Busyness as a Badge

As I've often said in previous posts, I have been so fortunate in my career to work in multiple areas in education. I've been a teacher, instructional coach, district admin and I've taught at the post-secondary level. With each change in position, I have been able to look at situations in education through a different lens and I've been able to actually walk in the shoes of different positions and what the day entails to serve whichever stakeholders I serve to the best of my ability.

Personally, I've been a student, a college student, a college student with kids, a wife, a mother who worked part-time, a mother who worked full-time, a mom who worked full time and finished grad school, and a mother who worked several jobs at once. I've always thought, in every situation, that I was extremely busy. With all of these personal and professional experiences, I've noticed one commonality. People wear busyness as a badge of honor.

I've had several of these discussions around the idea of being busy, but most recently the #edtechafterdark guys posted about busyness as a badge, and that has really resonated with me lately. I made a conscious decision awhile ago to stop talking about how busy I was. Sometimes, I still fall into the old habit that when someone asks me what I've been up to, I'll answer that things have been crazy/busy/insane, but really, I've become better at realizing that being busy is relative.

I could give multiple examples both personally and professionally where people around me have declared a task can't be because they're busy. It usually starts with, "I can't" or "I could never" or "That would be impossible", yet there is another person, who may or may not have as much to do who will pick up the task and finish it with flare. When reflecting on this, I was reminded of this quote by George Couros:

Even though  George was referencing people moving forward and being innovative (or rather choosing not to), I think that the quote still applies to the badge of busyness. How many opportunities do people pass up because they feel they're too busy to take on something else? I am certainly not endorsing saying yes to everything that is presented, but I feel like busyness is a mindset. Since changing my mindset about what I have to do, I have been able to look at situations with a calmer attitude, and I've found ways to organize my thoughts and calendars to work with a better flow. My "crazy" schedule didn't change, just the way I thought about it did. Now, when someone else tells me how busy they are, I feel that I wish they would stop wearing the badge, change their mindset, and become less entwined with what they need to do minute to minute.

Along with busyness, I've noticed that at all levels, people question how truly busy other positions can possibly be. The fact of the matter is that everyone has plenty to do, it just may look different depending on what the work entails. For example, when I became a Technology Integrator, I would be sitting at my desk creating an instructional video for a teacher or researching new technologies, and inevitably a teacher would come up to my desk and say, "Since you're just sitting there...". It's so important to remember that in each of our positions, in order to support a positive culture, we understand that everyone is working toward supporting students and their learning. There is no us against them, no we are busier than they are, no this level/grade/school/group has more to do than the other. It's all in the mindset, and I think that it's imperative that we all embrace the opportunities presented to us instead of flashing our busyness badge. 

Sounds Good in Theory...

A friend of mine recently told me that a lot of what I say sounds good "in theory". When I was a classroom teacher, I often read the posts or Tweets of people who were no longer in the classroom and thought that what they were posting was great in this same way, but they had lost the practicality of their idea. Even some of the instructional coaches I felt had lost touch with what the real challenges are in a classroom. Since moving out of the role of classroom teacher, I have tried really hard to remember the million things a teacher has going on at an given moment, how inundated they are with new initiatives whenever I'm suggesting an idea or change, and that they are dealing with real students on a daily basis (versus the pretend class I talk to in my head).

Today, our professional development time was structured like an edCamp. I stopped into a session that was suggested to be a discussion regarding Flipped Lessons, but had morphed into a discussion around how to get students to watch the videos at night in order to be prepared the next day, which morphed into a discussion about student motivation...and it was fascinating. We know, in theory, how to motivate students. For example, the teachers discussed creating relevance between the content and students' lives, but then the Chemistry teacher questioned how he would take some of the more complex chemistry lessons and make them applicable to students. Not that he wasn't willing to learn, after all, that's why he was there. He just didn't know how to implement that practically into his teaching for every concept. We discussed how tired we are of compliance measures...how the teachers want the students to watch the videos because they want to be engaged learners and not just because they are getting a grade, but are constantly demoralized when students just want to know what they "need to do" to earn an A. The general question was: How do we get kids to care about everything they learn ALL the time? How do we, as teachers, make everything we teach relevant to students? Again, we know what sounds good in theory...how do we implement it?

I thought about the fact that I need to do something called a PDP in order to renew my license. Basically, the state collects a bunch of artifacts that we submit to see if we have met a goal that proves we are good teachers. In general, these are seen as something to check off a list. There is no buy-in whatsoever to the process. I related this to a subject that a student has no interest in, and thought to myself, "What would I need in order to be engaged in the PDP process?" I decided I would be engaged if I could create my own goal and work toward something meaningful. Well, guess what? The PDP process allows for that, which means that my attitude toward the PDP is really about my mindset. If that's the case, are students' learning and motivation about their mindset as well? I believe that's something that can be changed, so how do we go about changing that, and not just in theory?

