Tinkerings

Yesterday I trained some teachers on a few basic techniques for making their Interactive White Boards more interactive in the classroom.  We focused on ways to use the boards with direct instruction by the teacher.  (Next week we move to student interactions).  All-in-all, it was a good day.  I enjoy working with teachers.  And, I enjoy working with teachers of all skill levels an abilities.

Nearly any group you work with can be broken down into various sub-groups.  You know what I mean. You go to a restaurant and you immediately see singles, couples, and groups.  You go to the gym and you see those who are overweight and trying to regain control of their lives in some sort of….oh wait, that’s me.  And then there are those who are die-hard fitness trainers.

Immediately, yesterday, it became clear I had two major groups of teachers, but they were not the groups I was expecting.

The first group I have worked with any times.  This group was made up of older teachers (again, I include myself here) who are not comfortable with technology.  I spent most of my time helping them find their way around the toolbar.  When you are unfamiliar with something, many times you can look right at what you want and still not see it.  As part of the training I do for the Discovery Educator Network, I run into this group more than any other.

The second group surprised me.  This group was made up of younger teachers (OK, I’ll put myself in this group, too).  It was difficult to get these teachers to follow my lead in creating new content.  I would draw a rectangle on the board and then add a small star just to the right of it.  We would add color to the shapes and then group together to move around as one object.  Simple.  Or so I thought.

Then I would walk around the room.  Some had chosen the square tool instead of the rectangle tool to draw their shape.  And no matter how many times you try, or how many different directions you tug at the corners, that shape is always going to be a square.  Some had their rectangle in the  middle of the screen, but the star was in an upper corner far away from the other object.

And yet, because these were adults I knew were unfamiliar with the program we were using, I did not get upset or frustrated or short-tempered or…..

Wait a minute!

OK, you got me. Yes, teacher training is a metaphor for all classroom instruction.  Sometimes, the brains of other people just don’t work exactly the way the brain of the instructor is working.  Sometimes it isn’t that kids “don’t get it.”  Rather, it is just that they aren’t seeing it in their own head the way you think it should be done.  Does that make it wrong?

On a standardized test, yes, its wrong.

In real life, not everything has to be “just like I said it should be.”  There’s room for differences.

Toward the end of the day, I had a teacher ask me, “I’ve had a training like this before, and I learned to do this a different way.  Is it ok with you if I do it the way I learned before?”

You betcha.

As you may have noticed by now if you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, or read this blog regularly, or visit my 365 Photo Challenge page, I am trying to learn how to take better pictures.  One of the first things I learned about improving my pictures was a little thing called “the Rule of Thirds.”

You will see what I mean in the picture in this post.  Each picture is divided in thirds from top to bottom and from left to right.  If you are shooting a horizon, for instance, you may want the horizon line to be on the blue line at the bottom to give you a lot more sky, or on the blue line at the top to show more depth to the image of the land or water.

Fairy Cake

The ideal (many times) is to get faces or objects of interest on one of the intersections of the lines as shown in the red dots.  In this case, I lucked into a shot that had both my granddaughter’s face and her cake on a red dot spot in the picture.  I accomplished this by turning the camera slightly to put the image at an angle.

The Rule of Thirds will help anyone with any type camera take a more interesting picture.  Gone are the days of putting a small head and body smack dab in the center of the frame where he or she gets lots in the surrounding scenery.  Of course, this is just one rule of photography; and, like most rules, there are times when it has to be broken in order to use another rule.

For me, teaching to standards is a lot like that small head and body shot that gets lost in the scenery.  Not only is it uninteresting, but it makes for a pitiful education experience.

My advice? (from the sidelines, of course)

Teach to the red dots.  Those are the ideas and thought processes just off center from the standards.  Those are the areas where students have to think and not just recite.  Those are the areas where students create and not just list.  Those red dots are where rigor, relevance, and relationship line up to make education interesting to the students again.

Engage your students in thinking again.  Its difficult, I know.  Believe me, I know. I know.  But don’t take no for an answer.

I’m committed to the 365 Photo Challenge.  Taking one good picture a day and posting it online.  Not just taking a picture, but taking a good one.  Sometimes I get that shot in 10 or 12 attempts.  Sometimes I have to take 100 or more pictures to get that one.

Your classroom won’t be any different.  Keep asking the questions.  Keep pointing them in the right direction.  Keep hounding them.  Give them questions in the classroom.  Give them questions over lunch.  Give them questions at home.  Post questions on your website.  Ask them in your blogs.  Engage the students.  Engage their parents.  Make them think.

