On Heroes and Education

Recently, I was involved in a discussion about heroes. What follows is my attempt to put into writing what I have had running around my head for quite some time. It comes across as somewhat jaded or, at the very least, skeptical. For the purpose of understanding some of my made-up terms below, here are the definitions I have in mind when I use them:

• Macro-hero: A person or group that is known to most of society and is held up as a model for behavior.
• Micro-hero: A person or group that is known to only a few people or possibly only a single person. Their behavior that went above and beyond the normal expectations/duties of their job had a profound impact on the person or people impacted by the behavior.
• A note on my take on heroes- After writing this post, I realized that I have a very, very high bar for using the term hero which is most likely informed by my insatiable consumption of fantasy, science fiction, and mythology literature and film where most heroes are larger-than-life and do things that are unimaginable for most other people.

I'm of the perspective that the term "hero," in the macro sense,  has been so overused today that it has become devoid of it's one-time ability to inspire awe and lead to the formulation of new goals and aspirations. I also think that it has been overused to the point where, in many cases, Bolman and Deal's (2008) definition ("living logos, human icons, whose words and deeds exemplified and reinforced important core values") doesn't even apply (p. 257). Generally, I think hero is misused in most situations today when it is used to apply to large groups or entire career fields; being a firefighter, police officer, doctor, teacher, or member of the armed forces does not automatically make you a hero. In a macro sense, most people in these occupations are, like in every other field, pretty average and not remotely heroic.

However, as bitter and jaded as that perspective might seem, I do understand that what constitutes a hero is based entirely on perspective and culture. Bolman and Deal (2008) present five symbolic assumptions and at the top of their list is: "What is most important is not what happens but what it means" (p. 253). A teacher's action of giving a kid a granola bar in the morning might be viewed by one kid as a nice treat while another child looks to the teacher as a hero because the child hasn't eaten since lunch the day before. In that moment, in that situation, to that child, the teacher could be a hero. In this micro view of heroism, heroes are commonplace but I think that this too diminishes the meaning of the term "hero." The role of culture and organizational norms cannot be overlooked as well. If that granola bar distributing teacher was in a school where every teacher distributed granola bars to kids whenever a kid was even only a bit peckish, the hero status is no longer applicable. As for the honoring of heroes in education, I think that it doesn't happen too often because as far as our society is concerned, the bar for hero-status is only attainable for teachers in the most extreme circumstances.

Somewhat related to perspective and culture is a phrase I have heard from many different sources, with many variations over the years but basically goes like this: One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. When Osama bin Laden was killed, I had a student state that "no one would be upset with it because everyone agrees that he was the worst person in the world." I pointed out that his extremes-loaded statement was not true and that there were a great number of people who saw bin Laden as a hero (making sure to clarify I was not one of this crowd). This, I guess, is just one example of why I am extremely hesitant to utilize the supremely subjective term "hero" in my day-to-day parlance.

During this conversation about heroes, I was asked if I had any heroes in my district. I would have to say that I have none. There are many teachers, school leaders, and members of the community who inspire me and who I look up to and aspire to be more like professionally and in some cases personally, but I would not call any of them my hero.

What about you? How does your use and understanding of the term "hero" compare?

Using TED to Establish a Culture of Learning

Simply put TED.com is an amazingly accessible and portable option for personalized learning from the best and brightest the world has to offer. As a school leader, the TED options for learning and growing as a leader are seemingly endless. Not only do you have access to lectures from some of the biggest names in education, politics, and social justice but TED also offers additional resources to engage that take you beyond the well-known TED talk. These resources include reading lists from those big names who deliver the lectures, a TED radio hour on NPR with interviews with the lecturers about their talks, and a lively and surprisingly insightful comments board that accompanies each TED talk video. TED.com is a prime example of how technology can be leveraged to rapidly share ideas around the globe. TED could be used in a school setting as a sort of book study or the basis for discussion between staff members, students, or in a heterogeneous group of staff, administration, students, and the community. Additionally, TED presents many talks about research and experiences that have discovered with conclusions that fall into the "things are not always what they seem" category that encourages critical and divergent thinking both of which are useful to continuously develop as a school leader. Perhaps the most important aspect of TED is that it allows a school leader to model the importance of being a lifelong learner. Whether you're interested in economics of crime, shattering paradigms of what is possible in glass blowing, or how many paper towels can be saved by flicking your hands thirteen times after washing them, TED has something for you and it has something for your students. All of these things can be easily accessed anywhere you can access the internet through TED's website or app.