The only reason I was slightly disappointed in the conversation was that we didn't have enough time to finish it. I wish I would have had answers for these teachers and I just didn't. We clearly need to change our practices, but need practical answers on how to implement the ideas. How do we go about creating change to incorporate everything that sounds good in theory?

The Kids Get It

I had just gotten home and was sitting eating dinner when my kids started complaining about their homework. My kids hate school. Every single one of them even though they excel, have high GPAs, and are well liked by their peers. When I ask them why they don't like school, their answers range from "it's too easy" to "I don't see how most of it relates to my real life".

Hmmmm. Sounds like a blog post.

Tonight, however, the object of their distain was specifically their assigned homework, which they know that I am anti-compliance-based-homework as it is. Although I have four kids, the two most vocal are my daughter, eighth grade, and my younger son, a sophomore. The conversation went something like this:

Daughter (in her best rage filled voice): "I have MORE problems to do in math. Just because I'm advanced, doesn't mean that more of the same problems are going to affect my learning".

(spoken like a true educator's child)

Son: Well, my homework is about finding an imaginary number. That's right. A number that actually doesn't exist. A fake number. I am spending time finding a number that is imaginary. Mom, when have you ever needed to find an imaginary number?

(insert blank stare here)

Daughter: Or how about finding a set of numbers on a coordinate plane. How about that, mom? When's the last time you did that?

(well, when I taught it in fifth grade, but insert another blank stare with a smirk)

My kids don't see the connection from what they are learning to their real lives, therefore, they have no buy-in as to what they are learning. They will do it because they have learned how to be students, play school, and get good grades so they can "learn what matters" (in their words) in college. They look at their K-12 career as hoops to get through to learn something that means anything to them. My fear is that they have learned so well to play the game by fulfilling the compliance measures set that they are not even sure about the why behind anything that they learn anymore. It's so important for us, as educators, to make sure we are creating learning opportunities where students can see the connection to content and their lives and to know that there is a purpose behind the experiences.

#oneword for 2017: Relentless

I work on a school calendar. My year goes from September to June (I think July and August are in there somewhere), therefore when I create goals for myself they are initialized in early September. I don't make New Year's Resolutions. We are halfway through my year by then.

I do, however, love the #oneword trend, and after watching my PLN follow through on some of their one words from last year, I have decided to choose my own. My #oneword2017 is:

Relentless

In the past, this word irritated me. It is the number one word that people have used to describe my personality (or some version of it: tenacious, persistent...) and I always felt it carried a negative connotation. I'd connect it to other things people have said to me: "Why are you constantly thinking about that?" or "Why are you so obsessed with (insert anything here)?" or "Just give it up already!" because I didn't know how to give up. Then I realized...I didn't know how to give up! I could look at being relentless as negative, or I could turn it into a positive personality trait that would guide me in times where giving up is the easy thing to do. Times when other people might give up. Luckily for me, I don't do easy. Why? Because I'm relentless.

Jennifer Hogan (a seriously intelligent and kind woman whom I hope to be like one day) posted this quote on Twitter to support her new three word blog post (that you can find here), and I felt it was fitting for the pivot I needed to do in order to rework the definition to be a positive trait:

It's all about changing my mindset.

My one word this year will guide me in my new career...relentless in creating a new culture within my department which will be more effective in giving teachers and students the tools they need to learn and be innovative thinkers and problem finders. Relentlessness will allow me to come back from failure stronger and smarter than I was prior, and be proud of any gains that I make in the process versus disgusted at not being successful the first time. Hopefully, if I model this trait, others will see the value in it, too.

I will be relentless in my personal life...balancing all of the facets of my family, career, new endeavors, relationships while continuing to try my best to be kind, empathetic, caring and giving. When I'm down and feeling like I'm not good enough for what I am trying to accomplish, relentlessness will move me past that to see what I can do to be better.

I choose to view being relentless as having courage to go on when others won't, to continue to try to create real change even when it is difficult, and to continue to love, encourage and support others when they don't see the value in moving forward.

Defining Educationese & Creating a Common Language

Education has so many buzzwords at any given time. We take these words, throw them into goals that we create, revamp our mission & vision statements to include them, and expect teachers and students to meet the goals. What we often don't do is define what the words mean to the district. How the district defines any particular word that is used as a driver for learning. The term innovation is a perfect example...personalized learning is another. If we don't take time to define the educationese that we use in our goals, it's difficult to expect people to know how to meet them.

