No One is Coming for Us!
One of the largest frustrations that I have with regard to pedagogical reform (involving technology or otherwise), is related to the perspective with which many teachers think about leading the change. Many teachers are looking around wondering where the leaders are, who will ‘allow’ them to implement their big ideas for change. The thing that I have come to realize, people, is that NO ONE IS COMING FOR US.Now I don’t say this to be inflammatory or contentious, but rather to point out one of the basic stumbling blocks that many reform minded teachers trip on in the great march to more/better/faster in pedagogical reform. The leaders in many schools are not reform minded. The leaders in many state houses are not reform minded. Although the word reform is tossed around as though it is a fore gone national policy conclusion, much of the ‘reform’ policies look just like more of the same: testing, standardization, and then more testing. I have to let you in on a little secret, more standardization and testing is not reform. Real reform, that takes into account the shift from an era of information scarcity to one of information surplus, is harder to come by, its nebulous. But, much like the constitutional definition of pornography, I know it when I see it. And I think many teachers also know it when they see it on the faces of their students, in the work they do, and in the words they speak. We know.Hence, when you find yourself saying, “I wonder when (fill in the blank here with your school/workplace/district) is finally going to get it and start adopting more ‘21st century’ friendly pedagogical reform”, my suggestion is to stop asking that question because NO ONE IS COMING FOR US.The leadership that we all crave and seek is really already here. We are it. Those of you trapped in places where the leadership is abysmal/lacking/stultifying, start taking classes to be the principal, or the curriculum director or, IT director, or, or, or….. Build common cause with community groups, universities, and non-profits. Get moving. Lead. We must stop waiting for someone to come and save us all from the big bad bureaucratic machine that crushes innovation and creativity because, well, you know why.
Where I come from...
Anyone who knows me, even a little, knows that I grew up on a farm in west central Wisconsin. Even though I left the farm at 18, it has never left me. There is one thing that stands out to me after all these years away from the farm, that I try to replicate everywhere I can, and that is a sense of community; and not community in the digital, 21st century, ubiquitous kind of way.Today when I called my parents they relayed a story that best epitomizes the sense of community that still exists in small, rural towns. The Hagens, Julie and Jewell, live up the road, and have done so since before I was alive. Their son, Terry, was a year older than I in school. The father and son team run a dairy operation with 150 head of cattle, machinery, etc. The business supports two families and is pulling off what few families have in the last few decades on America's small farms; the family farm.Friday night, just after midnight, my Mom bolted out of bed, unsure of what had woken her, but knew something was wrong. A few minutes later there were sirens coming from all directions down our little road that scarcely sees a vehicle after midnight. My father, hard sleeper extraordinaire, slept through all the commotion. Knowing that my father would want to see what was happening and help if he could, my mother woke him up. As my father turned west out of the driveway, the cause of the commotion was abundantly clear.The Hagen's barn was on fire. This was not a small fire, burning machinery, hay, straw, equipment and worst of all, 44 head of their best milking cows. Four volunteer fire departments responded with probably close to 100 people up and out of bed to help in the middle of the night. My dad buzzed back to the house to pick up the cattle trailer to help get the remaining cows to a nearby pasture. Almost immediately, one of the men present remembers that a local farmer just sold off his cows the previous week and there was a barn still set up for milking, about 15 miles away. The only thing missing was a compressor, as that had been sold off already. A local electrician, and close friend of the family, chimes in with, you get the cattle there and the compressor will be in and ready. Men and women spent the bulk of the night trying to make sure the fire didn't spread to the rest of the buildings and stand in support of the family. No one received a dollar or compensation or anything but the knowledge that if it was their home or barn or livelihood, the same would apply.In the recent political season, the scene is one that I almost can't bear to watch anymore with the spewing of anger and the skewing of fact. But, as I listened to my mom tell me the story, it occurs to me that none of that matters if we don't have communities like the one I grew up in, continuing to help when help is needed and celebrate when the good times come. It may be a little overly simplistic and/or Pollyanna'ish' to say so, but I think that America is really in trouble when we cease to be the kind of place where neighbors help neighbors, let alone know their neighbors. Living in the city is really unreal with fabulous opportunities and wonderful events... but I am not sure that the sense of community that exists in these rural pockets of America translate well in our cities. The loss of that feeling that your neighbor will get out of bed in the middle of a Friday night to help salvage your life's work... is one that America can't stand to lose.It is in my classroom that I try very hard to help students to feel that sense of community, that sense that someone will help you because it is the right thing to do. SLA is an easy place to foster such a feeling because the community is already so strong. But I often think about what it must be like to live a life without the strong sense that your network will support you when you stumble. To have grown up in it makes me a better person, to know that it is still alive and well, gives me hope.
