Monday reading

A longer collection than usual, since I haven't posted an article list in a while...

I'm a little disappointed in this article from Boston.com; I know the long hours for low pay that teachers work, but of all the professions, they are the ones I would least expect to try to co-opt a protest of one topic in order to raise awareness of another.

This Washington Post article has a great take on Michelle Rhee's legacy, proving it's not so easy to simply love her or hate her.

As a school, we talk about preserving and developing the motivation of students. As a leader, I think about how to do that with faculty. While they are all important, item #4 on this Harvard Business Review blog article caught my attention, since it fits right into the professional development work I am doing this year (see last week's post for more on that).

Health Day points out that "Overall, young children learn best from and require interaction with people, not TV shows or videos". But we kinda knew that already, right?

Teacher assessment is a hot topic. How can the process be improved, and yet not so open-ended that administrators act arbitrarily? Some places are considering improved test scores; others are considering the degree of parent interaction. The Wall St Journal takes a look.

Interested in how Finland structures their educational system? You should be, especially when someone like Tony Wagner (author of The Global Achievement Gap) is writing about it.

Still on the topic of international education, here's a teaser from the Hechinger Report on how the U.S. compares to other countries. I don't know about you, but I shudder when I read that "With the world getting more hyper-connected all the time, maintaining the American dream will require learning, working, producing, relearning, and innovating twice as hard, twice as fast, twice as often, and twice as much.” (Emphasis in the original.)", and not because I think we can't do that - it's because there are people who think that is "the answer" to "restoring" the dominance of the American educational system.

Minority teachers are critical to a culturally competent and responsive school. So why is it so hard to find them? Edweek.org has this summary of the issues.

The LA Times is running an interesting series of articles on companion robots. Here's one on a robot developed for autistic children. I sent it to my mother, who works at a school for autistic children outside of Boston, and she responded that they used the robot in this article as part of a study, comparing how kids responded to it and to real dogs.

10/26 Elementary Division Meeting

We began yesterday's Elementary Division meeting by reviewing our ground rules, and then had a brief check-in. The check-in took the form of an "emotional thermometer"; each person wrote his/her name on a popsicle stick, and then put it in a cup bearing a number from 1-10, where #1 represented feeling very low and sad, and #10 represented feeling joyous and excited. This thermometer made our emotional states visibile to each other and ourselves, and allowed each person the opportunity to have his/her emotional needs acknowledged by the group. We then discussed how a tool like this could be used in the classroom by students, including when and why a student might want or need to switch his/her emotional status, and the benefits (and need) to have emotions be recognized, and their impact on our actions understood, by students. BTW, this was one of the little tips I picked up while at the EQ conference a few weeks ago.

Teachers then completed the Faculty Culture Profile that is part of the Meaningful Faculty Evaluation tool developed by ISM. We did this because I am continuing to think about the question "what does it mean to be a division?", and the need for us to have a shared basis of data (not just narrative perspectives) from which to make decisions about what topics to discuss. My hope and intention is that a small group of faculty will work with me to analyze the results and decide on areas of focus for future division-wide culture work.

The next phase of the meeting centered on the creation of professional development goals for the year. I began by relating the incredible experience that I had this summer at the NAIS Fellowship for Aspiring Heads in Atlanta, and the nature of the feedback that I received. I then moved on to sharing the four goals that I had come up with based on that data (two of which I've already blogged about on this site), as well as the action steps and criteria for success that I had identified. While 3/4 of my goals are centered on personal growth, rather than professional practice, I acknowledged that faculty can decide if they want to include any personal growth goals within their professional goals,and that it is totally appropriate and acceptable if they choose to keep them all closely related to activities in the classroom. However, no matter the goal, it is important that faculty differentiate between means and ends, and that they determine how they'll know they are moving towards their goals before they begin their action plan, which is the same approach that is involved in determining criteria of growth for assessment before planning instructional activities with students.

The fourth section of the meeting was a conversation led by Kate Klaire on the ongoing work of the student council, and the social facilitation work that she is doing across the school. Topics for future iterations of the council are beginning to emerge, so the planning for those councils is beginning, and the social facilitation work is in full swing, but needing feedback from faculty on the frequency and the degree to which is can/should be based on pre-planned ideas compared to emergent needs in each class.

