Because Counting Our Blessings Just Isn't Enough

Doctoral Confessions: 14 Years Later

04 12 12

“Doctoral confessions” is a series of stories started by my twitter friend, Will Deyamport (@peoplegogy) on the good, the bad and the ugly in pursuing a doctorate. Will, currently in the final stages of his doctorate, refers to those of us who have graduated as “brave souls”. I think it’s more honest to call us “persistent souls”. There are surely much more difficult experiences in life than pursuing a doctorate. Getting a Ph.D. doesn’t require bravery; just time and patience.

I hadn’t intended to start a doctorate. It was the early 90’s and I was a rabbinical student, not yet sure how I would craft a career. I taught religious school as a means of supporting myself and found I loved being in the classroom; adoring the middle school students I taught. To improve my teaching skill, I added to my schedule as many education electives as I could. I found myself drawn to education.

At the time, the field of Jewish education seemed to be expanding and there was great demand for qualified Jewish educators to serve in a range of settings. My school, The Jewish Theological Seminary, among other institutions was asked to produce doctoral students capable of becoming educational leaders. Apparently, I was gaining a reputation for holding educational promise. The chair of the education department, with whom I took a course, invited me to lunch. Would I be interested, he asked, in a full scholarship along with a living stipend to pursue a doctorate in Jewish education?  It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.

The experience was a dream come true. I continued rabbinical school, with the cost of classes covered as part of the same scholarship I received for my doctoral studies. I engaged in learning with professors and colleagues who stretched my thinking. I read countless books and journal articles that were meaningful and thought provoking.

Do I have “war stories” – the bad and the ugly as it were? Well, of course I do. There was the German exam I failed miserably, finally squeaking through the language requirement with a B- (by the skin of my teeth) in two semesters of German.  There was the moment I and three colleagues in my program approached our department to schedule our comprehensive exams, following six months of intensive study, only to be told the department had a new literature list and we would need to begin our exam prep anew. We protested that decision and were allowed to take the exam on the material we had initially been told to learn. There were the demanding years of intensive writing, critique and revising. Through it all, I always felt privileged both for the opportunity to learn and for the potential to contribute.

Now, looking back 14 years into the past, the pain of grueling hours, days and years of writing almost forgotten, I wonder whether the intensive academic study prepared me for real challenges in real schools. Hubris aside at being able to call myself Dr., I question whether the study made me a better educator today than I would have been without pursuing the doctorate.

I suppose the answer is yes – my academic training has helped me become a more effective educator.

I can read and apply educational research utilizing critical thinking honed in my doctoral program. I can ask good questions. I can research and I can write. I can assess the quality of data and utilize data to formulate hypotheses and opinions. I can recognize the possibility of multiple interpretations of the same data. I am open to differing perspectives.

And, I suppose the answer is also no – my academic training is not primarily what makes me an effective educator.

I wasn’t prepared to support a child excluded by peers or frustrated by work that is too challenging or not challenging enough. I wasn’t instructed in ways of assisting a parent saddened by a child’s difficulties or angered by a school decision. I wasn’t shown ways of empowering teachers stiving to meet ever rising demands. I wasn’t made ready to allocate insufficient financial resources during economically trying times. Perhaps most significantly, I wasn’t equipped to lead the cultural change required in response to the rapid changes our world has experienced in the past fourteen years since I received my Ph.D. All of that I have learned from experience.

Was receiving a doctorate worth the effort? Absolutely! Was it sufficient? Not by a long shot. Are there other paths to becoming an effective educational leader? Of course! Am I still grateful for the opportunity I received? Unquestionably; grateful and ever-committed to utilizing the gifts given me in order to make a contribution for the sake of our children.

Category:

Doctorate, Graduate School, Ph.D, Professional Development, Professional Learning, Uncategorized

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On Mindset, New York’s Mayor Bloomberg & Teacher Evaluation

04 11 12

File:MindsetBook.jpg

Politically independent, and typically loathe to share my eclectic political perspectives, I will say that there is much I admire about New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg. On education policy though, I’m a skeptic, growing more disillusioned.  Principal of an independent school and humbly reticent about making remarks on public education, I comment on this week’s education news out of sadness; increasingly convinced that to improve our schools, educators can together design and present alternative approaches to evaluating our own effectiveness.