Growth, transitions and new challenges!
Tomorrow I attend yet another technology conference and once again I will present. To be completely honest I started presenting at these conferences because if I presented I attended for free. This seems like somewhat of a silly reason to present at conferences, but, the fact remains that in the years of limited budgets and no money to pay for such extravagances, I wanted to go and presenting allowed for that to happen.
My technology use prior to 2005 was primarily at the classroom level using tools and producing projects with my students. Technology was certainly a part of the classroom as a learning tool, but not as a tool for my own professional growth as an educator. Then in 2005, David Warlick came to Flagstaff and he did what he does best; assure a crowd of people that there is this really powerful collaborative network of blogs and wikis just waiting to be used for a plethora of learning and creativity. I started an RSS feeder that day. The learning curve became steep from there and I was on a new path, wasn’t exactly sure where I was going all the time, but there I was nonetheless.
The next year I am at the AzTEA conference in Flagstaff, I met Hall Davidson and he did what he does best; amaze a crowd of teachers with the power of media and expression of ideas through a multitude of technology tools and gadgets. Shortly after, I became a STAR educator with the Discovery Educator Network. The fast forward button on my life has been on ever since that point.
One of the blogs that was added to my feeder early on was Practical Theory by Chris Lehmann by way of Christian Long’s think:lab. For the better part of a year I read, I commented, I thought and thought and thought. Then the connections started to get closer and more meaningful. Real connections developed between these people I had only known online and in small pictures next to bios and names. Last August when the first inklings of EduCon started to come to light, I knew I was going. It didn’t really matter when exactly it was or how much it was going to cost me. I was going.
The visit to EduCon and SLA solidified within me a certainty that I think I had been coming to for quite some time. I needed to work in a place with people that ‘get’ it with regard to students and learning. Although many of my revelations and connections were at tech conferences and online, at the end of the day I need to be in a real space with educators that approach education with a similar philosophy and curricular approach. By walking through the door of the Science Leadership Academy I literally opened a new door on my career path.
This summer I move to Philadelphia and to the Science Leadership Academy.
The move didn’t have to be to SLA (although that was my first choice ;), but I need to be in a place that is more true to the teacher that I am striving to become. You see I have much to learn, I need to grow and I am hoping to a find a ‘ripe environment’ at SLA.
The point of this little trip down memory lane is to say that this is all possible because of my network. Sitting in Flagstaff while playing in the mountains, I was able to reach out, build connections, make friends and learn a ton. There are no excuses for staying hold up in your classroom with the door shut or feel like the struggles you feel in the classroom are yours alone. There is a dynamic, enthusiastic and resourceful group of people just waiting for you to join in on all the shenanigans.
For me, this is only the beginning and it is all thanks to my network.
Something worth doing...
In the past week I have spent much of my days attempting to be useful, with my energy and my time. These are not necessarily easy things to do while trying to teach full-time and pretend to have a 'life'. In the past week I have worked about two days for Grand Canyon Youth (my favorite non-profit), bought into the Give One, Get One Program from OLPC and launched a program at school to raise money for Dr. Jessie Stone to purchase mosquito nets for use in Uganda. I believe strongly in giving when you are able in terms of both time and money. Although I don't have a ton of extra in either category, I make it work when there is something to believe in, something worth doing. Yesterday my students watched Nomads: Women of the Wandering Whitewater Tribe in class. This was one of the films shown at the Grand Canyon Youth Film Festival from last weekend. In the documentary there is a 15 year old girl, who is a professional kayaker, that talks about giving up roughly $3000 of her winnings to support a doctor's salary and remodel two school rooms in Uganda. I love watching students struggle to understand that, in fact, the power of a dollar (although worth less in some regions of the world), goes a long, long way in the developing world. So, our latest project is to raise enough money to purchase 100 mosquito nets to Dr. Stone in Uganda AND look to make a PSA to encourage other teenagers to look outside themselves to see what they have to give... be it time or money! Stay tuned for PSA's in the near future.
