Readiness to Learn

In George Couros' (@gcouros) podcast interview with Baruti Kafele (@PrincipalKafele), Kafele discusses (about 8 minutes into the podcast) what he calls an "attitude gap" and describes it as a students' willingness to learn.  He states that if we can increase the will to learn then the skill will follow.  

I have thought about this concept before and always referred to it as the students' readiness to learn.  Some some students enter the classroom ready to go.  The relationship with the teacher might not matter much to them - they already have the will to learn.  Maybe their will resides from wanting to get an "A" so they can get on the honor roll, build up their transcript to get into a good college, or even because they are excited about the content.  However, other students come into the classroom not ready to learn.  Maybe it is because they do not care about grades, do not see themselves going to college, or are not excited about the content.

Early in my teaching career, I made two mistakes that have stuck with me.

The first, I actually denied entry to a student into my class because of an arbitrary delineation that my class was for juniors and seniors only.  It was an elective class and there was a sophomore student who was ready to learn, excited about the content, and wanted to earn the early elective credit.  I am embarrassed to admit it, but I went straight to my administrator and counselor who dropped the student from my class.

   

The second, I had a student who was on his phone for the duration of the first day of class.  I attempted to redirect the student during class but failed.  I did not engage in any other attempt at relationship building.  Again, I marched down to the administration/counseling office and told them that this student is not a right fit for my class.  It was an elective after all, and he showed no interest in being there the first day so we might as well drop him now and find a different class that is a better fit.  

What should I have done differently?  Well, I could have started by first giving each student a chance.  I didn't even do that.  And I needed to stick with the student even when it gets rough.  It all starts with a relationship.  I needed to make that connection, build the trust, and get the student on my team.  Ensuring ALL students have a readiness to learn is the first step that every teacher needs to accomplish with EVERY student in their classroom.  

Did You See the Sunrise Today?!

This summer, my family purchased kayaks instead of going on a vacation.  We enjoy taking them to local lakes, reservoirs, and rivers.

On a recent kayak fishing trip, I had a frustrating day.  First, I didn't even get one bite.  Second, I lost one of my fishing poles. I put it in the holder behind me on my kayak but it must not have been completely down in the hole so when I started paddling it fell out.  It is now on the bottom of Hoover Reservoir.  And third, my favorite lure got caught in a tree and I spent 30 minutes trying to get it out.

But, I saw a pretty awesome sunrise.



To all my educator friends, I hope to provide you with some encouragement for this school year.
You will have days (maybe you already have and the school year hasn't even started yet!) when you don't get any bites, lose your fishing pole, and get your favorite lure stuck.  However, we are blessed with an awesome opportunity each day.  Let's try to remind ourselves and each other of the many good and honorable things that we are a part of, get to do, and experience.  Let's lift each other up and support each other like never before without blaming and complaining.




I included a photo of a catfish just so you know that I do actually catch some stuff (sometimes)

A COHESIVE TEAM

A few days ago, I attended a valuable leadership retreat that focused on building cohesive teams.  Last week, the Reds and Pirates were involved in a major league brawl.  In no way at all do I condone the actions of violence they displayed although I do want to make a few quick connections to a cohesive team. 

In our leadership retreat we learned that in a cohesive team, the foundation is TRUST and the pinnacle is RESULTS.  I pulled out two quotes from Joey Votto's (Cincinnati Reds) post-game press conference that related to this.

First, he stated, "Today is a good example of our team standing up for each other."  This is what leads to building trust in any relationship - but especially a team.  Usually we look at change, challenges, and storms as bad things.  However, they provide the opportunity for teammates to stand up for each other and prove their commitment to the team.  They are a necessary component to building the foundation of cohesive teams.  In our leadership retreat, one person stated how important it is to know that your teammates have your back.  Joey Votto's statement demonstrated that he and his teammates proved this.

Second, he stated, "The best teams focus on winning on a day in and day out basis."  You know your team is a cohesive team when it is focused on results.  In order to get to this - the team has been through conflict, used it to help them grow, and have proven their trust and commitment to each other.  They understand that in order for the team to get better they have to push and hold each other to be accountable for growth.  When that has happened - the team is ready to focus on results and not get sidetracked with minor issues.  Joey Votto acknowledged that this is the next step for his team - to move on past the drama and get focused on results.

The Gazebo

I have a tendency to go full force into projects - to just dig in right away and keep bulldozing my way to the finish.  One of my strengths is my strong work ethic so I think maybe I often rely on that rather than being a bit more methodical and thoughtful about my work.  It is how I played sports growing up and it is what I am used to.  However, it is not always an effective strategy.

