Flower now: Lessons learned from nature

I recently visited Seattle.

On April 5th I was able to walk - in shorts no less (if you live in Michigan as I do you know what a pleasure it was for me to be able to walk in shorts) - and I stumbled up on this:

It had been so long since I had seen a radiant red flowering plant that I stopped to take a picture.

Yesterday - April 23rd, at my home in Michigan, I took this picture in our driveway:

If you look closely you might see a hint that this tree is getting ready to grow some leaves. Eighteen days after I took the picture of the beautiful red flowering plant in Seattle, the magnolia tree in my own yard has barely begun to think about spring.

Most of us understand. Plants flower and grow at different times. Seattle's weather, its latitude and longitude, its proximity to Puget Sound - all of that and more create conditions that encourage growth significantly before plants in Michigan are ready to grow.

While we understand that in plants and are willing to accept that in plants, it is much harder for some to grant the same degree of understanding to people. More to the point, it is hard for some to understand that just as plants grow at different speeds and at different times, so do our students.

As I looked - really looked - at the magnolia tree (I think it's a magnolia tree) I thought about the students in our classrooms.

I visit classrooms every week. Just this week I was in a first grade classroom and I saw a young man who was having trouble focusing in class. He was the same age as everyone else. He looked the same as everyone else. But he was not ready to flower just yet.

The "weather and conditions" in his life have not prepared him to grow at the same rate and the same time as the other students in his class.

Don't interpret what I am saying as suggesting that we should just give up on this student. That is not what I am implying.

The point I am trying to make is that our students, much like the plants in our world, will grow and flower when the conditions are right.

Our responsibililty is to create great conditions for growth for every child in our classroom. Our responsibility is to take every child where they are and move them forward. Our responsibility is to honor the life of every child every day.

But we also need to understand that just because we say "grow," just because we demand growth, the conditions in a child's life may not have prepared that child to grow right at that moment.

If that is the case we need to continue preparing that child to grow when the conditions turn more favorable. We cannot give up on a child. But we also cannot force growth.

I believe that our responsiblity is to help every child grow and mature. I believe that every year a child can make progress.

But I also believe that some children will grow more quickly. The conditions in the lives of our children are different. Some children have an environment that encourages growth. Some children do not.

Our responsibility is to focus on every child. Our responsibility is to care and nurture each child. Our responsibility is to make sure that we don't turn our backs and give up on a child.

Our passion and skill as teachers can create favorable conditions for growth. We can and do help children blossom - at times much before a person would think that a child would be ready to grow.

But we also need to remember that at times our job may be to prepare the soil and get the student ready for growth that we may not see.

It will happen if we tend to the garden. Just like it will happen for our magnolia tree in Michigan. Eventually, it will bloom - just like this!

   

Monitoring your every move

UPS has begun monitoring a driver's every move. It is done, the company says, to increase productivity.

UPS monitors when the truck doors open and close, when the seat belt is fasten or unfastened, when the truck is started.

Data, some say, is king!

More data has led to increased productivity. Increased productivity saves money and increases profits.

And, not surprisingly, the company has the reserach to back it up. Deliveries per driver have increased. Pay has gone up as well.

There is a downside. Drivers complain of "big brother."

But, I am sure, drivers' enjoy their larger paychecks.

Can schools adopt and adapt the same process to educating students?

Can schools measure their productivity?

Schools can, and probably have, began to measure how long it takes to learn the alphabet, how to read, know math facts, learn economic principles. Schools can measure how long lunch lines are, if bus stops are too far apart, and how often the lights are left on in a classroom that is empty. The list of targets to measure in schools is endless.

Clearly it is not a question of can schools measure productivity. Perhaps the question is should schools measure productivity?

Some things in schools clearly should be measured. Bus stops wait times, how much electricity is wasted.

But can and should we apply productivity principles to classrooms?

Why teaching is difficult

Bryce Harper was (is) a can't miss prospect.

At 16 he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

He left high school early so he could get to college to accelerate being drafted.

He was the number one draft pick in Major League Baseball's 2010 amateur draft.

He signed a multi-million dollar contract. Less than two years later he was a regular in the outfield for the Washington Nationals.

He was the youngest position player ever selected for the MLB All-star game.

Yet at the beginning of the 2014 regular season, just days ago, he said, "I'm pretty lost right now."

Bryce Harper has all the tools. He trains relentlessly. His whole life it seems has been devoted to becoming a great baseball player.

He just spent six weeks in spring training getting ready for the season. And yet, he feels lost!

Imagine, if you will, if Bryce Harper had to worry about 23 kindergarten students or 27 8th graders or 25 high school seniors?

Bryce Harper has to worry about himself. His success is connected to the other players on the field but ultimately he is judged by how well he does. He can be an All-star even if his team is not successful.

But teachers. Sure they have to worry about what they do.

Are my lessons plans good? Am I using the right strategies? Do I know my content? Do I know the answers to these questions? Can I connect the lesson to real life? How much time should this lesson take?

Teachers also have to worry about their students.

How is Joe feeling today? I know Robert gets lost some times so how can I make sure he keeps up? Jan's dog died yesterday - how will that impact her mood today? Tim had a tough time on the bus - how can I get him refocused on school? Bob knows this really well but Tracey struggles - how can I keep them both interested and moving ahead?

In addition, teachers have to worry about school.

When is the fire drill? What happens if an intruder gets in the building? When can I call Steve's parents? There is an assembly today - how can I modify my lesson?

I know baseball is a difficult and demanding game. But teaching - now that's a challenging career!

Why teach?

