Teaching: Strategies vs. Process

Learning is key in education.  Lifelong, constant, on-going.  Reflection is one of the greatest things that drives learning.  Schools should be learning organizations where everyone in the school is constantly learning and growing, not just the students.  Even when things are going in the right direction and seem “good”, we know there are still opportunities for growth and improvement.  While we should celebrate accomplishments and successes, complacency should never be allowed or tolerated. 

 

When I was a younger coach, coaching football, I taught things the way they were taught to me when I was a player.  I was a pretty good offensive line coach, was very detail-oriented, and kids seemed to play hard for me.  I constantly learned and tried to find ways to coach that would help our players be successful.  Most skills were taught in sequences and in parts of the whole type approaches.  While there was a good deal of success, was it maximizing our capacity?  I had the opportunity to work with a couple of more seasoned (25+ years’ experience).  He taught the same type of blocking concepts in a much more holistic or conceptual way.   As I adapted to more of this type of approach, our players were even more successful.  What I learned was that this seemed to better prepare our players to be able to adapt to anything the defense might do to try to counter what we were doing on offense.   For example, if a defensive end widened a little bit, the tackle understood the concept of reaching/running him on a sweep and would widen his initial step and then knew how to redirect to reach or run based on hat and body position. 

 

The process of teaching styles/methods that changed in athletics is very relevant to what we see in classrooms and the approach many people take in trying to improve teaching and learning.  As a young and enthusiastic school administrator, I wanted to focus our PD on instructional strategies that engaged students.  While this isn’t a bad thing and was a good step in the right direction, it was only working on providing a small tool to go into people’s instructional toolbox and didn’t work on the process of how to build teaching capacity.  There’s no such thing as a “standardized student” and no single instructional strategy that works for every student.  If there was, we would all do that all day, every day.  It doesn’t hurt to help teachers or principals add instructional strategies, but one strategy isn’t the answer for everyone.  The key is to focus on the process of effective teaching.  Best practices in teaching have been consistent for decades, works in both face-to-face and virtual settings, and are student-centered. 

 

 

A common instruction framework provides this common language and focus on the process of teaching across an entire school or district.  We use a CIF that incorporates effective questioning, writing to learn, classroom talk and collaboration, scaffolding, and a literacy foundation across all areas.  There are 251 different instructional strategies that were identified by the Gates Foundation that go along with this instructional framework.  Instead of trying to teach everyone in the building 251+ effective instructional strategies, we focus on the process of teaching that involve five components and requires that students read, write, think, and speak every day in every class in some manner.

 

Maybe for some people, this is too simple of an approach?  We have a habit of overcomplicating things in education.  What I do know…….it works, it works at all levels K-12, it works in multiple states, it works for all students, it works for all teachers, and it’s worked across a long span time.  Learning is as simple as connecting something that a student doesn’t know to something that they do know.   Everything is about students and should be student-centered.  Teaching is a process of helping students be successful.  Are we truly preparing our teachers and staff to be able to continue growing and improving if we don’t focus on the process of teaching?  Are we maximizing the positive instructional impact we can have on students if we don’t focus on the process of teaching?

The Struggle is Real: Complacency Kills

My wife and I went through Chik-fil-A this past weekend and were amazed at how they had adapted to become even more profitable during the Covid pandemic.  The logistics of how they moved two drive-thru lines, the adaptation to ordering on the online app and then having it delivered to your car, Uber for delivery, etc. were all amazingly efficient and productive.  The customer service and attitude of employees toward customers was pleasant and it creates an environment that is conducive to productivity.  Have our schools adapted in the same manner as this company with the opportunities presented by Covid?  Everything is in how we approach and frame situations…….are they challenges that seem insurmountable or are they opportunities for improvement and innovation?  The best way to overcome an obstacle seeming insurmountable is to start working on it. 

 

One of the most dangerous things for any organization is complacency….”that’s how we’ve always done it.”   The opportunity for change and improvement is critical for organizational success.  The ability of an organization  to be a “learning organization” is imperative and the ability of an organization to be able to synthesize data effectively and make changes based on data in a timely manner is a competitive advantage.  Most fast-food places are still doing business as usual and possibly have added a second ordering station, but haven’t they shown the competitive advantage to maximize the situation.  Pat Riley said “Complacency is the last hurdle standing between any team and its potential greatness.”  Complacency also goes to the heart of the difference in leadership and management.  Managers make some changes to help ensure the organization operates effectively and follow the template laid out for them.  Leadership requires vision, ingenuity, a disdain for complacency, tact to motivate others and empower them to act, and is focused on making sure the ship gets to the right destination and not just that it merely operates smoothly.  Greatness is allergic to average and doesn’t take place in the presence of complacency and mediocrity.

  

Four Causes of Complacency

1. Foregoing a “Moment of Insight”

Brent Gleeson, the author of Taking Point, says, “Most organizations that continue to succeed and innovate have a culture poised for positive change and taking a risk.”

 2. Maintaining a Sense of Overconfidence

Another reason why organizations stay in a state of complacency is due to an excessive sense of self-confidence.  I’ve often been asked “is it ever good enough for you?”  My answer is usually something in the neighborhood of good is the enemy of great.  We can always improve and should be pushing to improve.  Sometimes overconfidence stems from a false sense of security. “We’ve never had anything bad happen before, and the probability is so small that we can let our guards down.”  Teams take their cues from leadership, which means leadership must always be pushing to improve. 

