Tinkerings

Yesterday, the ladies on my computer team bought my lunch and brought a great Papa Smurf cake to the lunch room for my “going away” gathering.  It was a wonderful gesture on their part.  The Zaxby’s was wonderful and the cake was awesomely decadent!

Technically, I am leaving at the end of the day today.  Realistically, they haven’t hired a replacement for me yet, so I will keep working here a few days over the next couple of weeks while the job is filled.  I’m saying goodbye to students today.  They will be surprised to see me again in a few days.

A few years back, my right-hand person on my team began calling me Papa Smurf.  She said it was because I am the problem solver on the team.  I think it also had something to do with being old and overweight, but she’s not admitting to that.

I think in a way, Papa Smurf is who I have always been.  I have always been the problem solver for others (as if I don’t have any of my own).  I will stop working on my own projects to help someone else complete theirs.  It isn’t that my project doesn’t get done.  It does.  It just gets done when I would usually be asleep.

Now I get to be Papa Smurf to all of the secondary schools in our district.

I think I need a shirt with a Papa Smurf logo.

Today is a great Monday.  No, not just because I have a sub and I’m not in my classroom.  This is the pivot point for me.  I am busy with 3 jobs.  That always makes things exciting.

As for today, I have do have a sub.  My morning was just for some “me” time.  I’ve had a couple of meetings this morning.  Settled some things.  Talked to some teachers about BCAPE and PET.  Did a little work on my “new” job.  And now I’m settling in for an afternoon webinar on the new version of PLATO being used by our system for credit recovery in the high schools.  I’m getting excited about the possibilities of working with teachers in tech training.  DE Assessment is our first big project, and there is a LOT to do in preparation for our first assessments.

So, today I’ve worked on all three jobs, LFMS lesson plans, tech coordinator training, and BCAPE leadership. It has been fast and furious.  And fun.

Its going to be great week!

I’m a teacher.  I’m used to kids being kids.  Some days I play along.  Some days I try to get them to act more like adults.  Its the dance we do every day.  Sometimes when I’ve had enough, my calming….er….planning period helps me focus back to some of the reasons why some children act like…well…children.

Some of these kids get absolutely no attention at home.  They act out in school because it feeds a deep seated longing for connection.  I have to remind myself that loving these children is far better than scolding them, even when scolding is easier.

Some kids are simply immature.  We get a lot of 6th and 7th grade students that have trouble in middle school simply because they started really early in kindergarten.  It wasn’t much of a problem in elementary school, but in middle school we are expecting a slightly higher maturity level.  Some kids struggle with this.  In fact, a new study out says we may have misdiagnosed over 1 million kids as ADHD who are really just immature for their age group.

Some kids act like their parents.  Their behavior just doesn’t fall far from the tree.  Like yesterday.  Another teacher and I were dealing with a student after school who refused to follow our instructions. She had a smirk on her face and just kept walking in the direction she wanted.  When I saw her mom pull up to get her, I decided to talk to her and see if she would help us get her daughter to be less antagonistic and sarcastic toward her teachers.  Yep.  You guessed it.  The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

Teachers can usually help the first two types if students.  The third is much more difficult.  More difficult.  Not impossible.

But it sure feels that way sometimes.

It was announced Friday afternoon that I had been chosen to be the Technology Program Coordinator (for lack of a better name at this point) for secondary schools in Bradley County Schools.  I have been pretty vocal over the last couple of years that the secondary schools were being left out when it came to tech coaches, so when the position was posted I simply could not, in good conscience, choose to stand idly by.  I had to apply.

The position is still being fleshed out with regard to a job description.  We have four secondary schools in our district.  Each school has a wide range of software, but there are 3 areas that will probably take the bulk of my time: DE Assessment, DE Streaming, and SMART/Promethean Board training.  If it is true that teachers will spend 80% of their time using 20% of the technology available to them, then these three are the right choices.  If you add to that a wide swath of Web 2.0 tools available, my plate is pretty full.

I have enjoyed eight wonderful years at Lake Forest Middle School.  My principal, Ritchie Stevenson, gave me a shot at teaching before I had ever had a class in an education program.  Then, he was kind enough to give me a second year to make up for the first one.  He has done wonders at Lake Forest over the years he has been its principal.

Most of the original team I was on are still at the school, albeit in different positions these days.  We became very close during those first two years.  Gypsy was a great team leader.  Full of life and smiles even on the darkest of days.  I still look forward to the morning hugs to begin my day.

