When it's preaching to the choir... #ConnectedEducator #GrowthMindset

Always appeased by a good metaphor, I found myself giving a lot of "yes, sirs" and "I agrees" when reading the first couple chapters of What Connected Educators do Differently by @ToddWhitaker @JeffreyZoul and @JimmyCasas over the past day or two. These authors were certainly preaching to the choir. Especially as an educator in a rural school, connecting is essential. In many schools in South Dakota, you ARE the English department or you ARE the Science department, so if you are unconnected you will be on an island. Having a Personal/ Professional Learning Network of like-minded educational professionals around the world is the lifeboat to bring efficacy to the ever-changing world of education.

Although I have yet to read Carol Dweck's book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success in its entirety, I found myself referencing this thought process throughout the first chapter and preface of the Connected Educators book. Much of Dweck's argument supports the idea of continual improvement and this book gives us a way by which to find that improvement. In an age of MOOCs, Khan Academy and EdX, there is no reason that we cannot find a way to build our knowledge base and become the best version of ourselves. The thing is... we have to be open enough to realize that we do not have all the answers and it's okay to seek other perspectives.

On page xxiii Whitaker, Zoul, and Casas list the mindset competencies of a connected educator, "Our view is that serving as a connected educator is a mindset more than anything else; a connected educator tents to adopt and live out a mindset that believes: ... improve effectiveness [to] enhance student learning... must collaborate... seek to grow professionally through continuous improvement... live as active participants in ongoing discussions." All of these excerpts make sense and are imperative to creating a classroom that is more reflective of the practices of the "real world" as opposed to our old models of education.

As a school district leader, it will be more important than ever to not only support teachers in being connected educators, but also to facilitate their connections by drafting policies that foster connections if teachers choose to use them. We have to be informed enough to assist in the education of our decision makers (school boards, legislators, DOE) as well as our parents and community members that may wonder why we are changing our current practices. That being said, I do not want to require staff members to "Tweet" or "Instagram" or "Periscope" rather, encourage and pave the way for the ability to connect.

What else can Principals do to promote this type of "Connected Educator" and "Growth Mindset" in our schools among staff and students? Well, just this. Firing up that old blog and trying to connect with others. Continuing to connect via Twitter, participating in EdCamps, and reading professionally. Hopefully, other principals are lucky enough to find another principal to chat about their reading as well. Which is exactly what I am off to do now... because, as much as a Twitter chat can help broaden horizons, the perspective of a professional peer in a face to face conversation is also important as well.

ELA Standards Review

It's day two of a five day assignment to be part of the English Language Arts Standards review for the South Dakota Department of Education. The review is conducted every 5-7 years of the standards. The current ELA standards for K-12 education were adopted in 2010. The standards that were adopted were the Common Core State Standards and South Dakota, subsequently, became one of 46 states and the District of Columbia that originally adopted the CCSS.  

When South Dakota adopted the CCSS, I was teaching Middle and High School ELA in a small school in South Dakota. My colleagues and I were part of many groups that adopted the "Common Core" with Curriculum Mapping, Disaggregating, and any other buzz word you can find on CCSS. My current staff at my Elementary School are on year three of a "Common Core Aligned" curriculum that was produced by a textbook company. There are supplemental posters, leveled readers, and online guides to assist in the teaching of these standards. We use an online program called IXL to help assess these standards as well as Moby Max to reteach or reinforce concepts. Our districts are very committed to the CCSS with our professional development time and district funds that have already been spent.

All of this being the case, when the email went out to be part of a standards review, I thought it was important to be at the table. The way we organize our professional development time as well as allocate funds over the next couple of years is dependent upon the standards that we adopt.

We started yesterday being sorted into tables by grade level. I was the administrator assigned ot the 5th grade ELA standards table. Each grade (K-8) was assigned it's own table and grades 9-10 and 11-12 were combined. As our task is to review all of our grade level's assigned standard or reinforces and then make sure the standards properly align with both the grade level above and below, we were given a document that explained why we should make changes as well as Key Features of a quality standards.

