Sharing my Reading Life

*This is blog post #4 in the 2012 Summer Blog Challenge*

I have had the pleasure of learning directly from Regie Routman in her Leadership in Literacy conference twice in the past two years. If you ever have the opportunity to attend a conference/workshop with Regie, I would highly recommend it. While I could write for days about why I have learned from Regie and the impact it has had on our school literacy practices, this post will actually be about how she has impacted my reading.

The first time that I heard Regie, she talked about how important reading is in her life and that she reads a wide variety of books...not just professional education books. I'm not sure why, but that was a shock to me. I spent every spare moment I could reading professional books to improve my practice, but Regie helped me see that I wasn't actually enjoying reading by only reading this type of books.  (She also said that it's important to have a life outside of school so that you have interesting things to write about...I'm still working on this one!)

Then she did something that really had an impact on me---she passed around her reading log to share her reading life with us. It was just a simple journal that she used each page to record the books she read for that month. For each book she included the title, author, makes fiction or non-fiction and also marked.a star by it was a great read for her. By logging books in a simple way and each page being month, she could easily see which months she was falling behind on reading (and also which months she traveled a lot since she does a lot of reading while flying).  If you want to see what Regie's reading and read more about how and why she started logging her books, you can read it here on her site.  I'm sure that my readers know by now that I'm one of those crazy people that is eager to learn and implement right away, so I recorded a few (ok, several) book recommendations that she had starred in her book log and then on my drive home I stopped at the store and bought a nice notebook to start my own reading log journal.  

April 2012 of my reading log

I started my reading log December of 2010 and have found that it has really pushed me to read more.  When I see a blank page, it motivates me to shut off the tv and read more (quite honestly, tv has become boring to me).  During the year 2011 I read a total of 26 books--6 fiction, 20 non-fiction.  When I saw that break down I realized I have got to read more fiction or I am going to become a boring person.  We are now half way through 2012 and I have surpassed the total of books I read last year. With today being the last day of June I have read 27 books--15 fiction, 12 non-fiction.

What have I learned from all of this reading?

• Reading fiction is a big stress relief for me. I enjoy escaping into a good story. 
•  By keeping a log, it is much easier for me to share book recommendations with others. 
• I find myself talking about books with students in the lunch room that I've read, which leads them to talk about books they've enjoyed and then I read their recommended books (the same happens with adults).
• It seems like the more I share my reading, the more teachers in my building are reading.
• I spend a lot of money at amazon ordering books! (I partially blame the #educoach folks on twitter for this!)

After my first year of logging my books, I didn't feel it was enough to model and share my reading with my teachers.  In December of 2011, I read The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller, which is a MUST read if you have anything to do with teaching literacy.  One of the studies she sited in this book found a link between the reading habits of teachers and the reading achievement of their students (Lundberg and Linnakyla, 1993).  The take-away from this study is that if we want our students to read and enjoy it for the rest of their lives, then we must show them what a reading life looks like.  I decided to take this one step further and do a better job of modeling reading for my teachers.  I was already maintaining a staff blog for a weekly memo, so I decided the best avenue would be to start logging my books onto shelfari and then add a widget to my blog so that staff could easily see what I'm reading (you can see my shelfari bookshelf widget on this blog to the right as well).  Since doing this, it seems like most of my teachers are reading more--both professionally and for pleasure.  It could be that they were reading this much before and it just got them talking about their reading more? Even if that is so, I know that the discussions and book recommendations help build our learning community...impacting our staff and students.

Relationships and the Number 96

*This is blog post #3 in the 2012 Summer Blog Challenge*

In my last post, I shared what I learned from Willard Daggett speaking about Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships. Readers' comments on that post pointed out that I didn't speak to the 3rd R, however, Relationships are essential in schools in order to get to the Rigor and Relevance.

On relationships, Daggett refers to the necessity for teachers to build relationships with students in the classroom. Daggett's point about relationships was that learning is personal. When teachers have strong, trusting relationships with their students, they work harder and achieve more. The same is true with leaders. We may have many ideas about what needs to be done; but without trusting relationships with those we wish to lead, we will find ourselves alone on the journey, It is so easy to get excited about the Rigor (this could be technology, new classroom pedagogy, etc.) that we forget to build strong foundational relationships before setting off on our journey.