Edutopia as Personalized Professional Development

One of the most important qualities of being a school leader is being a resource for staff, students, and parents about the latest and greatest trends, practices, and ideas in education. Sorting through academic research papers is time-consuming and, depending upon the author(s), quite a tedious exercise. Edutopia is a website that manages to find a balance between academic discourse and plainly-worded presentation of the latest in educational research and effective pedagogy. This resource is a bookmark must for any school leader. Not only does it provide engaging, accessible opinion pieces and summaries but it organizes these resources by topic and grade level. In addition, it also has an extensive video collection where you can listen to experts discuss ideas and where you can see videos of different practices in action in an actual classroom setting. One of my favorite aspects of this website is their tendency to summarize ideas or practices in lists. For example: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/year-one-with-3d-printer-vicki-davis - This provides a list of seventeen tips when implementing a 3d printer into a classroom for the first time. These sorts of lists are quick and easy to get through and allows readers to mentally check off things as they progress through the list. One other very powerful feature is the comments section and discussion boards. In these areas other teachers and school leaders post their reactions to articles and videos. This website offers a great deal of easily navigable quality resources that could be utilized by a school leader to provide support for developing teachers. As is true of classroom teachers today, principals, directors of instruction, and curriculum directors don't necessarily have to have all the answers when it comes to student and teacher learning and growth. Instead, they simply need to know how to help the learner find the personalized answers and support that will allow them to realize maximum growth. Edutopia presents a powerful tool for school leaders to do just that. 

Twitter in Education

Do you know the feeling you get after a really great professional development session? You know, that feeling of a fire deep inside of you that makes you want to go to your classroom and do something! Well, Twitter is not that. But, I'm sure you also know that same feeling a week after a really great PD session. That feeling of let-down that is the result of other staff members not sharing in your excitement or problems in implementing your new, grand ideas. Twitter can help with that feeling of let-down. To continue the fire metaphor, I like to equate the post-PD fire to a great conflagration; it cannot be stopped except with the passage of time because eventually, it will burn itself out because it runs out of fuel. Twitter adds fuel to that fire. Twitter keeps that fire going and going and going.

If you are in education and you are not on Twitter, you are doing yourself a disservice of Brobdingnagian proportions. Twitter is being leveraged by educators across the country and around the world to develop professional learning networks (PLNs) to support each other through sharing of ideas, materials, answers to questions, and stories. Twitter is the great flattener in education. No longer do you have to wait for a conference to interact with the gurus and rock stars of education today. Got a question for Rick Wormelli? Tweet it. Thomas Guskey? Tweet it. Most of the time, these and other big names in education will respond to your tweet. Want to criticize Arne Duncan? Tweet it with the hashtag #edchat and literally tens of thousands of educators everywhere will see it. Need help coming up with ideas for a psychology project on the brain or do you want feedback on your lesson plan? Tweet it with the hashtag #psychat. Even if you don't want to actively post tweets, you can still leverage Twitter to keep that fire burning year round. By simply following the right people, signing on during Twitter chats that interest you, and following the right hashtags, you will be exposed to an overwhelming number of ideas and resources. The learning curve for understanding how to navigate the Twitterverse is fairly easy for digital natives and entirely manageable for digital immigrants. Even if it takes you a week of fifteen or twenty minute sessions to familiarize yourself with the literacy and navigation skills necessary for easily accessing all that Twitter has to offer, that investment of time will pay back tremendous dividends!

As a school leader, Twitter presents tremendous opportunity. Twitter can be used as a sort of support group for new administrators. Twitter can be used as a place to learn from experienced administrators by simply "following" them on Twitter. Many, many, many accomplished principals, superintendents, and other administrators are on Twitter such as Eric Sheninger, former Scholastic principal of the year; George Couros, rockstar principal from Alberta, Canada; Myron Dueck, principal and author of Grading Smarter, Not Harder; Todd Whitaker, principal and author of Shifting the Monkey; and Joe Sanfelippo, superintendent at Fall Creek School District in Wisconsin who is the model for leveraging social media to create a brand identify for a district, #GoCrickets. This is just a sampling of the many great minds and leaders who share their experiences and ideas on Twitter every single day. Twitter can also be used by school leaders in a way that Joe Sanfelippo does: He is constantly sharing all the great things that happen in his school district on Twitter with pictures and videos under the hashtag #GoCrickets. As a result, he creates a sense of ambient intimacy and connectedness within the community which results in very positive attitudes about the school, the teachers, and the administration. 