Mayor Bloomberg, as reported in an article in The Wall Street Journal,  declared this past Monday that he wants teachers’ evaluations open for all to see. Why, Mayor Bloomberg? His answer: doing so will “provide pressure to constantly upgrade.”

Pressure to upgrade? Really? Does pressure improve practice?

Stanford University Professor Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2006), would likely disagree. Dweck compellingly describes the differences between fixed and growth mindsets, shared in greater detail in this 2007 article in Stanford Magazine. Dweck explains in Mindset that those with a fixed mindset believe their qualities are carved in stone, thus experiencing great urgency to prove themselves. Alternatively, those with a growth mindset believe basic qualities can be cultivated through effort, inspiring improvement and accomplishment. Not only individuals, but organizations have mindsets, and a culture of judging puts everyone in a fixed mindset. Instead of learning and growing, everybody’s fear of being judged paralyzes, impeding creativity and innovation. Pressure to upgrade? Sounds like a recipe for developing a culture of fear and fixed mindset.

So what’s the alternative? Dweck looks to CEO’s for insight, finding that in stark distinction to fixed-minded CEO’s, growth-minded CEO’s, the type featured by Jim Collins in his book Good to Great (2001), are deeply concerned with mentoring and employee development programs, seeking ways of providing feedback to employees in ways that promote learning and future success.

So, Mayor Bloomberg, why should we evaluate? Not, I would argue, to provide pressure. Instead, I would suggest, to offer support, guidance, and even at times, inspiration. As a principal, I would never be able to share honest reflections with teachers were those conversations, designed to be private, made public. For those teachers in jeopardy of dismissal, I need to be empowered to protect the dignity of professionals who, despite not being a match for our school, have strengths and have made contributions. Nonrenewal of contract is a painful decision, not to be taken lightly, nor publicized. For the majority of teachers, I need to be able to guide honest reflection on strengths and weaknesses, identifying areas for professional growth in a trusting and supportive environment.

So, what should teacher evaluations look like?

There are many possible forms, and like most serious learning resources, evaluation tools need to remain constantly a work in progress. Faculty members at our school are creating our own rubrics to assess excellence based on our school’s Standards for Professional Practice. We plan to use these rubrics for teachers to self-assess and for the educational leadership team to assess as well, leading to conversation on how teachers see their strengths and weakness and how the members of the educational leadership team see teachers’ strengths and weakness. I humbly view the rubrics as an assessment of my own knowledge of faculty in our school, and approach evaluation with trepidation. I understand that learning is complex and multiple measures of student learning and growth matter. I cannot imagine basing 40% of a teacher evaluation on one standardized test as is possible in New York City’s new system, nor for that matter on one formal observation, or indeed on one of anything. Effectiveness, like learning, is complex and requires multiple measures to assess. We must be careful about what we believe we know and cautious about judging skilled professionals or indeed about judging anybody. I wonder constantly how I can avoid acting as “expert”, regardless of the number of measures I amass, and instead function as a coach and a mentor. I question deliberately how I can nurture a growth mindset and facilitate teacher learning – helping good teachers become very good, very good teachers become great, and great teachers become even greater.

Luckily for our students, we are not and will not be required to publish our completed rubrics for all to see; neither will our rubrics be filed away for future reference only if a problem or a possibility for promotion arises. Our evaluation or rather professional learning rubrics will be living guides for our teachers – shaping professional learning goals, supports to achieve our goals, and assessments to recognize progress made. Our evaluations will, at their best, inspire nuanced, impactful, meaningful growth for the benefit of our children, based not on pressure and fear, but rather on joy and dedication. And that, Mayor Bloomberg, is a far more effective path than providing constant pressure to improve our schools.

Category:

Carol Dweck, Educational Leadership, Educational Reform, Mayor Michael Blumberg, Mindset, Teacher Evaluation, Teacher Leadership

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Students Fighting Hunger

04 02 12

Our Fifth Grade Student Council has taken seriously as student leaders their responsibility to do what they are able to make a positive difference for others, focusing their efforts on planning a school-wide Campaign Against Hunger. They shared the letter below with our faculty. 

Dear Teachers,

Do you remember our commercial? If not, take a look again at this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUIEyocMfSA

We now want to build awareness in the school. Please think of ways to help. Get your students excited about donating food and tzedakah money to purchase food. You can work on a cheer. You can talk about how important it is to help the hungry. Maybe there are current events articles you can read with your class. You might ask students to write reminders to themselves in their homework planner to bring in food and tzedakah money. As a class you can do some research in the computer lab about the problems of hunger in our country and in our world. Find ways as you can to make participating in our campaign against hunger fun.