Recently, I was presenting a workshop on personalized learning. The night before, I had an idea on how I might be able to get this very idea across. I revamped my presentation, and the next day I broke the participants into groups, gave them a word that I wanted them to define and asked teachers to close their devices briefly (gasp! - I know, it was only for a bit, though) so they couldn't look up the definition. The word was Nomophobia. Teachers were asked to define the word, create a SMART goal to meet the needs for this word, and action steps on how to meet the SMART goal. The result was amazing. Teachers created very real goals and definitions. They had an idea of what the word could be by noticing that the root word "phobia" was there, similar to how we might have an idea of what a buzzword might mean. They created action steps that would be best practice for meeting any goal. They had professional development offered, students were creating content, teachers were running PLCs based on the concept. They had many activities that we see in new districtwide and schoolwide implementations every day. When all the groups finished, we looked at how they had defined the unknown word. Even though they had fantastically realistic goals and activities, all of their definitions, although similar, were incorrect. All of them had an element of truth. The groups recognized that phobia was a fear, but the root word threw them off, therefore while the plans were solid, nobody knew what the goals and activities were really accomplishing.

(Nomophobia, by the way, is the fear of being without a mobile phone. I am a self diagnosed Nomophobiac.)

Sometimes, defining a word seems like an elementary task. Sometimes, it seems like it would be obvious that all stakeholders know what a term means. Sometimes, I think deep down, we are afraid of finding out that we were the ones who didn't know what it meant. No matter the reason why, when we create goals and implement new ideas without going through this important step, we are risking complete failure because we have no common foundation to build upon.

Would you do what you're asking of your students?

I think that we oftentimes have expectations of students that we, as adults, would not do ourselves. Many times, we file this under the fact that students are children and we are adults, so as adults we should get special privileges that students shouldn't have. However, not all of what we do should fall under this umbrella, and we need to be more cognizant of what we are actually asking of our students.

How We Listen
Since I have moved into instructional support (even as a director I'm still instructional support), I have been able to work with adults in a different capacity. As I provide professional development or hold a meeting, I can see things I couldn't when I was sitting as a participant. Oftentimes, I see participants multitasking, chatting on the side, or standing up because they "can't sit that long" (and I do all of these same things...sitting quietly through a long meeting is the closest thing I know to torture). Yet, students are often asked to sit for extended periods of time while doing nothing but listen. In education, we are just now seeing classrooms moving to flexible learning spaces, but not all classrooms have embraced this kind of learning support yet. If an administrator would ask adults in a meeting to close their technology, stop grading papers, and sit down quietly, many of us would be outraged.

Conflict Resolution
Another example is what we ask of students when they have a disagreement. Students come in from recess angry after arguing with each other, and we ask them to go get some version of a conflict resolution bridge, and tell them to go in the hall and work through it. Teaching kids conflict resolution is not the issue. Obviously this needs to be done. However, as adults we often take time to process a disagreement after having it. If we don't, we are often told we should have because people need time and space to think about what happened and what the best solution would be. Think of how it would feel if you were involved in a disagreement with a co-worker and the principal took you two immediately into the office and told you to work it out? It would be uncomfortable and possibly confrontational. Yet, we tell students to handle the situation immediately, which leaves them frustrated, angry and less likely to be able to process the situation they way they could have otherwise.

Uniform Expectations
As we go through our year as educators, we need to have expectations uniform from our leadership or we struggle trying to figure out what is expected from us, which makes sense. It's difficult to work in conditions where you're unsure of what's expected. Sometimes, we have a few leaders who have expectations that differ, and are either left frustrated trying to figure out what we need to do or stressed knowing that no matter what we do, it won't satisfy everyone's expectations (or both). Yet students go through their day interacting with several different teachers all with different expectations. For example, particularly at the secondary level, a student might have one teacher might consider "on time" as being in the seat with books out, another teacher may consider just being in the room as on time, and yet another considers on time as being as long as you can be seen outside the door and walk in prior to the sound of the bell ending. Those teachers might be the first three classes of a student's day, and they might still have four more. The expectation of what is considered tardy is only one small compliance in the grand scheme of rules and procedures that teachers might have implemented. We expect students to conform and adjust to us, but what is expected of students is sometimes not what we would accept as being reasonable as adults if the same were done to us.