The team I serve with now are absolutely fantastic.  It has been a roller coaster over the last few years as we changed our schedule and added teachers to our group, then changed schedules again and lost half of them.  We are just now back up to an almost full team (although I’m still 9 computer short of a lab).  Lisa, Christy, Karen, and I have kept things together with bailing wire and duct tape sometimes.  I will still be able to chat with them throughout the day over Skype.  Sometimes those chats were the only thing that kept us from crying our way to 3:35.

I don’t know what this job will look like.  I do know this: I savor the challenge.  I know my own personality.  Teaching the same lesson plans for 30 years is not me.  We re-write our lessons from scratch every year.  Its just more fun to live on the edge than in the middle.  Life is more interesting.

I absolutely loved working at Childers Mixing Service, Pathway Press, Christian Purchasing Network, and the Ministry to the Military in Scotland and England.  They were all new jobs every day.  New challenges.  New projects.  I thrive in that environment.  This position offers nothing less than nearly insurmountable odds.

Put me in, Coach!

Over the years, I’ve learned a few lessons on work ethic from people who have led me.  I’ve been running these lessons over and over in my head through the last few days, so naturally they have found their way to this blog post.  They have been unrelentingly playing in my mind like one of those ear worm songs that just won’t go away.  I’m hoping by writing them down i can allow my mind to think about other things soon.

Do Something Even If Its Wrong. This is a lesson I learned in high school from my grandfather.  He was a retired contractor and was working to help my dad, uncle, and me build our house in Arkansas.  I knew nothing about building, and occasionally he would find me standing around looking lost.  I cannot tell you how many times I heard, “Tim, do something even if its wrong, but don’t let me catch you just standing around.”  This has been, perhaps, the most defining piece of information that has guided my own work ethic.  In most cases, it has caused me to excel in the workplace.  Other times it has gotten me into trouble.  But I have always tried to let it guide me.  And I try to instill this thought into the heads of my students as well.

Sometimes You Get A Plaque. Years ago a State Youth Director with the Church of God told me the story of a secretary in his state office.  She had been there for years.  She thought she ran the office, and she would not be retrained.  At a state campmeeting they gave her a plaque and retired her with their thanks for her years of service.  That story, although perhaps apocryphal, has stuck with me through the years.  Without a good work ethic, sometimes people just need a plaque.

Never Stop Just Because You Hit A Wall. I learned this lesson from my dad.  We moved to Arkansas when I was about to begin my junior year in high school.  He had an idea to use injection molding machines to make replacement gaskets for a piece of equipment he used when he was in the wire and cable industry.  We worked together at night using someone else’s equipment.  The problem was he couldn’t sell it.  He was out of work and living on his savings.  He went to a local company and found something different he could make for them based on his knowledge from his prior employment.  That idea took off quickly, and soon we were making a profit and living comfortably.  As I worked with him over nearly 8 years, I saw him break down walls over and over again.  Nothing stopped him.  Today, I have become known as the guy who can “get ‘r done” (to quote a modern philosopher).  I owe that to him.

Your Work Is Your Reputation. Again, my dad taught me this.  In our family owned business, nothing went out the door without him approving it, or approving the person who approved it.  Every box of color additives, every sheet of pressed rubber for shoe soles, every shrink wrapped pallet was a reflection of my dad’s character and reputation.  It wasn’t just the outer appearance, but the fact that everything was done with quality, even down to the way we placed pallets on the trucks.  Today, I would stack my work up against anyone.  Like Will Sonnett used to say, “No brag.  Just fact.”

Think Broad, Not Narrow. I was raised in a conservative Pentecostal denomination.  During my younger years I was inundated with sermons that tried to narrow my focus as to who is accepted in the Body of Christ and who isn’t.  Easy litmus tests were used: clothing, smoking, drinking, attending movie theaters, etc.  Later, when I finished Lee University and later moved to Scotland and England, I realized it was better to view the world as broad rather than narrow.  My time at RAF Mildenhall serving as both the Protestant and Catholic Parish Christian Education Coordinator was hugely beneficial for me to realize that we simply do not all have to agree to be right.  While I still often believe that my ideas are better than most everyone else’s (OK, that’s a tongue-in-cheek statement for those that can’t see the smile on my face as I type), my ideas don’t have to be the ones implemented.  But once a plan is in place, all the other work ethic details listed above come into play.

