5 Ways To Build a Culture of Collaboration

5 Ways To Build a Culture of Collaboration with Staff, Teachers and Parents

By Sharon D. Kruse

Kruse is the author of the AASA book Building Strong School Cultures: A Leader’s Guide to Change, published by Corwin Press.

Creating a school culture that ensures positive outcomes for all students requires an “all hands on deck” approach to meeting the needs of the school community. Yet, bringing staff, teachers and parents together to do the work of the school is not easy. Collaboration cannot be coerced nor compelled. Rather, school leaders must help all members of the school community feel a sense of pride and ownership in their work.
The following tips can help you build a culture of collaboration in your school.

• Focus on a clear outcome. The best collaborative projects focus on improving student success and making the school a better place for children to learn. As important as those goals are, words like “success” and “better” lack specificity, making it difficult for people to understand how they can contribute to those goals. Instead, clearly state the desired outcome of a collaborative project, such as “build a new playground,” “develop a tutoring program” or “explore ways for students to participate in service learning.”
• Expand leadership opportunities. While it may seem counterintuitive, asking staff, teachers and parents to take on leadership roles—doing more work rather than less—can have positive results. Expanding leadership opportunities develops a critical mass of school members who have leadership skills. As more members become adept at helping the school achieve its goals, more work can be accomplished. Expanding leadership opportunities also reinforces a core tenet of collaboration: equality among all parties.
• Create meaningful opportunities for work. People are more willing to collaborate on work that has a significant personal meaning for them. Organizing people around projects in which they feel personally invested will create more synergy for the project, energizing faculty, staff and parents and advancing a collaborative culture. Use a short interest inventory to get a sense of what projects are meaningful to members of your school community. List areas for which you have immediate need, such as data collection and analysis, short- or long-term planning, communication, or afterschool programming and ask respondents to indicate their interest in those areas.. Provide several blank spaces for school community members to answer questions such as, “What talents or skills could you share with the school?” and “How would you like to become involved with making our school a success?” Then organize committees around areas of shared interest and provide a charge (or let them develop their own charge) that can focus their collective effort.
• Coordinate efforts. Managing collaborative work is vital to success. You can coordinate and manage efforts in several ways, including online through chat rooms and blogs or at committee meetings during which members regularly report on their progress. Capitalize on work across teams. For example, the fundraising group might share their list of contacts with other committees so community agencies are not asked multiple times to donate money or time to the school.
• Celebrate the work of others. Finally, celebrate your successes! Find ways to publicize your ongoing collaborative work, giving credit to those who have taken on new roles. As projects draw to a close, focus on the ways collaborative work has enhanced the school and the neighborhood. Use your celebrations to recruit new partners and fortify future collaboration. In this way, collaboration becomes rooted in the school’s culture.

When staff, teachers and parents work together, schools can be happier, healthier places where shared goals are reached and everyone feels a sense of belonging.
Learn MoreFor more on this topic, read Building Strong School Cultures: A Leader’s Guide to Change by Sharon Kruse and Karen Seashore Louis, published by Corwin Press (2009).
About the AuthorSharon D. Kruse is a professor in the Department of Educational Foundations and Leadership at the University of Akron. During the past two decades, she has studied school leadership and successful school improvement practices as a researcher and as a consultant for schools and school districts. E-mail: skruse@uakron.edu.

A guide to effective communcation

Learn a Second "Foreign" Language

7 Reasons to Learn a Foreign Language

 

Foreign languages open doors to opportunities - whether you're in a distant land, hoping to broaden your mind, or even looking for a date. Studies show those who know a foreign language earn more and are happier than those who don't.

Learning a foreign language is naturally a process that require effort and time, much or not, depending on the capability of an individual. Current technology makes learning a second language more flexible and easier. You can learn at anywhere you like, in your car while trapped in traffic jam, while waiting for commuter to arrive or fishing at Lake Garden, by means of many types of medium such as cassette, CD and the Internet, such as at www.malaylanguage.mypositivemoney.com where you will find a good resource of foreign language. Below a just a few reasons why you should learn another language:

1. Most significant yet simple reason - Eliminate the language barrier that you may face, easier for you to deal with other people when you go traveling or having work at other country. Majority of native people probably do not know to speak English fluently or do not know to speak English at all, so knowing some key phrases will help you a lot. Moreover, you will want to know what people around you are talking about while you shopping, waiting for taxi, or having dinner at a restaurant.

2. Local people tend to be friendlier with you since you speak same language with them. You also can get friend easily, which in return can help you greatly in dealing with certain troubles that you may encounter, and you might be do not know how to deal with, such as problem related with customary law. Locals also will believe you more than people who cannot speak their language, doesn’t it very important when you are in travel?

3. Knowing a foreign language really help when you are lost in a remote area where hardly you can find people who can speak English except local language.

4. Giving you chances to understand the exotic local traditions and way of living easier and deeper. This priceless experience is absolutely an opportunity not be missed for anyone who love to travel. You can share beautiful moment having fun with locals in occasion and understand the meaning behind it, which in the same time, give you knowledge.

5. Improve your memory skill resulting from activity of reading, learning and memorizing. Open up your mind to be more acceptable to other people’s differences. Your thinking will be more maturely and sensibly.

6. This is reality, guys: According to Kwintessential, people who learn a foreign language are wealthier, happier and are regarded sexier than those who can speak only English.

7. From a survey conducted in Britain involving 270 dating agencies, the result shows that people who speak or learn a foreign language are more attractive, intelligent and sexier to the opposite sex.

Hopefully some of the reasons above will give you some ideas on how important to learn additional language. Continuous learning for life leads to success and wisdom.

Extended school day!

What new research on extended school day says

By Valerie Strauss

This was written by Jodi Grant, executive director of the nonprofit Afterschool Alliance, a nonprofit organization that works to ensure that all children have access to affordable, quality afterschool programs.

By Jodi Grant
Two new studies are flashing warning signs about the move to extend the school day. The Department of Education has made extended learning time a centerpiece of its reform efforts. This could have been a breakthrough moment for our nation’s education system, encouraging community partnerships to expand learning in ways that help students succeed and bring new resources into our schools. As decades of research on afterschool and summer learning programs show, community partners and innovative teaching approaches can help engage and excite students in learning, boosting achievement.
But the extended day approach being implemented in many schools as a result of the department’s push to increase instructional time falls short. It largely ignores the deep body of research on what makes effective expanded learning. Instead, too many schools are merely adding another hour or so of regular class time onto the school day. Not surprisingly, two very recent studies suggest we might not accomplish much with this approach to improving schools.
The first study is from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress. GAO surveyed states about their experience with implementation of the federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) program. Researchers found that 26 states said they didn’t think they would be able to sustain the program’s extended learning time reforms after their federal grants expired, because they were too expensive. Just 10 said they thought they could keep it going.
GAO also found that SIG schools are challenged by the planning required to implement increased learning time well. SIG schools find it to be a complex and time consuming planning process and one that often is not embraced by stakeholders, including parents. So it’s expensive, challenging and may not be sustainable.
A second report, this one from the nonprofit think tank Education Sector, finds that schools’ results from extending their day depend to a great degree on how they implement the extension. The key to success, the study finds, is taking the opportunity to look at how time is used overall, as part of comprehensive reform. In other words, simply extending the school day and offering more of the same can’t be relied upon to do the trick.
The need for significant planning, combined with the need to position increased learning time as part of comprehensive reform, calls into question the use of three- to five-year discretionary grant programs like SIG and 21^st CCLC to implement a longer school day. Fortunately, there are alternatives to increasing learning time for all students that are easier to implement, less costly and therefore more likely to be sustained – and they have shown strong results.
The Ed Sector report highlights several successful extended learning efforts that go beyond adding more time to the classroom, including The After-school Corporation (TASC) model in New York, Citizen Schools in Boston, and the Providence After School Alliance model in Rhode Island. These models share a common foundation: strong afterschool programs, built around hands-on, experiential learning, and involving community partners. The approach builds on the regular school day, but with learning methods that engage students in different ways.
Many afterschool, before school and summer programs that offer this kind of experiential learning are supported – or were supported in their critical early years – by funds from 21^st Century Community Learning Centers, the chief federal funding stream for afterschool programs. That funding stream is in grave jeopardy right now, with the Department of Education encouraging states to divert afterschool those funds to programs to extend the school day.
So it would be wise, at this juncture, to step back and think for a moment. What’s made expanded learning so successful over the years? What role have community partners played in supporting learning and helping sustain expanded learning? As the reams of research show, afterschool and summer programs give kids a chance to learn differently: to explore academic subjects in a more informal, hands on setting, to take on team and leadership roles, to learn from a variety of community experts on everything from video production to robotics. Policymakers would do well to heed these lessons as they focus on improving the nation’s schools. It’s important to look before you leap when our children’s education, and their future, hangs in the balance.