 3. Having a False Sense of Reality

It’s human nature to be lulled into complacency.  Many times we aren’t as good as we want to believe that we are and we all have the ability to constantly improve.  Leadership have to be comfortable in being uncomfortable and transcend this to employees . 

 4. The Tendency to Make Excuses

Similar to having a false sense of reality, complacency thrives with people and in environments where excuses are made and accepted.

 

Complacency can be the most dangerous mindset to an individual or organization.  When you begin to work on “auto-pilot” mode, and stop paying attention to what you are doing, that can lead to taking short cuts and/or taking risks, not being proactive in preventing problems, not constantly pushing a climate of high expectations, etc. We’ve all seen or worked with someone that was one “auto-pilot” or “cruise.”  They don’t seek the moment of insight and instead wait for the ship to spring a leak instead of being proactive in preventing the leak or fixing it immediately when it starts.  These employees have a lack of urgency in ensuring the organization’s success and can be toxic to the culture of the organization.   Once complacency takes root in an organization, it’s hard to change course.

 

Seven Strategies for Warding Off Complacency

1. Be clear on your long-term vision (no more than two years out) and your short-term goals needed to make that vision a reality.
2. Have a specific plan for each day.
3. Give yourself specific time each week—no more than one hour—to think strategically and evaluate where you are and if you are heading in the right direction.
4. Challenge your team to think.
5. Encourage and reward innovation.
6. Create a formal process to learn from mistakes.
7. Invest time and money to improve your skills and knowledge.

 

The military has a mantra that “complacency kills.” In fact, signs with this message are often posted at their bases and outposts. They know that complacency in combat may mean the difference between life and death.  In the world of education, complacency means that we leave students behind, that we fail to educate students at our highest possible level, that we are okay with status quo, that we aren’t fully reaching our individual or organizational potential in any capacity (instructional or educational).   It was interesting to watch Tom Brady last season and then Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots this offseason.  Brady was determined to win this past season, especially in the playoffs.  It would’ve been easy to be content with his prior Superbowl wins and MVP awards, but the competitor in him wanted more and wanted to prove something.  After a disappointing season without Tom Brady, Bill Belichick has had a great offseason in signing free agents and upgrading the level of talent on the Patriots.  He’s over 70 years old, won Superbowls with multiple teams, almost has a Superbowl ring for every finger….yet he’s competitive to want to get better and win more.  Both are examples of great leaders.  Neither one is accepting of mediocrity.  Both are allergic to average.  Greatness is the standards for both, nothing less is accepted.  Leadership must squash complacency and create a sense of urgency for any organization to be great. 

Resiliency: Increasing Capacity Through Adversities and Challenges

 In a 1992 essay in the Harvard Business Review, Peter Drucker wrote that “Every few hundred years thoughout Western history, a sharp transformation has occurred.”  He went on to say “In a matter of decades, society altogether rearranges itself – its worldview, its basic values, its social and political structures, its arts, its key institutions. Fifty years later a new world exists. And the people born into that world cannot even imagine the world in which their grandparents lived and into which their own parents were born. Our age is such a period of transformation.”  What he was referring to is the shift to a knowledge society, but it is very applicable to the shifts and challenges that the education profession has overcome during Covid.  In a nutshell, that human beings and society are resilient in the face of adversity. 

 

Resilience is the human capacity to face, overcome, and ultimately be strengthened by life’s adversities and challenges.  This is not something that people either have or do not -  resilience is learnable and teachable and as we learn we increase the range of strategies available to us when things get difficult.  This is one of the lessons we’ve learned through Covid challenges in the past year.  The goal should be to be better, as an organization, at the end of Covid than we were at the beginning.  Schools should be learning organizations where every moment is a teachable moment and everyone in the organization is continually learning and improving.  Six things every organization can do to adapt and face new challenges head on are:

1.       Figure out what information is needed.

2.       Actively prune what is past its prime. 

3.       Embrace employee autonomy.

4.       Build true learning organizations. 

5.       Provide a much stronger sense of purpose.

6.       Be more mindful of those left behind.

As we face larger number of quarantines in one grade level, the question we must address is how to best work on the most advantageous solution and how to prevent it from happening again.  Everyone must get past the “blame game”, accept responsibility and ownership of the solution, and move forward on the solution together.  In Drucker’s 1992 article he said, “Ours is “the first society in which ‘honest work’ does not mean a callused hand,” Drucker noted. “This is far more than a social change. It is a change in the human condition. We’ve been headed down this path for more than half a century.”  Technology and outside-the-box thinking are critical to adapting to change to be serve our students during challenging times.  Change is inevitable and a guarantee in all parts of life.  Resiliency is key to adapting to change and overcoming obstacles and adversity. 

Then vs. Now: Best Practices Are Still Best Practices

This weekend I had the honor to be able to speak at the Impacting Student Learning Conference in Augusta, GA.  Any day that you get to work with teachers, principals, and leadership on how to help ALL students learn is a blessing.  The title of the presentation was “The Digital Era of Instructional Innovation: Increasing Student Engagement in Virtual and Blended Learning Settings”.  After 20+ years in education and seeing so much change, it amazes me how is still the same (in a good way).  The conclusion on the final slide has always held true that people are the most important part of everything we do in education.