Summer Vacation
For the past few years the end of the school year has meant one thing... getting on the road! In the past three summers I have toured and taught in China, driven cross country in the US and studied and traveled in South Africa. When the end of this school year approached I once again started to feel the pull to get going. Last week I did indeed get started and it was lovely. The best part about traveling in the US for me is that I have friends all over the place. Night one was spent in Montrose, CO (picture above is from nearby Telluride) with my friend Meghan Rowe, Science teacher at Delta High School. She is somewhat new to the profession and I had a fantastic time chatting with her about education, life in Colorado and her upcoming nuptuals! I actually made her late for Tech Camp by gabbing so long Thursday morning.
Thursday found me driving a new route home to Wisconsin. Driving from Montrose to Colorado Springs wound me past mountains and rivers only known to me as names on maps. There is something that literally takes my breath away in the mountains and if there is anyplace in the world that I feel at home it is in the mountains. I have a new goal to get on the Arkansas River yet this summer. This was a great day and for the first time in a long time I shut everything off (except the car) and just drove; no radio, no cell phone, no nothing! Bliss.
I saw western Kansas in the best possible light, darkness, and then rolled in very late to Lawrence, KS... where my teaching career began. I had plans to see some friends (Scott and Kylee Sharp) for an hour or so and then get on the road for Wisconsin. Well, one hour turned into five and as far as I am concerned I could have stayed even longer. There are people in your life that you can go long stretches without seeing, but when you do it is like hitting the play button after pausing it the last time you were there. Meeting their two beautiful children and discussing their experiences in the classroom was truly wonderful.
As the time was approaching that I absolutely had to get going Kylee's phone rang and she didn't recognize the number so she let it go to voicemail. Then Scott's phone rang with the same number and when he answered it was another old friend from when I lived in Lawernce, Laird Riddell. He was calling to share some amazing news that he would be taking part in a three year round the world sailing trip focused on bringing the stories, experiences and sights to classrooms all around the world. The organization sponsoring the trip is Reach the World and looks like an online learning experience that I will be paying attentio to as they prepare to sail in the fall. After the phone call we said our goodbyes and I hit the road for my least favorite part of the drive, Iowa.
The best part of getting in the car was that I was reminded of how many fantastic people I know in my life, many of whom are dedicated teachers and quite a few are choosing to have children that are truly special.
There is still much driving and thinking to do over the summer as I will leave Wisconsin at the end of July headed for Glacier National Park, Jackson, WY and then back to Colorado. At the last possible minute I will be rolling back into Flagstaff for the start of the school year. Travel revives my perspective, opens my eyes and reinvigorates my desire to learn, explore and grow. Ahhhhh, summer... so good!!!
Change it up a little...
These two symbols play a daily part in my professional development... blogs and podcasts are two of the most exercised parts of my information gathering pursuits. So it is in honor of these two icons that I offer a suggestion... change it up a little. Yesterday I found myself digging through new podcasts, weeding out ones I didn't seem to gravitate to and decided to do the same with my bloglines account. Summer isn't just for weeding and planting in the garden, it applies to our digital lives as well. Enjoy!
The Joy of Graduation
June 1st, 2007 goes down as one of my most wonderful days of being a teacher. As I sat quietly and listened as the names for graduation were read, I actually had to look twice… twice to the program and twice to the stage. Walking across was a young man that I hadn’t seen in three and a half years. He entered my classroom as a 15 year old 8th grader with near perfect attendance, honor roll grades and a smile. After it was evident that he was beyond the middle school, I looked into his file and spoke at length with him about how he ended up with three years of a two year middle school program. The story was long and lackluster, but the end result was a young man clearly ready to move onto the high school, but stuck in the middle. The dropout rate for Hispanic boys in the community is embarrassingly high and I knew that if he didn’t get going in the high school, his chances were getting worse by the day.
I set about trying to get him moved to the high school… and this is not an easy task. The high schools do not want to take these students for a variety of reasons. It took awhile, but I kept pushing and he was allowed to move to the high school at semester. Fast forward three and a half years… there he was crossing the stage in a cap and gown. After the hats were thrown and the balloons let go, I worked my way to the floor to shake hands with former students. Seeing this particular one was high on the list of ‘must sees’. I tapped him on the shoulder, shook his hand, gave him a hug and let him know how proud I was of him… but could hardly get anything out because he spun towards his Mom and said, “Mom, this is the one… this is the teacher that got me into high school”. At which point his mother snapped a picture of the two of us. It was over in a second as the throngs of people pushed and pulled to get close to their grads. Short and sweet never made more sense than in that instant.
