Words Matter

Words are important and some people even think they are more important than numbers and equations (silly folks these are). So what words do people search for when they consult the oracle? Well here is the top 10 according to Merrian-Webster (I don’t think these are alternative facts or fake news).

10.  feckless, meaning “weak” or “ineffective”. It comes from the Scottish word feck, which can mean “value” or “worth”, and so a thing that is feckless may also be said to be “worthless”. Searches for this word spiked dramatically after Mike Pence used it in the vice-presidential debate in October.

9. Faute de mieux is pronounced \foht-duh-MYUH\ and means “for lack of something better”. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg used the French expression in a written opinion for a decision announced in June causing the surge in searches.

8. Assumpsit is a legal term defined as an express or implied promise or contract, the breach of which may be grounds for a lawsuit. Congressman Joe Kennedy introduced his former professor, Senator Elizabeth Warren, at the Democratic National Convention with an anecdote about his embarrassing first day of law school including assumpsit.

7. irregardless Was used on the air by one of the broadcasters calling the final game of the World Series. This started a fire storm on social media claiming it isn’t even a word. Merrian-Webster categorizes it as “nonstandard” and suggest using regardless instead.

6. deplorable is defined as an adjective meaning either “lamentable” or “deserving censure or contempt,” a synonym of “wretched” or “abominable”. Hillary Clinton used deplorables, which makes it a noun and Merrian-Webster doesn’t have a definition for it.

5.  bigly is an adverb meaning "in a big manner" or, archaically, "in a swelling blustering manner". The funny thing is Donald Trump never said it. He actually said was big league, using it as an adverb, as in: “I’m going to cut taxes big league.”  Problem is big league is only defined as a noun or adjective.

4. In omnia paratus, the Latin phrase that means “ready for all things”. Finally one not from politics but from Netflix and their revival of “Gilmore girls”

3. Icon means “a person who is very successful and admired”. After the death of Prince (or whatever name or symbol you use) searches for icon spiked. It was a bad year for rock and roll with his and many other passings.

2. Revenant means "one that returns after death or a long absence," and comes from the French word that means "to return”. Again thanks to the world of entertainment due to the movie of the same name.

1. Surreal “marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream.” And if that isn’t fitting for this year I don’t know what is.

Its been a while

I was perusing social media the other day and came across an article from the World Economic Forum titled The 10 skills you need to thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The article talked about the next industrial revolution stating in 2020 (the year my son graduates high school) and what skills employers will find the most desirable in their employees. It also had the list of those skills from their 2015 report.

A few of my student found me blog the other day and asked why the last entry was so long ago. A very good questions. It inspired me to write a new post.

This list of skills got me thinking about what we teach our students. As high school teachers we tend to be content driven, thinking our content is the second most important (since we all know physics is the most important). Well on this list of skills there is no content material, so how does our teaching translate and prepare our students with these skills? And how does their grade or success in our class or score on a standardized test measure these skills?

It was also interesting to see what skills have moved up and down in importance in the last 5 years and are new or have been dropped from the list. I am not so sure how some of the skills on the list, especially the two new skills (Emotional Intelligence and Cognitive Flexibility) would be specifically measured. Well it just shows that the “Shift Happens” video from 2008 may have been correct: “We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that haven’t been invented, in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet”. The skills and objects we teach every day in class need to somehow ultimately give our students the skills they will need to be successfully in the fourth industrial revolution.

Back in the Saddle

Well my district has decided that supporting technology in the classroom is not worth the price. With the cut of CFF and no other grant funds available our CFF/math coach is now just a math coach and the Technology Integration Mentor (me) was cut. So now I am back in the classroom, and I am fine with that. I love teaching and being in the classroom, but I worry about teachers and their use of technology. Who will support them? Who will plan with them? Who will co-teach with them? Who will provide feedback as a critical friend? The answer is unfortunately no one. I feel the investment made in technology in the last 5 years will not be used to its full potential. It has caused me much angst as the year has started when I have to tell fellow teachers that I will not be able to help them this year, and when they ask who will I say "I don't know".

The other thing that has me down is my classroom. Since I have been out of the classroom for the past 3 years while the CFF project was installing Smartboards and other equipment, my room was left out. So now the guy with the most training and experience in using technology has none to use. So now the task becomes figuring out how to get the equipment and/or make the best use of the little I have. I was hoping the big lottery jackpot a few weeks ago would provide the answer, but not this time. So now I am on the lookout for ways to get my hands on what every I can.

