Lead Like Their Lives Depend on It

As is this time of year, we often reflect on the successes of many as commencements across your community happen. I'm reminded that the sense of completion and the time of new beginning. What I love most about this time of year is the restart button for educators.

We close up the classroooms, level up the classes, and type up the copious amounts of data we have for evaulatiions and state reports. But more importantly, it's a time for us to reflect on our leadership skills. For a new set of kiddos are around the corner. 

I often argue that being a leader in Education is the most demanding of all fields. Having worked in public education, non-for-profit, and corporate, I am more convinced of this. The stakes are way higher than any other profession. What we build are the traits and behaviors that future leaders and community members carry with them for the rest of their lives.

As a school leader, consider the following:

1. Be in each and every moment - there is nothing more important than the conversation you are having with that child or adult. Listen more than you speak. We know you are the leader. You don't need to show us through words. Show us through actions. Find the root cause of an issue, and tackle it together. 



2. Every class, every day - Make a point to visit every classroom even if it's just a walk by. It's the best proactive support you can offer. Set aside 30 minutes to visit and be seen. I wish I had down this more. Looking back, im afraid I missed many "right there" opportunities to build confidence, reinforce positive actions, and learn.

3. Be a Teacher - model why you want. Spend time once a month teaching in a classroom. Maybe it's an interactive read aloud or teaching a guided math group in fourth grade. It could be a new recess game or a science experiment in chemistry. 

They are looking to you for guidance, for approval, and for affirmation. Your actions make a difference. Whatever you do, lead like their lives depend on it. Why? Their lives may really do depend on it. 

How Am I Going to Make This the Best Year Ever?

These 17 students taught me with the power of relationships,
and how a bunch of kids and a 22 year old can become a family.

I'll never forget my first day as a legitimate, certified teacher. I was hired in a K-8 middle school, and was the 'bubble' section of a rather large third grade. I remember walking into my blank slate of a classroom and feeling elated. All of the learning I was about to bestow would happen in this room. Mind you the classroom had a roomful of windows right outside the hallway that led to the café. So, every single student and teacher would watch me teach every moment. Life in a fishbowl - no worries there - I would later find that life in a fishbowl was pretty normal in a one district community.

I spent days preparing for the arrival of my 17students (yes-17!). I had taken all the classes - management, literacy, math, assessment - and was ready for what was to happen. The first day arrived. In my blue shirt, khaki pants, and striped tie, I was ready to welcome my first and dearest family. What I wasn't ready for were the tears, crying, and all out desperation. The previous teacher (for whom I took over in the bubble) had left and the students found a young man teacher and not the female teacher they were expecting. Their classroom had moved and was in the midst of the eighth grade hallway. You could say that the first moments of third grade was a scary time for us all. I didn't have a class on what to do if your kids cried because you weren't the teacher they thought they would have.

All of the ideas I had planned suddenly were out the window for the first day. I picked up a stack of books and I read. I read. I read. I read. We had community circle, read some more, learned about each of the students, and complimented them all -- from the dress one girl was wearing to the glasses of another boy. I spent the entire day reading books and playing games. I couldn't tell you what happened on day two or three. I can just tell you what I felt. I wanted my students to feel safe and secure.

I wanted them to trust me as their teacher. I wanted them to be grow into the best learners imaginable that year. As I reflect back, I don't remember when and how I taught the standards (they were taught per my lesson book showed). I couldn't tell you what reading skills we taught. Nor could I tell you how cursive went (we did teach it). I know my students learned skills in math and reading. But, what I believe they learned most of all was how to care for one another. How to support one another. How to love one another. That all started with a stack of books and a commitment I made to them that we would have the best year ever. Every day in my plan book was, "How am I going to make this the best year ever? Then, I worked to make it happen.

Digital Learning: The Pole Position of the Classroom

The Namco 1982 game Pole Position came
out, and helped revolutionize technology.
Educators are in the driver seat now
to embrace and catapult digital learning
for tomorrow's problem solvers.

We are a far cry from the 1980s with Atari and Pole Position. Technology is everywhere. We have allowed it to become part of our culture. However, I'd be a hypocrite if I said that we should be cautious about the use of digital tools while I use my own cell phone all day for conference calls, Go To Meetings, emails, texts, resources, pictures, etc. Yet, here I am urging us all to take pause in how digital tools are embedded within our life. I am 100% okay with -- and in fact promote -- digital learning environments. What I am not okay with is the lack of understanding that goes with a digital environment.

Like it or hate it -- digital learning is here and it's not going to crash around turn four. Therefore, we have a responsibility to fully understand the pedagogy behind digital learning. It's not enough to simple give students a device and say use. We cannot take a textbook, turn it into a PDF and say we are a one to one environment in schools. Our ultimate goal in integrating purposefully digital learning is to maximize the learning experiences of students to provide opportunities where we challenge their thinking, stretch their creativity, and build solutions to problems that exist. Anything less than these goals is short-sighted and a waster of money, time, and resources.

Yet, here we are. As the school year comes to an end, the role of the teacher is just ramping up for reflection, fine tuning, and growing in our own professional learning. The fallacy of "summers off" for teachers is more false now than ever before in education. Educators, this is our opportunity to truly take a deep dive in why we are investing our time in digital learning. How are you going to invest in your curriculum this year to create meaningful, purposeful, and 'out of the ball park' lesson design really challenge your future learners? Now is the time. There's only one Pole Position. Are you ready to jump in the driver's seat?