There are other great lessons I’ve learned about work ethic over the years.  These are just a few that have been burrowing a hole in my head the last few days.  What kinds of work ethic details do you deal with in your life?

Have you ever just had one of “those” days?  Yeah, me too.  I don’t like them much.  But they seem to sneak up on you at times, and before you know it, you’re smack dab in the middle of one of them!

Today was that day.

It started just fine.  I slept well last night (first night in a long while).  I woke up easily at 4:20 to get busy with exercise.  I even got to work early and managed to get all of the computers (those that are working at least) in my classroom set up so they no longer go into sleep mode after twenty minutes.

Then the hecticness started to kick in.  I was asked to attend a meeting at our district office at 9:30, so I got someone to cover the last part of my first class and others to cover my next two classes.  The meeting went well, and I even had time to get a large Diet Coke from Mrs. Winner’s.  (Although I would have preferred to drive a wee bit further to get one from Bojangles, but 2nd best is better than nothing).

I arrived back at school in time to get my classroom ready for the photographer from the Times Free Press to come in and get some “action shots” of me with my kids.  Well, I say my room, but truthfully I was borrowing the room next to mine.  All her computers work, and I didn’t want the photographer to get shots of a room full of computer-less monitors.  That period even went pretty well.  The kids were behaved and very photogenic.

Then came my planning period.  I think that’s the time my energy levels started to drain.  I began to feel like the walking dead.  I turned on my favorite jazz station on Slacker.com and tried to find my happy place.  But by the time 7th period rolled around I was just in one of those I-just-want-to-go-home moods.

I’ll tell you how I know.  Sometime in the middle of 8th period it dawned on me that I had done the 7th grade starter with my 6th grade class.  I’ve been doing short paper slide videos for starters in the 6th grade.  But I had the PPT slide up on the screen from the last 7th grade class, and I just went with it.

No one said, “Mr. Childers, uh, I think that’s the wrong starter,” or “Mr. Childers, what happened to our video?” or “Hey, you! What are you doing to us?”  Nope.  Like little lemmings they lurked lovingly behind the Pied Piper and did what I had on the screen.

Wow.  In 8 years of teaching I’ve never made that mistake before.  Now, at 5 PM, I am languishing at Starbucks feeling guilty for letting the little ones down.

I won’t even talk about 8th period, except to say, that’s when someone discovered my last nerve.

What a day!

I was walking through the office yesterday, and honestly, I was just minding my own business.  One of the secretaries caught me and told me I had a call on line 2.  All kinds of thoughts went through my head in about 2 tenths of a second.  What parent is upset with me already? Is there a bill I forgot to pay? Can’t be my mechanic, because the car was fixed yesterday.  You know, normal stuff.

Hesitantly, I picked up the phone.  Turned out to be someone from the Times Free Press in Chattanooga.  They had seen the last article the Cleveland Banner had done on me (you know, the one in the obituary column) and wanted to do a little more in-depth interview to get some personal information.  Then we set up a time for their photographer to come and get a current picture. (Honestly, couldn’t they just use the “thin” picture I’ve been posting for the last 5 years?)

I breathed a big sigh of relief that I hadn’t upset a parent (or someone from our district office).  After hanging up the phone I wondered just how long one’s 15 minutes of fame lasts?  Is it this embarrassing for everyone?

So….

I apologize in advance for the appearance of my mugshot in a local paper.  Well, sort of anyway.

Over the summer I was privileged to attend the Discovery Educator Network’s Leadership Council Symposium at Bentley University in Waltham, MA.  Some of you may remember the short video a few of us produced to highlight the exercise routine of the week….walking 287 stair steps from our dorm to our meeting hall.

One of the highlights of the week was working with Dr. Lodge McCammon of the Friday Institute.  Lodge (as he is affectionately called by all his groupies) is a genius when it comes to using media in the classroom.  He has a wonderful self-effacing sense of humor that turns his apparent geekiness into the King of Cool.

During the half-day we spent with Lodge, he introduced us to the ease with which teachers and students alike can create “paper slide” videos for instruction.  In fact, rather than demonstrate the technique or lecture about it, Lodge made a paper slide video to show us how easy paper slide videos are to make.

As a result, I have decided that the starters for our 6th grade classes in our computer labs will be done this way.  The first six weeks I am creating all of the starter videos, but my goal is to students create them for the last part of the semester.  We will follow the paper slide format Monday through Thursday and then let them type their favorite or best starter into Word as part of Friday’s assignment.

