Value of Annual Theme(s)

School leaders engage in many summer tasks...student and staff scheduling, planning site-based Professional Development (PD), editing Staff Handbooks, etc. Many leaders develop and plan around a common school-wide theme. There is inherent value in yearly planning built around an intentionally developed and meaningful school-wide theme. Two valuable potential outcomes that quickly come to mind are staff and student cohesion as well as development of interconnectedness between instructional inputs and outcomes. Further, a common theme may also assist with development of common instructional language and deeper investment in shared purpose among students and staff. 

Examples are always helpful, so imagine a school that wants to focus on goal-setting for both students and teachers. A convenient acronym would be to use the tried and true SMART goals acronym. The school could build around, and perhaps personalize this method, to suit their specific needs. Perhaps a focus on literacy using the SMART approach: "SMART Focus on Literacy for 2025-2026". This school could build PD and School Improvement Team (SIT) goals around both math and reading literacy using SMART goals.

The difficult part must be to now build PD and other meaningful activities with the theme in mind. This is perhaps why broad theme-based strokes may allow for flexibility for the upcoming school year. The above SMART goal example may limit the school by a too narrow focus on reading and math literacy, when perhaps additional focus may be needed on academic integrity, thus leaving some wiggle room should be considered when developing the school-wide theme. Planning with the end in mind is always helpful. So imagine a school with the following theme:  "We set the PACE for 2025-2026".  Another acronym with P for positive mindset, A for academic integrity, C for content experts, and E for setting high expectations. Plus, the "We set the PACE" school uses their staff surveys and students assessment results to plan for the upcoming year and makes the needs-based decision to focus on student/staff morale, goal-setting, and diving deeper into content areas. Now, planning PD on growth mindset, using SMART goals, and using instructional strategies that promote more in-depth analysis of the various content areas may seem more manageable and cohesive.

If your school engages in annual theme development and planning, how does this work in your school? Is it a collaborative process? Are parents involved? How does the school insure fidelity to activities and PD being connected to the theme throughout the school year? What happens when an unexpected paradigm shift occurs that may cause the school to veer away from the theme?

Power Hack(man)

It has been a tough week for many reasons, not the least of which being the passing of actor Gene Hackman. Gene Hackman was a wonderful actor and starred in many influential and entertaining films. A favorite was the 1997 film, Absolute Power. In the film, Hackman portrays a power drunk POTUS who spends most of his time covering his misdeed(s). The quote below perhaps also lends an idea of the plot played out in the film.

• "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." ~John Dalberg-Acton

This seems an appropriate time to review the roles of leadership and power in education.

Merriam-Webster defines leadership, a noun, as:  

• the office or position of a leader. 
• capacity to lead
• the act or an instance of leading

Merriam-Webster defines power, which may be used a noun, verb AND adjective, as:

• Noun usage
• the ability to act or product an effect
• possession of control, authority or influence over others
• Verb usage
• to supply with power, especially motive power
• Adjective usage
• of, relating to, or utilizing strength

Next up is the relationship between leadership and power. The Center for Creative Leadership has an informative article if a review is needed.

Experiences in schools likely vary widely, but for most of my career, I have worked with leaders who value and healthily exercise the power of expertise, relationship-building, charisma (or referent), reward, and when needed, positional. Fundamentally, I feel punishment should be used rarely. In my opinion, overuse of the power of punishment is the function of a deficit mindset as well as assuming negative intent in others. Most schools and leaders subscribe to a growth mindset and assume positive intent in others. 

It is important to note the use of the term control (underlined) in the noun usage definition of power. Many years ago I learned to use the term manage over the term control simply because control is not frequently necessary or desirable in education. Manage has always been a more desirable and realistic term for describing the day-to-day flow of a school. One does not control a classroom of 32 students, one strives to manage the classroom for realistic and meaningful student outcomes on a daily basis. I believe the pursuit, or overuse, of control could be the variable that tips the powerful leader towards being the leader with absolute power. We know where that may lead.

Onward

PD for Peace and High-Performance

Do you work in an environment where employee morale is high? How is that achieved? How is that maintained and encouraged to flourish into something beyond extraordinarily high employee morale?