Tips for Planning Interdisciplinary Units in Middle School

By Sarah Henchey

During my fifth year of teaching, my principal asked me to move from the 8th grade to the 6th grade. I suddenly became more aware of the range of students within a middle school: Some students still had baby teeth and believed in Santa while, one floor away, others were dangerously close to driving and shaving.

I soon realized that 6th graders needed more repetition and connectedness in their learning. Fresh from elementary school, where they'd spent most of the day with one teacher, they were not used to a patchwork curriculum in which class changes signified the boundaries between subjects.
I'd learned in my undergraduate coursework about how team-teaching could ease this transition, supporting students' social and emotional needs via interdisciplinary instruction. I just hadn't seen it in practice—until my principal arranged for a group of us to visit a nearby middle school.
The neighboring teachers shared the ups and downs of the process they had gone through to establish their interdisciplinary framework. They had faced challenges—but they were forthright about the impact their units had had on student learning and engagement.
Afterward, our 6th grade teachers committed to trying out one interdisciplinary unit by the end of the year. We stumbled through the planning and execution but learned a lot through our mini-experiment. This year, we vowed to make a more sustained commitment to interdisciplinarity—and we've already seen payoffs in the form of more intensive student engagement and better retention of knowledge.
Here are a few lessons we've learned:
Spread enthusiasm among your colleagues. You can't do this on your own, so think carefully about the "pitch" you'll make to your colleagues. Show them some examples of how collaboration can make a difference: Perhaps you could visit another school, view a video of successful collaboration, or discuss articles like this one. You may want to do some advance thinking about topics that really lend themselves to interdisciplinary teaching.
Consider starting small. Organizing and executing an interdisciplinary unit can be a daunting task. There are many ways to experiment with this concept without committing to a large unit. Consider skills or experiences that correspond with your students' needs. For a few weeks, could your grade focus on analyzing informational texts or strategies for identifying unknown words in context? Is there a broad theme, such as "change" or "relationships," that could be highlighted over the next month?
Set broad time frames. We've found it helpful to focus on incorporating the interdisciplinary focus over a broad period of time, like a nine-week grading period. This allows teachers the chance to thoughtfully weave the shared goals into their content area without feeling restricted by time.
Avoid superficial connections. While interdisciplinary units aim to help students make connections across contents, we want those links to be as purposeful and meaningful as possible. We try to not "force" overlap or expect that all teachers will approach it in the same way. Depending on the unit, one teacher may incorporate the shared content in three class periods while another may spend the majority of his class time focused on the interdisciplinary content.
Communicate early and often. In most schools, teacher planning time is stretched far too thin—but frequent communication is vital to creating an effective interdisciplinary unit. It can be difficult to find common planning time, but we've successfully used tools like Google Docs to communicate and provide updates. This pre-meeting work has allowed for productive use of our valuable face-to-face meeting time.
Celebrate success with students. Our own excitement around a unit directly translates into student engagement and buy-in. We've found ways to celebrate the hard work teachers and students have invested in our learning. For example, after a two-month exploration of Greek and Roman cultural legacies, we held a Classical Antiquities Week. Culminating events included Olympic Games and an evening called, "Party at the Parthenon," where students shared their learning with their families.
Taking simple steps to making connections for students can go a long way in helping them to better understand and synthesize their learning. We're hopeful to continue adding to our integrated units each year, allowing for more connected learning for students. What experiences have you had with interdisciplinary units? What tips would you add to the list above?

Sarah Henchey teaches middle school language arts in the Orange County (N.C.) Public Schools. She's a National Board-certified teacher who is also credentialed in social studies. Henchey is a member of the Teacher Leaders Network.

Helping students become better problem-finders...

Secret to Better PBL? Focus on Problem-Finding

By Suzie Boss
4/13/12

Suzie Boss (@suzieboss on Twitter) is a journalist and author of Reinventing Project-Based Learning: Your Field Guide to Real-World Projects in the Digital Age. She's also a regular blogger on Edutopia.

---

On April 22, a billion people around the world are expected to take part in Earth Day 2012 celebrations. Among the anticipated "billion acts of green" will be scores of events for students and schools, from gardening lessons to eco-fairs to solar cooking demonstrations. It could be an ideal set-up for young people to dive deeply into problem solving and creative thinking -- but only if we trust students to figure out which problems they want to tackle.
That's advice from educator and entrepreneur Ewan McIntosh, who knows a thing or two about engaging students in project-based learning. Last fall, he facilitated an event that drew 10,000 students from five continents to tackle some of the world's biggest problems. Students came together online for the ITU Telecom World Meta Conference. The youth event ran in parallel with a face-to-face gathering of global leaders from telecommunications and technology industries.
Students were challenged to design solutions to tough issues, such as improving access to clean drinking water or extending education to reach all the world's children. Their proposals had to meet a few basic criteria. "We set out success of an idea in terms of being tangible, pragmatic, make-able," McIntosh explained.
What did students dream up? Using the process of design thinking, they developed concepts such as wheelchairs with built-in cell phones to improve life for those with disabilities, a seed exchange to help villagers grow their way out of hunger, water purification built right into a riverbed, and smartphone apps to prevent food spoilage.
Before students could arrive at these ingenious solutions, they first had to fully understand the problems they were attempting to solve. (Read a summary of the event here.)

Problem-Finders

Equipping students to be better problem-finders is something McIntosh is passionate about. In a provocative talk last year at TedxLondon, he outlined the pitfalls of leaving it to adults to define which problems should be solved. "Currently, the world's education systems are crazy about problem-based learning, but they're obsessed with the wrong bit of it," he insists. "While everyone looks at how we could help young people become better problem-solvers, we're not thinking how we could create a generation of problem-finders."
Design thinking provides a better framework for learning that emphasizes defining the problem at the outset. Before diving into solutions, students might first conduct focus groups, do user interviews, or conduct other research to fully understand an issue. That means they develop empathy along with ingenuity as they work through the iterative process of generating ideas, prototyping, testing, getting user feedback, and refining solutions.

Cultural Shift

Through his consulting organization, No Tosh, McIntosh is introducing the Design Thinking School concept to schools across Europe, Asia, and the United States. He's discovering that this way of thinking and learning requires a wholesale shift in education. "Design thinking is not a project that one does on a Wednesday afternoon once the 'serious' learning has taken place. It's a change of culture throughout a school that leads to better learning," he says.
Before schools start making the shift to design thinking, McIntosh encourages them to conduct action research to fully understand the problems they want to address. Essentially, teachers and school leaders use design-thinking methods to figure out what's working in their school and what isn't. Then they're ready to move ahead with generating ideas, prototyping solutions, gathering feedback, and improving on ideas to overcome challenges.

Earth Day Resources

How can you help your students become better problem-finders this Earth Day? For starters, bring them into project planning early so that they have a stake in whatever driving question they are attempting to answer. Help them think critically about the issues that most interest them. How can they make a real difference? How would they define "success"? And how might their efforts be sustained so that good ideas keep going well beyond Earth Day?
Please use the comments to share ideas for the Earth Day projects that your students are helping to design. What problems are they most eager to solve?

Online comments by students...

Do Students Have the Right to Post Negative Comments Online?