The meeting then moved into 15 minutes of preparation for the Parent/Teacher conferences that occur next week. To capitalize on the decades of teaching experience around the table, I asked the faculty to share tricks, tips, and approaches that they have found help lead to successful conferences. Not surprisingly, every single teacher had something worthwhile to share with the group, and afterwards people felt more secure about the intention with which they will approach planning for conferences. If you're looking for a great book to check out about conferences, please read The Essential Conversation by Sara Lawrence-Lighfoot.

The meeting concluded with short conversations about the SST process, the redesigned approach to assemblies that I blogged about last week (sign-ups to present a 5-minute "showcase of learning" at each assembly went out digitally after the meeting), and planning for on-going child visits over the next two weeks.

Recognizing what's going right

Three weeks ago I blogged about one of my professional development goals for the year - developing my EQ. I received a very moving and thoughtful email from a parent in response to that post, from which I want to share the following paragraph:

"i was really impressed with a recent post in which you talked about your own professional development goals, some of your own challenges, and how you are creating a plan to work on those. i have worked with and observed manyleaders in organizations and it is a rarity to see a leader be so transparent about the parts of themselves they are working to develop in the personal/professional arena. when a leader does this it has a very positive influence on the culture in that it helps model and encourage the behavior for others. and it helps people hold each other accountable in more supportive ways. fabulous."

As you can imagine, this email made me feel great, and it also resonated for me in another way. One of the pieces of feedback I received this summer during the week I spent in Atlanta at the NAIS Fellowship for Aspiring Heads is that I am perceived as too focused on tasks instead of people. This was literally made visible to me through the SymLOG assessment:

The Y-axis represents orientation towards task orientation of established authority, while the X-axis represents values on friendly behavior. The third dimension of this assessment is the size of the diameter of the circle, indicating orientation towards personal dominance and projection. The black circle labeled "YOU" indicates my perception of myself, while the red circle labeled "EFF" indicates my perception of how I could be more effective as a leader. The black circle labeled "ACT" shows the composite perception of the nine people who rated me on this tool, and the red circle labeled "IDL" shows their perception of how an ideal leader would be assessed. And finally, the filled-in red circle labeled "MEP" shows the most effective profile for a leader, as developed from analysis of over 40,000 surveys.

My interpretation of this data (for which I also have the underlying numerical information) (along with that from the three other assessment tools that were part of the experience) was that at this time, in this place, I need to engage in more "friendly behaviors" with the faculty. While there's a social line between faculty and administration, and for good reason, it is less divisive here at TBS than it may be at other schools or institutions. But my reading of this data is slightly more complex than just getting beers with teachers after work (though that is important to do to); the goal that I formulated for myself is to recognize what's going right within the classrooms on a regular basis.

This is a topic that is out in the zeitgeist; for example, a recent blog post on Edutopia hit on it. And because getting positive feedback and appreciation is unfortunately all too rare for most of us, I'm trying to do a few concrete things towards being a better cheerleader. One of them is offering at least one genuine and authentic appreciation to someone on the faculty each day (which I'm tracking on a simple form, noting to whom and for what I give the appreciation). Another is to use "A+B/Q messages" in my feedback to faculty after brief observations; the "A" is a positive compliment about something that I see in the classroom, and the "B/Q" is either an idea of how to grow/expand/improve on that concept, or to ask a question about the activity/concept that will help push forward the teacher's thinking. And a third is publishing an internal division-wide newsletter called Mission Moments, which I share here just for you, loyal blog readers!

By the way, there's an interesting neurological reason that we see and hold negative experiences more than positive ones, related to the evolutionary history of our species and the need for our ancestors to avoid repeating potentially deadly actions. For more on that, check out Brain Rules by John Medina.

Site day a smashing success!

I am so thankful and appreciative to the incredible crew of parents (and kids!) who showed up to help out on Saturday. The K/1 playscape and the MS deck now look amazing!! We're ready to build a good-lookin' fence at the north end of the playscape, to plant a rain garden in the planter between the art room and Cerrito Creek, and to introduce "lincoln logs" to our recess offerings. If you see Adam Beyda, Blue Camacho, Helen Hallberg, Signy Judd, Kate Klaire, Erin Lewis, Jean Marstens, Willie Pettus, Neal Rubin, Eitan Spanier, Megan Vieira, Jon Witort, or Dave and Will Yetter, please give them a hi-five and a thank you too!