Empathy needs to surround us as teachers, and I think many teachers are amazing at thinking about their students' learning challenges and life outside school, but when it comes to what is expected of students across their whole day, we may need some reflection time. If it is something that we wouldn't do ourselves as adults, maybe there is a better way in order to make it work for students.

Five Things to Think About When Talking To Students

Teachers are busy. No doubt. There are a million things going on around them at any given time. While trying to live in the moment, they are reflecting on what just happened and thinking about what needs to come next. Being a teacher brings the role of "multitasker" to a whole new level. However, while our jobs may include standards and best practices and getting that next math lesson ready, our entire reason for professional being is for our students, and being aware of our interaction with them is one of our most important duties. Here are five things I think we need to remember when talking to students:

Be Present

Oftentimes, we have an undercurrent of a to-do list running through our head at all times which keeps us from actually living in the moment that we're in. With such busy minds, it can be difficult to remove the thinking that distracts us from what is happening right in front of us.  Sometimes, I am thinking about an answer prior to the person even finishing, which diverts me from catching additional information they might be giving me in the conversation. Also, kids have super skills in detecting if someone is paying attention. It's imperative that we turn our attention to whoever needs us, quiet our minds in order to be in the moment with that person and give them our full attention.

Be Empathetic

Empathy can be a hard emotion to conjure when you're constantly on the move or trying to determine if a recess disagreement was bullying or tattling. But, so many of our kids are coming to us from situations that are not anything we've been unfortunate enough to experience. Recently, I was speaking with a consultant who worked in an area that the gang activity was really high. When working with a principal in a school from the area, they determined that the high rate of teen pregnancy was because the gang members were impregnating girls in order to raise the next generation of gang members. Think about the level of mental and physical strain that those kids were going through, yet they were still coming to school. Some of the kids have situations at home that we, as adults, we would be crawling under the covers and refusing to come out, yet they come to school and are expected to learn and act in a socially responsible manner. Sometimes, the most difficult kids are the ones that need our love and understanding the most.

Remember They're Kids

When my son was in first grade, he really liked his teacher. One night, he came home and told me that she liked a certain animal, and he was going to draw her a picture. He worked on it for hours, which is impressive for a child who was that young and didn't like to draw. When he was done, he was proud of his creation and asked me for an envelope that he could decorate to give it to her as a present. I gave him one, he spent more time decorating the envelope, and put it in his backpack for the next day.

After school, I asked him if he gave his teacher the present. He said yes, but didn't look as excited as I was expecting, so I followed up with, "How did she like it?" He told me that he tried to give it to her, but she was busy and told him to put it on her desk, and then never said anything to him about it so he didn't know if she opened it or not. He was crushed. He never drew another teacher a picture again.

It doesn't really matter if you're talking about a 5 year old or 17 year old, they are just kids. They are trying to figure out who they are, which let's face it, is something that even as adults we can't seem to get a handle on. Everything that happens to them will shape what they think and what they do in the future. That one interaction, where the teacher wasn't present, wasn't remembering that she was dealing with a child, affected my son. She probably doesn't even know she did it, but her attitude toward him had lasting effects. They're kids. They're not adults. They need patience and attention and to feel like you know they're there.


Model Good Communication Skills

I don't think that adults, including myself, really grasp how kids grab onto our words and actions. Even when it doesn't look like they're watching, they are still paying attention to everything we do. An old song that reminds me of this is by Harry Chaplin called Cats in the Cradle. Basically, the song is about a dad who doesn't have time for his son, and in the end the son doesn't have time for him. While this may be a little dramatic, I guarantee that when students watch us communicate and interact with others, they are taking in how that sounds and what that looks like and recreating it in their own interactions.

Take a moment and think about the communications you had during the day today. Were you present? Were you being an active listener? Did you smile? Nod? Look angry? Bored? I once talked to an assistant superintendent who I swear was thinking about what he was going to have for lunch throughout our entire conversation. Would you want your students communicating in the same fashion you do? Are you modeling the kind of communication you want your students to use?

They Want a Relationship With Us
When little ones seek attention, it's because they want adults to realize they're there. They want to have a relationship with us where we think that they're awesome. And they are, all in their own ways. Even as the students get older, they want that connection with their teachers. Even if they would never admit it in public, they enjoy having a friendly conversation with a teacher who has taken an interest in their interests, and who can connect with them on another level besides academic. When students talk to us, it is the perfect time to cultivate those relationships and make the connections. Your favorite teacher in school wasn't your favorite because they were super organized or taught the standard for equivalent fractions...it was the teacher who made the biggest impact by being present, listening, and making a connection. For some kids, these relationships might be the only ones they have, and that connection might mean the world to them.