 

Flickr: Zawezome

By Corey G. Johnson

Civil rights groups recently intervened in a free-speech controversy at the San Francisco Unified School District after a school suspended three high school seniors and banned them from graduation and prom over comments they made online.
The students were suspended from George Washington High School after a teacher learned about postings on a Tumblr page called “Scumbag Teachers.” Some of the comments allegedly linked to the students included: “Teaches Pink Floyd for 3 Weeks; Makes Final Project Due In 3 Days” and “Nags Student Govt About Being On Task; Lags On Everything.”
The school principal accused the students of cyberbullying. They were suspended from school for three days, banned from prom and told they couldn’t walk with their classmates during graduation. One of the students was kicked off the student council.
The Asian Law Caucus and ACLU of Northern California said they were concerned that the students’ rights were being violated and wrote letters to district officials questioning whether the students and parents were given due process. The district then reinstated the students.
The district’s initial punitive actions prompted student outrage on other Tumblr sites. One student stated:

Find it ironic how Washington led the American Revolution against the British soldiers for freedom from King George, and here you are, sitting in this school trying to control the students the exact same way the king was, by taxing not our goods, but our freedom of speech. Washington himself would be appalled.

Another student wrote:

What kind of school environment do we live in where Tumblr allegedly is treated like a weapon? Where people are now afraid to write and express their feelings and opinions in a Tumblr community in fear that the adults that are supposed to encourage and teach us the meaning of “freedom” and “free expression” are the ones stamping it down and treating it with a double standard.You know what is ironic? In school we are going over 1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World by Alduous [sic] Huxley. Both are dystopian novels which express a fear of a future in which individual opinions are banned and people live in an authoritarian rule stripped of freedom and self-expression. What is so different from those novels and this situation in this school?

The district, the Asian Law Caucus and ACLU of Northern California all declined to name the school and the students involved. California Watch learned the name of the school from online postings and an interview with a student who attends Washington.
Angela Chan, an attorney with the Asian Law Caucus, said the students’ parents don’t speak English. She said the school didn’t initially provide translators to help the parents understand the school’s decision. And Linda Lye, an attorney with the ACLU, said the Tumblr postings didn’t meet the definition of cyberbullying and weren’t disruptive to the school environment.
“Speech does not become ‘disruptive’ just because a teacher doesn’t like it or finds it offensive,” Lye wrote on the ACLU website. “In fact, criticism of authority figures is exactly the type of speech the Constitution was designed to protect.”
Gentle Blythe, spokeswoman for San Francisco Unified, said the district swiftly reinstated the students once contacted by the civil rights groups. The disciplinary actions have been removed from the students’ records, and they are no longer banned from the prom and graduation.
“We absolutely recognize and value our students’ right to free speech. We also recognize that we need to educate them about responsible speech,” Blythe said in an e-mail to California Watch. “As soon as the district was notified of the school administration’s action, we responded. Part of having authority means recognizing that if you make a mistake you need to correct it.”
Chan said her organization and San Francisco Unified will be working to improve district policies to ensure teachers and administrators are better trained to handle future incidents.
In August 2008, California passed AB 86, one of the first laws in the country to deal directly with cyberbullying. The legislation gives school administrators the authority to discipline students for bullying others offline or online.
Last year, the ACLU intervened at the San Juan Unified School District in Northern California after school administrators at a Citrus Heights-area school suspended a 15-year-old sophomore for cyberbullying. Since then, the organization has responded to at least three separate instances in which different schools have punished students for online writing, Lye said.
This article originally appeared on California Watch.

Popeye's Lessons in Leadership

What make a teacher GREAT!

Humour- Teamwork

Concept of TEAM...

What Makes A Great Principal

Leadership

Online Learning

How Online Learning Is Shaping The Future Of Education Right Now

In recent years, more education professionals have noticed the benefits of online learning. Such programs allow students to comprehend a subject matter in a structure that can be more convenient for their learning styles. Time constraints for online learning programs are different than in the traditional classroom setting.
Students who do not cope well with the pressure of having to work quickly can take their time when necessary. Conversely, students who pick up on things faster and become bored with traditional programs can use online learning programs to work through the material at a quicker pace and move on to the next lesson.Each online program is different, so look at the pacing of the program to determine if the school offers this kind of flexibility.

Technology in Online Learning

Online learning programs are also beneficial because they allow students to interact with technology more frequently. Because of the prevalence of technology in today’s world, an online component can be advantageous for college graduates. Though traditional classroom-based courses can incorporate technology, online programs require students to use computers and the Internet as a means to an end. Students who complete such programs might understand technology on a deeper level and can apply advanced skills throughout their academic careers and professional life.

Increasing Acceptance of Online Learning

In light of these benefits, more K-12 districts are recognizing online learning programs as an acceptable medium for educating their students. Recent meta studies have found that in some cases online learning may be superior to traditional classroom-based instruction. Because of the increase in acceptance of online learning in grade school education, online-based university programs could become more widely accepted as well. As these programs become more acceptable, distance learning could grow in popularity for both K-12 schools and institutions of higher education.

Online Learning in College

For many working adults, online university programs are much more convenient. Taking online classes can allow students to set their own schedules, attend school – even with their busy schedules, and complete lessons and assignments from the comfort of a home . Taking courses online also allows students to retain a full-time job. Instead of trying to schedule work shifts around required classes, students can complete coursework when it is convenient for them. Students who enroll in online graduate programs can continue to pursue higher education without sacrificing their careers.
In the past, students sometimes avoided online programs because they were not as well-respected as traditional programs. However, as these programs can gain esteem and validity, more students will seek universities that offer online learning. Students may even begin to choose universities based on the strength of their online programs. Instead of comparing schools based solely on rankings, students might research a school’s online offerings to determine whether their required classes are available online. In light of this, many universities might consider offering strong classroom-based programs and strong online programs so students can choose their ideal method of study.
The future of education is never certain, but all of the evidence suggests that online learning is on the rise. As universities include more opportunities for online study, more students could seek out universities based on these criteria. This change can affect the way students learn, as well as the way universities structure their degree programs.
Zach Buckley is a freelance writer who is interested in exploring the intersection of culture, science and education.
He lives in the Midwest and enjoys music, literature and good food.

The Whole Child Initiative

The Whole Child Initiative

Join ASCD and our Whole Child Partners as we change the conversation about education and move from a vision for educating the whole child to action that results in successful, well-rounded young people.

• Vision in Action
• 2012 Whole Child Virtual Conference
• Blog
• Podcast
• Partners

Whole Child Website

Learn more about each tenet:

Healthy | Safe | Engaged | Supported
Challenged | Sustainable



The Whole Child Initiative

What will prepare each young person to work in careers that have not yet been invented; to think both critically and creatively; and to evaluate massive amounts of information, solve complex problems, and communicate well? Research, practice, and common sense confirm that a whole child approach to education will develop and prepare students for the challenges and opportunities of today and tomorrow. Every school, community, classroom, educator, student, and family has unique challenges and strengths, and has a role to play in ensuring that each student is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. Collectively we have the knowledge, skill, and ability to meet these challenges and share these strengths. Join ASCD and our Whole Child Partners as we change the conversation about education and move from a vision for educating the whole child to action that results in successful, well-rounded young people.

Explore resources and opportunities for action here and on www.wholechildeducation.org, and together we’ll change the face of education policy and practice. Find sets of indicators related to each tenet below. Taken together across all five tenets and the central necessities of collaboration, coordination, and integration, these indicators may serve as a needs assessment, set of strategic goals and outcomes, framework for decision making, or the definition of what a whole child approach to education truly requires. Download the indicators (PDF).

Whole Child Tenets
Each student enters school healthy and learns about and practices a healthy lifestyle.
Each student learns in an environment that is physically and emotionally safe for students and adults.
Each student is actively engaged in learning and is connected to the school and broader community.
Each student has access to personalized learning and is supported by qualified, caring adults.
Each student is challenged academically and prepared for success in college or further study and for employment and participation in a global environment.

What You Can Do
Search by topic for free, in-depth resources from ASCD and our partners.
Grade your school and community and learn about strategies that support the whole child.
Subscribe to the whole child newsletter, blog, and podcast for updates on whole child news and resources.
Conduct a community conversation to help your community explore how to work together to support the whole child.
Learn about Healthy School Communities.
Stay updated through social media: Like us on Facebook and follow the Whole Child on Twitter.

From the Blog

Throughout April: Supportive Education Communities
April-05-12 2:12:16 PM

2012 ASCD Outstanding Young Educator Award Winners
April-05-12 1:43:23 AM

Free Webinar: What Makes the Adolescent and Teen Brain So Different?
April-02-12 2:01:11 PM

Game-Based Learning and a Whole Child Approach
March-30-12 4:38:36 PM

Action Tool

Downloadable professional learning activities and a Powerpoint presentation to help you lead and implement a school- or districtwide initiative for the whole child.