 

While the instructional delivery methods may have changed and the level of technology integration has been exponentially increased.....Best Practices Are Still Best Practices!   One of the toughest things for educators to do is to "Keep It Simple!"  Simon Sinek talked about being the idiot in the room because he always wanted to keep asking questions until an idea or concept could be explained where everyone in the room could understand it, which prevents people that want to sound smart with the latest educational jargon from trying to talk over everyone's heads.  It doesn't have to be complicated to be Great!  In the years that we won the most games as a football coach, we probably only had a total of about 6 plays that accounted for 95% of the offense (3 runs, 2 passes, and a bootleg or play-action pass).  As the season went on, we got better and better at those few plays where we were almost masters of those and everyone on the team knew what we were going to hang our hat on.  The same is true for education.  More times than not a school will be highly successful if everyone on staff has aligned instruction, a common instructional framework that promotes high engagement, and constantly assess and use data.  Focus on standards and students.....it's really that simple!

    

One of the pieces of information that I presented was based on Hattie's "Visible Learning" research that links a quantitative measurement with every action by the adults in the school.  What's amazing is that the things that have the most negative impact on student learning hasn't changed much over the years, neither has the most positive factors.  The questions become: If we know suspension, retention, corporal punishment, summer vacation, transient enrollment, and non-standard dialect use don't work....why haven't we changed our practice by now if these obviously aren't best practices for students?  The next question is why don't we do more of the things that we know have a very highly significant positive impact on learning?   The research shows over and over the power of attitude and belief in that four of the top factors are collective teacher efficacy, self-reported grades by students, teacher estimates of achievement, and self-efficacy.  These factors go right along with the Effective Schools Research (Lezotte, Levine, Edmonds, Brookover, etc.) and the Correlates of Effective Schools with high-expectations for success.  

The final portion of the presentation was a digital variance of Marcia Tate's research on brain-based learning and how to engage students at high levels.  The 20 High Engagement Instructional Strategies have stood the test of time and continue to be highly effective in classrooms.  The #1 reason students don't do well in class is "Boredom."  It was boredom 20 years ago and it's still boredom today that is the biggest reason reported that students don't perform well.  If we know the retention rate of a lecture is between 5-10% and the retention rate of reciprocal teaching or teaching others is around 90%, why in the world to we want to hang onto the past and the way we were taught.  Most of the teachers in todays classrooms were taught in a way very differently than kids today learn.  As we learn to engage students and make students active learners, discipline will go down and student achievement will go up.  Don't overcomplicate it!  The final slide in the presentation really demonstrates, from research after research, the importance of people in every aspect of helping students be successful!  Great systems constantly increase the capacity of human capital.  The top two things that impact achievement are great teaching and great leadership, the top two school level factors are collective efficacy and making students active stakeholders, and the top factor in a classroom is student engagement.  Every top factors focuses on people.  The best two ways for a principal to improve a school are (1) hire better teachers or (2) make the ones you have better!  Focus on standards and students, keep building and developing human capital, and have a winning attitude and success will take care of itself.  Don't overcomplicate winning! 

Into the Storm GamePlan: Excellence of Execution

Two weeks ago we discussed our urgency to finish strong on testing and accountability this school year.  In reviewing our MAP data and seeing an opportunity to improve, our team worked to create the game plan for the remainder of the school year.  At the conclusion of our data dives, data drives, team meetings, and instructional staff meetings we came up with a three-part plan to make sure we do everything within our power to make sure our students are prepared.  To many people, this plan seems simple, but to us it’s focused and intentional in every aspect.  The plan was (1) Focus on Standards and Students, (2) ALL IN – Into the Storm, and (3) Keep It Simple! 

Focus on Standards and Students

        The two most important parts of increasing student achievement are standards and students.  We don’t need to overcomplicate this process.  Focus on the standards tested, especially priority standards, making sure whole group instruction is taught on grade level with small-group or personalized learning  differentiated on each student's level and targeted need is something we can all do that makes a huge impact.  Our data tells us very explicitly that our focus needs to be on reading informational text aligned to the RI standards we need to work on.  This will give us the greatest opportunity for improvement.  When we examine our outlier data, we see that we could improve 1-3 points in each subject/grade level simply by reducing the outliers past -10.  After having parent/student meetings with every student that scored -10, we see two common trends in that there was a traumatic experience in the home during that period from Fall to Winter testing and/or students struggled with virtual learning compared to face-to-face instruction.  The impact a great classroom teacher has on a student’s learning was magnified and the need to have most students in the classroom was clearly evident.  The need for the MTSS process and immediate social/emotional interventions is more critical now, during the Covid pandemic, than they’ve probably every been.  This means that we need to shift some duties and responsibilities around to allow our staff to work with students needing this support more now than ever and that we need to identify and act quicker than we ever have.  One interesting piece of data showed that when you removed the scores of virtual students, the students on a 2-3 days/week hybrid schedule performed as well as they normally do on a traditional 5 days/week schedule.  If we teach the standards, teach them on the right level, engage our students, and constantly do the process of formative assessment to see what our student know and don’t know….while supporting social and emotional needs, our students will be successful. 