The document is very well written and our discussions on standards vs. curriculum were very good. My table is composed of four teachers, a curriculum specialist and myself. Our experience levels are diverse and we are critically analyzing every 5th grade standard during the review process. We have access to examples from other states all around the U.S. to look at as well. Eventually, I think I will use a chart like this to present some of the changes to our staff at the local level. I think it is important to remember that "standards" are not curriculum and "standards" are not textbooks, rather guidelines of the expected competencies teachers must help students meet through the use of educational materials such as textbooks, multimedia, primary sources, etc. This chart helps to explain that difficult concept. 

Right now, we are just in the early stages of reviewing standards. There will be more days that our educator group will meet this year, a time for open comments by all stakeholders (parents, teachers, students, administrators, public, etc.) as well as hearings in front of the State Board of Education prior to adoption of the new new standards. It is a lengthy process, but it will be worth it for all of South Dakota. We have tried the standards as they were written and now we will amend them after they have been implemented for five school years. 

I look forward to working with the team that I have been assigned today and over the next meetings. We definitely take our work seriously and understand the long-standing implications of every "and" "or" "explain" and "describe" as it is written in the standards. The days are very rewarding when discussions about every educational implication are reviewed during a standards review. 

Most Likely to Succeed by @dintersmith @tonywagner

"Our country is the most innovative and determined on the face of this planet in a time that begs for these skills. Let's educate to our strengths instead of chasing Shanghai and South Korea on a standardized test." -- +Ted Dintersmith @TEDxFargo 

I couldn't sleep last night after reading the book Most Likely to Succeed: Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era by Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith. When I checked my FitBit after waking from a hovering dream about the open-air schools of Taipei with of white and green, polyester sweat-suited students with matching haircuts from a trip I took my Senior year of high school, it was 2:23 am. I spent a couple weeks over the December holidays at the dawn of 2001 in Taipei touring the wonderful country and visiting rural and urban schools (like the one in my dream) to meet and connect with students. As a senior in high school, I was still unsure of the answer to the question, "What am I going to be when I grow up?" But, my time as a teacher, tech integrationist, and now an elementary principal has certainly been influenced by my overseas travels (Taiwan being the first of many).

After the insistence of my 7-year-old daughter wanting to read just "just one more chapter" last night, I delved deeper into Most Likely to Succeed as she finished her 6th chapter of the Lego Elves Search for the Magic Key, both independently. I couldn't help but wonder as I was reading about the formation of the current ELA curriculum in K12 where she would fit. Is she Basic? Proficient? Advanced? And, more importantly, does it matter to her future?

As the principal of her school, yes, it matters to me as we set up to analyze scores for the upcoming in-service day. As her Mom, it doesn't really matter as much. At her birthday party last weekend, nobody asked how her preparation for the SBAC in 3rd grade is going, nobody. The audacity! Rather, most asked how she liked her new school, the name of her teacher, and if she was still going to be an engineer when she grows up. To which she told them that she is planning on being a dog sitter first, then be a Jackrabbit and an engineer. What can I say, I have an entrepreneur on my hands!

So, today, as I have blocked off two hours to work on my in-service plan to review the SBAC scores next week, Ted Dintersmith and Tony Wagner are resonating in my brain instead. How can I make this relevant? In a time when as a school administrator I supposed to be more concerned about test scores than anything else, but I would rather just suggest to my teachers that we work on real life problem solving for my students and get the basics down? That we should let our school's curriculum not be driven just by a test? No, I can't do that. Logic says no; as does the continued need for me to have a paycheck to support my family. But, in reality, even though we haven't put our students in matching uniforms with school-regulated matching haircuts, have we taken away the ability to be innovative, creative problem solvers that Ted Dintersmith claimed in his TEDxFargo talk is the greatest attribute of our country's citizenry?

I'm going to go back to data now, but with a fresh set of eyes and the optimism that I can find relevancy beyond the score.