This is a sample of my Tweetdeck which is a platform for organizing Twitter. Across the top of this image are the categories and below them are the tweets that have been posted under those categories. The categories include #psychat, for teachers of psychology; #iolahs, for teachers at Iola-Scandinavia High School; #1to1techat, for all things related to one-to-one technology programs; #wischat, for teachers in Wisconsin; #SBLchat for all things related to standards based learning; and #ptchat, where ideas about improving the parent-teacher relationship are posted. These are just six of my nearly twenty different columns for different topics that I follow.

Coaching sports in a new age of education

About a year and a half ago, I concluded an end of the year meeting with my basketball team and fellow coaches by announcing that, after four years as the junior varsity coach, I would not be returning in that capacity next year. The reaction was as I expected: Shocked looks, tears, and a little bit of anger and resentment, especially from the underclassmen. This was certainly not an easy decision; I absolutely loved coaching high school girls basketball and I loved all of my players dearly. The rationale behind this decision had three distinct parts-

• Family
• Professional development/educational advancement/job satisfaction
• Increased workload

The family reason is simple for most people to understand and, in my decision making process, played the largest role; I have a young daughter and other members of my family frequently call upon me for a wide variety of assistance. The professional development and educational advancement is also fairly straightforward; I am currently pursuing my masters degree and anyone who has engaged in a similar venture knows how much work this is. The third reason is a bit less clear for many people, mostly, I think, due to the fact that the majority of people don't have a full appreciation and understanding of what teachers do every single day.

Before I dive into further expansion of these points, especially the third one, I want to make it absolutely clear that this is not meant to be a rant on the state of education nor a list of complaints. Even though there are some things I don't necessarily like about my job, I continue to assert that I have the best job in the world! What follows is an attempt at a collection of observations and reflections. In a way, it is also a response to the many, many people who, to this day, continue to ask me the following three questions:

1. Why did you stop coaching? Answer: Keep reading.
2. Do you miss it? Answer: Terribly.
3. When will you start coaching again? Answer: Mmmm...maybe someday but probably not for a very long time.

(A note added after writing this whole thing...This is not a short blog entry. It started out short and simple enough and then it turned into something more than just a reflection on education things. It became an extremely cathartic venture...so it gets a little intense at times.)

If you are a teacher in Wisconsin (or anywhere for that matter) you can appreciate (for better or worse) the variety of new initiatives and duties that seem to be constantly added to our job description. I like to think that I am a pretty good teacher. I do some things very well. I am also pretty bad at some things but I continue to strive to get better at all aspects of my teaching. This striving to improve through the development of skills and improvement of knowledge can be difficult when trying to fit it in between lesson planning, correcting assessments, writing and revising curriculum, attending meetings of all types, engaging students in lessons, interacting with students in a mentor role, writing letters of recommendation, writing a PDP, SLO, and PPG, and so many of the other things that every teacher does every single day. New initiatives, changing attitudes towards education, and the bipolarity of state and national lawmaking bodies continue to create distractions of greater and greater magnitude that unfairly divert the attention of teachers away from the thing that we love the most- actually teaching kids.

I don't know any good teacher who puts in their forty hours a week and then heads home; I would argue that good teachers spend far more time working outside of the actual "work day" than anyone in any other profession. Now, take this busy schedule and throw in coaching a high school sport. Many schools have either a contractual or unspoken expectation that teachers should coach an athletic team or advise a club. Coaching and advising are fantastic things that can have a tremendous positive impact on the life of a child but how can these duties fit into the current way of doing education? How can we expect someone to maintain high levels of performance while providing a positive experience for kids in the classroom and on the field of competition when doing both well would require them to put in 65+ hours of work in each week? I cannot adequately express the level of admiration I have for those teachers who are able to get the job done both in the classroom and on the field of athletic competition. I, unfortunately, am not one of those teachers. I once aspired to be an amazing father and husband, a rock star teacher, and a state caliber basketball coach. However, early in my high school coaching career and especially after my daughter was born, I began to recognize moments when all of these things started to succumb to mediocrity.

