else in the house demands use of phone. No call waiting, no cell phones, no caller id. Boy asks girl out on date, girl says yes. Couple talks non-stop in the car, on the date, on the way home. Face to face, chemistry found–new date planned, start of story; no chemistry–no new date, end of story.

2007, Boy meets girl, talks to girl, asks for phone number. Boy starts texting girl. Boy and girl text incessantly for days, bringing up every imaginable topic. Boy asks girl out on date, girl says yes. Couple has already used up all of the “getting to know each other” topics on text message. Couple has nothing to say on first date. Awkward, who knows if chemistry would have been found?

I think it was better in 1980. I’m glad I’m old and married.

Let Me Ask “Why?”

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I want to share an absolutely fascinating thing that just happened with Harvey and Susan at Thoughtful Classroom. As adult learners, we took the learning styles test last evening and we haven’t looked at it yet today. After lunch, Harvey and Susan ask us to look at Guernica, by Pablo Picasso and then jot down whatever occurs to us, what we see, thoughts or ideas. We are asked to write 5-7 things that we think.

During my couple of minutes I write:

  • What’s wrong with that poor man on the right?
  • What horrible thing is occurring to cause this depth of despair in the world?
  • Is the light at the top causing their pain or is it a way out of the pain and suffering?
  • What is the significance of the handheld light, like a candle?

Lois writes:

  1. Anger
  2. Deformed
  3. Death
  4. Black/white
  5. Humans/animals
  6. War

Here’s the super cool thing about this activity. Lois is primarily a mastery learner, meaning that her learning style is good at working with and remembering facts and details. I am primarily an understanding learner, meaning that my learning style is curious about ideas, has a high tolerance for theory and abstraction. The Thoughtful Classroom learning style inventory says that my learning style is constantly asking “Why?” and that the questions tend to be provocative and probing.

Without any idea where the activity was going, Lois and I were completely true to our learning styles! Imagine how much less I would have liked this activity if I was forced to answer according to Lois’ learning style or Lois to mine. The note making activity described next allows us to take our students to another level, one on which they can make their notes more meaningful.

This is so powerful in its implications for reaching more students because it allows us to teach them the strategies they need to learn that are unknown to so many of them.

Blogging Shows Me Again That I’m Not Alone

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Just want to say a big AMEN to Chris Lehmann’s latest post–I love it when I read someone like Chris who makes me say “YES!” here’s someone thinking and writing the same thing I’ve been thinking so much about lately.  

We need school and district administrators to create a culture of innovation where teachers and students can bring new ideas, new tools and new ways of thinking to the subjects we have at hand and be rewarded for their innovation. When that happens — when teacher learning through non-traditional means is valued — then we can a) expect to really see change and b) hold teachers accountable when they don’t. Until that day, we will see the early adopters and the risk-takers bring new ideas to bear on the classroom, but I don’t think we’ll see wide-spread adoption of any tools at any rate faster than general society.

It’s my job, and Chris’ job, to create the culture. After more than one year of blogging, I’m grateful that I continue to learn so much here. Thank you.

The Thoughtful Classroom

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I’m at Thoughtful Classroom in Salamanca, learning with David Smith, our Middle School Principal, and three terrific teachers, Lois Piscitelli, Andrea Geist, and Kris Ruzycki. We are learning from Harvey Silver and Susan Morris and it is an incredible learning opportunity for me, providing a framework about many of the things I’ve known for seventeen years in education and other things that I haven’t ever heard before. One of the best parts is that Harvey and Susan are modeling all of the best strategies with us–we’re learning about learning in a practical, meaningful way.

Teachers are learning about creating thoughtful classrooms and I’m constantly translating that to my role in creating thoughtful schools in a thoughtful district. What more important goal could I have as assistant superintendent? What better gain could our district garner from this new administrative position?

This is different from other professional development opportunities I’ve been involved in because we five have agreed to embark on three years of sustained learning, experimenting and sharing. We are learning strategies for engagement, making students the center of our learning. I keep following two perspectives: one as a teacher and one as an administrator. I don’t think that’s a bad thing because as an administrator I should definitely do a better job of planning meetings with teachers as learners, remembering that they need the same things that our kids need.

I’m totally stoked about the opportunities I have before me as an assistant superintendent. If I had to choose a theme for my leadership I would steal the idea presented by Harvey and Susan regarding meaningful professional development of “Teachers Talking to Teachers About Teaching”. I love that I can really focus on learning, creating a climate and culture K-12 where we all share our ideas and learning with one another, visiting each other’s classrooms and talking about our strengths, our best ideas, and brainstorming. I’m excited about this shift and my part in it.

I would love to take care of the first year teacher training. I think it should be all about this Thoughtful Classroom learning, including responsibility for teaching strategies at the sessions with the mentors and the new teachers. And extending this for the next two years, focusing on learning with our probationary teachers. Thoughtful Classroom with Harvey and Susan includes sustained learning for our five and building learning clubs beyond our five to other teachers. I’m just thinking I’ll have the ability and the responsibility to take it beyond to other teachers. Can’t imagine that there’s anything more important for new teachers than what I’m learning right here, right now.

Please Give Me Something To Learn About

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Cross posted at LeaderTalk

When we ask the interview question of “what are your thoughts on the uses of technology in education?”, I have a preconceived notion of what I want to hear that is never met. I’m happy if the candidate even talks about it from a general point of view on the uses in instruction or adding to the curriculum. I’m unhappy when they say they like technology, or power point, or palm pilots and that it’s the wave of the future. Tell me what you’re going to use, where and how, and let it be something new, maybe even something I’ve never heard of before. It’s not the wave of the future, unless of course, I’ve regressed and it’s actually 1985 again. It’s today.

Which leads me to this post by Will Richardson about twitter. I don’t get it, I’m trying to get it, and I doubt I’ll actually go give it a try. I’m clueless about twitter, but NOT completely clueless because of Will’s post and the other tidbits I’ve been reading through my RSS feeds. What I’m loving is that I can read about something entirely foreign and new to me and that I can begin to ponder the implications it may have for my own learning and for education. This is what I need my teachers to be doing–reading the ideas of others and challenging their own ideas–LEARNING.