If you can get a student to think, the standards and the standardized tests will take care of themselves.

You can use the Rule of Thirds to take better pictures.  And you can use it to create better learners, too.

As I was out looking for places to find interesting camera shots, I found this crumbling building on Lee Highway, just off the Bonnie Oaks exit in Chattanooga.  It is surrounded by flourishing businesses and newly constructed buildings.  Yet, here it sits looking like a bombed out shell of a former building you might find in a war-torn country.

In the midst of all this devastation, I noticed a purple plush toy face down in the debris of what appeared to be a former garage.  Boxes and paper and cups and other trash were strewn everywhere, and yet this plush toy jumped out at me in the midst of the clutter and color.

A child lived here.  More than one by the looks of other things I found in other rooms as I wandered around taking black and white shots of what I was seeing.  Something happened to these families that made them leave so much behind when they moved out.  Their lives were uprooted and cast away to some other location with such force that they could not pack all of their belongings.

As I stood there, camera in hand, taking in the site of destruction I was witnessing, my first thought was about these kids.  I’m a teacher, yes.  But I’m a parent and a grand parent.  And at one point, oh so many years ago,  I was a kid trying to find my way in new schools, seemingly one after another at times.  Our family never faced a crisis like the one these families must have encountered.  I still had a healthy, happy to go home to at the end of the day.  But these kids….it was a sobering moment.

Teachers, these kids are in your classroom.  Maybe not these exact kids, but kids like them.  Kids who come to school for food because there isn’t any at home.  Kids who come to school for safety because they don’t feel it at home.  Kids who have nothing but the same clothes you see them wearing practically everyday, clean or dirty.  Kids who are haunted by the devastation of being removed from one home and cast into another.  Kids who go home to see the depression and shame and servitude in the eyes of their parents and wonder if that is the future written in stone for them.

These kids need more than standards.  They need more than benchmarks.  They even need more a free breakfast and lunch. They need more than the latest and greatest technology your district office can afford.

They need teachers that care and care openly.  Teachers that connect and connect freely.  Teacher with compassion and compassion that touches the very core of their being to let them know they are not alone in the world.

They need you.

Those that know me well know that I do not exit my comfort zone easily.  I am a man of habit.  A loner even.  A quick glance at my Facebook status updates will reveal FourSquare check-ins at the same places on a regular basis.

And yet, occasionally, I like to push the envelope.

This past week I took a trip up to the Ocoee Outpost.  This is the spot where the Atlanta Olympic games hosted their kayak races.  It is a beautiful place along the river, and with the new-fallen snow in our area I thought it would be a great day to go take some pictures.  A friend and I left before the sun came up to make the 30 minute drive.  When we arrived it was obvious we were the first to stop there since the roads cleared.

My plan was simple.  Walk down river to the lower bridge, walk back up the other side, and cross back over to the car near the visitor center.  Quick. Simple. Painless.  But fate had other plans.

We walked down by the river and saw the sign for the Old Copper Road trail.  We stood there in 8 inches of uninterrupted snow powder and decided to go down the trail “a little ways” to see if we could get some decent shots there.  About a half-mile down the trail we came across a tree that had fallen.  My comfort zone mentality decided it was a great place to turn around and head back toward the car.  “You’re not going to let a little thing like a tree stop you are you?” was the question that confronted me from my photographer partner.

We found a way around the tree.  Through the thorns. Under huge clumps of snow that fell from the overhanging branches all down my back as I carved a path back to the trail.

And there I was.  On the outside of my comfort zone.  After 2.3 miles of the most amazing, visually stunning walk I may have ever made, we arrived at the end of the Old Copper Road Trail.

Between us, we had taken more than 300 photos.  We had witnessed some of the most beautiful snow patterns I had ever seen (even after growing up in Indiana and Illinois where it snows a lot!).  Snow arches covered the trail.  The sound of the river slamming over rocks became more and more distant as the trail wore on.  There were moments of near silence.  No matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t a good enough photographer to capture the play of sunlight and shadows.  But I tried.  And tried.  And tried.

By the time we started on the 2.3 mile walk back to the car the sun had already started to do a number on the snow.  Big bare spots shown themselves where the snow had melted and etched its way down toward Mother River.  It wasn’t nearly the same, but it was still beautiful.

One of the hardest parts of teaching is getting kids to leave their comfort zone and just “explore” a subject.  Step outside the text book and read on their own. Practice writing when it isn’t for a grade. Play number games in their head.