At first, the thing that suffered was my teaching. Late-night returns from distant away games meant less time to complete grading and prepare for the next day's lesson. Putting these things off meant a poorer educational experience the next day for my students. Doing this every once in a while sometimes turned into consecutive days. I was not okay with this. So, in order to try to make-up for it, I would get up super early (3am) or stay up super late (3am) to get ahead or, more often, catch-up. This well-intentioned plan, however, led to even more problems: Crankiness during the school day, tiredness during the school day, crankiness during practice, tiredness during practice, crankiness at home, and then pass out from exhaustion at 7pm after getting home from practice at 6pm. What started to happen was, in my attempt to be a great husband, teacher, and coach, I was starting to kind of suck in all three.

My daughter was born in the spring after my third season coaching JV girls basketball in my current district. For many months leading up to the start of the next season, my wife and I discussed my role in the basketball program, if any, would be best for our family. We reached the conclusion that it would be best for our family if I did not coach. Then, in what can only be described as the biggest violation of the trust and cooperative approach to decision making we had established in our ten years of being together, I unilaterally decided to continue coaching in the upcoming season, much to my wife's dismay. I thought "This won't be that bad" and "I know so many coaches who have done this! I'll be fine" and countless other attempts at rationalizing my decision. With hindsight, I now know that I was wrong...big time.

At the start of that season, my daughter was just over six months old. In Wisconsin, basketball season lasts from November to March. My previous solutions to "balancing" my obligations would prove to be even more detrimental this time around: Infants don't really care if it's two in the morning and you've been up since 6am. Without going through too many details, basically what was happening was this: During that season, I did not like the teacher I was becoming... tired, disconnected, with pretty awful pedagogy; I did not like the coach I was...enthusiastic and present but constantly distracted by the many school tasks and things at home that had to get done; I did not like the husband I was becoming...tired, tired, and constantly doing work at home instead of upholding my end of the partnership that is marriage; and I absolutely hated the father I had become...absent. There was one particular week that season where we had three road games and, due to the fantastic wonder that is winter in Wisconsin, all movement on the roads was severely slowed. That week I arrived at school by 6:30am every day. School was done by 3:30. On the three game days that week, the next step was get on the bus. By 5:30pm, we were at our destination. JV game at 6:00pm. Varsity followed, sometimes 7:30pm, but sometimes closer to 7:45pm. Varsity game done...9ish...maybe. Get on the bus. 10:00pm, maybe, get back to school. Wait for all the kids to drive off or get picked up. Head to classroom to stare at the pile of stuff that didn't get done. Get in car and drive home. 11pm, hopefully, arrive home. Kiss my sleeping daughter goodnight. Kiss my sleeping wife goodnight. Pass out. Get up at 5am. Try to get some work done, get ready for school, and then start it all over again.

That week, I saw my daughter, when she was awake, for less than three hours total...and I hated myself for it. I fell asleep hoping she would wake up in the middle of the night wanting to be fed or simply held just so I could interact with her, see her smile, or maybe even hear her use her newly discovered voice. Friends and colleagues told me before and after that week things like "Oh, she won't remember you being gone, she's so young" and other attempts at intellectualization. But, I remember I was gone that week and I remember the many other times I was gone that season when I didn't get to give her a bath, or read her a story, or tell her what I tell her every night before leaving her side, "Goodnight, I love you and I always will no matter what." I remember hearing second-hand all the developmental milestones she reached while I was at practice, at a game, or staying late after practice to catch up on school work.

I love coaching. I love teaching. I love my daughter. I love my wife. In my attempt to be everything for all four, I failed to fulfill even my lowest standard of what was acceptable in each case. So, I had to make a choice. But, calling it a choice is a bit of a misnomer. Not being the best husband I can be was never an option, not being the best father I can be was never an option, and not striving to best fulfill my vocation of being a teacher, taking classes to improve my skills and knowledge to better challenge, inspire, encourage, and support my students every day, this too, was never an option. So, I had to stop coaching.