We will soon be designing and giving you pictures of baskets and small tokens. Each time a student brings food to donate you can glue or draw a token to put in the box. You can also add a token to your basket for every dollar your class raises. We’ll have a picture of a big basket in the front hall showing how much our whole school has contributed together.

Keep track now of what you are collecting until we get the baskets. When your class messenger comes down with attendance, you’ll also send the tallies of what was brought in.

Use your own creativity and imagination and help us figure out how to get the whole school involved. We are really relying on you to help.

Sincerely,

Fifth Grade Student Council

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Hunger, Social Action, Student Council, Student Leadership

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A Team of Coaches

02 13 12

 

cc licensed image shared by flickr user ell brown

The past six months co-moderating educoach on twitter with Kathy Perret and Jessica Johnson, interacting with a growing number of wise and creative instructional coaches, principals and teachers, has helped me move a quantum leap forward in my thinking about professional learning in my school. During this time I’ve also been blessed as an educational leader to work with my own instructional coach who has helped me to stretch my thinking and reflect on challenges and successes, nurturing my own professional learning.  Complementing my journey into the potential of instructional coaching I’ve learned along with mentors in our school, trained to coach new teachers by the New Jewish Teachers Project. I’ve begun to immerse myself in literature about instructional coaching, seeking ways to support faculty in my school. The impact for me has been powerful. 

My learning has led to action. I’ve been planning with educational leaders, both administrators and teachers, brainstorming ways of creating a team of instructional coaches for our school. Tomorrow in a blog post on my school blog I’ll be sharing our plans with the school community.

While much is in place, a tremendous amount of planning remains and I feel grateful for the thoughtful collaboration of my educoach colleagues. I share with you in the hopes that you can continue to help me think through ways of designing and supporting a team of instructional coaches.

By transforming existing positions, we are creating a team of seven individuals who will work as instructional coaches. Most have additional responsibilities in the school and over time, by developing the capacity of our teachers, we hope to support our instructional coaches to focus more of their time on enhancing professional learning in our school.

Our Coaching Positions:

Singapore Math Coach: As we implement aSingapore math curriculum in the school, we will benefit from an outside coach providing five days of intensive training for teachers as well as a workshop for parents, alongside a full-time in-house coach to provide ongoing professional learning and training for our teachers and support for our parents. We have had a math enrichment specialist and over time have begun to transform this position into an instructional coach. Our math coach is the “purest” of the instructional coaching roles we have been able to create, focusing almost exclusively on math instructional coaching for our faculty. An additional responsibility will be communicating and partnering with parents to help them become knowledgeable about our math curriculum.

Hebrew Instructional Coach: We are a K-12 dual curriculum Jewish day school and we teach Hebrew language from Kindergarten. For several years, we have had a K-12 Hebrew coordinator who functions as the Hebrew Department Chair in our Middle and High Schools.  This year, in ourLowerSchool where I serve as principal, we have shifted her role from department chair to instructional coach. She spends 1 ½ days per week in theLowerSchool and we hope to extend that to 2 full days weekly next year. During her time in theLowerSchool she functions exclusively as an instructional coach; supporting teachers to develop units and lessons, modeling lessons, observing and providing feedback, developing student assessments and supporting teachers to analyze assessment data, and reflecting with teachers on teaching and learning in their classrooms.

Science Instructional Coach: Our science instructional coach began her position this year, replacing a science enrichment specialist. In the past, students benefitted from supplemental science instruction in our lab most times supporting curriculum but at times stand alone science experiments. Our science instructional coach teaches students as a means of modeling science instruction for our teachers. Lessons occur in our lab, our classrooms and our outdoor labs – walking trails and our vegetable and butterfly gardens. The science instructional coach assists teachers develop science units and lessons and models many lessons. Over time, she will take on additional coaching responsibilities as our teachers gain confidence providing more of the direct science teaching to students.

Educational Technology Instructional Coach: Technology can no longer be relegated to a lab, but must be infused within classroom experiences. An educational technology coach will provide students with a comprehensive technology curriculum, but even more significantly, will support teachers to infuse daily learning experiences with technology in order to enhance and improve the quality of learning at our school. We have had a computer lab teacher and our educational technology coach will continue, for the foreseeable future, to provide direct instruction to students. However, substantial time will be devoted to coaching faculty. Even when providing direct service to students, the educational technology coach will simultaneously be modeling technology learning for our teachers.