Being back in the without a lot of technology has given me the chance to implement some other changes. Between having our reading specialist as an office-mate for the past three years, Reading Apprenticeship training and this year taking the Performance Learning System (PLS) course Reading Across the Curriculum, I have embraced literacy and reading in the content area as a major focus in my classroom. In fact I plan on teaching the PLS class this spring. So with reading everyday in the classroom and a renewed and deliberate focus on metacognition I am off and running on a new school year. Much different than any of the past 20 plus years but one I am really excited about. After all being a classroom teacher is the most important job in the world.

6 Secrets for Change

It has been a long time since I posted here. Much of the time I can only find time to twitter about what I am doing or thinking. It's not that there are things I wish I had blogged about, like the time just before winter break when several former students stopped in for visits, including one of my favorite former students now at MIT, the Saturday technology workshop that I put together for the teachers in my district and great colleagues that were willing to come and present, or the great eye opening experience I had while presenting at the Student PSEA conference. But alas I was unable or unwilling to find the time to get the job done, shame on me. This time I put my air travel time too good use and will get this one done.
On Friday I heard two keynote addresses, the first from Paul Vallas , former Superintendent of Philadelphia, and Michael Fullan. I was in New Orleans, so Paul stopped by since he is the current Superintendent of the Recovery School District of New Orleans. He just gave us a brief overview of his work since Katrina. He himself said he was just a warm-up for Michael Fullan. Mr. Fullan presented his 6 secrets for change, 2-4 he called the core and 1 & 6 are the wrap-arounds. It was not the typical "keynote" but rather a mini-workshop which included many opportunities for meaningful discussion among our team.

His 6 secrets for change are:

1. Love your employees
2. Connect peers with purpose
3. Capacity building prevails
4. Learning is work
5. Transparency rules
6. Systems learn

Before he spoke about the secrets he presented 5 insights into change.

1. The implementation dip is normal
2. Behaviors change before beliefs
3. The size and prettiness of the plan document is inversely propositional to the quality of action
4. Shared vision and ownership is more an outcome of quality process than it is a predictor
5. Feelings are more influential than thoughts

I had heard of the implementation dip before, but Fullan used a graphical business model (Herold & Fedor, 2008) that made made it a whole lot clearer in my mind. The basic idea is that after any change in made, it is normal that it will have a negative effect, but once the you get though the dip, the gains will realized. What Fullan presented is during the "recover phase" there will be much resistance and a push to abandon the change. To go along with that the leaders that made the change will be criticized and may even be targets of attack. This is were leaders must be strong and stay the course. The harder job is to make the slope of the graph be as steep as possible during the recovery phase. So be open with people about the implementation dip, and be prepared and willing to take the heat. If you have thoughtfully implemented change, that you know in your heart is good for students, then keep focused on the results that you want to achieve. But what is change and how do we manage it?

What do we need to change in education? Materials, behaviors and practices, and beliefs. Our district PATHS initiative requires all of these, the biggest being a shift by all people in the system to the belief that all children can graduate college ready. How do manage change? Through the use of change forces (almost like physics) which promote a bias to action in individuals. The difficulty comes in finding the change forces and making sure the bias to action is not to run the change agent out of town. In order to do this we need to manage change differently. Listen to the people who's behavior you want to change and become servants of that change. Demand and expect behaviors to change, in the hope that beliefs will follow, but it cannot be done with the accountability. In order for change to be effective a system of support and trust must be developed. Support must come in the form of administrators that are truly instructional leaders. At the district level that means putting the resources and building leaders in place and then letting them do their job and not micro-manage the process. As for building leaders ask for the resources, like coaching, time for peer visit and review, and building directed PD. As for the teachers, belief is not necessary (yet), but compliance and truly taking advantage of opportunities that are presented is an expectation. Teaching is hard work, and reform is even harder. The biggest step is to reflect on your practice and suggestions that you are given. In fact seek feedback from your peers, coaches or building administrators.