Rethinking assemblies

Yesterday after school I met with Chris P., Mike S., Julianne, and Kate to discuss our K-8 assemblies. We began to hold regular assemblies last year, but the purpose seemed not to go beyond learning a few songs to sing together. So, I asked the teachers who played instruments and lead the singing at the assemblies to meet to consider how we could make the assemblies more intentional and meaningful. While I knew I could come up with something reasonable on my own, it's more fun and interesting to work with my colleagues, and I believe this is a shift that will benefit from being consensus-driven rather than imposed from above.

Our discussion began by considering the question, what is the goal of having assemblies? We decided upon four worthy goals; to build community, to strengthen school culture, to inform each other about what's happening in the different classrooms, and to celebrate successes and give appreciations. From there, we discussed what structure should assemblies have to achieve these goals? After some disagreement, and the recognition that we needed to have something that would engage 190+ students, was low-impact on faculty, was authentic and not contrived, and would only last 15-20 minutes, we came upon a template that can be replicated at each assembly; an introduction and framing from Mitch, a brief "showcase of learning" of recent work by one of the classrooms, and then a song. If no class has signed up for a particular assembly's showcase, we can draw from a list of other elements we generated, including skits to illustrate that month's Social Rules for Kids, or having a student council select a few children to read their writing as a school-wide publishing party.

We then determined how often do we need to have assemblies to achieve these goals - once a month. After looking through the calendar and scheduling dates for assemblies for the remainder of the year, we considered what songs should we introduce to the school that support these goals? We decided to give each remaining month a theme (November = gratitude, February = social justice, April = environmentalism, etc), and to ask Eve Decker, our K-6 music and 6-8 drama teacher (who very much wanted to be involved in this process, but was unable to attend the meeting), to develop a list of songs that we will teach in both the music class and the regular classrooms. The meeting ended with a discussion about what action steps to take to meet these goals - presentations to faculty at next week's division meetings, creating a brief form to help teachers brainstorm how they want to structure a "showcase of learning", and creating a songbook for the entire year.

Site/garden work party coming up this Saturday!

This Saturday from 9-3, we'll be holding a site/garden work party at the University Campus. For those of you interested in knowing what we'll be doing, here's a draft "punch list" of tasks that I've assembled. Please keep in mind that this list can (and likely will) change as we get closer to the actual day. I hope you can join us, as we have a long list of tasks, and hope to make a huge difference in the feel and functionality of the site.

K/1 playscape

Demo

-Remove boat

-Remove hay bales

-Cut back any plant that is extending into the walking space defined for children

-Prune grape vines, native plants bushes, lemon tree, apple tree, all other plants

-Remove and compost any rotting apples/ lemons

-Remove plywood scraps at the south end

-Remove all debris at the north end by the metal shed

Build

-Repair/oil vises for woodworking station

-Build a fence where the hay bales and wine barrels currently are

-Put a small table (or other item) off the back of the berm to break up the path

-Design a “create with nature zone” at the south end

-Install shade cover over outdoor classroom arbor, similar to the one above the Laurel Creek back door (corrugated plastic cover)

-Plant butterfly attracting flowers along the west fence

-Organize the trash, compost, and recycling.

-Create a more definite boundary b/n woodchips and sand

Middle School Deck

-Store all aquarium components in the shed (tools/filter from the very edge of bed closest to the stairs; tank; lights and hanger; nitrogen canister)

-Compost all dead plant next to disposal bins

-Remove the standing rectangular bed (formerly a water garden)

-Repurpose the barrels that have nothing growing in them

-Move the blue rain barrels to the storage area north of the K/1 playscape

-Remove the plastic pots that are sitting on the table near the shed

-Plant in the planters

-Remove rusty chairs

-Straighten out/arrange picnic tables for visual aesthetic

Other spaces

-Lincoln logs: create a station to cut these (Kate has template), and a storage unit outside the West wall of the art room

-Path between art room and cerrito - make it a rain garden: loosen the compacted earth and amend the soil (don’t damage the irrigation system!)

-fence off the area under the south stairs behind/around the playhouse

-Create improved privacy/barrier on fence behind building 1 using bamboo sheeting.