Enrichment Instructional Coach: An enrichment coach whose role will be to support teachers to design enrichment experiences for students will join our department of student services. This educator will work directly with students who, based on assessment, demonstrate the need for enrichment or acceleration exceeding grade-level learning. The enrichment specialist will be able to teach students in their classrooms and, as needed, pull students out of class to provide an enriched curriculum. Our enrichment specialist will also serve as a coach to teachers, assisting us to design enrichment experiences that will challenge and nurture the talents and passions of all our students. We have created this position by a redesign of our student services department so that we can manage with one less learning strategist.

Library/Media Specialist-Research, Media and Literacy Instructional Coach: Leading the process of shifting our library into a twenty-first century library/media center is vital to our efforts to prepare our students for success in our rapidly changing media-rich world. We will be welcoming a library/media specialist to our faculty who will support our students to develop research and media literacy skills. Our library and media specialist will also coach our classroom teachers in more skillful integration of research, media, and literacy skills into educational experiences in the classroom.

Literacy and Learning Strategies Instructional Coach: The role of the chairperson of our student services department will shift to focus far more on instructional coaching in literacy and learning strategies. She will work in concert with a number of other faculty leaders highly skilled in literacy instruction to provide our teachers support. While we would very much like to hire a literacy instructional coach, we do not currently have funding for this position and will therefore create a team of faculty leaders, led by the chairperson of our student services department, who will spend much of her time on instructional coaching. 

Instructional Coaching Team:

Our instructional coaches will work together as a coaching team, supporting meaningful professional learning designed to meet the specific needs of our teachers.  We hope that the sum of that instructional coaching team will be greater than the parts and a creative energy and collaborative learning spirit among our coaches will both support their effectiveness and spread throughout our faculty. While in most cases our instructional coaches also have teaching responsibilities with students, we hope to transform that challenge into a benefit, as coaches will speak to colleagues from the trenches, experiencing daily the difficulties and rewards of teaching children during times of rapid change.

In these initial stages of our thinking on creating an instructional coaching team, I turn to colleagues for insight and ideas. How can we prepare our instructional coaches? What challenges can we anticipate and how might we proactively address them? What professional learning will be valuable for our coaches? How might the roles of principal and assistant principal shift in order to enhance the momentum produced by instructional coaching? What other questions should we be asking?

Thanks for your input!

Cross posted at connectededucoach.wordpress.com

Category:

Educational Leadership, Educational Reform, Instructional Coaching, Professional Development, Professional Learning, Teacher Leadership

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Twitter Travel

02 05 12

In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.   Eric Hoffer, Quoted by Will Richardson and Rob Mancabelli in Personal Learning Networks: Using the Power of Connections to Transform Education

cc licensed image shared by flicker user Rosaura Ochoa

 

This Friday, February 3rd, marked the one year anniversary of my signing up for twitter. An engaging keynote speech by educational technology leader Alan November at a conference I attended had piqued my curiosity.  And still, I tarried. A full year from that thought-provoking keynote address came and went.  During that year, I gently waded into the waters of social media, starting a blog for parents in my school and reading a few educational blog posts I received via Facebook.

I was struggling; charged with implementing an ambitious educational strategic plan, the magnitude of which none of us who had been involved in its design had initially understood. We were grappling with questions of the early twenty-first century, primarily how to prepare students in this rapidly changing world for a future we cannot imagine. The learning and leadership tasks, which were in and of themselves daunting, together presented significant new perspectives on schooling. I recognized the need to stretch my thinking beyond the training I had received in the doctoral program in education I completed in 1998 and beyond my decade plus worth of experience as a principal.  

Although decidedly skeptical about how much could be expressed in 140 characters, I embraced the possibilities of a medium utterly new to me, hoping to find insight and support in leading a process of change in my school. What I didn’t bargain for was the change and transformation that would occur within me. 

I embarked on a journey I lovingly refer to as “twitter travel”.