How do you manage or promote change? This is where Fullan's secrets come in. Secrets 2-5 he called the core so lets start. Secret 2: Connect peers with purpose. Change cannot be managed from the top down. While it may need to start at the top, it also has to percolate from the bottom up. This change force must be lead from the within and needs to be supported from above. Secret 3: Capacity building prevails. Change is difficult and causes fear. Fear prevents acting on knowledge. Non action makes change fail. So be non judgmental while change is occurring and help build the capacity. Giving non judgmental feedback take practice, it just not happen. Secret 4: Learning is the work. Before a new concept/change is put in place there must be a few things that are understood. It is non-negotiable and participation in not optional. It must be precise and well thought out, no random or vague ideas. It need to possess high yield strategies and strong instructional practices. But lastly it cannot kill innovation or creativity. Secret 5: Transparency rules. This is a true paradigm shift in education. No longer is it acceptable to close your door and keep your practice to yourself. This will only happen with a trusting environment. Transparency + Non judgementalism + Good help/coaching = Classroom improvement. Those are the core now the over arching. Secret 1: Love your employees. Seems so simple, but it is so easy for things we say and do to be heard or taken the wrong way. Why is this so important? If you do not feed the teachers they will eat the students. Secret 6: Systems learn. Leaders, teachers and learners leave a system, the culture stays. What is the legacy that you will leave in your classroom, school and district.

It was hard for me to sun-up two and half hours in such a short post. My advice, if you get a chance go hear Michael Fullan. I will close using what Michael asked as a rhetorical question. Where are you on the continuum of the nuances of the secrets to change?

1. Blind love to Indifference
2. Command & control to Fragmentation
3. Judgemental to Liaise-fair
4. Relentless consistency to Innovation/bad practice
5. Aimless transparency to Privacy
6. Dead certainty to Deer in the headlights

How do you make sure change happens for you

• Talk to people that are smarter than you, every day
• Make mistakes
• Make time to reflect

ESP of the Year

Well so much for keeping up with post, or even getting caught up from the summer. I started this almost a month ago and am now just getting to finish it. At the NEA-RA each year we get to meet and hear from the teacher and educational support professional of the year. These educators are always inspiring, dedicated and well deserving of the honor, and this year was no exception. This year's ESP of the year was Laura Vernon and at the close of her speech she read a poem that she wrote, it says it all.

When did we become the enemy?

The target of scorn
The Hero unborn
The reason they fall
The brunt of it all

When did we become the enemy?

The purpose for unkind
The hidden victim of No Child left behind
Said to be a monument, but with no solution
Even called terrorist, deserving execution

When did we become the enemy?

Labeled failure, not in the running
High expectations without the funding
Training, experience, education specified
But to them, not highly qualified

When did we become the enemy?

Hard work, unappreciated labor
Their answer to funding, Tabor?
Taxes rising, money depleture
Easy blame, why not the teacher

When did we become the enemy?

Teacher Cadillac Insurance, be the foe
We are not the reason for the Health Care woe
Cut backs, eliminations, Education pollution
Their remedy, 65% solution
Created reasons they exercise
To justify, to privatize

When did we become the enemy?

So cooks, janitors, secretaries, security
They're not important, a liability
Bus drivers, paras, they've cut the cost
They are always first to be layed off

When did we become the enemy?

Have they dismissed the history of this nation
Education is rooted in it's very foundation
Have they not noticed that we with pleasure
Nurture and mold our future's treasure
Have they forgotten, because of our dedication
They received an education

When did we become the enemy?

Well we're not taking this lying down
In fact, we as educators are going to turn this around
And whoever they are had better take note
The greatest power we have is the right to vote

Now just watch our educators organize
Because despite what they might think, we are highly qualified
An enemy maybe in their eyes
But a change is coming in their lives and when history is made, and education once again becomes this country's necessary feature, they had better think twice before attacking our students, retired, Higher Ed, ESP and the teacher.

Do not forget to vote, and when you pull the lever think about the candidate, local, state or national, that is a friend of education, because if we do not help ourselves politically who will?

Opening Day

Well last Thursday we had new student orientation and several hundred 9th graders showed up for their first day of high school. There was the usual stuff; finding homerooms, getting lockers, touring the building, and running though a mini-schedule. All of this was preceded by an assembly where the main speaker was the principal. This was the fourth time I have heard him give this opening and each year there is something new or I hear it in just a slightly different way. So what was new for this year? A rhetorical question "Why are you here" it is for one of three reasons (natural I boiled 20 minutes down to 3 lines):

1. Someone made you come today.
2. You have the goal to graduate high school.
3. You want to prepare yourself for your future.

Obviously choice three is the one that we hope all students make, and I am sure that most of them do. So the real challenge is how to change the number 1s and 2s into number 3s? When I come up with the plan that works then I can really retire, so until then I will just have to keep on trying to make a difference where ever I can. After all that is what teaching is all about. My principal has ended every 9th grade opening with the same three keys to success. His claim, do these three thing and you will be successful in preparing yourself for your future.