Plus, a school improvement planning process gives you steps and strategies for leading a successful whole child initiative.

The 5 Qualities of Remarkable Bosses

The 5 Qualities of Remarkable Bosses

Consistently do these five things and the results you want from your employees--and your business--will follow.

Getty

In the eyes of his or her employees, a remarkable boss is a star. Remember where you came from, and be gracious with your stardom.
Remarkable bosses aren’t great on paper. Great bosses are remarkable based on their actions.

Results are everything—but not the results you might think.

Consistently do these five things and everything else follows. You and your business benefit greatly.

More importantly, so do your employees.

1. Develop every employee. Sure, you can put your primary focus on reaching targets, achieving results, and accomplishing concrete goals—but do that and you put your leadership cart before your achievement horse.

Without great employees, no amount of focus on goals and targets will ever pay off. Employees can only achieve what they are capable of achieving, so it’s your job to help all your employees be more capable so they—and your business—can achieve more.

It's your job to provide the training, mentoring, and opportunities your employees need and deserve. When you do, you transform the relatively boring process of reviewing results and tracking performance into something a lot more meaningful for your employees: Progress, improvement, and personal achievement.

So don’t worry about reaching performance goals. Spend the bulk of your time developing the skills of your employees and achieving goals will be a natural outcome.

Plus it’s a lot more fun.

2. Deal with problems immediately. Nothing kills team morale more quickly than problems that don't get addressed. Interpersonal squabbles, performance issues, feuds between departments... all negatively impact employee motivation and enthusiasm.

And they're distracting, because small problems never go away. Small problems always fester and grow into bigger problems. Plus, when you ignore a problem your employees immediately lose respect for you, and without respect, you can't lead.

Never hope a problem will magically go away, or that someone else will deal with it. Deal with every issue head-on, no matter how small.

3. Rescue your worst employee. Almost every business has at least one employee who has fallen out of grace: Publicly failed to complete a task, lost his cool in a meeting, or just can’t seem to keep up. Over time that employee comes to be seen by his peers—and by you—as a weak link.

While that employee may desperately want to “rehabilitate” himself, it's almost impossible. The weight of team disapproval is too heavy for one person to move.

But it’s not too heavy for you.

Before you remove your weak link from the chain, put your full effort into trying to rescue that person instead. Say, "John, I know you've been struggling but I also know you're trying. Let's find ways together that can get you where you need to be." Express confidence. Be reassuring. Most of all, tell him you'll be there every step of the way.

Don't relax your standards. Just step up the mentoring and coaching you provide.

If that seems like too much work for too little potential outcome, think of it this way. Your remarkable employees don’t need a lot of your time; they’re remarkable because they already have these qualities. If you’re lucky, you can get a few percentage points of extra performance from them. But a struggling employee has tons of upside; rescue him and you make a tremendous difference.

Granted, sometimes it won't work out. When it doesn't, don't worry about it. The effort is its own reward.

And occasionally an employee will succeed—and you will have made a tremendous difference in a person's professional and personal life.

Can’t beat that.

4. Serve others, not yourself. You can get away with being selfish or self-serving once or twice... but that's it.

Never say or do anything that in any way puts you in the spotlight, however briefly. Never congratulate employees and digress for a few moments to discuss what you did.

If it should go without saying, don't say it. Your glory should always be reflected, never direct.

When employees excel, you and your business excel. When your team succeeds, you and your business succeed. When you rescue a struggling employee and they become remarkable, remember they should be congratulated, not you.

You were just doing your job the way a remarkable boss should.

When you consistently act as if you are less important than your employees—and when you never ask employees to do something you don’t do—everyone knows how important you really are.

5. Always remember where you came from. See an autograph seeker blown off by a famous athlete and you might think, “If I was in a similar position I would never do that.”

Oops. Actually, you do. To some of your employees, especially new employees, you are at least slightly famous. You’re in charge. You’re the boss.

That's why an employee who wants to talk about something that seems inconsequential may just want to spend a few moments with you.

When that happens, you have a choice. You can blow the employee off... or you can see the moment for its true importance: A chance to inspire, reassure, motivate, and even give someone hope for greater things in their life. The higher you rise the greater the impact you can make—and the greater your responsibility to make that impact.

In the eyes of his or her employees, a remarkable boss is a star.

Remember where you came from, and be gracious with your stardom.



Jeff Haden learned much of what he knows about business and technology as he worked his way up in the manufacturing industry. Everything else he picks up from ghostwriting books for some of the smartest leaders he knows in business. @jeff_haden

Let It Go Or Put It In Your Pocket: How Emotions Affect Our Careers

Let It Go Or Put It In Your Pocket: How Emotions Affect Our Careers

Let it go or put it in your pocket. Whether we are aware of it or not, our emotions do not only play out in our personal lives; they are running rampant in our occupational lives as well. Quite often, these emotions are sprinting in the wrong direction directly through our subconscious and into the faces of those we work with, as well as, those we love.

I have been privileged to provide career and academic advice for thousands of people at all different life stages and from all different cultures. Although I have seen many differences and needs, I have noticed one area that remains constant: Emotions impair so many from landing a job, moving forward after a lay-off, or growing within a company or organization.

It is perfectly normal to combine our emotions with our careers, as it is what makes us human. However, how we tend to and address these emotions is critical for personal growth and development. When feelings begin to create unrealized obstacles, we must take a step back and either let them go, or put them in our pocket to address at a better time.

With that said, here are some strategies and examples I’ve learned along this emotional career journey:

1. Put your problem into perspective: Draw a line from 1-10 on a piece of paper. At the end of 10, write down something that was or could be one of the hardest challenges/times in your life. Now place your current event on the line and step back. How does is it fit in? Does this problem fall low on the line? Perspectives are important and we all must be able to look at the big picture of our lives.

*Thank you to Louise Jacobs for providing this fascinating information and tool. I have used this strategy so very often, and it truly makes a difference.

2. Let it go: Let go of negative feelings holding you hostage. If you are angry, sad, or resentful, your potential employer or current employer will feel and notice it immediately (they have feelings too)! There is no reason to let emotions hold you back from career growth. All stages of grief are normal and require time to heal. However, holding on for longer than necessary will only consume you and affect those around you. Let these emotions go when you are ready, and you will find a much more pleasant time awaits you (and probably that promotion or job you wanted).

3. Put them in your pocket for later: If you are not ready to let go of negative emotions, and need to move forward now, put these feelings and/or situations in your pocket and address them at a better time. Do not take them out at work, or with a potential employer.

4. Stop blaming others for your situation: If we spent less time blaming others, and more time working to improve and build upon our already amazing skills, can you imagine how much more productive our society could be? Give the blame back to the person or place that gave it to you in the first place. You don’t need it, as it only takes up more space in your mind and heart. The only change you can make is the change you create; take the opportunity and run.

5. Give what you want to receive: Yes, this good old karma thing is not a new discovery, but it is so true! For example, if you go out to a restaurant and the waiter or waitress is in a horrible mood, how does your meal typically end up? How does your mood change during dinner? We must give the energy we want to breathe in. If we give love, we will get love. If we smile at others, most of the time, they will smile back. Be a mirror for reflection, and you will not only change how you feel, but how others feel as well.

6. Stop comparing yourself to others: Don’t spend endless amounts of time comparing yourself to others. You are you, and there is nobody as unique! If lay offs come along, and you happen to be let go, don’t spend endless hours wondering why this and that co-worker did not get let go as well. This is an endless curiosity, and to waste time with this focus in mind is counterproductive. Move forward.

7. Put the negative feelings and/or situation in another location: Envision and imagine yourself taking the situation and/or feeling and physically disposing of it somewhere. Oscar the Grouch is a good receiver for negative situations and feelings; he’s grumpy and lives in a garbage can; you get two for the price of one!

8. Don’t take everything so personal: Business is still business, even if you have been at a company for a lifetime. Times are rapidly changing with technology, as are jobs, needs and requirements. These are not personal changes, but rather, world changes. Move with the times, and don’t let fear, anger or resentment slow you down.

