The Tempered Radical

Upcoming Conversation with Anthony Muhammad

Faced with constantly mounting pressure from parents and policymakers, leaders at the local, state and national level are constantly pushing for "school reform." 

An urgency that often borders on panic surrounds practitioners from the classroom to the district board room---and despite years of proof that processes are more important than programs in successful schools, decision-makers are still on the never-ending search for a silver bullet to solve flagging high school graduation rates, poor performance on standardized tests, and low levels of student motivation.

What few seem to realize is that reforming schools has little to do with changing programs and everything to do with changing people.  Show me a building that has beaten the odds and produced highly motivated, successful students and I'll show you a faculty with a shared commitment to one another and to a clearly articulated vision of what education should look like. 

There is no confusion in these schools about the roles that stakeholders must play in order to guarantee success.  Everyone from janitors and secretaries to media specialists and classroom teachers is pulling in the same direction.  Conflict is always productive---built on high levels of interpersonal trust and confidence in the good intentions of colleagues---and communication is frequent.  

The sense of synergy in successful schools is almost palpable.  Evidence of progressive thinking and a commitment to the idea that every child can learn can be found in every classroom on every hallway and at every grade level.  Visitors often leave with a renewed sense of pride and confidence in the ability of the American educator.

Sounds almost too good to be true, doesn't it? 

Sure it does.  Synergy depends on skilled leaders who understand how to motivate and inspire people with a broad range of personalities and professional expectations---and those are two nearly mythical abilities that just don't seem to come naturally. 

Which is where Anthony Muhammad comes in.  An educator for more than 20 years---serving as a classroom teacher, assistant principal and principal at both the middle and high school level---Muhammad has diligently worked to define the kinds of strategies that effective leaders take to build synergy in their faculties. 

Better yet, he's taken the time to make his thinking transparent in his new book Transforming School Culture:  How to Overcome Staff Division AND he's agreed to participate in a four-day focused Voicethread conversation with readers from May 13th through May16th!

So keep your eyes open for more information in the next two weeks.  You'll find everything from a review of Transforming School Culture and an interview with Muhammad to directions for effectively participating in Voicethread conversations.

And pass the word along to anyone who is interested in---or responsible for---transforming school cultures.  Everyone's invited----and given the pressure on schools today, who wouldn't want to take advantage of an opportunity to learn from a leader!

Spotting the Elusive 21st Century Student. . .

One of my former students who has moved on to 8th grade sent me the following email a few days ago:

Mr. Ferriter,

In science, we have been assigned a project to raise awareness or to help with the problem of the environment.  I thought that The Blurb would be the perfect tool to use to spread awareness of the environmental problem, and recent steps that have been taken by President Obama to help. 

I was thinking that I, and possibly a small group, could put up posts about 1-3 times a week, depending on the size of the group, to spread awareness of this issue.  This project runs till about the end of May, so there would be a high production of posts for that time period. 

I just wanted to run this by you to make sure you were fine with my using The Blurb for the science project.

Landini

After I wrote back letting him know that he had permission to use The Blurb---a classroom blog that he was very active in creating two years ago---for his project, Landini wrote me again:

Mr. Ferriter

 

Thanks a ton, I'll definitely try experimenting with Voicethread and Video.  I also think that changing the color scheme would really tie it all together and get more people into the spirit of Earth Day. 

 

I'll try to get started as soon as I can on some posts, so you can tell all of your colleagues.  That will really help the impact, and the number of hits (that's what I'll be recording so that my teacher can see how widespread the impact will be).

 

Thanks Again

Landini

Pretty amazing, huh?   Here's a 14-year old kid who has selected a blog to raise awareness about an issue that is important to him. 

 

I'll bet there aren't more than five students in our school who would have gone there first.  Most are likely to churn out yet another dreaded PowerPoint or post a few flyers in the hallway.  The real go-getters might just have a bake sale at lunch time to raise money to plant a few trees.

 

Better yet, he's recognized that embedding multimedia presentations like Voicethreads and movies will make his work more engaging and meaningful to his readers.  In a visual world, text based content alone doesn't always do the trick----especially when your audience is tweens and teens. 