Operational Plan

Mitch, Diane, Mohammad, Andrea and I met for two hours this afternoon to discuss next steps arising from the mini-retreat on October 3rd that Mitch, Diane, Mohammad and I had with facilitator and consultant Debbie Freed, who has worked with our admin team several times in the last three years. At the retreat we had shared stories of our personal and professional journeys to that particular moment, and co-constructed various narratives about the school's journey and experience with leadership dating back to 1989, which was the year Diane first arrived at the school community as a parent. This was looking backwards before we began to look forwards - not in order to move forwards, but because looking back allows us to honor the history, and be intentional about how our choices about how to move forward fits into various narratives operating in the community. This is a theme of Debbie's work - you can click here to read a great article that Debbie co-wrote with Al Adams, former Head of School at Lick-Wilmerding, about the need to understand the history and invisible forces at work in schools.

The history of the school we collectively wove was fascinating, and one that I would be happy to share with anyone who is willing to buy me a cup of coffee (or two, since it covers over 20 years!). At the end of the retreat, it was clear that in order to move from a reactive crisis mode (consider the last five years: arrival of a new Head from outside the community, pedagogic overhaul and grade re-alignment, name change and mission revision, medical leave and passing of the previous Head mid-year, and finally a first-time, first year Head) to a responsive and intentional mode, we need to develop an operational plan. The most recent TBS strategic plan ended last year, and unfortunately the administration, while executing on many of the items in the plan, had never created an operational plan to address all elements of that strategic plan.

The Board of Directors is now beginning the process of developing a flexible portfolio of strategic priorities, rather than a time-fixed strategic plan, as best practices dictate. But what guides the administration until that portfolio is initially established? And how can our plan for school improvement be flexible enough to mesh with the portfolio once it has been created? These are questions that framed our work.

In the first 40 minutes of the meeting, we discussed the "buckets" into which we might consider various operational objectives. We wound up defining four of these; program, site, financial sustainability, and administration. In the middle 40 minutes of the meeting, we together watched video tutorials for Smartsheet. Diane has spent some time investigating this software, and presented it to us as a potential way to manage the projects we undertake. It's basically a combination of spreadsheet and Gantt chart, with useful extensions into forms, discussions, and other tools. In the last 40 minutes of the meeting, we brainstormed potential topics for us to make happen in the next three years. These included greening the campus, hiring a Middle School division head, develop an outdoor classroom plan for the ECC, increase integration of curricular strands, identify and achieve optimal class size at each level, and create a comprehensive, mission-driven service learning program.

We'll be meeting again on Thursday to push this project forward another step; though I'm not sure what that is right now, most likely it's coming up with a way to gather more ideas, and then deciding on some process for determining the time frames along which to establish various objectives.

Sunday Reading

Federal attention to the need for early childhood education waxes and wanes. The Washington Post's recent article illustrates the complexities of addressing the topic; I find it problematic that someone would define a good ECE program as one that develops "skills and knowledge in language and literacy, math, science, social studies and the arts, while also addressing social, emotional and physical development." That sounds like a good approach to elementary school, but not to early childhood, where students are 3 and 4 years old. How about nurturing a love of learning, developing a sense of inquiry, providing opportunities for creative self-expression, and giving children the chance to play?

Public education in this country is under attack from all sides, and there's no easy answers to how to fund all the necessary programs. The Governor taketh and the Governor taketh again; he's cut $3 billion in funding (on top of about $18 billion cut by Arnold in the previous three years), and he lets schools charge fees for after-school sports - fees that function as an equity barrier for many students who find not only community connection and self-esteem, but also a reason to continue to pursue their academic studies, in the context of those sports teams. For an in-depth look at the value of non-academic programs on student learning, check out this article by June Kronholz on EducationNext.

Singapore Math has many similarities to the TERC: Investigations in Number, Data and Space curriculum that we use at TBS. As The Columbus Dispatch points out, at the core is a focus on understanding why an answer is what it is, not just what that answer is. It's a focus on process, not product, and it allows for the multitude of strategies that allow children to develop the necessary number sense to understand why the efficient, standard algorithm works.

I shared this blog post on digital citizenship by Mary Beth Hertz with the K-8 faculty, because it has a good perspective on what can and should be teachable, and resources to support that view.