A few weeks ago, I purchased a metal gazebo from Lowe's.  I know the directions say to get all of the pieces out and make sure you have every piece before you get started - but really who does that or has time for that?!  So I just started working.  Soon into the project I discovered that one of the pieces was defective so I needed to call and have a new piece delivered.  In the meantime, I figured I could skip some steps and get some parts of it together, you know, to grind through and be more efficient with my time :)

When the corrected piece finally came in about a week later, I built the gazebo with the four posts, crossbeams, and vertical pieces that connected the crossbeams to the top part of the roof (all of which I had piecemealed together earlier).  After several hours, I needed to put up the horizontal frames on the roof.  However, they could not connect to the vertical bars.  On one side I came an inch or so too short and on the other side I came an inch or so too long.  I tried smashing one side in with a hammer.  I tried pulling and tugging the other side as hard as I could.  Nothing worked.  I could not get it to match up enough to get the screws in!  After having worked on it most of the day, I called it a day (it was nearly 10pm and was getting destroyed by mosquitoes anyway).

The next day, my 16 year-old son is with me helping and trying to figure it out.  We tried tugging, pulling, hammering, and smashing but to no avail.  I checked to see if it was all level.  It wasn't.  We fixed that.  Still didn't work.  I then swallowed my pride and started from the beginning to do everything in order as it was supposed to.  We took down the entire top part of the roof that I put together early and then put it up piece by piece.  Still didn't work.

I am hours into this project and I now had visions of me smashing the pieces and throwing them out into the yard and making a big enough scene that possibly would cause my neighbors to call the cops on the crazy guy next door.  It is 90 degrees with Ohio humidity.  I was soaking in sweat and ready to be done.

At this point, my son stopped being my "assistant" me and started analyzing the work.  He said to me, "I think these vertical bars are not centered on the horizontal crossbeams".  I told him it didn't matter and that had nothing to do with it and went on huffing and puffing.  He said he wanted to measure - fine, whatever I said.  He measured and told me they were not centered.  I repeated myself - "that is not the problem!".  He repeated himself.  I ignored.  Finally, he commanded, "DAD!  Stop and look!"  As soon as I paused and looked - it became so obvious.  I realized right away that he was right and it was the vertical piece that was causing all the problems. 

Way back when I put together the crossbeams early, there were three holes for bolts.  I needed to screw in the vertical piece which had two bolts and I selected the wrong two out of three bolts (yeah those directions would have been important at that point).  Thus, it was causing everything thereafter to be thrown off.  We fixed that and the rest went on smooth as butter.

Leadership Lessons 
1.  Be Grateful
I am so grateful to my son (wife and daughter helped at times too) for his patience and help. 

2. Go at the Right Pace
I am a doer.  I love making to-do lists and checking them off as I go (admittedly, I have actually put stuff I already completed on the to-do list only to be able to see it checked off).  There are times in which I need to stop the grind, slow down, and see the big picture. 

3.  Engage in Teamwork (not collaboration)
Truly, I could not have done it without him.  I really would have been that guy who smashed the pieces and threw them out into the yard out of frustration.  I see a difference between teamwork and collaboration.  To me, collaboration is a generic, overused term to describe two or more people working on something.  Teamwork is two or more people working dependently on each other to create something better than if they were solo.

4. Build Relationships 
The strongest teams are built on solid relationships grounded in trust.  This allows teammates to be able to hold each other accountable and push each other to new possibilities.  My son needed to call me out in one of my worst, most frustrated moments.  He did.  If we did not have the relationship, he would have kept quiet or felt scared to be able to call me out.

ReThinking Summative Assessments

As a coach and educator for over 15 years, I have noticed that there are many parallels between coaching and teaching.  I have always heard (and preached myself) that formative assessments are like the practices - players put in work and coach provides feedback preparing them for the big game.  The same within the classroom - the students put in work (formatives) and the teacher provides feedback preparing them for the big test (the summative). 

There has been much research and attention around formatives recently - and rightly so - the feedback it provides to both the teacher and student is so powerful in the learning process.

However, I wonder how much we have thought differently about the summative; or "the big game".

As I watched March Madness games, I noticed a ton of coaching going on.  The coach provided instructions and feedback to players constantly during the game.  And in many sports, the coach is actually able to call a timeout to stop the game to provide feedback, an opportunity for players to self-assess, and review expectations, instructions, and the game plan.  The coach does not just sit there in the chair and let the players perform and then give them a grade at the end of the performance.  If we preach that the summative assessment is like the game - then why does our teaching and coaching stop during the summative?

What if we thought differently about summative assessments?  What would this look like?