 

Finally, he knows that he can track the impact of his work through the statistics provided by our blogging software AND--having asked me to advertise his efforts in my professional circles---he realizes that influence is spread through networks of people who can connect directly better than at any other point in history. 

 

So have I spotted the rarest of breeds:  The elusive 21st Century Student?

 

And if not, what's missing?

 

(Either way, I'm going to have fun watching this kid work----and you can too!  Just drop by The Blurb---which has officially gone green for the next few weeks!)

 

 

 

Denny and the Overpriced Retreads. . .

Cranky Blogger Warning!  This post is a heavy dose of emotion mixed with a splash of rational thinking.  Take it for what it's worth, which may be next to nothing when I look at it again in a week.  I'm too worked up to tell right now. 

Not long ago, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel (aka: Ol' Denny) took some time to wax poetic about his first days as a classroom teacher in Iowa.  He wrote:

As I entered my first classroom in Iowa, I recall the anticipation, anxiety, and fun in store! The learning curve was steep—I remember feeling overwhelmed by all the paperwork and forms. And there were 160 students counting on me—quite a culture shock from my student teaching days.

So I jumped in with both feet.

I took seating charts home every night and by the end of the first week of school, I had memorized every student's name. I was more tired after my first week of teaching than after working 2 full-time jobs all summer. It's a tough job, but it's also where I loved to be.

Today, I work in new surroundings as NEA President. But I still get the same rush from being part of such a unique and awesome profession. My new experiences will be special in their own way.

But those "first days" are always memorable!

Beautiful, ain't it?  Ol' Denny almost brought a tear to my eye. 

Heck, I could almost smell the chalk as little Hawkeyes pounded classroom erasers trying to please their heroic teacher, who sat smiling behind a desk littered with apple knick-knacks and graded papers sporting enough "You're Just Plain Super!" stickers to make an entire grade level beam with twelve-year-old pride.

  by  House Of Sims 

You'd have to be a cold-hearted soul NOT to love warm reminiscences from a school teacher---especially when that one-time teacher now leads the most powerful organization representing educators in the nation, right?

Wrong.  You'd just have to be a first year teacher in districts like mine in 2009.  Faced with almost impossible budget numbers, schools across the country are cutting the contracts of non-tenured colleagues----including those who are the newest to our profession---faster than the Little Ceaser's guy preparing $5 pizzas in Munchietown. 

Arne's Half-Baked Plan for Fixing Schools. . .

David Warlick---one of my favorite thinkers on the changing nature of education---was all over Arne Duncan's announcement this week that American students need to spend more time in schools.  In fact, Warlick goes as far as to argue that more time in school is equivalent to the pointless extension of a prison sentence.

  by  Obama-Biden Transition Project 

 

Warlick writes:

You’re not going to win the blue ribbon at the county fair by leaving your apple pie in the oven longer.  And secondly, why not grow oranges instead.  Doesn’t a global market place need diversity of talents and skills — not everyone trying to best each other on the same narrow array of standards.

But we’re not talking about fruit are we?  We’re talking about our children. ..and let’s face it, we’re talking about nothing less than institutionalizing “child labor” to satisfy a failed belief that higher standardized test scores will reliably lead to a stronger economy, more prosperous citizens, and a vibrant democracy. 

What it leads to is boredom, collapsing morale among our best teachers, children without passion, children dropping out, and a growing and prospering testing industry."

Nancy Flanagan---my official Ed Policy Sensei---wasn't as skeptical of Duncan's plan as Warlick.  In fact, a mountain of statistical evidence seemed to convince Nancy that Duncan may just be on to something.

Email and the Elementary Schooler. . .

I had an interesting question via email from a reader the other day and thought it might be something that resonated with other readers.  A parent of a fourth grade child wrote:

My son, who is in fourth grade, came home on Friday and told us that he needs an email account.  He said that all of his friends have one and he needs to get one to share writing stuff with his  writing partner. After I picked his father off the ground from the the heart attack he had after hearing this, my son mentioned a g-mail account.  He said that some of his friends have that ....