 

ALL IN – Into the Storm

        Yes, “ALL IN” is borrowed from the greatest college football program in the country…the Clemson Tigers, but it’s so true in everything you do in life and the attitude you take towards a goal.  Part of being a team means that everyone is committed to a common goal and common vision, everyone does their job and their part to help the team be successful, and at the end of the day the name beside the score says “McBee High School” and not an individual’s name alone.  It takes a commitment from everyone on a team to be successful. We don't always control talent or ability, but we all control our attitudes and actions every single day!  We must all be positive and encouraging to build each other up and provide support that contributes to collective efficacy.  When one member of a team doesn't, it can destroy the moment of the entire group.  No one in our school should have the right to take away from the learning, safety, or well-being of any colleague or student.

        The “Into the Storm” mentality means that we are going to take challenges head on instead of running from them or hoping they just pass by.  We know we will MAP test at the end of the school year and this will give us a longitudinal piece of evidence of what was within our control in measuring where students started in the Fall and how they performed academically in the Spring.  We don’t know for certain about SC Ready testing accountability for schools in SC; however, we do know we will test.  Test or not, no matter how or if it counts, the bottom line is that it’s the right thing to do in making sure our students are prepared and that we start to close some of the instructional gaps that we know exist from the shutdown last spring and challenges during the pandemic. 

 

Keep It Simple

        This sounds much simpler than it sometimes is in education.  We have a tendency in education to make things far more complicated than they need to be and often confuse people with educational jargon.  Winning doesn’t need to be complicated, do a couple of things that have the greatest impact and do them well will usually put the team or school in a position to be successful most of the time.  We felt that it was very important to make our plan focused and intentional, to a level where students were an integral part of the plan and understood the plan and goals.  We decided to make sure our mastery trackers were focused on priority standards and written in simple “I Can” statements so that they were there for the students, not necessarily the adults.  At the end of the day, it’s what the students know or master that we are judged on.  With limited time left in the school year, focusing on priority standards is critical.  And at the end of the day, make it fun and competitive for students! 

  

        Below is our action plan for finishing the year strong academically.  Some people may ask why we’d share our plan but to us it’s not a secret and it’s not complicated to do this process to see our students be successful.  I remember as a coach telling our team that other teams could have as many tapes of us as they want and I’d even give them our playbook if they wanted.  To borrow a line from Bret “The Hitman” Hart from WWE wrestling, it’s all about “Excellence of Execution!”  It’s simple but it requires commitment from everyone on the team to carry out the plan to fidelity.  It’s important to have a great plan, but “Excellence of Execution” is also paramount!  I have complete confidence in our team and their commitment to seeing students be successful.  I'm blessed to work with some great teachers, great team players, a great support staff, and people who will do whatever it takes to help children!  While some people are hoping that we don't test or that it doesn't count, our team is eager to see the score at the end of the 4th quarter this year!

Into The Storm: Head On #BeLikeTheBuffalo

We recently received some disappointing mid-year data on our MAP scores and were reminded of it in a principal’s meeting.  We thought scores weren’t going to be quite as good as the previous levels of growth last school year based on a number of factors that were different in this Covid year and our learning curve with virtual instruction.  However, the level of growth was disheartening because we felt like we failed many of the parents that trust every day with their most prized possession, we felt like failed our bosses who trust us to make sure our school performs well, and we felt like we failed the very students that are at the heart of everything we do in education.  The simple fact remains that we didn't perform at the level we should've performed and we will always be judged by one thing....The Results!  The question then becomes what are we going to do about it…..?  This was a mid-year check, not an autopsy.  Great teams and leaders know how to handle adversity and how to adjust their gameplan at halftime to win in the second half.  

 

What we find is that life is going to have adversity and disappointments, but the key is how you handle those and move forward.  I’m reminded of a pre-season preparation talk I had with seniors when I was coaching.  The philosophy was simple in that we were going to be like a Bison/Buffalo.  Why like a Bison?  We don’t run from the reality of the situation, instead we embrace it and take it head on.  One of the most fascinating characteristics of the Bison is how they react when a storm is coming. While cows, their close relatives, huddle together, the Bison take the storm head on, traveling directly into its path.  The attitude and instinct of the Bison heading directly into the storm is very fitting and an interesting reminder of how to confront life’s obstacles. We all know that the worst thing we can do when confronted with a major challenge in life is to run from it.  Don’t run, don’t avoid it, don’t hope it goes away….Take it head on!

Two realities must be faced: (1) We need to be prepared to return to face-to-face learning 5 days/week and (2) We will be tested or assessed at the end of this school year. This has been made clear at both the federal and state levels.  To make a long story short, we decided to take this head on immediately.  Many times people procrastinate and the fear of the challenge becomes bigger and bigger to where it seems insurmountable.  Procrastinating or trying to ignore a challenge essentially makes a mountain out of a molehill.  But that’s not what the Bison does. Rather than waiting out the storm or running away from the storm, the Bison squares it’s shoulders and charges into the storm, taking it head-on in a tight herd together and running right through it. This has the effect of reducing the amount of exposure to the storm.  On the contrary, cows have a different reaction. They run away from the storm, receiving the brunt of the storm in the process.  In taking these obstacles on directly we learn what the Bison knows instinctually— when we address our challenges directly the perceived obstacles are often much less than we imagined.  Rather than running from reality or just waiting for it to hit, the attitude of our teachers and staff is going to be to take it head on and square our shoulders to take it head on.  We don't control some things and we accept that; but we control our preparation and everything we do to get ready for our students to test, we control our attitude and how we approach the challenge, we control if we are ALL IN as a team to take on the challenge, we control our focus on standards and students, etc.  