Building-level educators have been searching for this Holy Grail for years. What does high educator morale look and feel like? How about this aspiration:  Educators aspire to be able to be "at peace" while performing at their highest level? What do you think?

While working as a teacher and alongside teachers for over two decades, one very frequent and relevant obstacle to educator peace is classroom management. Most educators love their content and invest time and energy into beefing up their content knowledge. Many educators love to mix up their instructional delivery and in-class activities and will invest time and energy into this endeavor. Lots of educators love to incorporate proven instructional methods, such as Socratic Seminar, PEAK, UbD, Paideia, Inquiry, etc and will spend considerable time and energy here. All of the above are interesting and fun educational "stuff" to learn about for many, if not most, invested educators.

While working as a teacher and alongside teachers for over two decades, one very frequent and relevant obstacle to educator peace is classroom management. Most educators do not love unacceptable student behavior that interrupts anything involving the previous paragraph. This is a recurring theme, year after year. Perhaps the morale issue lies somewhere in this puzzle...the puzzle of student behavior.

Invested educators, in order to attempt to enhance morale, need to take a deep dive into getting a better understanding of student behavior. This cannot be surface level and it cannot continue to be the blame game. The latter refers to the following: 

• "This is a parenting problem. The parents need to fix this." 
• "This student does not belong in this class, the disruption is impeding the learning of other students. Fix this."
• "Administrators are not supporting efforts to take control of discipline. Fix this"
• "Student consequences are not punitive enough, a message needs to be sent to all who do not obey the rules/expectations. Fix this."

Just wondering how the above bullet points might impact the morale of parents, students, and administrators. Not to mention the educators in the building who may have already invested in a deeper understanding of student behavior.

What does this look like...this deeper dive into understanding student behavior? Three key elements come to mind for ongoing professional development for all educators who are student-facing (sorry central office and district folks - just stay in your office buildings, nothing to see here).

• Root Cause Analysis - introductory information here.
• Conflict Resolution - introductory information here.
• The concept that student behavior is a form of communication - introductory information here.

Learning more about these elements would be time well-spent along with the other fun stuff from paragraph #2. However, the deep dive into these PDs may not be fun, but are necessary...kind of like answering the 25 odd-numbered questions on the Pythagorean Theorem worksheet, perhaps not fun, but necessary for growth and ongoing learning and personal/professional development.

Raising Arizona - "Simple" Solutions

I recently rewatched "Oppenheimer"...great movie and story, also some amazing scientific history. Not to mention the giants of science involved in the many projects and investigations from that time period...Einstein, Bohr, Rabi, Alvarez, Fermi. One phrase, repeated in the movie, "Theory will only take us so far..." came to mind when I encountered the article, from the Arizona Capitol Times, below:

• https://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2024/03/27/bill-would-get-state-involved-in-student-discipline/
  

A close read of the article teases out common issues in education that have been discussed, analyzed, and commented on, it seems, since time immemorial. Consider what is explicitly mentioned in the article:

• Schools should remain a proper environment for education
• The ability to control and maintain order in the classroom may be correlated to success for teachers and students
• Frequently "nothing is done" in response to unacceptable student behavior and "many kids run roughshod all over the school"
• Schools are assigned letter grades based upon various criteria and stakeholders may consider these letter grades for various purposes such as school choice
• Teachers need more support, including mentor support, paraprofessional support, mental health support, and administrative support
• Teacher compensation, retention, and attrition continue to be concerns
• Tough actions like suspensions and expulsions may be needed to get a handle on student discipline
• "It is really hard to be a teacher right now."
• Class sizes may be correlated to success for teachers and students
• "Restorative discipline" is being used in some schools/districts

Now, for any/all aware, engaged, experienced, locked-in educators out there....are ANY of the above issues new or novel?

How about if we frame any of those issues and think like a scientist, "theory will only take us so far". Are we, as educators, to assume that educational research and effective instructional practices may not be the place to look for solutions, resolutions, suggestions, ideas, etc.?