Earlier in my life, for the sake of my mental and physical health, I had to make a difficult decision between two things I loved. One of my mentors, who was usually flippant, sarcastic, and cheeky when dispensing wisdom, spoke with me when I was in his office one time, bawling my eyes out, being torn apart inside by the weight of the decision that had to be made. He talked with me in such a caring and sincere manner that I had never experienced before nor since and in that calm, caring manner he told me this: "Sometimes in life, you have to choose between two things you love. If you choose the first, you will love it. If you choose the second, you will love it. Isn't that wonderful?"

My decision to stop coaching was not one I arrived at lightly and, although my players were disappointed, I like to think that someday they will fully appreciate my decision. With the added demands put on teachers today, I fear more and more talented and dedicated teachers will make the same decision I did. I say "I fear this," because great teachers make great coaches. They know how kids learn, they know how to motivate kids, and, I guess quite simply, they know kids. I am still involved in activities working with kids outside of the classroom through sports officiating, our booster club, service activities, middle school rewards activities, and more but these things are not the same as coaching a group of kids, interacting with them closely every day for two (or more) intense hours, seeing their crazy side (and sometimes showing yours) on long road trips filled with would-you-rather questions and other inane time fillers. But for the sake of my mental, emotional, and physical health, I had to make a choice between two things I loved.

I chose my family and my vocation over coaching and it is wonderful.

Ideas on Education Reform and Economics

I have been making my way through Diane Ravitch's The Death and Life of the Great American School System this summer and it has frequently started my brain on fire. I highly recommend this book to anyone regardless of whether or not they are directly involved in education. I am currently pursuing my masters degree and the eleventh chapter of Ravitch's book plus another short article was recently assigned for analysis and reflection. This chapter got me particularly fired-up and, until I have time to expand upon the ideas in the piece I submitted for assessment, I would like to share that reflection below.

The Purpose of Reform in Education

Travis Bassett

Any time a reform is undertaken in education, it must be done with a purpose that is clearly communicated; it must be ruminated upon extensively to ensure this purpose is, in fact, one that will actually lead to long-lasting improvement; and it must be implemented with fidelity and the realization that no single reform is a “silver bullet” (Ravitch, 2010, p. 229) that will fix all that ails public education in the United States. These are the main ideas presented in chapter eleven of Diane Ravitch’s The Death and Life of the Great American School System and Sandra Alberti’s article titled Making the Shifts (Ravitch, 2010; Alberti, 2013). Both present a quality argument for change and then do something that is rare in most “discussions” in today’s society about any reforms: They offer up logical, well-reasoned, attainable suggestions for how to achieve the ideals they so soundly argue are needed.

Diane Ravitch is particularly adept, throughout her book, at picking out the many afflictions of public education today, offering a scathing analysis for why each affliction has come to be, and then offering, in compelling fashion, a transformational, beneficial alternative and a foundation of a path that will lead to attainment of that transformation. Her focus and clear explanations of the complexity and multiplicity of the problems facing education today are sure to be embraced and greatly appreciated (with a shout of joy and sigh of relief, no doubt) by anyone acting in a “front line” capacity in education today. Ravitch states “The fundamentals of good education are to be found in the classroom, the home, the community, and the culture but reformers in our time continue to look for shortcuts and quick answers” (Ravitch, 2010, p. 225). Her ideas are also supremely accessible in part due to her rejection of polarizing approaches to reform while embracing the reality that problems are complex, solutions more so, and, because of this, society needs to work cooperatively to implement reforms in education to benefit all of our children for the sake of the future of that very society: “Without the effort to teach our common cultural heritage, we risk losing it and being left with nothing in common but an evanescent and often degraded popular culture” (Ravitch, 2010, p. 233).

Ravitch’s ideas and her approach to presenting those ideas are particularly worth engaging in today’s state of attitudes about and towards public education and the educators who undertake the economically essential task of providing society with well-informed, well-mannered, rational economic actors. Her points regarding the free market and how it is not “the right mechanism to supply public education” (Ravitch, 2010, p. 241) are especially salient. She further develops this critique elsewhere in the chapter when she states “Our schools will not improve if we entrust them to the magical powers of the market. Markets have winners and losers” (Ravitch, 2010, p. 227). This chapter, if not this entire book, should be required reading for anyone in government who thinks they know what is best for public education.