On Bullying: Resources and Questions for Writing or Discussion

On Bullying: Resources and Questions for Writing or Discussion

By KATHERINE SCHULTEN and HOLLY EPSTEIN OJALVO


Dave Allocca/STARPIX, via Associated PressThe director of “Bully,” Lee Hirsch, is flanked by two of the subjects of the film, Kelby Johnson, left, and Alex Libby. Go to related post on Media Decoder »

In 2010, after Phoebe Prince died, we asked students, What Can Be Done to Stop Bullying? Later that year, when Tyler Clementi committed suicide, we asked What Should the Punishment Be for Acts of Cyberbullying? Hundreds of students wrote in to discuss both questions. That summer, we also posted a collection of resources on bullying for teachers and parents.

Since then, the subject has been in the news more than ever. Visit the related Times Topics page and you’ll find articles about the trial of Dharun Ravi; the controversy over the new “Bully” documentary; charges of antigay bullying in student suicides in Minnesota; and news of a number of initiatives — from state curriculums to a White House conference to a foundation created by Lady Gaga — devoted to addressing the problem.

What do you think: Has all the attention to this subject by parents, educators, legislators and filmmakers helped?

Below you’ll find our new, comprehensive list of resources, including lesson plans, Times articles, links to organizations around the Web, and a list of questions that we hope will inspire writing and discussion on this important subject.



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Some Questions for Discussion or Writing

The following questions are suggested by the related Times or Learning Network materials that are linked above them.

From “Teenagers Tell Researchers It’s a Cruel, Cruel Online World”:
Have you witnessed “people being mean or cruel” online, as 88 percent of teens say they have? Have you joined in?
How can the use of social media “echo and amplify” bullying?

From “Bullying Law Puts New Jersey Schools on Spot”:
Do you agree with the statement, “There is no such thing as an innocent bystander when it comes to bullying”?
Are laws like New Jersey’s Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights necessary, or do they go too far?

From “Gossip Girls and Boys Get Lessons in Empathy”:
Can empathy be taught?

From an Op-Ed, “Bullying as True Drama”:
Would you say there is bullying in your school, or would you just say there is “drama”?
What’s the difference between “drama” and behavior that is more serious?
Why might the language adults use to talk about bullying (“victim” and ” perpetrator,” for instance) be alienating to young adults?

From “Behind Every Harassed Child? A Whole Lot of Clueless Adults,” A.O. Scott’s review of the movie “Bully”:
How can adults — often unwittingly — contribute to the problem of bullying?
To what extent do you think cruelty is “embedded” in our schools and in our society as a whole?

From “The Bleakness of the Bullied,” Charles M. Blow’s column about the bullying he endured at age 8:
How does it feel to a child to be bullied?

From our lesson plan, ‘A Troubling Trend’: Discussing Bullying and Anti-Gay Attitudes:
What, if anything, can be done to make schools safer and more inclusive?

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Learning Network Resources

Lesson Plans and Other Teaching Materials:

Lesson | ‘A Troubling Trend’: Discussing Bullying and Anti-Gay Attitudes

Reader Idea | A Student-Driven Bullying Curriculum

Lesson | No Place for Bullies: Holding Anonymous Discussions to Reflect on Solutions

Lesson | Does Motivation Matter? Debating the Legal Category of Hate Crime

Lesson | Who’s Got the Power? Reflecting on Healthy and Abusive Relationship Dynamics

Lesson | Responding in Kind: Writing Essays About Choosing Kindness in the Face of Cruelty

Lesson | Many Reasons Why: Reflecting on Teen Depression

Lesson | Monkey See, Monkey Do: Considering the Social Ecosystems of Schools by Learning About a Baboon Troop

Lesson | Hall Monitors: Investigating Violence in Schools

Guest Post | 10 Ways to Talk to Students About Sensitive Issues in the News

Reading Club | Should Character Be Taught? Students Weigh In

Teaching Resources Series | Adolescent Health

Q. and A. | How Facebook Use Correlates With Student Outcomes

Student Opinion Questions:
All of the following questions are still open to student comment:

Should the R Rating for ‘Bully’ Be Changed?

Can Kindness Become Cool?

How Should Schools Address Bullying?

What Should the Punishment Be for Acts of Cyberbullying?

What Can Be Done to Stop Bullying?

How Do You Use Facebook?

How Much Do You Gossip?

Who Has the Power in School Social Life?

Are You Popular, Quirky or Conformist?

Do You Unknowingly Submit to Peer Pressure?

Does Your Digital Life Have Side Effects?

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Selected Recent New York Times Content:

Articles:

Film Review: “Behind Every Harassed Child? A Whole Lot of Clueless Adults”

“Bullying Law Puts New Jersey Schools on Spot”

“In Suburb, Battle Goes Public on Bullying of Gay Students”

“Minnesota School District Reaches Agreement on Preventing Gay Bullying”

Motherlode: “What Works to End Bullying?”

Motherlode: “How Do We Define Bullying?”

“Accusations of Bullying After Death of Staten Island Teenager”

SchoolBook: “Bullying Changes a School, One Child at a Time”

Well: “Talking About the It Gets Better Project”

“Rutgers Verdict Repudiates Notion of Youth as Defense”

From the Opinion Pages:

Nicholas D. Kristof: “Born to Not Get Bullied”

Bill Keller: “Tyler and Trayvon”

Bill Keller: “Tyler and Trayvon, Continued …”

Charles M. Blow: “The Bleakness of the Bullied”

Op-Ed: “Bullying as True Drama”

Op-Ed: “Make the Punishment Fit the Cyber-Crime”

Times Multimedia

Interactive | Coming Out: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Teenagers Talk About Their Lives

Slide Show | In Skidmore, Mo., a Killing Lingers

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Other Resources on the Web

The Bully Documentary Project | Toolkit for Educators

The Bully Documentary Project | Share Your Bully Stories

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services | Stop Bullying Now!

Bit Strips | Stop Bullying Comic Challenge

National Council of Teachers of English | Resolution on Confronting Bullying and Harassment

Medline Plus | Bullying

The It Gets Better Project

Education.com | Bullying

National Crime Prevention Council | Bullying

Teaching Tolerance | Bullying

Arts Involvement Narrows Student Achievement Gap

Arts Involvement Narrows Student Achievement Gap

A new NEA study finds disadvantaged students do better academically if they are intensely involved in the arts.

By Tom Jacobs


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Are the Arts Irrelevant to the Next Generation?
PBS Chief to Put Arts Front and Center

Students from the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder tend to do less well in school than those from more upscale families. But newly published research identifies one sub-group of these youngsters who tend to exceed expectations: those who participate heavily in the arts.

“At-risk teenagers or young adults with a history of intensive arts experiences show achievement levels closer to, and in some cases exceeding, the levels shown by the general population studied,” a team of scholars writes in a new National Endowment for the Arts Research Report. “These findings suggest that in-school or extracurricular programs offering deep arts involvement may help to narrow the gap in achievement levels among youth.”

This will be good news for the characters of Glee, and their counterparts in real life — especially those from poor families. The primary focus of the report, titled “The Arts and Achievement in At-Risk Youth,” is on teenagers and young adults in the bottom 25 percent of the socioeconomic scale (as measured by family income, parental employment and the parents’ level of education).

For that group, the authors write, there is a remarkably strong association between participation in the arts and a wide variety of positive outcomes.

“In two separate databases, students who had arts-rich experiences in high school showed higher overall grade point averages than did students who lacked those experiences,” the researchers write. These band members and ballerinas even had slightly higher-than-average GPAs in math.

What’s more, those higher grades paid off. Disadvantaged high school students heavily involved in cultural activities enrolled in competitive colleges — and in four-year colleges in general — at higher rates than their counterparts who avoided the arts.

The researchers, led by UCLA education policy analyst James Catterall, caution that this data does not establish cause and effect. It is possible that the same factors that lead some kids into the arts also make them more likely to excel in other arenas.

On the other hand, it’s also possible that engagement with the arts provides motivation or stimulation that has an impact far beyond the studio or practice room.

The NEA report is based on four separate sets of data: The National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (Kindergarten Class of 1998-99), the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth of 1997. Each of these studies followed children for a number of years; three of the four tracked their activities in high school and then measured their life achievements into early adulthood.