Attending Graduation
Currently I am in between graduations in Flagstaff. I have the distinct pleasure of having taught a number of students attending two different high schools. Here is the thing... I am one of the only teachers from my middle school that goes to the graduation ceremonies. I stood on a chair yesterday in front of 130 students and reminded them that there were 130 students in those chairs four years ago that I was going to watch walk across the stage at graduation today and I make the same promise to them that I made four years ago. "I will see you there, at the Dome, walking across the stage and finishing what I was able to be a part of for two years out of the 13 years of school". We all should feel compelled to commit to being there to watch those students that rolled through our classrooms take that final step in their K-12 experience. One graduation down and one to go.... makes me realize all over again why I choose this job... it's just too good!
Bullying...
Thanks to Steve Dembo over at Teach42 for the link to the Hero in the Hallway video.
After a particularly long day at work dealing with a situation involving bullying, this video sums up what is really going on and what I would like to see happen to empower our kids to feel safe and welcome in their own schools. This is a problem that cannot seem to receive enough attention. Kids learn what we teach them and I fear in the day and age of high stakes testing we have forgotten to teach our kids how to be human, to care for one another, to do the right thing even when it is not the easy thing. We, as a world community, need to do better by our kids.
5 Things
5 things…. I was tagged with the 5 things meme awhile ago by Christian Long… and was busy…. ok, I wasn’t that busy, but for whatever reason I did not sit down and write, right then. It’s strange because I generally don’t have trouble with words, but I have been struggling with what to write. So here goes…
- Farm girl… born into a longstanding farm family, work was no stranger to my daily routine. Being raised on a farm truly impacts the course of life through a crash course in work ethic, problem solving and perseverance. Although I cursed it while I was living it, the life my parents provided me with has shaped the person I am today. I feel as though I know what work is, and the job I choose to go to everyday is not work, but a choice. I love that I get to choose and day after day for ten years I have chosen to go to school ready to work with the next crew of high energy, entertaining and challenging teens.
- Seven years ago I moved to Flagstaff, Arizona and realized that there are truly breathtaking places on earth and I get to live in one of them. Life at 7000 feet is amazing. Being an hour from the Grand Canyon, 30 minutes to the red rocks of Sedona and a stone’s throw from more national forest than I can quite wrap my brain around is so very good.
- I went camping for the first time when I was just 13 years old. My Science teacher thought that it was a travesty that all these farm kids he taught never went into the great outdoors. So, the week after school dismissed in 1987, Steve Severson packed some vans full of food, gear and a crew of awkward middle schoolers. That trip repeated itself for 6 years, each year with a slightly different crew and location. I didn’t make it every year, but when I spent the week after graduation in the PorcupineMountains of the Upper Peninsula, I knew that my life would embrace the ‘crunchier’ side of life. What I don’t think that Severson (the teacher) realizes is that he impacted the outcome of all three kids in my family. In different ways, that make sense only when you know kids like my teachers got to know kids, Severson guided us towards those paths that would lead us to the lives we lead today (we had the same set of teachers every other year from 7-12 grade… small school to say the least). He is an amazing teacher that realized content was only part of the job that he was hired to do.
- Everyone should be a camp counselor at some point in their life. On a whim I applied to a summer camp after my ‘first’ senior year of college. For the next two summers I lived amongst chaos, community and creativity. The dynamic of camp is one that can only be understood by other adults that chose to spend a portion of their adulthood playing like a kid again.
- I am a storyteller, from a family of storytellers. When I travel back to Wisconsin I am reminded of the place that shapes me, comforts me and binds me to a story that is still writing itself. My dad, Ray, is one of the best storytellers that I know, telling a series of tales called, “Sad, but true”, from a life on road construction. Each time I am home, the stories get funnier and more engaging. He is a talented man. I still have much to learn from him.
So that rounds out the five things… my life has been a series of lucky, touching, inspiring, profound, hilarious and sobering experiences that leave me looking forward to what comes next. Dream big.