When I think about Relationships, I think about the number 96. What is the significance of 96? On the last day of school this year, a student in our school told her teacher that she doesn't get to go to summer school (we have a large summer school program with many enrichment classes) and she is counting down the days until she gets to come back to school...96 days until she gets to be back to her favorite place. I know that it is the relationships this student has had with her teachers throughout the years that have made our school her favorite place to be.

Rigor, Relevance and Relationships

I recently attended the 2012 Wisconsin School Leadership Academy and was fortunate to hear some great speakers that I will try to blog about in my next few posts (especially since I've been challenged to blog twice a week this summer --if you're counting this is blog post #2 in the challenge).  If you'd like to check out the tweets from this Academy, you can check #2012WSLA on twitter. I tweeted from the @AWSALeaders1 account, so you won't find too many tweets from me.

The first speaker we heard was Willard Daggett, known by many for speaking/writing about Rigor, Relevance and Relationships in education.  Here are some of my bullet point notes from his session:

• Schools are improving, but we still have a gap of where students need to be in our changing world.
• Teachers are on treadmills just trying to keep up and cover everything that might be on the test.
• The 3 central challenges in education right now: Common Core State Standards, Next Generation Assessments, and Teacher Evaluations.
• Rapidly improving schools have proactive leadership, and focused/sustained professional development. 
• Our state tests focus on lower level applications, but our students NEED higher level/real world applications (Rigor/Relevance).
• Research on the most improving schools have found that many have eliminated department chair heads and have instead moved to interdisciplinary teams. You cannot get to higher level/real world applications one discipline at a time!
• Building character/guiding principles (respect, responsibility, compassion, initiative, adaptability, perseverance, etc.) are still essential for our students.  Do you know anyone that truly lost a job due to a lack of academic skills? It was likely a lack of one of those character traits.
• There is NO research that supports eliminating the arts (especially if it means more test prep).

I realize that these are not the best notes from his session (like I said, I was also busy tweeting!)  I must confess that I have heard Daggett's name mentioned numerous times before, but didn't hop on the bandwagon to read up on the new "Rigor/Relevance" buzz words, but now I'm racking up another amazon order for his books.  Daggett doesn't speak to any sort of magic "be all/end all," but rather speaks about common sense practices and the importance of making your curriculum rigorous (higher level thinking/applications) and relevant (real-life situations that make the learning important and applicable for students).  

2012 Summer Blogging Challenge

Bill Carroza (@wcarozza) over at "Principal Reflections" snuck in a blog challenge in his post "5 Reasons Educators Should Blog." Then my twitter friend @fliegs threw @mmiller7571 and I under the bus in a tweet to get us in on the challenge (now that I think about it, I think he has done this to us every year!) I have a hard time saying no to anything so I'm in (even if it means that this first post is this simple--it is also my first attempt at using the blogger app on my iPad, so I have no idea what it will look like and have found I can't add any links into my post.)


So who wants to join us? Only 2 posts a week, come on we can all commit to at least 2.

Now I'm off to start thinking of my next blog post...

Is social media taking away from personalization and relationships?

When the topic of social media comes up in conversations (both in my personal and professional circles) I am still amazed by how many people say "social media and technology are taking away from the personalization, relationships, and face-to-face conversations."  I beg to differ.

In my personal life, facebook helps me to connect with family/friends much better than I would without it.  My closest family lives 10 hours away and we only drive for visits once or twice a year, so I post pictures/video clips on facebook for family to see my children more often.  I also see all of their pictures and random updates.  There is no way I would ever talk to all of my relatives back in my hometown on the phone this often without facebook.  I do have friends/colleagues on my facebook page that also see my pictures/video clips and random status updates and are then able to ask, "so how was your trip to Lego Land?"  I probably wouldn't have brought that up in our conversation at the BBQ or in the teachers' lounge, but she saw it on my facebook page.

In my professional life, guess how many other elementary principals I have in my district to go to for help? NONE. I am the principal of the only elementary school in a small, rural district.  A couple of years ago, I did make some random calls to nearby districts to form a network with other elementary principals like @SchlenderJ and @MrAaronOlson which has been helpful.  Although, trying to coordinate schedules can be tricky and we are only able to get together every other month at the most.

If I didn't have other people to call on to seek advice or input, it would be like living on Gilligan's Island, only having the same people to rely on (don't take offense to that John and Aaron-you're great to have in my network!)


Fortunately, by joining Twitter, I have been able to expand my Personal Learning Network (PLN) and I know I can turn to...

Educators in Wisconsin...