Engagement in the arts was gauged by giving students one point for each arts activity they participated in (either in class or extracurricular), with “extra points for recurring exposure to a specific arts activity, for service in an arts leadership position, or for advanced-placement coursework in the arts.”

Crunching the numbers from the four studies, the researchers found 71 percent of “low-SES students” who were heavily involved in the arts attended “some sort of college” after graduating from high school, and 39 percent attended a four-year college.

In contrast, for those who had little or no involvement with the arts, 48 percent attended a college of any type, and only 17 percent attended a four-year college.

“Most of the positive relationships between arts involvement and academic outcomes apply only to at-risk populations,” the researchers. Most, but not all. Among high school students from higher-income, higher-education families (the top 25 percent in socioeconomic terms), those who were involved in the arts had a significantly higher GPA than those who did not: 3.17 compared to 2.97.

Among this relatively privileged group, “college-going rates were higher if students had engaged in arts-rich experiences in high school,” the researchers report. “Ninety-four percent of the high-arts group went on to a four-year college, vs. 76 percent of the low-arts group.” And they did well once they got to college, with 55 percent earning “mostly As” compared to 37 percent of the non-arts-involved group.

In an introductory note, NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman complains that “over the past four decades, budget pressures and an increasing focus on just reading and math have crowded the arts out of too many school days. What’s lost? The chance for a child to express himself. The chance for the idiosyncratic child who has not yet succeeded elsewhere to shine. A sense of play, of fun, of discovery.

“James Catterall and his fellow authors have shown that something else is lost, too: potential. Students who have arts-rich experiences in school do better across-the-board academically, and they also become more active and engaged citizens, voting, volunteering, and generally participating at higher rates than their peers.”

Landesman’s takeaway from the study is clear: “I firmly believe that when a school delivers the complete education to which every child is entitled — an education that very much includes the arts — the whole child blossoms.”

When is it OK to stop having cyberbullying conversations with my teen?

When is it OK to stop having cyberbullying conversations with my teen?

March 30, 2012generationtextonlineLeave a comment


So you spoke with your teen last week about cyberbullying….Congratulations! I am excited that you are using these lessons. So that’s it, you are good to go. Check that off your list!

But wait… since that talk, has your teen been using FB? I already know the answer…Of course they have! So FYI… your teen is witnessing cyberbullying on a daily basis. Do you need to have the “cyberbullying” talk again?

A teacher at a high school was introducing me the other day, and I liked his analogy. He told his students they were going to take part in my workshop that day, even though many of the students had participated in my workshop the previous year.

You can just see the eyes rolling and the yawning, right?

He said, “the presentation about internet safety and cyberbullying is going to be different every year, because technology changes every year. The lessons and examples are different each time you see it…depending on how old you are. Different ages are exposed to different things.”

He asked the kids, “Do you go to math class every day and know everything there is to know about math? No, you go to math class everyday because in order to be good at math and get better, you need to study it on a daily basis.”

This teacher is right.

I mean, how many times do you ask your teen to clean their room before it actually gets done? :)

As your teen sits down to dinner tonight, hand them this Pop Quiz!

Today’s Pop Quiz!

You get in a fight with your friend at school. You feel she doesn’t understand your point of view. Should you:

a. Send her a text explaining your feelings

b. IM your other friend to tell her about the fight

c. Go to her Facebook page and tell her your side and why you feel the way you do

d. Call her and tell her how much you hate being in a fight. Set a time to get together and talk about it in person.

Discussion questions:

1. Have you seen someone do something like this?

2. Tell me about a situation in your life or your friend’s life that started with this reaction to a fight.

3. What were the results?

4. What are the possible things positive or negative things that could happen if you were to handle the situation by each of the choices?

5. Do you have other ideas of how to handle this situation?

6. Does it make sense to talk to an adult about how to handle this?

7. Do you think it might make sense to ext her and tell her how much you hate being in a fight. Set a time to get together and talk about it in person.

– Jill Brown

YouTube Just Launched A Site Specifically For Teachers

YouTube Just Launched A Site Specifically For Teachers







There are thousands of inspirational and educational videos on YouTube right now. Many are perfect for your classroom. Knowing this, YouTube has created a new site that curates these videos and organizes them into an easier-to-find system that’s perfect for teachers.

YouTube Teachers is a brand new channel that displays helpful videos on teaching and learning about basically everything. If it’s a lesson plan or teaching tool, it’s probably on YouTube Teachers. Below you’ll see a few of our favorite videos that were surfaced by browsing the new YouTube Teacher site.

As you can see below, the splash page to YouTube Teachers resembles a chalkboard background on top of a notepad. Because, let’s face it, who doesn’t store their chalkboard on top of a notebook? I kid, I kid.



I have really been enjoying the new site and have tried to put it through it’s paces. It’ll be a great go-to resource for all teachers looking for a lesson idea or thought-provoking video on YouTube without having to sift through a billion cat videos. (Don’t get me wrong, I love a good cat video as much as the next guy but now when hunting for an educational video.)

You can sign up to become a part of the new YouTube Teachers community and get regular e-mails about popular videos.

YouTube Teachers is really all about playlists. They encourage you, as a user, to build an extensive playlist of helpful videos about particular topics. Then they want you to share those playlists with others. Sounds simple enough.
( see link below )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9db9FyDkppk&feature=player_embedded

Don’t know how to make a playlist or other finer points of YouTube? Mathademics put together a helpful video that is sure to help you out


This is the first of two big ways YouTube is reaching out to the education community. In a couple weeks, they’re expected to announce some larger changes that will really benefit teachers in particular. Stay tuned! Literally

What we CAN do about cyberbullying!

What we CAN do about cyberbullying!

March 24, 2012generationtextonlineLeave a comment


Most parents have heard of the term cyberbullying, but how is it different than the good old fashioned bullying of their own childhood?

Remember the kids who got pushed into a locker? How about the kid sitting alone in the lunch room? Maybe it happened to you as a teen. Remember how mean the girls could be…spreading rumors and making fun of peoples’ clothes and hair? How about the boys… wedgies in the locker room and on the bus?

Most adults have a personal story of their own. What is yours?

Cyberbullying is a whole different ball game. It’s 24 hours a day and it comes via text message, Facebook and Formspring. The humiliation can be unbearable. 100’s of people see it and the victim can’t erase it. People can say what they want online and the victim has no control over it. Reports about Tyler Clemente, the Rutgers freshman, say he looked at the cyberbullying targeted at him 38 times before jumping off the George Washington Bridge to his death. If you want to get a feel for cyberbullying look at the “comment section” on any NJ.com article or blog where people can leave anonymous messages. And those aren’t teens cyberbullying, those are adults!

An international research project led by an Australian Catholic University (ACU) professor has found that the factors leading to incidents of cyber-bullying are different to those which result in traditional bullying.

(http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=30571)

According to Professor Sheryl Hemphill, the main factors leading to episodes of a traditional bully are:
•academic failure
•family conflict
•past bullying

But what about cyberbullying?? What leads someone to cyberbully another??

The project found only one of these is a factor leading to incidents of cyber-bullying….past bullying in the form of relational aggression, commonly known as:
•exclusion
•spreading rumors.

So what does that mean for MY teen?

Here is what I tell the teens I work with. We can’t control what other people do. We can’t stop someone from cyberbullying. We can’t stop someone from making up lies. We can’t stop someone from trying to humiliate another. We can’t reason or resolve a problem with a cyberbully. A person who chooses to cyberbully finds protection behind the screen or a fake username. A cyberbully is not interested in telling the truth or finding the truth.

So let’s look at this study… if someone being the target of exclusion or a rumor is a factor leading to cyberbullying, we can do something about that. We can control our own behavior. We can control excluding someone or spreading rumors about people. We can teach our kids to be kind and positive. We can teach our kids how to apologize when they have done something to hurt someone. And we can choose not to cyberbully.

–Jill Brown

10 Effective tips to be a Great Teacher

10 Effective tips to be a Great Teacher

Looking to really connect with your students?

1) A Great Teacher Will Always Be There- If you are not in your classroom, you are not teaching. Yes, teachers must take days off occasionally, but do not make it a habit. If you are feeling a little sick, unless it is serious, show up! A sick regular teacher is ten times better for his or her students than a healthy sub is. Regular attendance is a must. Be proud to have a perfect attendance record.