The first step in facing a challenge is to admit there is a challenge and make a decision to take it head on, owning the shortcoming and owning the solution to the problem.  The follow up has to have the same level of commitment.  After we create the plan to address the problem, we have to execute the plan to fidelity.  Leaders must inspect what they expect, in terms of how the team is going to take the storm head on. Every moment in education is a teachable moment and has the potential for growth.  So next time you are faced with a challenge or shortcoming, whether it be a complex situation or a difficult conversation you need to have with someone, follow the lead of the American Bison and avoid procrastination. Go directly toward the obstacle, embrace the challenge as well as your commitment to the solution. Take it head on into the storm!

Leadership is About Service: Authority versus Influence

What is leadership?  Are you a leader because you have a position or title of authority?  True leadership is far more than any title.  Someone can be granted a title from those above them in the hierarchy, but authority and influence to be able to lead is earned from those that work with you.  In doing my doctoral work at Liberty, we often heard about servant leadership and there was often a biblical derivative of the term.  As I’ve been in leadership for a long time, I’ve realized that I was in leadership long before I ever had the title of Principal or School Administrator or Coach or anything else.  My purpose was always to help people and serve as best I could.  Even without a title, I was a leader in many respects.  

 

Leadership is ultimately about service and helping others achieve their goals and helping the team to be successful.  Personal success is derived from the success of the team and from taking care of others.  Part of being in school administration or leadership is understanding the dynamics of micropolitical leadership.  The most influential leaders in a school aren't necessarily administrators.  Many times the most powerful leaders are teacher-leaders, mentors, and those within the staff that have earned the trust and respect of the staff through their service and helping others.  Many times when a principal says something, it’s viewed as a top-down directive and there is a level of compliance that comes with it.  However, the same thing echoed by a teacher-leader or leader inherently chosen by the group can be far more powerful and have far more influence.  This is one of the reasons that leaders must understand this dynamic and be able to use it for the good of the team.  Not only have the teacher-leaders and your best teachers earned the respect of the staff, they’ve also always put what is in the best interest of students at the forefront of every decision they make.  They always put students and the team first, not what’s easiest or most convenient for the adults in the building.  Those two things make their leadership more powerful than you can imagine within an organization.  While someone with a title might be the head of the organization, the leader from within that has proven servant leadership is the heart of the team. 

 

In relating this to the world of athletics, we watched Michael Jordan do this for the Bulls for many years.  Phil Jackson might have been the coach, but Jordan was the catalyst that pushed everyone around him to another level of performance.  In an interview for “The Last Dance”, Jordan explicitly said that he never asked a teammate to do more than he did or was willing to do himself.  He could’ve loafed through practices and turn it on for games, but he challenged his teammates 100% in practice because he knew that was the competition they needed in practice to be able to perform at a championship level.  We recently saw the Tampa Bay Buccaneers win the Super Bowl with Bruce Arians as the coach, but Tom Brady was the heart of that team that helped take them to the top level.  There was talent on that team prior to Brady’s arrival, but the heart of the team makes everyone else believe that they can win and they push the team constantly to perform at their standard of excellence.  To these great leaders, it’s about service and helping others to be their very best.

Leadership is about service to others. Leadership is a choice, a decision to put others ahead of yourself with a goal of helping them be successful. Leadership is more than a title or position, it's about influence and the willingness to help others achieve their goals. Great leaders build trust, are committed to people and processes, and are dedicated to selfless service.

 

Servant Leadership = Heart to Serve + Called to Lead + Courage to Serve

 

Many people don’t go into leadership for several reasons:  they’re content and happy with what they are doing, they don’t want to take on many of the challenges and responsibilities, they don’t want to feel like they are over their peers, they don’t want to have to do the corrective side with personnel, etc. Servant Leadership can be a powerful force once a person discovers their heart to serve, answers their call to lead, and summons their courage to engage.  These aren’t easy things for many potential leaders to face for some reason.  Servant leaders realize that it’s not necessarily being in charge of people as much as it’s about taking care of people within your charge.  There’s a bigger purpose to the work that leaders take on in helping others to be their best.  Leaders understand that their work isn’t always popular, but it’s always necessary to help the team be successful. Servant leaders understand that their customers are their allies and employees are the greatest resource they have.  They understand success comes from people and not programs.  They realize that what people/customers are actually "buying" from us in education is trust that we will always do what's in the best interest of students and that we will give 110% to see our students be safe and successful.  The way you view leadership ultimately shapes your attitude and actions!  

What We Can Learn From Watching Ships Sink: Water on the Inside is Far More Dangerous Than All the Water on the Outside

Three years ago I accompanied my wife to the EdTEch conference in Chicago, one of the largest instructional technology conferences in the United States.  We both went to different sessions that we thought could provide professional learning and growth.  One of the afternoons while my wife was in a late afternoon training, my daughter and I went to see the ports where Chicago touched Lake Michigan, which is one of the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world. One of the signs at Lake Michigan presented facts about the number of ships that have sunk and some that are still sitting at the bottom of Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes.  I later saw a YouTube video of a ship actually being sunk on the lake to dispose of it and render it completely out of service.  I thought to myself that we can learn a lot from watching ships sink that's very applicable to leadership and life. 

