If work is no longer a place, what about school?

School, for most of my life, has been a place.

Inez Elementary School. Monroe Junior High School. Sandia High School. Graceland College. The University of Washington. Texas Tech University. Wayne State University.

Each and everyone of those schools was, and is, a place. I showed up, entered a building, found my classroom, sat in a desk, and waited for the teacher to help me learn. For the most part the teachers directed my learning. They identified the questions that I was to ask. They provided the resources that I needed.

Then I saw this on Twitter today.

Steve Kwikkel ‏@SKwikkel1h

The idea that work is a location is quickly fading. School as a location is a notion that will fade away too. Gr8 catch @B_Wagoner #plaea

It made me think.

I work from home. I work in my car. I work at Biggby's Coffee.

I work during the day. I work at night.

I work during the traditional work week. I also work on the weekends.

It's not that I work all the time, it's that I work not only at work but also when I need to in places and at times that would be considered unconventional.

Work is no longer, for me, defined by a place or a time.

Work is now about getting things done. Sometimes that happens in my office or in my school district.

Other times it happens at night, on the weekends, through Twitter chats, through reading, through listening.

The answers that I seek are not in a book. They are in a thousand books, and articles, and websites, and conversations with colleagues.

If where I work is no longer defined by a place and occurs at times and at places that don't fit in a box, maybe there is another way to look at learning.

I still consider myself a learner and I learn in a whole host of ways. I learn via webinars. I learn by reading. I learn by engaging colleagues through Twitter. I learn by going to conferences and attending sessions. I learn by watching YouTube videos. I learn by listening.

There is value in learning at a place and with other people. There is value in having someone guide me as I learn.

But . . . there is also value in exploring on my own, with colleagues, in ways that would be defined an un-traditional.

As work transforms from a place, I should look to see how school can transform as well.

Letting happiness find me

I've been thinking about happiness lately. Questions abound.

What is it?

How do you find it?

How do you keep it?

Recently, I've thought more about happiness than usual. Finding happiness and keeping happiness seem harder than ever.

I certainly don't have all the answers to what happiness means, how to find it, and how to keep it, but I know I want to be happy.

There are books and books and websites on happiness. I've read some but I've thought more.

Here's what I think I know.

Happiness comes not from accumulating things but from developing relationships.

Happiness comes not from being somebody but from helping someone else up.

Happiness is not an end in itself but a result of being involved in something meaningful beyond yourself.

Happiness does not mean that you don't hurt or grieve or suffer.

Happiness comes because you care about making the world a better place.

School superintendents are supposed to be focused on outcomes and test results and curriculum and budgets. I focus on those. I recognize that those are important.

But, more importantly, I want to focus on serving my family, my school district, my students, my staff, and my community. If I do that  - happiness will find me.

Gamers as a model for real learning?

What do you think of when you think of a gamer?

A slacker?

A basement dweller who can't relate to the real world?

How about . . .

A person with a questioning disposition?

A person with curiosity?

A person, who as part of a community, transforms and shapes their own learning?

A model for what real learning looks like?

Look at this video in which John Seely Brown talks about motivating learners. He paints an interesting and provocative picture of today's learners. It is a picture that those of us in education need to embrace but clearly have not.

Data, sports, and schools: What's the connection?

An article appeared on how statistics and data can be used to improve outcomes. The author said:

• analytics are advancing and changing everything
• access to previously unimaginable information and statistics
• various software programs can break down in breath taking detail . . .

Yet the author continued and said:

• Many people are still fighting back against the numbers
• The numbers are the the numbers. But you better know your [people]
• Even at a conference about using the numbers and analytics in new ways, there is significant backlash against using the numbers in the current ways.

The author concludes with:

• You can understand those under the microscope being dismissive of those people calculating odds and percentages and best practices while sitting far away from the fray

And there you have it.

On the one hand you have those who advocate for the use of data. Numbers. Statistics. Quantifiable outcomes.