Perhaps we should just follow the suggestion of Rep. John Seaman, D-Casa Grande and have the "local board talk to the administrator and make change in their philosophy". Heck, ol' John has been a teacher, principal, superintendent, and now state politician...he must have some informed opinions and relevant experiences to share.

One wonders though, whose philosophy is being "changed"...the administrator or the nebulous "local board". Shouldn't these philosophies already be aligned if this administrator and "local board" are in the same location? Does this suggest a philosophical disconnect between the "local board" and the administrator?

Is it really as simple as making "change in their philosophy" anyway? Most local/school philosophies are based upon student academic achievement. Do these philosophies need to be changed? Maybe we should incorporate a discipline statement, sort of a conditional statement for learning in schools. "ALL students, exhibiting acceptable behavior, can learn!" Perhaps, "If you can behave acceptably, then we can teach you." Or maybe a take on an oldie, "No Acceptably Behaved Student Left Behind!".

All sarcasm and satire aside, student behavior has long been a variable in our ongoing public education experiment. Educators have existing methods to address unacceptable student behavior. These methods, like those in many societies strive to deter unacceptable student behavior as well as punish those who behave unacceptably. Again, this is not new nor novel. Below are two articles that may lend additional perspective.

"Make Classrooms, not Hallways, the Heart of Belonging" by Ronald James, Jr.

"Speaking Out:  Disciplining Other People's Children" by Carey Dahncke

Engage the Day!

Let's start with a quote:

"It's biologically impossible to learn something if we are not attending to it, and we don't attend to things that are not emotionally important to us." ~Robert Sylwester from A Biological Brain in a Cultural Classroom

Simplification (Series anyone?) of student engagement is an undertaking. Even wrapping your head around "types" of student engagement can be confounding and, for the most part, student engagement is not measurable. Types of student engagement may range, depending upon your source, from a classroom that is totally chaotic (Student Rebellion), trending in the wrong direction (Student Retreat), command and control (Student Ritual Compliance), intelligent adherence (Student Strategic Compliance) and, of course Utopia (Active/Authentic Student Engagement). The search for Utopia can be a long, yet worthwhile endeavor and much like what has been previously discussed, the steady state of active engagement may be fleeting and require ongoing minor adjustments by the classroom teacher. 

The classroom teacher must have the capacity to regulate internal classroom conditions, such as student engagement. If we take Robert Sylwester's quote to heart, then making content and skills emotionally important to students seems to be first on the to-do list and is of primary importance. How is consistent, daily, uninterrupted authentic student engagement possible? First, the reflective and aware educator must have a handle on the level of student engagement in the classroom from day to day. To be unaware, dismissive, or deflective about student engagement is counterproductive. The classroom teacher must also embrace that student experiences are as important, or perhaps more important, than student outcomes. Educators must be willing to consider that student experiences (the journey) go hand-in-hand with student outcomes (the destination). Active student engagement is the primary focus of the journey. Making the material come to life, making the material relevant, making the material relatable.....the list of maxims and adages goes on and on.

Student engagement is more important now (2024), than ever before. Student attention and interest is pulled and diverted in multiple directions all day, every day. Student disengagement and disinterest can seem ubiquitous. However, there is no magic strategy, method, or app to consistently engage students. Educators must re-engage, if not engaged already, in the effective and research-based practices of mentoring, coaching, professional development, peer interaction, collaboration, conversation, etc. The time for creative problem-solving, innovation, and collaboration is NOW. Let's go!!!

Finding the Balance - Homeostasis in the Classroom

Mr. Miyagi was on to something when teaching Daniel(son) about finding the balance. Balance, so to speak, is maintained by a process known as homeostasis in living systems. In "simple" terms, remember this is a series, humans have hormones and nerve cells to regulate bodily functions, such as blood sugar concentration and heart rate. If the classroom is the functional subunit of the school, then the classroom teacher is the primary regulator of that subunit. The classroom teacher is searching for the balance and the one maintaining order. Further, the one working to maintain the steady state for optimum learning, engagement, fun, rigor, relevance, and, perhaps, a multitude of other variables. Not simple.