@WiscPrincipal (Curt) - for RTI questions, because his school is a model school for RTI and has presented at a couple of conferences.  He's also been a principal far more years than I have so I call on him for general advice as well (along with his knowledge of random songs/movies from the 80's).

@PosickJ (Jay) - his school was one of few that went 1:1 with chromebooks for their 4-8th graders and has some great tech gurus in his district.  He doesn't tweet much other than how far he runs everyday (which also is motivating for me), but he hasn't ignored my direct messages or emails.

@HowePrincipal (Matt) who is an awesome elementary principal focused on literacy and is a grant-writing guru.

@chadkafka (Chad) who is my go-to guy for anything google.  He is the google guru! He also has the MobileReach podcast to share all kinds of great apps and advice for integrating mobile devices in education.

@Taml17 (Tammy) who joins Chad on the MobileReach podcast and shares awesome tech tools/tips.

@pernilleripp (Pernille) who started the Global Read Aloud project and is so reflective on teaching in her blog.  She is so sincerely honest about her practice and giving the classroom back to the students.

I've met almost all of these colleagues in person at conferences.  If I hadn't known them from twitter, I never would have sought them out at the conference to chat with them...I would have just attended sessions by myself.

Educators out of Wisconsin...

@mmiller7571 (Melinda) a principal from Missouri who started a podcast years ago that I found by chance and enjoyed learning anything I could about being a principal.  It was her podcast that led me to learn about twitter and online, 24/7 PD opportunities.  She also has far more years of experience than me so I've called on her for help with a variety of admin questions.


@shiraleibowitz (Shira) and @KathyPerret (Kathy) who both co-moderate the #Educoach chat with me every Wednesday night.  Shira is a Rabbi/Principal in New York with a wealth of knowledge (how else would I connect with a Rabbi?) on coaching teachers versus just evaluating them.  Kathy is a very well trained Instructional Coach in Iowa, also with a wealth of knowledge.

@NMHS_Principal (Eric)  who is very well known of across the country for having his New Jersey high school utilize social media.  I've seen video clips, news articles and blog posts about him and his awesome school.

@bhsprincipal (Patrick) another principal who's Massachusetts high school has been in national headlines for going 1:1 with huge success. I've podcasted with him on the EdAdmin show and enjoy learning from his experience.

@L_Hilt (Lyn) an elementary school principal in Pennsylvania who is another leader on integrating technology and podcasts with us on the EdAdmin show.

@Eduleadership (Justin)  A principal from Washington who has taught me so many organizational/time management tips to keep up with the crazy amount of workload a principal has.  He's also the director of The Principal Center.

@rondmac (Ron) a  principal that has a lot to share in regards to school leadership.

@hopeleaders (Raul) who I actually had the pleasure of working with during my 1st year as an assistant principal in Arizona. He was an awesome principal that taught me almost everything I know.  He's now a principal coach in his district.  Even though I moved across the country, I can still keep learning from him via twitter.

@TeacherCast (Jeff) who started TeacherCast in New Jersey, which provides great podcasts to learn from, along with many other great resources for teachers/educational leaders.

@akevy613 (Akevy) another Rabbi/Principal with many years of leadership experience that I enjoy learning from.

Educational Gurus...

How else could I continue learning from my favorite Educational Authors or even ask 1:1 questions of Todd Whitaker, "The Sisters", Jim Knight, Donalyn Miller, and Regie Routman (Regie just started her twitter account and I'm SO excited to follow her!)

In addition to just following the tweets of these great people in my PLN (along with many others), I have exchanged emails, had 1:1 skype chats and had scheduled chats with several all at one time on Google + Hangout (just like skype, but allows for up to 10 people).  I am certain that I would not do my job as well as I do now without all of these great people in my network to learn from.  So, to those of you who think that technology takes away from personalization, conversations and 1:1 conversations...you have NO idea what you're missing out on!

Chatting with Todd Whitaker about Shifting the Monkey

I've shared in a previous post that one of my favorite educational authors is Todd Whitaker, so it's no surprise that I pre-ordered and immediately read his latest book Shifting the Monkey: the Art of Protecting Good People from Liars, Criers and other Slackers.  If you'd like to read an educator's reflection on this book, you can find one here written by Justin Tarte.