Do you know what g-mail is? What would you recommend we get a nine year old?

 

I am trying to keep in mind that he will be in middle school in two years  and will be exposed to a lot of technology and I think that is great... But,  I want to protect him from all the evils of the world (the mom thing)... I hope you don't mind, but I thought you might be able to help me choose an appropriate program that he could grow into and still be safe/ age appropriate.

 

If you have a chance, I would love to know what you think...

 

Anyone else had that same heart attack anytime recently?! 

TWIT: They're Learning from Me

As a middle school soccer coach for the better part of the past 16 years, I can honestly say that there's NOTHING I enjoy more than being out on the field with the lads for a few hours every afternoon.  Something about athletics brings out the best in boys---and that's just plain fun to watch. 

I think what I like the best about coaching is that gives me an opportunity to have a completely non-academic relationship with kids.  Everything about our work on the field is connected to the kinds of character traits that I care the most about.  Determination, hard work, pride, honor, and commitment to others define the lessons that I'm teaching when I'm with my team.   

(I know.  I know.  I could teach the same traits in language arts.  It's just that "Come on, guys.  Don't quit until you  find those comma splices!" doesn't have the quite the same impact on tweenage boys.)  

What's most powerful is having the opportunity to model how men are supposed to act in difficult circumstances-----and it's just that kind of opportunity that I've been wrestling with all week long.

Twitter Snobs or Efficient Learners?

In the past few weeks Twitter has pretty much exploded, hasn't it?  I knew something was happening when even the boring old fuds on CBS Sunday Morning started bashing my favorite learning tool!

The conversations have continued in my own professional circles as teachers try to figure out exactly what Twitter means for them.  One interesting bit was written by a guy I've started following named Mike Arsenault. 

What Mike wonders while studying the statistics of the top tech teacher Twits is whether or not there is an etiquette around the "following" process. 

He asks:

I would imagine most Twitterers have reasons for who they follow and who they do not follow. I personally do not follow everyone that follows me. I tend to look at a users' profile and if they do have similar interest (education, technology use in schools, social media, etc.) I follow them.

As you look at the data [on the leading Ed Twits] almost half of these people have approximately 4 times more followers than people they follow or worse.

Is this a bad thing?

Author Brett Borders---who Mike cites in his bit----goes even further, calling people with an unbalanced follower to following ratio "noobs" and "snobs:"

You might think that non-reciprocation makes you look like an "influential thought leader," but to me it looks like:

1. You're kind of a noob. Your name might be "big," but your social media interaction and filtering skills are small.
2. You're kind of a snob. You're more concerned with appearing "popular" than listening and learning from people.

Here's my take:  As a Twit (@plugusin) I definitely don't follow everyone who follows me---in fact, my following ratio would rate pretty low when compared to the teachers Mike studies in his post---but that has nothing to do with trying to appear like an "influential thought leader."

Instead, it has everything to do with wanting to be able to have meaningful conversations with people. I've found that whenever the number of people that I'm following grows to more than 200, I simply get lost in the streams of information that come through my Twitter feed.

At that point, Twitter becomes useless, doesn't it? 

After all, I'm trying to learn from the people that I'm following, and that's hard to do when good ideas are buried under piles and piles of messages.  My decision to follow a small handful of people---instead of everyone who follows me---is about information management, not arrogance.

And in my opinion, managing the tidal wave of information at their fingertips is probably THE most important skill for 21st Century learners---whether they be adults or kids---to master.  Just because I can follow a thousand people doesn't mean I should!

I think the trap that we fall into when we use any social networking application for professional work is forgetting that the tool is about facilitating learning, not being popular.  Judging one's influence through numbers overlooks the real purpose for jumping into any digital conversation.

In the end, I couldn't care less how many people I'm followed by or how many people that I'm following. What I care about is connecting to a managable network of likeminded colleagues that I can learn from.

Does this make any sense?

(Image retrieved from http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/twitter-bird-wallpaper.jpg on April 1, 2009)