 

Over 97 percent of the Earth's water can be found in the oceans.  According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there are over 332,519,000 cubic miles of water on the planet. Of this vast volume of water, NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center estimates that's enough water to fill about 352,670,000,000,000,000,000 gallon-sized milk containers!  While that’s more water than we can possibly fathom, no amount of water in any of the oceans on the outside of the ship sinks a ship.  Ships don’t sink because of the water around them. They sink because of the water that gets in them. It’s the same with organizations and leadership.  The greatest advertisement for any organization comes from those within the organization, the best endorsement and evaluation for any leader comes from those closest to them, and those within the organization are the most influential in creating the perception of success or failure of an organization. 

 

Under Genghis Khan, the Mongols would catapult the dead bodies of soldiers infected by the bubonic plague over city walls during sieges. This is one of the earliest accounts biological warfare.  A fortified city or structure was safe as long as the disease was on the outside and didn’t get to the inside.  However, disease inside of the fort was deadly and spread to infect so many that the fort couldn’t survive.  In 1346, during the siege of Caffa, the attacking Tartar Forces (subjugated by the Mongol empire under Genghis Khan), used the bodies of Mongol warriors of the Golden Horde who had died of plague, as weapons.  Disease outside of the Caffa didn’t have any impact, but once it got within it was the beginning of the end.  Many historians, suggested the soldiers of Caffa should’ve catapulted the diseased bodies out immediately and limited exposure to disease as well as sending it within the attacking force.  Leaders have known since the beginning of time how deadly and dangerous disease within an organization can be.  It’s probably a good thing for many people that the violent nature of punishment for treason has changed since medieval times when traitors were beaten, hung, beheaded, and quartered (body cut into four parts and sent to different parts of the empire to display so everyone would fear punishment for that offense). 

 

In The Art of War, Sun Tzu said “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”  Many times, the challenges/obstacles and also the positive recognitions are created by people within an organization and closest to leadership.  These are often communicated from those within to those outside of the organization.  People outside of the organization accept this information as truth or fact because they believe those within a building know what goes on better than anyone else.  There are times when we face challenges from the outside that we can’t control coming at us, but these should not be created by people within an organization.  People within the organization that create challenges and undermine either leadership or the mission of the organization are toxic and impede an organization from improvement.  

 

 

Ultimately, the most important job anyone within an organization has is to make their boss or supervisor look good.  We do this by serving our customers effectively, fulfilling the mission of the team, being loyal to your teammates and leader, communicating positively to promote the good of the team, and knowing which information is confidential and should be not communicated outside of given circles.  Ultimately, the challenges within an organization can break an organization or destroy a leader’s credibility and vision for success more than anything else.  I’ve worked for a great superintendent that I’ve learned immensely from and one of the most relevant things I’ve learned is the importance of loyalty and everyone on the team pulling in the same direction together.  This reminded me of what I learned from coaching and sports about teams that play together and support each other.  As a coach, we made it to the 4th round of the playoffs and one game away from a state championship with a regular season record where we only got in as a final seed by the luck of the draw.  How did a team that barely got in the playoffs make it that far and be so successful in almost winning a state championship....because we quit fighting against each other and undercutting each other, instead we finally played together and for each other like a family.  It’s hard to row a boat to the finish line when someone isn’t rowing in the same direction as the rest of the team and especially when they row against the leader and team.  A leader and team can’t expect to be but so successful when they have to take on their own team members as well as the other team and outside challenges.  There’s a great leadership lesson to be learned from watching a ship sink and realizing the water/toxicity inside an organization is far more dangerous than any amount of water or challenges outside of the organization. 

Stress is Necessary for Success: The Way We React and Adapt to it Makes a Huge Difference in the Outcome

During the 2020-21 Covid19 pandemic, society has experienced a lot of changes.  The educational field is no exception with adapting to moving learning to virtual and hybrid models, distancing and disinfecting requirements, quarantine protocols, etc.  This is all new to the educational field, there is no playbook for this type of situation.  Despite all the challenges, our schools have experienced a tremendous amount of success and this will change education for the good in the long run.  We have this belief because we know stress is a precursor for change and improvement.  Stress is useful to prompt a specific action, to a specific threat, or to promote alertness during a brief period of danger.  Second, it can keep you alert in during a period of danger. 