I was surprised at how easy it was to do.  Although we are teaching math skills to 6th graders, our starters are all language arts driven.  As a result, we are asking students to write at least one paragraph at the beginning of class each day.  The first week of videos don’t fully follow our instructions from Lodge, but I’m working up to that.

Typically, his paper slide videos introduce a concept, demonstrate the concept in some form, and then ask a guiding question for the students to work on in order to demonstrate understanding.  My first few videos end more with guiding “instructions” rather than questions.  As the kids get used to doing this form of starter, we will change the construct slightly in order to be more open ended for them.

Here is the video we are using today as we get this process started.

I’m usually a rather quiet, reserved guy who likes to sit on the fringes of groups and observe the goings on rather than jump in the middle and become the “life of the party.”  So, it has been quite humorous to see my picture in the local paper so often in the last few months.  But this last one really caught me up short.

I have been planning my funeral for a few years now.  Quietly.  Privately.  Behind the scenes.  I know the funeral home I want.  I know I want a closed casket.  That’s what we were forced to do with my dad after his accident, and it just made the visitation time at the funeral home so much easier to get through.  I haven’t picked out a minister yet.  I’m toying with the idea of videoing myself preaching my own funeral and just letting someone hit “play.”

Every once in a while, a song will come on the radio or a CD playing in my car, and I will turn to whichever daughter is riding with me and say, “That’s one of the songs I want played at my funeral.”  That statement is usually followed by eyes rolling, moans and groans, or the obligatory, “Stop saying that, Dad!”

So you can imagine my surprise when the Cleveland Banner ran the latest story about me becoming president of the Bradley County Association of Professional Educators (BCAPE).  It appeared on page 2.  Yep.  The obituary page.  If you didn’t pay attention to the headline, you might have thought I had already passed.  My picture is in line with others on the page from left to right.  It looks so seamless.

So now I have some idea of what others might think when my picture appears on page 2 after I am gone.  It was a little too close for comfort.

It did make me realize I need a new picture for the “funeral file.”

But hey, at least they spelled my name right.

I realize my post my be a bit premature.  After all, it is Friday morning, so I still have a full day to go before the first week of school is over.  Technically, of course, it is the end of the second week, but only the first for students.  It almost leads one to scratching his head in order to make sense of the world once more.

It has been an interesting week to say the least.  Of course, if I was going to say the least I would have stopped writing with that last sentence.  So…it has been an interesting week to almost say the least.

I’ve had a few teachers at my school ask for the code to create an account with DE Streaming.  Some are new this year.  Others had piggybacked on a mentor teacher’s login from last year.  After the six 1-hour sessions we did last week for the system, many teachers decided they needed an account.  STAR status is next on the horizon.

Most of my computers are up and running now.  With the 12 computers in the library (well, 11 because one of those isn’t feeling well either), I have my kids online and doing at least some of the things I had planned.  After I modify a few lessons for next week I should have them caught up with their peers in the other labs.

I find it interesting that it is the newer computers that are giving us trouble.  A bad batch of Dells to say the least.  If your school has GX270s, I’d be interested to hear how they are holding up in the comments section of this blog post.

Now that these problems are slowly resolving themselves I can concentrate on getting BCAPE (Bradley County Association of Professional Educators) running full speed ahead.  I need to have an officers’ meeting, a general membership meeting, get an email out to all the teachers in Bradley County Schools, plan a professional development event, design a logo, buy some shirts, get the blog up and running (www.bcape.org), and….well, you get the idea.

I can also turn my attention back to blogging for the DEN Leadership Council (and organizing our blog team in order to practice my delegation skills). So many things happening with the DEN, and I have had so little time, energy, concentration, or drive to write about them.  These are exciting times in the DEN.  Lots of energy in our LC.

And then there’s me.  With the computers nearly up and running, a huge weight has been lifted.  Of course, we really need the lab refreshed with new, high-speed Dells (OK, we need Macs, but that’s an argument for another day).  Our kids deserve the best.  Like every other school district in the world, they are going to get what we can afford.  So, with these computers at least running (slowly though they may be), I have time to take a bit for myself.  I can enjoy a movie on the weekend.  I can plan dinners with friends.  Heck, I might even read a book.  I think I still have one or two of those laying around.

The first week is about to be history.  The second week is looking brighter.  Life is good.