Twitter travel is not an expression I’d ever heard before. It’s my own terminology for a journey that has changed the way I learn. On a daily basis I travel the world from my computer, ipad or phone, conversing with inspiring educators around the globe. I not only travel geographically, but even humbly broach movement through time, gaining small glimpses into the future of schooling and learning with colleagues who have pushed the boundaries of education. I reflect, question, find resources, collaborate and wonder with educators who share my passions and interests in an informal, yet potent, professional learning network that is fluid, flexible, creative and profoundly meaningful.

So, how am I different as a result of my twitter travel?

Through my participation in organizing international #NoOfficeDay on which educational leaders close their offices and engage all day with students and teachers, I have come to understand the importance as an educational leader not only of “doing” but of “being”; of presence. I now spend dramatically more time not only observing, but actively participating in learning experiences throughout our school; two hours daily in classrooms along with a full day from arrival to dismissal with each of our grades K-5.

Co-moderating the weekly twitter chat #educoach on instructional coaching with Kathy Perret (@kathyperret) and Jessica Johnson (@PrincipalJ), has assisted me to redefine the role of educational leader, finding greater opportunities for teacher leaders and transforming my own job definition to emphasize coaching for professional growth more than evaluation.

Participating on podcasts with the dynamic Jeffrey Bradbury (@TeacherCast) and numerous talented TeacherCast guests has informed my thinking on the role of educational technology, supporting our school to consider how to shift learning with technology from a lab based experience to far greater integration into the classrooms where daily learning occurs.

Actively participating in the weekly #jedchat on Jewish education with wise moderators Rabbi Akevy Greenblatt (@akevy613), Dov Emerson (@dovemerson) and Rabbi Meir Wexler (@RabbiWex) has enabled me to share with Jewish educators serious about the connection between innovative contemporary learning grounded in our ancient, enduring tradition and values. Attending a #140edu conference last summer organized by the energetic super-connector Jeff Pulver (@jeffpulver) opened up imaginative thinking I previously hadn’t had the opportunity to consider. Skype conversations and Google + hangouts with some of the people in my professional learning network on whom I rely has enabled us to extend conversations beyond 140 characters or links to resources. Making a daily habit of reading numerous blog posts by educational thinkers inspires and helps me reflect. And finally, I have taken what for me is a significant step of engagement, beginning my own professional blog.

Perhaps the most substantive change in me is the courage I have gained to acknowledge unabashedly that as an educational leader I can’t offer all the answers, nor even pose all the questions. Instead, it is my task to nurture an environment of creative collaboration focused on student learning and growth. That is a far more complex task than I ever could have recognized at the beginning of my twitter travel.

And so, I end with my personal connection to the Eric Hoffer quote with which I began. These are times of change. It is our responsibility as educators to support our students to be learners who will inherit the earth. It is also our task to help them escape the very real danger of becoming the learned and finding themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.

I am grateful to my twitter travel for helping me to become one of the learners. I’d love for you to share ways in which you are among the learners rather than the learned and look forward to our continued learning journey together. Happy traveling!

Category:

Educational Leadership, Strategic Planning, Teacher Leadership, Twitter, Uncategorized, Web 2.0

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Walking the Learning Walk

01 29 12

What do six teachers, two members of our educational leadership team, four reflective prompts, two educational foci, one ten minute orientation, five minutes in each of seven classrooms, and one twenty minute debrief equal? A moving professional learning experience!

We set off on our school’s first teacher led learning walk armed with information from a brief orientation along with the following reflective, nonjudgmental statement and question prompts:

I wonder if . . .

What if . . .

I noticed . . .

How might . . .     

Entering classrooms as a group of professional learners, with eyes and ears and minds wide open, we sought insight on two carefully selected foci: student engagement and differentiated instruction. We strove to witness student engagement via levels of participation, attentiveness, observable indicators of a commitment to learning, and focus on task. We looked to recognize differentiated instruction via the range and levels of learning activities and supports available, groupings of students both with the teacher and with peers and independent learning experiences in which students participate.

Our learning walk included not only observations, but also interactions. As possible we spoke with students and teachers in the classrooms we visited, asking them to reflect on their experiences. To students we queried, “How do you know if you do good work in this class?” “If you need help, where can you go?” We refined our questions in response to the specific learning activities we witnessed, asking students to explain their learning and to share and discuss work in their portfolios and notebooks. To teachers we asked questions to help us place our snapshot view of learning into the bigger story of ongoing learning in the classroom.