Building upon the above and the previous post, this can be viewed in the hypothetical classroom with the teacher as artist, diagnostician, and now regulator. From the human digestion unit, the artist teacher has planned, designed, and implemented lessons and activities from the unit. The artist teacher is also regulating student engagement, behavior, environment, etc. Always looking for the steady state for optimum learning...minor adjustments here and there. The diagnostician teacher may now use formative assessment, during the human digestive system application activity, to address errors in process, facts, concepts, skills, etc. Always looking for the steady state for optimum learning...minor adjustments here and there. The positive impact of assessing during learning allows the classroom teacher to make minor adjustments, such as the AID note, thereby maintaining the steady state of student learning and engagement. Simple and minor are synonyms (in my book). Minor adjustments during learning (formative assessment) combined with ongoing major engagement with content and skills can lead to positive impacts in student learning in the classroom. Speaking of engagement...that will be the topic of the next post in the Simplification Series.

Simplification Series

Simple can be an insulting word. "Come on, it is sooooo simple!" The person on the receiving end of this exclamation is often times NOT in the midst of a simple endeavor, like teaching. Teaching is not simple. However, processes associated with teaching may be simplified and that is the premise of this series of blog posts:  Simplification. I have been influenced by Peter DeWitt's emphasis on de-implementation as well as my own ongoing love affair with reductionism (more here).

I am borrowing a protocol from healthcare to build upon. This healthcare protocol is called a SOAP note. It appears that healthcare and education share their love of acronyms! SOAP is Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan. Without doing a deep dive, this is what a healthcare provider might "note" in a patient's chart:  "Patient presents with abdominal pain (Subjective), has a fever (Objective), CT Scan is abnormal/appendix inflamed (Objective), white blood cell count is elevated (Objective). Analysis/conclusion is appendicitis (Assessment) and an appendectomy (Plan) is ordered. That represents a critical moment in time for the patient and the healthcare provider. Let's flip the script.

A science educator's curriculum outlines a lesson (as part of a module/unit) on the human digestive system. At this point, the class has been on this module/unit for several class periods and should be ready for an application-type activity. Should be ready...how does the educator know? Formative assessment would be ideal here and let's say this clever science educator uses a SOAP note on a hypothetical patient as part of the application activity. Of course, the educator wants to mix it up, so collaborative groups of students work on different application activities, with different SOAP notes, associated with the structure, function, and diseases of the human digestive system. What if the educator uses an AID note for themself and their student(s)? 

AID is Assess(ment), Instruct(ion), Determine next steps. Nothing earth-shattering here, but what if this AID note is just for this activity/lesson. Feedback is based upon this simple "note". The feedback is for the student and the educator, much like the SOAP note is for the patient and the healthcare provider. Important information for both parties and the information is provided in a simplified, timely, and actionable format.

Scenario:  Collaborative student group finishes activity and shares that their patient has indigestion/reflux and should begin a regimen of antacids (this "diagnosis"should sound familiar to the stressed educator!). Well, the SOAP note for this group was the appendicitis SOAP note example from above, so this group is off course. This is where the AID note becomes like a chemical equation because assessment and instruction are reversible in education. Re-teaching is possible, re-looping is possible, re-testing is possible, etc. This is one of the many positives to using formative assessments....actionable assessment information, in the midst of instruction, so adjustments can still be made. The AID process can also be presented like a reversible chemical reaction:

Determine Next Steps <------ Assess(ment)  <------>  Instruct(ion) ------> Determine Next Steps

The last thing the science educator wants is for this group's misdiagnosis to become a misconception. No educator wants an avoidable misconception to move further down the road and then become fossilized. The aware educator visits this group and has a fruitful discussion with the group of students regarding their thinking/analysis of the available information regarding their patient. This process discussion allows the educator to pinpoint where student thinking went off course and now the science educator can, hopefully, right the course. Please note that all of this revolves around one lesson (simplified), in one classroom (functional subunit of the school), during one class period (simplified). Nothing about the above is simple, heck it took six paragraphs to convey the "simple" message and it may not still be clear to the reader. Thankfully, this is a simplification series, so stay tuned!