 

When we talk about stress and pressure a couple of stories come to mind.  Story #1: On the deserts of the Serengeti, there’s a gazelle that knows they must run faster than the greatest lion or any other animal every single day if they want to survive.  On that same desert, every day a lion has to run faster and out maneuver the fastest gazelles if they are going to eat and not starve.  Survival of the fittest is the essence and nature of our food chain, but this stress forces each animal to be at their top performance for survival.  This stress causes daily growth and constant improvements for mere survival.  Story #2:  In theory it doesn’t make sense that someone would dig a hole and pour dirt on something in order to make it grow hundreds of feet tall.  As I drive to work every day there are miles and miles of peach orchards that produce fruit shipped all over the world for human consumption.  Each one of these trees started by someone digging a hole, throwing the seed down into the hole, and pouring a mound of dirt on top of them.  This dirt, pressure and stress, is necessary for the tree to grow.  The nutrients in the dirt provides nutrients for growth and develops a strong root system so the trees can stand strong as pressures and stress increase and tests their character.  People are the same as both these stories.  Like the lion and the gazelle, stress forces us to get up running every morning and causes pressure to increase our performance to survive.  Like the trees that grow strong from being put in a hole and having dirt poured on them, the stresses we face in life help strengthen us and cause our root system to grow strong if we are going to thrive.  Pressure is necessary for increasing performance and the people that can stand strong and continually grow from stress without breaking or having a meltdown excel and rise above others.  In the world of sports, the pressure players are the ones every coach wants to have the ball with the game on the line.  The key to stress is how we react and adapt to it.  Does it make us stronger and better or does it crush us and break us down? 

Is Stress Useful?  One of the strongest arguments is that for something to change something has to change and something has to be the stimulus for that change.  Stress is useful to prompt a specific action, to a specific threat, or to promote alertness during a brief period of danger. That’s it. Any stress which doesn’t facilitate these purposes is wasted and therefore any beliefs that stress is necessary must be limited to these contexts.  Why do people that want to be successful athletes train?....because they know the stress they are putting on their bodies will strengthen them and help them improve.  There are two kinds of people in this world: those who believe they can make things happen and those who believe things happen to them.  Tim Judge, University of Florida psychologist, researched how perception and attitude impacted how we handle stress and reported that people who feel that they control the events in their lives more than the events in their life controlled them and are confident in their abilities to adapt and adjust end up doing better on nearly every important measure of work performance.  His research concluded that people with this perception of and attitude toward stress:

 

1. Sell more than other employees do
2. Give better customer service
3. Adjust better to new assignments
4. Take home an average of 50 to 150% more in annual income

Stress is a necessity in life for change and improvement; anxiety is an absolutely necessary emotion.  We all experience it daily; however, everyone reacts and adapts to it differently.  We are biologically hard-wired to increase our capacities and performance under stress for survival.  The elderly gentleman that is able to lift or move a car to free someone trapped under it and save their life is an example.  Our bodies are prepared for out brain to be able to send the signal for our bodies to produce and release great amounts of adrenaline, a super hormone, to help us be able to survive.  Our central nervous system has the capacity to fire more muscle fibers simultaneously than we’ve ever been able to fire from our conscientious mind through our stress induced survival mechanisms.  The trick to using stress to increase performance is for the individual to be able to manage anxiety and keep it within the optimal levels in order to achieve top performance.  There are a couple of things that help with managing anxiety and using stress to increase performance: 

 

# 1: Expect and Prepare for Change.  Change is a given, we will all experience.  People don’t fear change, they fear change without support or requisite preparation for success.  Mentally prepare for change and be ready to make it happen instead of it just happening to you. 

# 2: Focus on Your Freedoms, Not Your Limitations.  We’ve all heard the saying “life isn’t fair”, but wouldn’t it be better to say “life is what you make of it.”  We have the freedom to choose our actions and reactions. 

# 3: Re-write Your Script.  Be reflective and learn/grow from every situation.  Every moment is a teachable moment.  It’s only failure if you don’t learn from it and improve going forward. 

# 4: Stop Negative Self-Talk.  The more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them.  Most of our negative thoughts are just that—thoughts, not facts.  The brain has a natural threat tendency to inflate the perceived frequency or severity of an event. Positive thoughts have a tendency to produce more positive outcomes. 

# 5: Appreciate What You Have.  Gratitude is a powerful emotion.  It also lessens stress and anxiety because it reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23%.

 

Stress has the potential to increase performance if utilized and harnessed the right way.  Sometimes it takes a stressor to create the stimulus for change.  The key is how we react and adapt to stress in any situation.  Do you let it make you or break you?  The great thing is that decision is up to you. 

Failures and Dropouts: Who Really Failed, the Student and/or the School?

Statistics demonstrate that one in every four high school students drops out of school, and one student drops out of school every 26 seconds across the United States. The highest percentage of dropouts occur in urban, high-poverty areas. Dropping out means leaving high school, college, university, or another group for practical reasons, necessities, or disillusionment with the system from which the individual in question leaves. 1.2 million students drop out of high school every year, many falling into a cycle of poverty, unemployment, and violence. Sobering statistics on dropouts include: 

  

We know that far too many students drop out of school, and students from high-poverty situations drop out at the highest rate......the question is, what are we doing to fix it and help them get to graduation?  One of the obstacles many schools and districts are facing in the pandemic is student failures.  The bigger question is "Who really failed?  The school or the student?"  The goal should be to see each student be successful.  Does that mean that we just give the student a grade they didn't earn or work for?  Absolutely not, but this shift into virtual and blended learning has a learning curve for all involved, including the adults in the school.  As a former coach, many times we had to have a philosophy of "bend but don't break," "keep snapping the ball and see what happens," and "finish strong in the 4th quarter."  These would all be very applicable in this type of pandemic situation and school year.  