And yet, it is outside our comfort zones where the real joys often are.  Real teaching and learning happen there.  Life happens there.

May 2011 be my year of exploring where the beauty lies.

No, this isn’t how much sleep I’ve lost since becoming a father…or a teacher.  I recently read this blog highlighting some findings from Malcolm Gladwell regarding talent.  It takes approximately 10,000 of practice on a thing to be able to develop professional talent in a thing.  10,000 hours.

So I did some math.  On average, teachers have 5 to 6 hours of class time each day.  Let’s just agree to call it 6.  10,000 divided by 6 is 1,667 days of teaching to really become a professionally talented teacher (rounded up to the nearest day).

We have 180 student contact days in our calendar, but with professional development teachers in Tennessee work 200 days a year.  1,667 divided by 200 is 8.3 years of teaching to become a truly talented professional teacher.

This is my 8th year of teaching.  I feel like I am finally starting to really “get it” in some ways.  I’m understanding kids’ behavior better.  I’m more reflective of my own practice.

Interestingly, it only takes 5,000 hours to be trained enough to teach someone how to be truly talented in a profession.  Maybe that’s where the misnomer comes from that “those who can do, and those who can’t teach.” (I would refer those who believe this concept to watch Taylor Mali’s video on YouTube one more time).

So, I suppose that it is no accident that we tenure teachers after about 5,000 hours of teaching.  They have proven they are on the right track.  The mistake comes when teachers are satisfied at being a “good teacher.” Another 4 years of practice and they could be a truly talented teacher.

It is kind of like the difference between a pastor who stays at a church for 30 years and another who changes churches every two years for 30 years.  One has 30 years of experience.  The other has 2 years repeated over and over and over. Which one do you want to lead your church?

Are you new to teaching?  Don’t be one of those statistics that says most teachers quit after 2 years in the classroom.  Change your paradigm.  Your college degree and Praxis scores didn’t make a you a good teacher.  They just got you in the door.  Put your head down.  Firm up your stance.  Get ready to attack that line again.  Did you get knocked on your backside yesterday?  Learn from it.  Don’t change grade levels just because someone told you 3rd grade was easier than 7th.  Keep working.  Practice. Practice. Practice.

Talent doesn’t come cheap.  Or quickly.

One of my favorite stories about the ministry involves a young minister who was assigned to a church where the former pastor had been there for over 30 years.  It was a daunting task to follow in the footsteps of a man so loved and revered by the small country congregation.

After a couple of months in his new pastorate, he noticed that the congregation was not really engaged when he would offer communion at the end of the Sunday morning services.  They did not look happy.  In fact, they would rarely look at him at all.  A few would walk to the front of the church, accept the wafer, and then quickly throw a disapproving glance his way.

Finally, in desperation, he went to the head of his deacon committee and asked if he knew what the problem could be.  “Well,” said the older gentleman, “I think the congregation is just used to having communion served a certain way after so many years.  You see, our former pastor had a ritual where he would walk over to the side of the church to serve communion instead of standing in the middle as you are.  When he prayed, he would reach down and touch the radiator.  I guess we just kind of got used to a certain ritual for our communion.”

Bewildered, the young man went to see the retired pastor the next day to ask about this “touching the radiator” thing.  After explaining how the congregation was not enjoying communion because he wasn’t touching the radiator when he prayed, the elder pastor threw his head back and let out a loud belly laugh.  “I’m so sorry,” he said after finally catching his breath.  “There is nothing spiritual about manner in which I served communion.  I went over to the side of the church and touched the radiator so I wouldn’t give anyone an electrical shock from my shoes running across the church carpeting!”

This congregation had seen something happen the same way for so long they began to feel there was something mysterious, magical, even spiritual about it.  They would not be satisfied unless they saw the same thing from their new pastor.

I wonder sometimes if teacher evaluations are like this.  Principals come into classrooms and “judge” the effectiveness of a new teacher on a regular basis.  But what happens when the principal doesn’t see what he or she “expects” to see?  What happens when the rituals they think work aren’t present?

Recently, Dr. Riggins of Lee University spoke to a group of aspiring administrators about a study he and his colleagues did a few years ago.  In the study, he asked principals to rate various teachers on a group of items the literature says make for effective teachers.  The principals completed a Likert scale for each of the teachers in question, ranking them from not very effective to very effective.  They were not told why they were doing the rankings.

When the data was collected, a correlation was made between the principals’ evaluations and the “effectiveness scores” (value added) of each of the teachers.  And the result?

There was a fairly strong negative correlation between what the principals perceived as effective and the actual effectiveness of teachers.