2) A Great Teacher is Accessible- You need to help your students at all times. That means before school, during lunch, and after school. No, you do not have to do it all the time. Start out with something like two days a week before school, lunch, and after school. You are the best tutor your students can get. Teach them!

3) Great Teachers Know Their Students on a Personal Basis- Talk to them during lessons. What is their favorite music? TV? Movies? Talk to them in the hallways. The more you know, the more you can adapt. It is easy to converse during class time. Little comments between concepts can go a long way. If some show up early for class, you can really get personal. No class time? Pass out a questionnaire. Above all, learn their names quickly!

4) A Great Teacher Knows Many Parents- Get phone numbers. Make two calls a day to parents. If you can, make more. They do not need to be long. Just a short hello and that you are interested in their child. In just a short time, you can indeed make contact to at least one parent of each student. Parents can be your biggest ally. Students will perform and behave better if they know you are talking to their parents.

5) A Great Teacher Knows What They are Teaching- If you do not know what you are doing, how can you teach? This involves complete preparation.

6) A Great Teacher Attends school events- Make yourself seen at school sports and performances. Being seen in this setting shows students you care about them and support them.

7) A Great Teacher Lives in or Visits the Neighborhood- If you do not live in the same place as your school, make some visits on weekends. Go to a local place to eat. Shop at a local store. Many of your students may have parents who own local businesses. Patronize them. Visit a church. The more your students see you, the more they will be willing to behave in class. They will see you as someone who is willing to be on their level.

8) A Great Teacher Eats Lunch on Campus- Wander around at lunch and sit at a student table. Buy a school lunch and join them. Many students help sell food. Make a point to buy something.

9) A Great Teacher is Always Fair- Expect the best, but be flexible. Fairness does not have to mean leniency It simply means to grade your students on a balanced scale.

10) Great Teachers Never lose Their Cool- Bite your tongue. All things will pass. Never carry a grudge. Things in your classroom will happen. This goes hand in hand with being professional. Acting like a raving lunatic is a sure way to shorten your career

Trainning vs Development....

Training Isn’t Dead – But it Should Be
Posted on September 15th, 2011 by admin in Leadership, Talent Management, Uncategorized
By Mike Myatt, Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth
In the text that follows I’m going to poke holes in a process generally accepted as productive, when it rarely is. I’ll likely take some heat over this, and while this post works off some broad generalizations, in my experience having worked with literally thousands of leaders, they are largely true. More than $60 Billion dollars is spent each year in the U.S. on employee training. More than 25% of those dollars are spent on “Leadership Training.” Here’s the thing – when it comes to leadership, the training industry has been broken for years. You don’t train leaders you develop them – a subtle yet important distinction lost on many. Leadership training is alive and well, but it should have died long, long ago…
An Overview of The Problem
My problem with training is it presumes the need for indoctrination on systems, processes and techniques. Moreover, training assumes that said systems, processes and techniques are the right way to do things. When a trainer refers to something as “best practices” you can with great certitude rest assured that’s not the case. Training is often a rote, one directional, one dimensional, one size fits all, authoritarian process that imposes static, outdated information on people. The majority of training takes place within a monologue (lecture/presentation) rather than a dialog. Perhaps worst of all, training usually occurs within a vacuum driven by past experience.
The Solution
The solution to the leadership training problem is to scrap it in favor of development. Don’t train leaders, coach them, mentor them, disciple them, and develop them, but please don’t attempt to train them. Where training attempts to standardize by blending to a norm and acclimating to the status quo, development strives to call out the unique and differentiate by shattering the status quo. Training is something leaders dread and will try and avoid, whereas they will embrace and look forward to development. Development is nuanced, contextual, collaborative, fluid, and above all else, actionable.
The following 15 items point out some of the main differences between training and development:
1. Training focuses on the present – Development focuses on the future.
2. Training focuses on technique – Development focuses on talent.
3. Training adheres to standards – Development focuses on maximizing potential.
4. Training focuses on maintenance – Development focuses on growth.
5. Training focuses on the role – Development focuses on the person.
6. Training indoctrinates – Development educates.
7. Training maintains status quo – Development catalyzes innovation.
8. Training stifles culture – Development enriches culture.
9. Training encourages compliance – Development emphasizes performance.
10. Training focuses on efficiency – Development focuses on effectiveness.
11. Training focuses on problems - Development focuses on solutions.
12. Training focuses on reporting lines – Development expands influence.
13. Training is mechanical – Development is intellectual.
14. Training focuses on the knowns – Development explores the unknowns.
15. Training is finite – Development is infinite.
When it comes to current and future leaders, training will place them in a box, while development will free them from the box. If what you desire is a robotic, static thinker – train them. If you’re seeking innovative, critical thinkers – develop them. I have always said it is impossible to have an enterprise which is growing and evolving if leadership is not. What say you?

Five Leadership Strategies for the New Year

An Open Letter to Principals: Five Leadership Strategies for the New Year
By Eric Sheninger
8Eric Sheninger is principal of New Milford High School and the subject of a recent article in USAToday on social media in the classroom. He is the author of Communicating & Connecting With Social Media. You can also follow him on Twitter at NMHS_Prinicipal.


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As the calendar turns to August, school leaders across the country are meticulously planning for the upcoming year. This process has become more difficult as mounting challenges such as budget cuts and what seems like a relentless attack on the profession of education have taken their toll on staff morale. With this being said, quality leadership becomes even more essential in order to cultivate a school culture whose primary focus is on the learning and achievement of each and every student.

Here are some of my leadership strategies for making change during challenging times. Please feel free to share any other ideas in the comments section below.

Strategy One: Make No Excuses
Success in this endeavor relies on us to take a no-excuse attitude. Ask yourself this: What am I prepared to do to improve all facets of my school? How will I accomplish more with less? Think and reflect upon the ways to accomplish the goals you set as opposed to the challenges, roadblocks, and pushback you will experience. These are all common complications that arise during the change process and should not be used as excuses not to push forward.

We must be the pillars of our respective institutions and focus on solutions rather than problems. Succumbing to the negative rhetoric, abiding by the status quo, and having a bunker mentality will do nothing to initiate needed changes in our building to improve teaching and learning.

Each day we are afforded an opportunity to make a positive difference in the lives of our students through our role as education leaders. Our passion for helping all students learn and assisting staff in their growth should be the driving motivational force to make our schools the best they can be, regardless of the obstacles. Everything is changing -- the world, learners, job market, technology, access to information -- the sad reality though is that schools are not. We need to be catalysts to drive this change!

Tip: Meet with your administrative team and teacher leaders prior to the start of the school year to identify issues where excuses routinely arise. Begin to map out collective responses focusing on positive solutions to these problems.

Strategy Two: Model a Vision for Excellence
Begin by articulating a clear vision to your staff. The consensus has to be that every student can and should learn. Getting your entire staff to embrace this concept is at the heart of effective leadership. I prefer to use the word “embrace” rather than “buy-in" -- a more commonly used word synonymous with change efforts. We should not be trying to sell our staffs on pedagogical techniques and other initiatives that will better prepare our students for success once they graduate.

In order to promote the embracing of new ideas, strategies, and techniques we need to collaboratively work with staff to transform traditional classroom environments into vibrant learning communities where all students are authentically engaged.

Tip: Engage your staff in a brainstorming session during the first faculty meeting in order to develop a collective vision on how to transform the school for the betterment of all students.

Strategy Three: Embrace 21st Century Pedagogy and Curriculum
A vision begins with talk, but will only become reality with action. As society evolves due to advances in technology, we as principals must ensure that instruction follows suit or we run the risk of our schools becoming irrelevant. By irrelevant I am referring to our ability to prepare students with the skills to think critically, solve problems, demonstrate learning through creation, and compete in a global society.

As instructional leaders, it is our primary responsibility to observe and evaluate instruction. With this comes the responsibility to ensure that teachers are provided the freedom to take risks, knowledge of effective practices, resources to make it happen, and flexibility to incorporate innovative teaching strategies. With these parameters in place, principals must then be able to consistently identify, foster, support, and promote 21st century pedagogy.



Inherent within this shift is the need to re-evaluate the curriculum as the real-time web and information age present new challenges to instruction and student engagement. The time is now to lay the foundation to ensure that our students evolve into critical consumers of content, understand the importance of digital citizenship, as well as possess the ability to create, analyze, and interpret an array of media messages.