While we focused our attention primarily on the students, the learning environment was also part of our reflection. We “walked the walls” of the classrooms and hallways to see how visuals speak to learning: what kinds of charts and other visual aides are present and what models of good work are available to students. We explored the physical arrangement of the classroom, wondering about how the organization of space facilitates learning. We examined classroom resources such as libraries, computers and interactive whiteboards, considering whether the arrangement of books facilitates good use by students and how computers and the class interactive whiteboard are used to promote learning. We compared resources from classroom to classroom, pondering whether adequate resources are equally accessible to all students.

After each visit, potent and meaningful, came the heart of the learning walk experience: the hallway huddle. We gathered outside the classroom and crafted thought-provoking, reflective questions and wonderings, aimed not to offer feedback to those visited, but to spark walkers’ thinking about our own teaching and our own students’ learning. Some examples of questions and wonderings included: I wonder how the teachers’ assessment of student learning will be used to guide further learning. I wonder if students in my own class could answer questions about the purpose of instruction. What are alternative ways in which the interactive whiteboard could have been utilized? What if a learning strategist had not been present as a push-in classroom resource during this particular lesson? I noticed lots of interaction between students and teachers and between students and peers. I noticed the teacher asking “what do you think?” questions. How might seating arrangements impact how students seek assistance from each other? How might different layouts of student activity sheets support learning?

As a principal, I listened, awe-struck by our teachers’ insights and their openness to reflection and learning. As if looking into a mirror, rather than observing a peers’ classroom, our wonderings and questions reflected not sage guidance we could offer others, but thoughtful musings on how we could improve our own practice. At first I was quiet, too quiet, taking in classroom experiences through the lens of our teachers, amazed by how much more I can absorb when buttressed by the perspectives of teachers than I can on my own solitary daily classroom walkthroughs.

Our courageous faculty leader, Brandi Minchillo (@MrsMinchillo) reminded me of my role as a participant, gently pointing out to both our Assistant Principal, Ilanit Cury-Hoory (@hoory1) and me that we are allowed to share. I smiled, grateful for the reminder that at times the silence of a leader is welcome and at other times it can be distancing. I jumped into the conversation as an equal, not as a supervisor, in the process gaining understanding into how I can view classrooms more reflectively along with more thoughtful ways I can phrase and communicate what I notice and wonder about on my walkthroughs.

The learning walk ended in my office with a debriefing at which we discussed take-aways and insights. We concurred that we were surprised by how much one can learn from even a five minute visit to a classroom. We remarked on how important it is to utilize prompts to formulate nonjudgmental questions and wonderings. We noted that the learning walk supported us to consider what we can change in our own practice in order to enhance learning. We recognized how enlightening it is to observe classes at each grade level, K-5.

The mandate to be nonjudgmental aside, we indulged ourselves a bit, allowing for celebration of learning occurring in our school. All noted how impressed we are by ways teachers we visited engage students and provide differentiated learning experiences. Perhaps most significant for us was our awareness that in every single classroom we visited, we saw evidence of students becoming independent learners, one of the primary school-wide goals this year associated with our reinvigorated approach to literacy learning. To our delight, we witnessed evidence of independent learning regardless of whether or not we were observing a literacy lesson. We observed teachers transferring pedagogic skill from one curricular area to learning across the disciplines.

We had prepared for the learning walk for months, explaining to teachers in both spoken and written format what would happen. Still, the reality of eight adults entering a classroom can be overwhelming and walkers expressed empathy for those observed, demonstrating sensitivity to the courage required to open the doors of one’s classroom to adult visitors. We agreed that although we were not giving feedback, teachers deserve a thank you e-mail from me.

There are seven more learning walks scheduled throughout the academic year and we plan for each teacher to have the opportunity to be a walker and for each class to be visited. As a start, we visited teachers we perceived would be among the most comfortable and selected as walkers those who had eagerly volunteered. With positive feedback from our learning walk pioneers, we hope our faculty will be reassured and enthusiastic. Our aim in implementing learning walks is to support our efforts at nurturing a self-reflective collaborative culture, breaking down the isolation teachers can experience. Learning walks are one important component of our efforts to transform our school into a learning community in which we focus relentlessly on improving student learning and in which we do so together.

Category:

Change, Educational Leadership, Learning, Learning Walks, Sharing, Teacher Leadership, Teaching

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What Will Be Different in 2020? What Will Be The Same?