In other words, the more effective a principal rated a teacher, the less effective that teacher actually was.  And vice versa.

So my question is this: Were they looking for the radiator thing?

Last month I was asked to give a brief 10-minute talk to my fellow learners at our system’s Aspiring Administrators Academy on the topic of Administrators as Technology Leaders.  Due to some time constraints (OK, everybody ahead of me took twice as long as their allotted time), a few of us were bumped, and the talk never happened.  So, I thought I would post my thoughts here and let you add those things I may have missed.

Below is the Prezi I created to go with my talk.  The first few slides are simply screenshots from the “Did You Know?” video posted everywhere across the Internet.  There are two short video clips I added just to play in the background while I talked.  The first are images of the various kinds of technologies our students use every day.  The second is an abbreviated list of the software our district has provided teachers to help with instruction.  The main points of the Prezi are expanded below.

Know What’s Possible. Teachers do not expect their principals to be able to walk into a classroom and expertly demonstrate every piece of technology purchased for a school.  But administrators need to demonstrate life long learning as a daily practice, and learning about technology is part of the drill.  Read articles.  Read blogs.  Attend workshops.  Watch a webinar.  Find out what is possible with technology if you expect to lead in technology.

Demonstrate Technology in Your Own Practice. Create a PowerPoint presentation for faculty meetings.  Email a report as an attachment instead of stuffing mailboxes with paper.  Update your profile page on the school website regularly.  My rule of thumb is this: If you want to see how engaged a principal is with technology in his or her school, look at their personal profile on the school website.  Some are missing.  Others are still dated September when it is actually April.  And a few, a blessed few, update their page once a month like clockwork.  It doesn’t matter if YOU updated it, your secretary updates it, or one of your student aides updates it. The fact that you care enough to know it is updated speaks volumes to your teachers.

Give Teachers Time. Teachers will learn to use new technology the same way kids learn it.  They need time to goof off with it.  If you purchase a new software and expect your teachers to embrace it, cut back on planning time meetings.  Trim back after school faculty meetings.  Instead, tell every teacher to find time to just “play around” with the software.  It takes a huge amount of pressure off of them to “perform.”

Train, Train, Train, Train, Train, Train, Train…and Then Train Some More. I cannot even begin to express the frustration teachers feel when they new technology is “shoved down their throats” (a quote from a teacher friend), but no one gets trained on how to use it.  My suggestion is that administrators use the “I do, we do, you do” approach.  Go to the training yourself.  Show up in a teachers room and ask to help.  Then let them do it on their own.  Let me tell you how powerful and easy this is.  Our district has just purchased Interactive White Boards for nearly every classroom in the system.  Some are Promethean.  Some are SMART.  If the principal would just walk in one day and move some stuff around the screen with a pen or a finger or a koosh ball, not only will the students be impressed but the respect of the teachers will go up five fold.  Lack of training is the number one complaint of teachers regarding new technologies.  And if you offer training (or you have a tech coach that does training) make sure your teachers show up.

Know Your Limitations.  Most of the administrators I know are not technology experts.  Some still think that turning their monitor off is the same as turning off the PC.  So when you get ready to purchase new hardware or new software, understand that you are not the expert.  Get advice.  My former principal did this, and I really respected his final decision even though it wasn’t my recommendation.  We were deciding whether to go with SMART or Promethean.  Three teachers went to Promethean training and to SMART training.  Two of us came back with a recommendation for SMART boards.  One for Promethean.  However, the Promethean purchase was going to be about $10,000 cheaper.  That’s not chump change.  The principal got on the phone and called principals from other districts who had both boards.  He had the SMART and Promethean reps back in his office for several meetings to discuss all the options.  He truly struggled with this decision.  In the end, he went against my recommendation for SMART boards, but today I think he made the right decision for the school.

Always Consult the IT Department Before Making Any Decisions. Envision that statement with about twenty exclamation points at the end of it.  I would love to put Apple products in our classrooms, but our IT department doesn’t support them and they cannot connect to our server given its present setup.  What a waste of money if I decided to do that without consulting them first.  Or iPads.  I can envision a day when every student gets an iPad in kindergarten.  But will the infrastructure handle giving out enough IP addresses to let everyone get online at the same time?  Will it be better if maintenance or the IT department installs the new hardware?  Where should it sit in the room?  Do teachers need a desktop or laptop and docking station?  Your IT department is your friend.  Use them.