Patience and compassion are critical now more than ever for everyone in education.  When you look at data on why students drop out of high school, the alarming thing is that most reasons are preventable or workable.  Three out of the top four reasons students drop out of high school can be handled or prevented at the school level, actually all the way down to the classroom level.  As a classroom teacher, I never want to fail a student because I felt like I had failed as well.  I used to tell students that I didn't give a "0", they had an "Incomplete" until they finished it and that was up to them; or prove to me that they know the content in some way of their choosing and I'd give them credit because learning is what was really important to me.  I shifted to the latter approach as I grew and began to realize that learning was far more important than compliance of doing work.  Some of the major reasons students give for dropping out are disheartening such as "No one cared if I attended."  That's the power of human connection and relationships.  Relationships will actually help most all of the top reasons students drop out.  

We also have to help our stakeholders see the big picture in bending but not breaking, keep snapping the ball and playing another snap, and finishing strong.  The operational hurdles, just to be able to keep school open, are just as big as the instructional hurdles this school year.  When someone questions funding education, the better response would be "how can you not fund education?"  The investment in education has the potential to produce exponential gains in the return on the investment and help to alleviate or reduce many of the societal pitfalls and areas for improvement.  This is a time in our country's history where education is more important than ever.  

People Don’t Buy What You Sell, They Buy Why You Do It: What Are We Selling in 2021?

 As we enter the New Year, most people set resolutions or goals to accomplish.  This has been an annual ritual since the inception of time, yet most years the greatest percentage of people fail at most of their resolutions.   The best times to set the tone as a principal or leader is at the very beginning or after an extended break, such as Christmas.  As I reflect on potential resolutions, I go back to our purpose, mission, and vision as an organization. 

 

What is our purpose?  To provide the best possible education in a physically, mentally, and emotionally safe environment.  Our mission of “Commitment to Excellence” and our vision of “Every Student Every Day” require that students always come first in our decision-making and everything we do in school.  What is our product or what are we selling and who are our consumers?  Consumers are our students, parents, and community, but what do they buy?  Many people would say that they buy or consume the best possible education for their child.  While this statement is true to a point, I’d argue that our parents buy much more than that and something far simpler than that.  The average parent isn’t super well-versed in the latest education jargon, instructional concept, or technological advance in education.  What they buy from us is trust and confidence in the people that are working with their children and confidence from the students that the adults in the building will do every possible thing they can to help them learn and be successful. 

In talking with a good friend and colleague who sends their child to our school, they told me they planned to leave their child at the school even if their job location changed.  They didn’t speak of the push to go 1:1 or the renovations to the building or the extensive programs we offer.  Instead, he only talked about “who” was working with his child.  He had trust and confidence in the teachers and staff at the school, the coaches, the administration, and the adults in the building to prepare and care for his child.  In thinking about the decision of where we would send our own kids to school, I remember the number one reason we sent our kids to the high school they went to was because I had a profound confidence in the teachers, principal, guidance counselor, and staff at the school.  I trusted them to treat our kids like they were their own.  I had worked with many of the teachers and staff at other schools and knew how good they were instructionally and how much they went above and beyond for kids.  The principal was my former assistant principal at my first principalship and I had so much confidence in her to look after my kids that we moved our kids across a state border to send them to school in the district where I worked with people that we trusted. 

 

If I could have a couple of wishes for 2021 they’d be that students were better off because of my being there, that teachers and staff were more effective and enjoyed their work to a greater degree because of my being there, that our parents and students are confident in us to do everything we can to help students be successful, that my supervisors are confident in our abilities and performance to give us autonomy to be able to do whatever it takes to help ALL students be successful, that our students and parents are confident in us to do what's best for students and put students first, that our school is better off because I'm there, and that we always remember that every decision in our building is based on what’s best for our students and not what’s easiest for the adults in the building.  Simply put……without students, they wouldn’t need any of the adults in the building. 

 

In going back and forth with a colleague in South Carolina, we were talking about grading and how many schools have failed so many students this past fall semester.  Grading could be a whole book in itself, but what matters most is learning.  As we go into 2021, we must revisit our purpose of what we do and be able to see the bigger picture of our work.  Is our work about compliance or commitment, doing or learning?  Great schools are learning institutions, where everyone in the building is constantly building capacity and building tomorrow through learning today.   As we go into a new calendar year, we must remember who are our consumers, what are they buying, and why do they buy it?  What they are buying is trust and confidence in us to do what’s best for children because they trust the people in the building.  We don’t have the right to break this trust.  We have a responsibility to live up to the expectations of our consumers.  We have a responsibility to always do what’s best for students!

While some districts are moving to remote learning full-time or part-time to begin the new semester, we have to ask if this decision was made in doing what’s best for students or what’s most comfortable for the adults?  Almost 83% of our students chose to return on a face-to-face basis this semester.  We all know that most of our students need to be back in school, both for safety and for learning.  While a percentage of students can be served effectively through online learning, the impact of a great classroom teacher can’t be denied.  The relationships and rapport teachers have with students is critical for student success.  The responsibility of the school and district to act in parenti loco is critical for students to be safe physically, mentally, and emotionally.  I’m one that fully supports the decision of our district in returning to learning in two days with both face-to-face and online options.  I whole heartedly believe that the decisions made in how we return to school for the Spring semester and how we will navigate the Spring semester will all be made with the best interests of students at the forefront.  That’s what our parents and students are buying…..trust and confidence in us to always make this the basis of all of our decisions!