01 16 12

“What is the one most important thing that will be different in our school in 2020?” This profound question was asked at our headmasters’ tea welcoming parents new to our school.  Referring to a substantial ten year strategic plan, lovingly called Vision 20/20 because its realization is anticipated in 2020, this wise parent put eighteen months of strategic planning and another year of beginning strategic implementation into perspective. My mind raced; arriving at an understanding I had been grasping at, but had been unable articulate without the prompt of a meaningful query. Our strategic planning and implementation, impacting so many aspects of school life so substantially can, in my opinion, be described in its essence in one sentence.

In 2020, our focus will have shifted from teaching to learning.

 To some the answer may sound trivial; to others nonsensical; and to still others mere semantics signifying nothing. To me, the answer shapes a process of cultural change and school reform that has paradoxically been grueling and invigorating, oppressive and freeing, painful and joyous, and perhaps most meaningfully, transforming and eternal. Walking the narrow bridge balancing that which is in the process of being transformed and that which is eternal, I could not with integrity explain my answer to this parent’s question without first posing an additional question. What is the one most significant thing that will remain the same in our school in 2020?

In 2020, we will continue to be guided by the core values of our ancient, enduring Jewish tradition. Regardless of how much we change, our essence will remain the same.

Tradition and change has long been a tenet at the heart of Conservative Judaism, the Movement in which I was trained as a rabbi and with which my school is affiliated. But, I don’t believe I am being defensive of my theological heritage when I state that in today’s educational landscape, healthy schools – Jewish schools regardless of denomination, parochial schools of various religions, independent, public and charter schools – will need to balance all that must change with all that must remain the same. As we experience the tremendous responsibility to prepare students for a future we cannot imagine, in which many perhaps even a majority of our students will one day embark upon careers that do not yet exist, we must remember that values; enduring, eternal values, will continue to ground us, serving as a moral compass to help us navigate our rapidly changing world.

.There is no recipe for change just as there is no recipe for how to keep our core values central to all we do. Remaining the same does not mean mindless adherence to practices that no longer make sense, but rather embracing enduring values that are lived in the reality of our daily experiences. Changing does not mean throwing out all of the old, but rather carefully examining ourselves and our practices. We will have to reconsider curricula, the types of learning experiences we provide, student support models, assessment practices, educational technology and other resources, approaches to school leadership, and more. To be successful, we will have to shine the spotlight on the learner rather than the teacher, making each child the star of his or her own educational experience.  No matter how compelling or riveting a lesson may appear, no matter how interesting or engaging a curriculum may seem, we will have to be honest about how deeply students have understood, made our learning their own, and found a place in which their own curiosity, wonderings, talents and passions can emerge.

What will be different in 2020? What will be the same? Please join in this important dialogue and share your thoughts and reflections.

.

Category:

Change, Educational Reform, Learning, Strategic Planning, Teaching, Tradition, Tradition and Change, Values

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The Greatest Gift of No Office Day

01 14 12

Our principal will be spending the day with us. What do you want her to learn?

Leading a Reading Group on No Office Day with Our Fifth Grade

The potent question, “what do you want our principal to learn?”, posed by one of our teachers to her class at the beginning of my No Office Day with the second grade last week, not only served as a short journal writing prompt for students to begin their day, but also deepened my understanding of No Office Day.

I love No Office Days! I get to spend the entire day, from arrival to dismissal, with one grade. I’ve scheduled six this year, one for each of our grades – kindergarten through fifth. With each No Office Day I celebrate, I gain greater perspective and insight on the tremendous value of the practice.

I’ve written about No Office Day before in a guest post on the PEJE (Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education) blog here as well as on my own school blog, Perspectives From the Principal here and here. I’ve been interviewed on an Eduleadership podcast along with my talented colleagues Jessica Johnson and William King which you can listen to here. And, I’ve been privileged to collaborate creatively with many inspiring educators on No Office Day, some of whom have shared their reflections on our  No Office Day wiki, which was honored as a featured wiki by Wikispaces and described in a guest post I authored for the Wikispaces Blog.