Stateimpact from NPR offers a critique of flipped classrooms. I heard Salman Kahn of Kahn Academy speak last year at the NAIS Annual Conference, and I blogged about it then. Using videos of instruction that students can watch repeatedly is wonderful; for those who struggle to absorb all the necessary information the first time through a lesson, this is an enormous help. Likewise, having a benchmark standard to determine mastery of a concept, and an infinite number of problems to with which to practice that concept, is useful. And, the data analysis tools that Kahn Academy provides to teachers allow a detailed level of insight into the child's approach to tackling problems and returning to the instructional video for review. In fact, I was so excited when I returned home that one of our 4th grade teachers began experimenting with integrating Kahn Academy into the classroom for teaching math, and I watched several videos with my 8-year-old daughter. But there are deep issues with the flipped classroom as well, starting with the fact that all lessons are delivered as didactic lectures. There's no room for inquiry and discovery in this model.

Here's an inspiring post from Dave Saltman about the deeper legacy of Steve Jobs (hint: it's not the computer).

Admissions season begins!

As every family of a child who attends TBS knows, admissions season is an important time of the year. By providing tours, open houses, information nights, parent panels, and other avenues to learn about TBS, we hope to help families make informed decisions about whether their family's views on education are a good fit with how TBS works, and if our classrooms are a place where their child(ren) will flourish.

Last night was the first EBISA school fair, and this morning we hosted the first of almost a dozen tours on the University Ave campus. We review our admissions process over the summer every year, to ensure that we're maximizing our communication and improving our process; the structure of this year's tour closely followed the structure we used last year, which included a major revision from prior years. We begin with running participants through the See Think Wonder thinking routine, based on a three minute observation in a K/1 classroom. Mitch then gives an overview of our approach to teaching and learning, and our definition of being a learning community. A 45 minutes tour then follows, with parents spending the majority of time in the classroom level at which their child(ren) would enter.

The tour concludes with a 35 minute teacher panel, during which a teacher from each grade level (K/1, 2/3, 4/5, 6-8) helps answer questions from the group. The questions that prospective families ask are always fascinating, as they give us a window not only into what we haven't covered in other parts of the tour, but also into the bigger topics that they are thinking about and discussing. Questions asked this morning included:

-How does a teacher get to know a new child, and how long does that take?

-How does a teacher serve a range of children, from "high" to "low" end?

-What is the pattern of teacher tenure, and when are teachers viewed as "master teachers"?

-How does the school provide professional development for faculty?

-How does the school transition in children who have Montessori and non-Montessori backgrounds?

-How does teacher-parent communication work outside of the formal twice-yearly conferences?

Monday reading

Some articles that caught my eye this past week:

Parenting: Can your kids "catch" your stress? from Yahoo

Education Policy: What if the NFL played by teachers rules? from the Wall St Journal

Technology in schools: The jury is still out on school iPad deployment from ZDNet

Social justice for kids: New muppet to raise hunger awareness from USA Today

Environmental sustainability: Forget french fries and chicken nuggets from Santa Cruz Sentinel

Today's professional development day

Today is one of the most valuable days of the year - a full-faculty, internal professional development day.

We began with an hour tutorial on using Google calendar. Heather Tega, Assistant to the Head, lead the faculty through managing privacy settings, creating and sharing events, how to use the calendar system to manage the shared spaces around campus such as the kitchen and library, and other topics. By spending the time to get everyone up to speed on this aspect of our recent switch to Google Apps for Education, we're creating coherent, consistent systems across the school.

Mitch then presented a professional development plan for faculty. He began by framing three large areas of work; standard professional duties, personalized professional growth, and leadership and innovation. The plan focused on the second of those topics, and built upon a document we wrote in the spring by identifying four areas for each person to identify goals within; novelty, consolidation, reflection, and making thinking/learning visible.

After a short break, the faculty participated in the See Think Wonder thinking routine, using forms of daily/weekly lesson/unit planning and reflection as the topic. Each faculty member put out either their planning materials, or reflection/documentation materials, on the tables in the art room. After 20 minutes of silent observation, during which faculty wrote notes on what they saw, thought, and wondered, we shared our ideas. This was a highlight of the day for many faculty, as they acknowledged - the opportunity to see into each others' practices, and ask questions about the why and how and what of various approaches, was a powerful experience in community trust and mutual admiration. As Griselda acknowledged, the work we do is so complicated and difficult, and the faculty at TBS work so hard to do what they do!