It's a simple question:

Why teach?

Every aspiring teacher is asked that question in one form or another.

I asked it today. I was part of our school district team at a teacher job fair. Every interview started with a variation of the question: Why were you drawn to education? Why did you want to become a teacher? Why did you choose to be a teacher?

In short, why teach?

The answers were mostly the same.

"I always wanted to be a teacher."

"I enjoy working with kids."

"I was successful coaching and it seems that is a lot like teaching."

"I'm good at math."

"I like kids."

The question is, most of the time, intended as a set-up question. An ice breaker if you will. And the answers were all appropriate. But none completely satisfactory.

Why teach?

Because it is important. Because it can make a difference. Because it opens up doors. Because it teaches people how to think and solve problems and grow.

Because it helps people discover who they are. Because it gives kids confidence. Because teachers  prepare students for their life.

Because it changes lives. Because teachers get to see five and eight and thirteen and eighteen year-olds struggle and work and think and change and grow.

Because teaching matters!

When I ask someone the question - why teach? - I want to hear an answer that convinces me that she understands the power of education to transform a life.

Why teach? is not an ice breaker or a set-up question. It is the question. And I want my district to hire people who understand the importance of that little question.

Duke goes down! What lesson do we learn?

Duke - mighty Duke - got beat by Mercer today.

Coach K - the household name, Olympic gold medal winning coach, 4-time national championship winning coach - out in the first round.

A 14 seed beat a 3 seed. A huge upset! Not the biggest of all time. Seven times a 15 seed has beaten a 2 seed.

But Duke - mighty Duke - beaten by a team that very few people know.

Is there a lesson for schools?

Perhaps it is this: The inevitable isn't always inevitable.

In schools we fight against some seemingly intractable problems. In our district achievement gaps continue to confound us. We have made closing achievement gaps a district goal. We have spent time, money, attention on trying to identify ways to close achievement gaps. Yet they persist.

As a result it is tempting to make excuses. Those kids who aren't achieving - well those are our special education kids, those are our ESL kids. Those tests that measure growth and achievement - they don't really work very well for our kids.

Yet if I am the parent of any student in my district, I send my child to your school because I believe that you can help. If you can't right away, I believe that you will find a way. As a parent, I do not want to hear that my child can't achieve because he has special needs or because his first language is not English.

No, when I send my child to your school I trust that you can help.

As a parent I understand that I have a part to play. I need to read to my child. I need to make sure they are cared for and nurtured. I need to establish routines. I have an important role to play.

But I send them to school to learn. Don't tell me that my child can't learn or that it is really hard.

If Duke vs. Mercer teaches us anything, maybe it is the lesson that "can't" or "won't" - as in can't win or won't win or can't learn or won't learn - should not be part of our vocabulary.

Instead, we should say - we will find a way. Nothing is impossible!

You have to be kidding!

Blogging with 1st graders?

You have to be kidding!

1st graders need to learn the basics. They need to learn how to write with a pencil. They need to learn how to spell. They need to learn like I did.

But do they really?

The children that we have in our classrooms were born into a world where computers are not a new and scary thing. These students understand the power that technology brings to their lives.

Certainly, these students need to know how to read, write, and think. But blogging provides a tool that can engage them in deep and powerful ways.

Today at MACUL, two first grade teachers from Deerfield Elementary in Novi - Sherry Griesinger and Lindsay Pintar - spoke passionately about how their students - in first grade - were blogging.

Real audiences. Real content. Real writing.

Blogging with 1st graders is not only possible but should be happening!

The (limited) power of analytics

Data is in vogue. 

Athletics has begun to use data - changing how we believe we can create success in athletics. Moneyball - using data to make decisions about baseball players - was an early example. First it was a book and then a movie. (Starring Brad Pitt no less!) 

Then along came the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference:

a conference dedicated to analyzing sports - from analyzing over a million pitches to see how umpires change how they call balls and strikes to predicting how a pitcher will do in the next inning.

But just because we can get all of this data, does it mean it is good for us to make every decision based on data?

Some are beginning to question whether we are becoming "digitally obese." 

"Technology will absolutely stay on its exponential course and make information wider, deeper, and faster. Unless we find a way to deal with this constant tsunami of possibilities, we may ultimately all become digitally obese. . ."

The same phenomenon is happening in education. 

We have more information. We have faster information. 

But do we have the right information?

We can track a student's growth and his/her achievement every year they have been in school. Correspondingly, we believe we can use that to measure the impact a teacher has had - the added-value of the teacher.

But is that really what we are doing? Does the data really show us what we think it shows us?

I believe that parents send their children to our schools so that they will learn. Those of us who are in schools need to be able to show that a student's life has been enriched in our schools. We need to be able to show that a student has learned. 

We need to do this because we are not babysitters. Our job in education is not to keep students out of trouble or to keep them "busy" while their parents are at work. 

Our job is to educate.

We now have state tests, national tests, and benchmarked assessments. We have scaled scores, percentile ranks, and projected growth metrics.

But do we have what we need to sit with a parent and describe the change that has happened in a student's life? Does the data do the job for us? 

Or is there something missing when all we rely on is data?

I think that data has its place. But the real power of schools is not just to give a parent a "number." No - the real power in schools is to be able to have a conversation about the change that has occurred in a student. Are they engaged? Are they interested in school? Do they get excited about learning? Can they apply what they know to their life outside of school? Are we seeing them develop a passion about ideas?

There is power in numbers.

But the real power of school cannot be captured in just a number. No the real power of school is displayed by students and teachers who love to learn.