Tinkerings

Today I did two workshops for Sullivan County in the North East corner of Tennessee.  It was a great day with several hundred teachers in attendance.  My workshops included a session on Skype and one on the DE Streaming Builders.

When I walked into the room provided, I was a little confused.  There was a screen rolled up on the wall, but there was no projector, no electrical cords, no Internet cable, no….well, there wasn’t much.  Since I was confused, I decided to see if every room was like this.

I walked out of the language arts room assigned to me and into the one next door.  In that room was a bright, shining SMART board hanging on the wall and a projector mounted in the ceiling.  I looked back into my room.  Now I was really confused.

Two language arts rooms side by side, and they couldn’t be any different.  I wondered what that said about the instruction going on in each of those rooms.  Okay, I wondered a little about what it said about the two teachers, but I quickly decided that both of them were dedicated, well-trained teachers in their craft.  But one of them had access to a lot more than the other.  I wondered, does that make one room better than the other?  Is one instruction more beneficial than the other?  Is one style more effective?

If, as a principal or other school leader, our answer to any of those questions is “yes,” then we are not only short changing a teacher, but every student that comes through that classroom.  If the answer is “no,” then why spend the thousands of dollars to make one room more technologically advanced than the other?

In our district we just bought interactive white boards for nearly every classroom in every school.  Everyone seems to be excited about that, including me.  But the question remains: what will this mean to instruction?  Will it be better?  Or just fancier?  More effective? Or just more bells and whistles?  Only time will tell.

I wish I could have been in those two classrooms on a day when kids were there.  The tale of two classrooms would be an interesting read.

I completed my administrator’s certification a couple of years ago.  Since then I have looked closely at how current administrators do their jobs.  You know, personality types and such.  It has been interesting to say the least.  Kind of like being a mall watcher (or stalker I suppose).

We have two middle schools in our district.  Both have the same quality of teachers.  They each have the same quality of student (pretty much, although one has a significantly higher level of free or reduced lunch children).  They are very different architecturally.  One is a self-contained building while the other is a series of separate “pods” for each team.  They are also very different in their location.  One sits downtown while the other is out in the country.

They have very different leaders as well.  One principals used to be a coach.  The other a band leader.  (I often wonder why these two sections of teachers wind up as administrators, but that is for another post).  You can readily see the difference in these personality styles in how faculty meetings are held.

The coach holds his meetings before school.  They are more of a “huddle” than a meeting.  They last 15 to 20 minutes normally.  They are often not scheduled regularly.  They take place as needed.  Everyone is appraised of important information.  It is often provided in a sort of “playbook” that each teacher can read.  When the huddle is over, the teachers immediately report to their classrooms to carry out the game.

The band director has meetings after school.  They are kind of like rehearsals.  Information is gone over again and again until everyone has it down pat.  They are held at regular intervals and scheduled on the calendar.  Everyone knows they are going to last around 45 minutes.  If there isn’t enough information to last that long, the leader will rehearse some things twice.

Neither of these approaches are, in my mind, decidedly better or worse than the other.  They are, simply put, different.  The only question of any importance I suppose is the one in the title of this blog, “How’s that workin’ for ya?”

How do you answer that question?  Look at faculty morale.  Look at student engagement.  Look at the faculty’s willingness to embrace change both in and out of the classroom.  I’m sure there are many, many more you could add.  What would you like to see if the leadership style of your school is working?

Every once in a while I just have to use this blog to vent.  Today is one of those days.

I am giving DE Assessment make-ups today.  I’ve got kids from all over campus coming into my room to take, or finish, the English or Math assessments.  Sounds easy right?  Not if the server at your school goes down overnight it isn’t.  We can still get Internet access, but we can’t get to anything located on our server drives.  No problem for this assessment.  Or so I thought.

I used my monitoring software, NetSupport, to turn all my machines on this morning and then tried to log them all in.  I sat and watched as the big red “N” of our Novell login spun and spun without ever connecting to anything.  Soon, the dreaded error message popped up that said the computer could not locate the server.  Again, I wasn’t too worried.

As my first round of 7th graders filed into the room I made a very clear announcement.  “Do not do anything to your computers just yet.  I will tell you how to log on in just a minute.”  Before you could say “Bob’s your uncle” (yes, I used to live in England), I had 3 or 4 students who had attempted to log in again.  That big red “N” was once again mocking me from the monitor.  I tried to take it in stride.

My next set of directions was also pretty clear, or so I thought.  “Click OK on the error message, then make sure you click the box labeled ‘Work Station Only’ before you try to log in.”  I got as far as “Click OK” when that big red “N” once again reared its ugly head.

I lost it.

I gave these kids a good 90 second lecture on the need to follow directions.  I told them I didn’t care if they took the assessment or not.  They were going to learn how to follow directions if it killed me.

We finally got everyone logged in and ready to take the assessment.  I was a little calmer.  My breathing had returned to normal.  Blood pressure was fine.  The sweat was gone from my upper lip.  (OK, I’m making most of that up in case you have no sense of humor while reading this).

As I write this, this first round of kids are quietly taking their assessment.  Peace and tranquility have returned to my room.

I pondered a bit on why it is that 7th graders have such a hard time following directions.  Then I remembered that even Preparation H has to label their product to keep people from taking it orally.

What about you?  What’s your “following directions” horror story?