The morning ended with a short review of the Curriculum Review process that we'll be undertaking this year. The goal of the process is to facilitate paths of communication among the faculty, and ultimately it will lead to a revision of our curriculum that eliminates redundancies, closes gaps, repositions certain curricular elements, and ensures that students at TBS have a coherent and consistent curricular experience from early childhood through middle school. Our mapping process is built on the ideas of Heidi Hayes Jacobs, one of the leaders in the field, and will stretch throughout the year. To begin with, faculty were given the task of "forward mapping" the rest of their curriculum for this year during the afternoon; though we did "backwards mapping" during work week last June, we have revised the maps to be more specific to TBS (since the ones we used in the spring were standard templates), and increased their responsiveness to the developmental needs of children at different divisions.

Faculty then shared a lunch provided by the school at tables set up in the sunshine of the solar system!

Developing my EQ

One of my four professional development goals this year is to increase my emotional intelligence. EQ, as it is also called, is a concept made widely popular by Daniel Goleman in his 1997 book Emotional Intelligence, though as a science reporter and psychologist he has researched many other topics. In no small part, the idea of EQ is influenced by the theory of multiple intelligences, which itself presented an original challenge to and alternative from the idea of IQ, as developed by our friend Howard Gardner in 1983 at Harvard's Project Zero Institute (which is also the source of the Teaching for Understanding model used by TBS).

I picked this as a goal based on the data I received from the "360 degree" assessment tools reported back to me during the week I spent in Atlanta this past July at the NAIS Fellowship for Aspiring Heads. The data juxtaposed my view of myself with the views of me held by the Head of School, a group of other administrators, and a group of teachers; my analysis of those different views, as well as some of the direct, anonymous comments, convinced me that in order to become a more effective leader, I needed to increase my understanding of how I experience and respond to my emotions.

Fortunately, there is a fabulous organization right here in the Bay Area that specializes in developing EQ in individuals, families, schools, corporations, and other institutions. Six Seconds has a wide array of tools and trainings, from a Social-Emotional Learning ("SEL" in EQ terms) curriculum for schools called Self-Science, to social-emotional profile assessment tools, to a program to certify people as EQ trainers. Today (and tomorrow) they hosted a conference on EQ at Synapse School in Menlo Park, which I was fortunate to be able to attend (TBS' commitment to professional development never ceases to amaze me!).

In his original text, Goleman breaks emotional intelligence into five distinct

areas - self-awareness, altruism, motivation, empathy, and the ability to love and be loved. Six Seconds recasts these ideas into a two-part model. The first part of the model has three "pursuits": know yourself (awareness), choose yourself (intention), and give yourself (connection and purpose). The second part of the model breaks these pursuits down into specific competencies: enhance emotional literacy, recognize patterns, consequential thinking, navigate emotions, intrinsic motivation, optimism, increase empathy, and pursue nobel goals. By taking the SEI assessment, an individual can identify which competencies are strengths, and which are areas for more growth.

I've been carefully tracking emotional experiences I've had at work this year, using a form I created based on one I saw during my time in Atlanta this summer. Today, I was able to make another jump forward in thinking about how I'm paying attention to my EQ experiences; since enhancing emotional literacy and recognizing patterns are among the lower-scoring competencies on my self-assessment, I began looking for information to help me develop in those specific areas. I was thrilled to discover Plutchik's circumplex model of emotions, which I am now going to adapt into some sort of tracking form. I also realized that I need to begin not just tracking my EQ experiences, but looking back at the entries to discover my patterns, which I will then be able shift.

I hope to eventually begin working with the elementary faculty on the idea of teaching emotional intelligence. We already do great work using concepts drawn from Responsive Classroom and Positive Discipline to create a program that contains many intentional curricular components, and is responsive to the social-emotional needs of students. For now, however, I'm just working on, and talking about working on, myself.

Sunday reading

I've given the following articles each a superlative. Enjoy your reading!

1) The Evolution of Classroom Technology - Most fun

2) Scientists Glimpse Images in Your Mind - Most fascinating

3) Are Top Students Getting Short Shrift? - Most debatable

4) Pow! How Comics in the Classroom Can Combat Bullying - Most pragmatic