1. Show up and be on time every day, all 720 of them.
2. Treat everyone you meet, teachers, staff and fellow students, the way you would like to be treated.
3. You have to do your work, the only one on in the list that is actually difficult.

Well there you have it the simple way to help your students have a great year. I also just got a chance to watch the key note of Dalton Sherman at convocation of the Dallas Independent School District, if you have not seen it yet watch it. I have lots of great ideas for this year and I still need to get some post written from this summer, so my goal is to keep up with posts this year.

One for Us

I spent the last few days of June at the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in San Antonio TX. After that conference I traveled to Washington DC to attend the National Education Association Representative Assemble (NEA-RA). The NEA-RA is the largest democratically run meeting in the world with over 9,000 delegates debating, discussing and voting on the direction of the organization. The NEA represents 3.2 million teachers in all 50 states. It truly is democracy in action and I have a story to prove it.

At the RA any member can submit a New Business Item (NBI) that they would like to see the NEA take action on. One such item was proposed by a woman from New Jersey. NBI 67 "That NEA recommends the banning of all student personal electronic devices, especially cellphones, from the classroom". Well I immediately went into tech defender mode. I went a spoke to the woman to see if I could offer a friendly amendment to her NBI, that would remove the word banning. Her response was that they were already going to modify it to except education or medical uses (that would be just about everything in my view). Seeing she was not going to budge, I went to my delegation from PA and asked them to support my amending the motion to read "That NEA recommends the teaching of appropriate use of all student personal electronic devices, especially cellphones". The PA delegation agreed to let me try to amend the motion and speak on their behalf.

The time came for NBI 67 to be discussed and voted on. The maker of the motion asked to modify the motion to add the part about educational and medical, and then got a chance to give her rational. There were a few questions ask, but then came my turn. The Chair, President Reg Weaver said "Microphone 15 Lee Speers seeking to amend, mike 15". A spotlight comes on the red light on podium 15 turns on and there is my face on 4 big screens, and several smaller ones, in front of almost 10,000 people. "Yes President Weaver I would like to amend NBI 67 with the language I submitted." President Weaver asked for my amendment to be placed on the screen. For the first time the delegates at the NEA-RA see the proposal, the room grows eerily quiet and then a slight murmur. The leadership from all of the state delegations starts talking to see if they will recommend supporting the change. President Weaver asked the maker if she would accept the modification (I know what her answer is). After she says no, it is now my opportunity to speak to my amendment. Here is the text of my remarks:

Before traveling to DC I was in San Antonio TX attending the National Educational Computing Conference NECC with 20,000 other committed educators that use technology. While at NECC I attended many professional development session all using technology and many using cell phones.

A couple quick facts about cell phone use. There are currently 3.3 billion active cell phones world wide, that is one cell phone for every 2 people on the planet. There are currently 30 plus countries in the world that have 100% saturation (one cell phone for every man, woman and child), the US is not one of them. Presently in the US 16% of all households have only cell phone service and that number is growing rapidly. In the US there are more active cell phones than home computers. What does all this mean, there is no way to enforce a cell phone ban. So what is the alternative?

Do and will students use cell phones improperly? Sure they do, but they use computers, pens, pencils and even crayons improperly too, and do we ban them? No instead we do what good educators do when students misbehave. We teach them how to use the equipment properly. We need to do the same thing with technology, not, run from it, fear it or ban it, but help our students understand it and use it properly. The International Society for Technology in Education ISTE has developed National Education Technology Standards NETS. These standards have not only been developed for students, but also teachers, administrators and technology leaders. All of these standards address good digital citizenship when using technology. And who better to teach students these standards than US, the members of the NEA? Please do not stick you head in the sand and support this amendment to NBI 67.

Much to my surprise and relief twice during my remarks I was interrupted by applause and again at the end got a nice round of congratulations from the delegates. The signals from state leadership began popping up throughout the room, most show a positive recommendation. Then came the vote, my amendment had passed and was now the main motion! Several people were called on to speak that were originally opposed to the NBI, but commented that with the amendment they were now in support of it. There was another amendment to the item, basically making more wordy, but in the end NBI 67 passed and the NEA was not recommending banning any technology from the classroom. So now the 3.2 million members of the NEA are not for banning technology in the classroom. Use that fact with your stubborn tech director next time. Who knows, maybe next year there will be an NBI about the use of web 2.0 applications.