After I read Todd's book, I was so excited to discuss it with others that I organized a Twitter chat on it and asked Todd to join us (just another great example of how great twitter is).  Unfortunately, the twitter spammers jumped into the conversation and we didn't get to chat for the entire hour (apparently the title "Shifting the Monkey" can turn into an entirely different conversation by spammers with other interests).  Due to this unfortunate turn, it wasn't worth archiving the chat, so I'm going to include some of the tweets from the conversation here:

  

The term "blanket monkey" refers to a message that is given to everyone that is really intended for one or two people.  For example, if one or two people are showing up to work late, then don't tell everyone in a staff meeting that they need to come to work on time.  Your good people will worry, "that day I had a flat tire I was 5 minutes late, now I feel even worse" and your slackers will be thinking, "so many people are late to work, no big deal."  Instead, address those individually that you have a concern with. 

A few more tips from Todd on addressing concerns individually: 

 

 

The same idea applied in the classroom:

Whitaker states that "negative, poorly performing people tend to get a disproportionate amount of power, attention, and empathy. They continue to behave obnoxiously and unfairly because they're rewarded for doing so. Who is shifting the monkeys in your building?

Everyone hates it when a new rule is made that is really intended for the one person that did something stupid. Don't make decisions based on those people, Whitaker says to make decisions based on your best people, to treat everyone well, and protect your good people first. 

 

As educators and leaders, Whitaker reminds us that we should constantly ask, "who carries the burden of the policy or practice?"  Whether you're in the classroom or leading an entire school, we need to pay attention to where the monkey is when we're thinking about students, parents, and staff.  As colleagues, we can help each other out:

My "Coaching Hat"

Here's another cross-post of my Friday Focus post for staff, in which I openly reflect for them on how my practice impacts their reflection. I'd love to hear feedback from other administrators trying to balance between the coaching and evaluating hats.
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In a previous Friday Focus posts I have shared with you my goal to get in classrooms and provide feedback and questions encouraging you to reflect. I also shared with you in this post that I want to act more like an Instructional Coach than a supervisor to help improve instruction and learning. Throughout this year, I have networked with other administrators (both on twitter and in "real life") and had conversations around evaluations and coaching. In addition, I recently joined DPI's Teacher Design Team-the committee that is developing the teacher rubric to evaluate teacher practice. Throughout these formal and informal conversations, I have struggled with trying to figure out how I can formally evaluate teachers, yet be seen as someone to give non-evaluatory feedback in a coaching manner to help your reflective process in the classroom. I have read books on instructional coaching and read books geared towards principals, though none that combine the two roles for an administrator. I'm sure by now, you're probably wondering why I am sharing my own personal reflection with you?


Because I recognize that when I come in your classroom and send you an email or talk to you afterwards, that it may make you feel nervous or worried...which is NOT my intent! As I reflect, I realize, I have probably never clearly explained (or maybe I never clearly understood myself) what my intent is as I come in classrooms and give feedback. When I am come into classrooms for informal walkthroughs I am coming in with a "coaching hat" on, so to speak. Quite honestly, I feel like I'm doing the same when I come in for the formal observations (for the evaluation process) and meet with you afterwards to discuss how the lesson went. I may pose a question to you that stretches your thinking that is not meant to be intrusive or evaluatory, but is a question to have you reflect on why you do what you do. When you are reflective and consciously aware of why you do what you do, you will continue to utilize effective strategies for students in your classroom. I can share with you from my own experience that when I had a guest administrator with me a while back, she asked me ma ny questions for her learning, but as I explained my answers to her, I realized how much it made me reflect on why I do those things she asked about. So, my key message to you is that unless I specifically say, "I have a concern..." then you have nothing to be concerned about, I am just in there wearing my "coaching hat."

In the future, I would love for us as a staff to begin collaborating even more for our learning and student learning as a result. We have had several staff members be recorded and reflected while watching their own lesson. Several staff members have o bserved each other to gain new ideas and we have even had teachers from other districts visit us. I have recently begun to read about other schools taking this even one step further and putting in the practice of "Instructional Rounds" in which teachers go together in groups to observe and have follow-up discussions. Here are some of the posts I've read on this topic:
Teachers Observing Teachers: Instructional Rounds
Walking the Learning Walk
Engaging Teachers in Instructional Rounds
Don't worry, this isn't something we're starting tomorrow ;) However, if you are interested in taking some walks through classrooms, just let me know and I'd be happy to cover your class for you!

For your reflection this week...how do you engage in conversations with others to reflect on instructional practices and student learning? What are your thoughts on if I've had an impact on your reflection process as a result of walkthoughs (this question you can actually hold on to, because in a few weeks I'll be asking for your anonymous feedback on a survey to help me reflect).

Image by Kathy Cassidy