Always Choose The Technology To Fit The Lesson. Never Create the Lesson To Use The Technology. This lesson was brought home to me at the Discovery Leadership Institute last summer in a small group discussion about cell phones in the classroom.  Lisa Parisi, a fellow DEN member, made this statement to the group.  It is so easy to jump on the latest technology bandwagon and feel like you MUST use it in every lesson.  Just because you have a PC and a projector doesn’t mean every lesson has to be put into PowerPoint.  You don’t have to build every lesson in a SMART Notebook or Promethean Flipchart file.  When the technology is appropriate for the pedagogy, use it.  When it isn’t, shut it down.

It is at this point that I would be taking questions.  Instead, I’m going to ask one.  What did I miss?  What advice would YOU give new administrators about being a technology leader on his or her campus?

Last night I went to dinner with some friends in downtown Nashville.  We enjoyed a quiet dinner in a nearly empty Joe’s Crab Shack, and finished up with a quick, cool walk down 2nd Avenue and Broadway.  As I waited for the hotel shuttle with them outside Legends we had five police cars and two police motorcycles converge on a location about 50 yards from us.

Just a little unsettling.

It turned out they were all there to put one man in the back of a squad car.  Hardly anyone stood around looking on the sidewalk.

After everyone else went back to the hotel, I walked back down to B.B. Kings for some blues by the Stacy Mitchhart band.  It was a great single set, and then I decided to go back to the hotel myself.  On the way back down 2nd Ave, 3 police cars were outside a venue on the other side of the road.  Again, they were apprehending one guy.

This was just a Monday, but I had never seen anything like it during the several times I’ve been downtown.

As I stood outside Legends again waiting on the shuttle, I turned and saw what appeared to be a homeless gentlemen in his 60s arguing with the doorman (ok, bouncer) outside of Legends.  He was noticeably drunk.  He stood about 5’6″ and was trying to pick a fight with the bouncer who stood well over 6′ tall.  This lasted about 10 or 15 minutes before the homeless man wandered down the street to harangue someone outside another door.

In all that time the bouncer never said a word. He did not engage the gentleman at all.  Not once.  Nada.  And eventually everything returned to normal.  A few tourists like myself stood around in awe watching something better than a movie on the hotel television.  I wondered fleetingly where the cameras were for this new reality show about downtown Nashville.

But I was mostly struck by the composure of the man standing guard outside Legends.

I stood there thinking about my own time with in the classroom with kids who tried to engage me in a verbal altercation.  How many times did I let them suck me in?  How  many times did I feel somewhat superior because my own verbal skills were so much better than theirs?

And how many times did that really turn out to be a win in the student column?

Every time.

Ask anyone that knows me well and they will confirm that I am what is commonly known as a “loner.”  At a dinner table I will be the one silently listening to others.  At a party, I’m the one sitting in the corner chair quietly observing.  Even at family occasions I’m the one behind the camera taking pictures of others having fun.

Give me a laptop with an Internet connection in a small room with no windows and let me work.

So it wasn’t surprising that I planned a trip to Nashville for a little sightseeing and some music and came by myself.  Sure, I would rather share memories with someone other than just my friends on Facebook who comment on my pictures.  But I’m OK with long hours of little or no human contact.

And then…last night…as I stared out into the darkened parking lot from the elevator at my hotel it hit me.  I had just spent nearly 24 hours with no human contact at all.  Other than a couple of very short phone calls and speaking to a waitress about what I wanted for dinner, I had not spoken to another human being in 24 hours.

I remember times like that in school.  Junior High. High School.  College even.  Days where I would be surrounded by people, but no contact made.  Even for a self-confessed loner, times get lonely occasionally.

Think about the kids in your classes.  Let your eyes glide down the names in your grade book.  When was the last time Billy answered a question in your class?  When was the last time Suzie volunteered to speak?  Have you spotted kids in the hallway between classes just silently watching the others laugh and talk and push and shove around their lockers?  Ask around.  Are other teachers noticing the same thing from these kids in their classrooms?

It is a short walk from loner to lonely.  From isolation to isolated.  From filled with life to empty.

For some kids, you are the only human contact they will encounter during the day.  If you are too busy to spend 2 minutes with the quietest of the quiet, you may lose your only chance at connection.

Their parents are busy.  Or gone.  Or unaware.  But you.  You know.

Kids need more than lesson plans or standards.  They need human connection to be whole.  Even the loners in your classes will appreciate the extra effort.  Most of the time they are desperate for human connection, but they just don’t want to be the one to initiate it (or don’t know how).  They don’t need much.

But we all need some.  Even me.

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.