Don’t misunderstand. No Office Days are not the only times I am in classrooms.  I deliberately schedule two hours every day – No Office Hours – during which I escape the gravitational pull of the office: the meetings, the phone calls, the e-mails, the planning, and the communications, making sure I am present where it matters most, among students and teachers. I’m also out of the office other times: leading student council, covering or co-teaching a class for a teacher, participating in assemblies and programs, interacting with students at lunch and recess, and more. Yet, while I strive to spend much time throughout the school, No Office Days are special. I do no supervision or evaluation of teachers on these days. Instead, I participate actively in learning and teaching as a peer. Sometimes I teach a lesson a teacher has planned and sometimes I teach lessons I have designed myself. Sometimes I provide student support – taking on a small group or assisting an individual student. Still other times, I am simply present, participating enthusiastically in whatever the activity.  

OK, I carry my cell phone and ipad with me throughout the day and have responded to texts from my administrative assistant with questions she needs answered in order to support management of the school while I am out and about. I’ve replied to e-mails from parents or members of the educational leadership team that appeared to require a quick response. Some teachers have sought me out during No Office Day when they feel they need immediate direction on a challenge they face. Our Director of Admissions has introduced me to prospective parents while I am in a class on No Office Day.  I’ve even received calls from the nurse at my own children’s schools and have dashed out of the building, dropped one of them off at home, and returned as if there had been no interruption. Life, both professional and personal, happens. But, mostly, on No Office Days I’ve managed to be present for our students and teachers, actively engaged in learning.

So, back to the profound essential question posed by a second grade teacher – Our principal will be spending the day with us. What do you want her to learn?

What students wrote was potent. What they shared was even more powerful.

Second graders wrote that they wanted me to learn about their centers, their class library, tens and ones, math, reading, writing, how we do tefillah (prayer), good things, what we are learning about nonfiction books, and naming stuff (i.e. text features) in nonfiction books like bold words and headings and captions. One particularly curious child astutely wrote, “I wonder what our principal noticed about our class.”

Students have shared with me on No Office Days even more, including the best place on our campus to build a fort, global variations on the Cinderella story, the status of a child’s sister struggling with an illness, insights on Jacob’s ladder described in the book of Genesis (Bereisheet), favorite football teams, how to have fun solving word problems, ways our pets make us laugh, games to play in Hebrew, areas on our campus that suffered erosion after Hurricane Irene, what the shapes of the continents remind us of and how to critique a friend’s writing respectfully.

With each No Office Day I’ve not only learned more, but as the wise second grader quoted previously wondered, I’ve noticed more. I’ve developed greater respect and understanding for the rhythm and nuance of our students’ days. I’ve gained deeper insight into our students’ school experiences, from their perspective, in their terms. I’ve seen school through the eyes of our students. I’ve been transformed from the leader to the learner; paradoxically helping me to become a far more effective educational leader. That transformation from leader to learner to more effective leader has been the greatest gift of No Office Day, making the time devoted simply to being with students and teachers absolutely indispensable.

Category:

Educational Leadership, No Office Day, Sharing, Uncategorized

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Introduction of a Reluctant Blogger

01 09 12

My almost sixteen year old daughter and I recently shared a good laugh (deservedly at my expense) remembering the time I told her she was never ever to blog. It must have been about five years ago, which now seems an eternity. Listening to nervous naysayers rather than investigating and learning for myself, I perceived blogs to be personal diaries inappropriately and self-indulgently shared with the world. I openly confess; interacting on the internet frightened me. Web 2.0 was a term I only vaguely understood and I had not yet heard of a “digital footprint” or “digital citizenship”. As an educator and a parent, I was warned by wise experts in the field to teach my students and my children Internet safety. Dutifully, I brought in speakers about internet safety to school. Like so many parents, when I allowed my daughter to  have a Facebook page I reviewed with her my expectations, which included that she never ever accept a friend request from anybody she hadn’t actually met. Be careful, I warned. The advice was heartfelt and appropriate. It’s just that I hadn’t yet recognized my responsibility also to support her, along with my son and my students, to be creative and collaborative.  Sharing, albeit with appropriate caution, is vital.     

In time, I realized how misinformed I had been about blogging and social media, developing the habit of reading the blogs of educational thinkers from around the globe on a daily basis.  I can no longer imagine professional life without interactions with a wide network of individuals writing from the trenches – principals, teachers, instructional coaches, parents and even students.  These reflective musings have become a blessing to me, as I have learned from the successes and also from the mistakes of others willing to share. And so, albeit a reluctant blogger intially, I join in conversation, hoping to reflect, struggle, dream and engage with others exploring ways to nurture our children’s learning and support our children in building character.

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Category:

Blog, Digital Citizenship, Digital Footprint, Sharing, Web 2.0

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