Nearly every day, all across our country, school children and adults recite the pledge of allegiance. The closing line, with liberty and justice for all, embodies the core of what the Founders tried to create in this great experiment we call America. That line cannot be realized unless every single child in our country has access to a high-quality education that prepares, challenges, and inspires them to be the citizens our Founders wished so dearly they would become.

Perspective on a School District Hierarchy

I've been involved in many conversations recently about decision making and resource allocation in schools and the predominant perspective that I found exists is illustrated by the following hierarchy diagram where teachers answer to principals who answer to the school board who, ultimately, answer to the voters.

On the topic of the structure of a district, I would like to suggest an alternate perspective: Shouldn't the hierarchy of a district be flipped from this standard paradigm? Aren't the teachers the ones who know what is needed? Shouldn't they be communicating to the principals what is needed? Then, shouldn't the principals be communicating with the superintendent who should be communicating with the board who should be responsive to the needs of the people who actually know what is going on? This is, of course assuming you have a group of teachers who are current on their pedagogy and understanding of the state of education today. Shouldn't the hierarchy look something more like this:

I've sat in on many board meetings in my seven year long career in education and the most effective boards I've seen are those that are asking questions like what do the teachers need, what do the teachers think, and how will this impact students? The least effective boards are those that say things like "I think that teachers should..." This touches on the idea of servant leadership which, from what I have gathered through many conversations with many different people, is something that is woefully misunderstood. I staunchly advocate that it is one of the best ways to approach leadership; If you, as a leader, are willing to do whatever it takes to support, empower, and raise up those you are "in charge" of, think of how motivated they will be! Imagine if your school board, superintendent, and principals were constantly asking teachers what they need and then actually providing them with those things or, at the very least if resources are not available, collaborating with teachers to find a workable alternative. I think the educator effectiveness program in Wisconsin (which has the potential to transform the teacher-principal relationship from one of adversity to one of advocacy) and the movement to provide teacher coaches or at the very least, increasing opportunities for teachers to observe each other and offer feedback are steps toward this paradigm shift. I think this shift would be incomplete unless teachers can also transition their perspective from "this is what we are doing today" to "this is what I need to do today for my students." Ultimately, isn't the category at the top of a school hierarchy the learning needs of students?

Communicating About Communication

In a recent posting in the local paper, our local school board president and district administrator penned a lengthy piece addressing the topic of communication in our school district. Concerns about communication are certainly not unique to our small, rural district but this essential component of any effective education system has been on my mind especially of late as I have begun to tackle my summer reading pile in which I came across the following quote in a book titled Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership by Bolman and Deal:

"By increasing the flow of information, improved technology reduces uncertainty. Galbraith (1973) defines uncertainty as the difference between the information an organization has and information it needs."

Uncertainty creates problems. My immediate reaction was to ponder how this plays out in a school. In a school, uncertainty creates stress and frustration. If a teacher doesn't provide clear directions and objectives, students get stressed out and frustrated. If an administrator shares very little about upcoming events or changes and plays things close to the vest, teachers get stressed and frustrated. If there are changes in a school or problems with a student that aren't shared with parents, those parents will become stressed and frustrated. These sound like very easily corrected scenarios and, at this moment, everyone reading this certainly has a handful of suggestions ready to fire off. However, what happens when you consider the possibility that the two parties might have different definitions of what information is needed?

Technology is great and it has done amazing things for how we interact socially and professionally. However, no amount of technology can remedy a situation when you have two entities who have different definitions of what information is needed. From a school leadership standpoint, there are so many different ways to manage a building and/or district. Some approaches are more top-down while others rely on what some might label "over-communication." In both of these extremes, stress and frustration abound among staff. In the former, the frustration is due to not enough being shared while in the latter, the complaints revolve around the perceived excess of information. There are also many different approaches to communicating with parents. This is one area where technology has really taken off. There are products and platforms for sharing up-to-the-minute details about what's happening at school but if parents feel besieged by reminders, emails, phone calls, letters, bat-signals, and text updates, don't we once again have friction over what information is needed?

I guess my question to you is this: How do you communicate with your target population to figure out what the best way to communicate with them is and at what level of information sharing you should be communicating at? I don't know if there is an easy solution to this problem especially in schools where you have such a wide range of students, staff, and parents. However, if you can find this communication "sweet-spot," amazing things can happen for your school!