Then you have those in the trenches, those on the field, those doing the work that have a different perspective than those in the offices calculating performance who have never been in the trenches, on the field, or doing the work.

That is the world of education. 

Except this article was about the use of data in sports not the use of data in schools. 

It was interesting to see the similarities between those in sports and those in schools.

Both have data.

There is some skepticism in some quarters about the importance of data.

A big difference is that in sports one can define success. A team wins or loses. Inquiring minds can ask why "Team A" did better than "Team B"? Those who advocate using data in new ways will argue that it is using the data in new ways that is making the difference for those teams that win.

Think "Moneyball."

But in education is the use of data that clear cut?

Do we see winners and losers just based on data?

Some data points seem more important to some people than other data points.

Test scores? Important.

Poverty rates? Not so important to some.

Grade points? Viewed with skepticism by some.

The outcome in education is learning. We need to use all of the available data that we have to try and figure out if students are learning.

But we also need to look at the human factor. How do we quantify the importance of a teacher who cares? Of a teacher who connects with students?

The conversation surrounding the use of data is critical.

When data conflicts with a political agenda, who wins?

On January 16, 2013, Governor Snyder, in his state of the state address, said the following:

Only 17 percent of our kids are college ready.

This is a consistent message that the Governor gives. He hammers again and again that only 17% of Michigan's high school seniors are college ready. He has said it many times.

But it is just not true.

No matter how many times he says it, the Governor is wrong.

On the Governor's dashboard - MI School Data (www.mischooldata.org) - 75% of the 2010 graduates - the latest year for which numbers are available - enrolled in college within 16 months of graduation. (Here's a link that shows the numbers - click on the "percentage" link.)

On the Governor's dashboard - MI School Data - the latest figures show that less than 30% need remedial courses in college in any subject. Indeed, the numbers show that less than 8% need remedial courses in reading, less than 13% need remedial courses in writing, and less than 22% need remedial courses in math.

If Governor Snyder's numbers were accurate then fully 83% of students would need remedial work.

Why would the Governor try to sell an idea that clearly is not true?

He has a political agenda that requires him to try and show that public schools are not doing the job. This would allow him to sell his idea that other forms of education - commercialized, for-profit companies and his Educational Achievement Authority - are needed to provide the kind of education that Michigan students need.

But the data refute the Governor. It appears that the Governor is not looking at the data or is choosing to ignore the data.

What happens when data conflicts with a political agenda? It appears that the political agenda wins.

The Governor could be selling that Michigan's public schools do a great job of educating students. The Governor could be trumpeting than businesses should invest in Michigan because we have an educated population that would help businesses succeed.

But the Governor is not doing that.

That is - to put it mildly - unfortunate.

Reflection on teaching and teachers

How hard is teaching?

Lee Shulman described teaching this way:

"Classroom teaching is the most complex, most challenging, and most demanding, subtle, nuanced, and frightening activity that our species has ever invented. The only time a physician could possible encounter a situation of such complexity would be in the emergency room after a natural disaster."

We live in a time when teachers are put under a microscope.

Students aren't learning the critics say.

Teachers are overpaid the critics say.

Teaching isn't all that hard the critics say.

The critics have never been in a classroom looking into the faces of twenty-five young people who are looking back into your eyes.

Those young people are at times eager, surly, curious, engaged, bored, disappointed, frustrated, sleepy, excited, distracted, anxious, happy, focused.

And the expectation is that the teacher can keep all of them pointed in the same direction.

I understand that at times teachers do not live up to the expectations that we have of them. We have all been disappointed by a teacher.

But let's agree that teaching is difficult and teachers, the vast majority of the time, do wonderful things.

Teaching is not for the faint-hearted. Let us continue to support the great work they do to help our students every day.

Start the day in the ball pit

What happens when two strangers sit together in a ball pit?

It reminds us that if we are willing to talk and listen we will remember what's important in life.