Tip: Start the year off by gathering key stakeholders to collaboratively revise your curriculum to emphasize essential skills necessary for today's learners to excel beyond your walls.

Strategy Four: Breathe Life Into Professional Development
Most teachers cringe when they hear the words “professional development” and rightfully so. The traditional model utilized by many schools forces educators into structured silos based solely on district and school goals while ignoring staff interests and passions. PD can be inspiring and fun when people are free to follow these interests and develop their own support communities.

Tip: If you thirst for an innovative culture focused on student achievement, begin the process of transitioning to Professional Learning Communities (PLC's). To take it a step further, model and encourage your staff to form their own Personal Learning Network (PLN). Then step back, give up some control, and watch your staff thrive as their passion fuels a transformation of the teaching and learning culture at your school.


Strategy Five: Stay Connected
Principals need support -- here are some resources to help you stay connected to others making change:

•A Principal's Reflections My blog
•Connected Principals Community and resources for principals
•Burlington High School Principal's Blog Patrick Larkin's Blog
•#cpchat Connected principals chat on Twitter.
•#edchat Educator chat on Twitter
•What is Edchat?
•Administrators Discussion group on Edutopia
•Educators PLN
•Future of Education Steve Hargadon's interview series with leading educators
•Edcamp a series of "unconferences" around the world

Change begins with a no-excuse mentality. Don't waste one more minute pondering what could be. There is a revolution going on right now in learning, and it is up to us to lead the way. Please share any leadership strategies that are making a difference in your building.

New teachers...

New Teachers: Are You in It for the Long Haul?
By Jaime O’Neill

Welcome, newbies, to the wonderful world of education. You are now embarked upon that career for which you’ve been preparing for so long. You’ve jumped through the hoops, sat through classes that often seemed irrelevant and/or stultifyingly dull. You’ve taken those horrible courses in education and teacher training that were required of you, those classes that took time away from gaining greater command of the discipline you were preparing to teach. And, despite the fact that those education classes offered almost nothing, you sat through them, nonetheless, demonstrating to all future employers that you have what it takes to deal with the myriad pointless faculty meetings and in-service breakout sessions that lie ahead. Should you find that you don’t like teaching, you can, of course, change course and head into the better-paid realms of administration, where a tolerance for wasting vast amounts of time in meetings is absolutely central to the work you will do.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, since you’ve only just begun and already I’ve got you bailing out.

The temptation to bail out is, however, one of the hallmarks of your new career. A bad student, a bad class, a paranoia-prompting administrative overseer, or the mere drudgery of the paperwork that now takes up so much of your time will have you considering other occupations nearly every week. When the stress of meeting a big and ill-defined spectrum of expectations leads you to pour one more glass of wine each night than you know is good for you, you’ll surely think that a career in retail sales might be a better alternative than taking attitude from a kid whose chief concern is the current state of his complexion, not your precious words of wisdom.

For some of you, that kid, or some other catalyst, will drive you out of the classroom. For those who stay, it won’t help your dedication or your motivation to find your job threatened each and every year when the annual state budget reveals once more that big cuts to education are coming, that you’ve been pink slipped until or unless there’s a last-minute reprieve. That yearly panic will cause you to wonder why you ever went into teaching in the first place, and you will surely make plans to seek other employment with each mention of just how precarious your employment is.

If you manage to avoid losing your job for budgetary reasons, many of you are in for the duration. Dedication, or the force of habit, will keep you coming back, year in and year out, as you gradually morph into some version of those teachers you yourself once had: people with impossibly faulty senses of style, or ear hair, or other focal points of ridicule that served to amuse you and your middle school peers back when you were a kid.

But what separates you now from the pack of twerps in front of you is that you're older and wiser; you’ve got perspective, skills, and insights to share. Having once sat where they sit, you know how much posturing is going on, how much insecurity they possess despite the attitudes they cop. You also know the challenges they face, the rockiness of the road that lies ahead, and how many ways there are for them to spin out and crash.

If you stay, you’ll harden yourself against the whispered derision, the groans when you explain an assignment, and the student excuses you’ve heard over and over—excuses you may once have offered to one or more of your own teachers. You’ll soldier on through days that seem interminable, through semesters in which little you try seems to work, through years that can seem like decades.

And you’ll keep up that work, and re-steel your resolve because there are those days when things click into place, when a face lights with understanding, or an exchange with a class makes even you see an idea in a new light. You’ll keep up that work because your students frequently remind you of just what it feels like to learn new things, and to experience the sense of growth that comes with knowing more.

You will reach the end of each academic year feeling somewhat spent, but exhilarated, and you will return when classes resume the following fall because you know the satisfaction that comes with doing work that can make a difference in people’s lives, that offers you a chance to make small but meaningful contribution to the future.


You will return because, unlike so many other jobs, teaching allows for repeated chances to get it right, to learn from the things that didn’t work, to use your brain, your creativity, and your full range of talents to invent new and better ways of doing it.

Despite administrators who often have priorities that conflict with real learning, despite the emphasis on testing and the educational fads that get trotted out by politicians and educrats who seldom get near actual students, you will return because you have a growing suspicion you are needed, and the feeling of being needed isn’t always easy to come by.

You will return because, when it is all said and done, you are a teacher. You didn’t choose this profession; it chose you. It picked you out when you were a student, selected you because getting rich wasn’t your highest priority, because you were absorbed by the subject you now teach, because you had a teacher who made you want to be a teacher—one who stirred your interests, fired your passion to learn, and helped you find your way.

Now you want to help your students find their way. You can’t get enough of doing that. You won’t get enough of doing that, not this year, not next year, because there is never enough of helping students if you’re a teacher.

And, if you made it this far, the chances are you're a teacher.

Radio amateur pour les élèves doués!

Teaching radio in the digital age
Cherry Creek Schools program teaches youth about wireless technology
Posted: 07/12/2011 10:47:01 AM MDT Updated: 07/12/2011 10:47:01 AM MDT Author: 89331

Students in an Understanding Wireless Technology class — from left, Jack Diack, 10; Ian Pearson, 10; Aida Telford, 9; and Anjalie Kini, 9 — listen to transmissions coming from their radio as they use a dual-band antennae to locate a hidden transmitter during class July 1 at Prairie Middle School in Aurora. Photo by Lindsay Pierce, YourHub
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About the Author
Daniel Smith



E-Mail: dsmith@denverpost.com

Some Cherry Creek High School students conversed with people around the globe recently — and learned to do it without a cell phone.

As part of the school district’s Inside/Out program to offer additional learning to gifted and talented students, Bob Sterner, the district’s senior telecom engineer, introduced them to amateur radio technology — ham radio.

Not just the on-air broadcast aspects, but the technical wizardry behind it.

“We’ve tried to demystify some of the magic behind wireless technology,” he said.

Sterner and volunteer Byron Paul Veal, who runs an established youth amateur radio program at Acres Green Elementary in Littleton, spent 15 hours each with 45 students in the program.

“For me it was just a natural fit — I could go in and explore with these kids that are already easy learners, excited to get into new things and not afraid to tackle something they’re not familiar with,” Sterner said.

He demonstrated some popular technology secrets, using a universal remote control, an oscilloscope and a small robot.

“They love it — they get to class early, they don’t want to leave for break, they don’t want to go home … ” Sterner said.

Veal said out of four subject areas to choose from, surprisingly, a majority wanted to learn about Morse code.

One student, using the code’s dots and dashes, made a contact in Belgium last week from the radio in the classroom, Veal noted.

Students selected projects to complete as a presentation for their parents at week’s end.

Some students built a directional antenna built made from PVC pipe, metal measuring tape and hose clamps that was used on a “fox hunt” — locating a transmitter hidden in a nearby field with the directional antenna, in the same way biologists track collared wildlife.

“I feel obligated to pass this information on,” Sterner said. “I want to see more kids get their license and more kids on the radio.”

He said most amateur radio operators are now 60 years old or older, but have had a hand in inventions used around the globe.

He said he has a friend who actually bounces radio signals off the ion trails of meteors hurtling through the atmosphere to communicate with other operators hundreds of miles away.

He said rhetorically: “If we don’t refresh that population, who’s to say where we’re going to go?”