Adams, WilliamCavaletti, Anthony

Duch, Phuc

@rickwormeli (Twitter)

rwormeli@cox.net

The best teachers of my own children have been the ones who respect the school’s system, but parted from it as necessary in order to teach my child.

Doubt

Our greatest Compass Rose:

“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.”

- Emerson

“Courage is not the absence of fear. It’s the judgment that something else is more important than that fear.”

-- Ambrose Redmoon, rock band managerin the 1960’s. Oh yeah, he was a quadriplegic as well.

What do we judge as so important, it trumps our fear of rejection, failure,

and questioning from colleagues, parents, administration?

Courage is 90% mindset, only 10% craft and mechanics of pulling it off.

”All thinking begins with wonder.”-- Socrates

Our job is not to make up anybody’s

mind, but to open minds and to make the agony of decision-making so intense you can escape only by thinking.” - Fred Friendly, broadcaster

“4/5 of my students keep failing their

tests!”

‘Forged by the operating tenets with which we perceive the world and conduct our actions.

Mindset

Effective educators regularly assess these principles for validity and revise them in light of new evidence/perspective.

In teaching and leadership, we seek integrity: Our actions reflect our principles. Put another way: We minimize our hypocrisies.

Ask what a respected colleague or leader would

do.

Build teacher autonomy.

When teachers retain autonomy to make lesson changes they find effective, they take

responsibility for the outcomes. They commit to a lesson’s success more personally, analyzing

their actions and revising thoughtfully.

What Were We Thinking?

• Everyone in the same subject in this grade level is on the same page on the same day of the week

• Plan accordingly because there is no more paper supply after January

• The master schedule cannot be changed to accommodate a compelling guest speaker.

• Students cannot re-do final exams. • Sacrifice good pedagogy because people who are

untrained are telling you what to do.

What Were We Thinking?

• We can’t incorporate a new “app” in our lessons because it promotes the use of personal technology that school hasn’t sanctioned.

• Our new students are three grade levels below grade level proficiencies but they have to do well on the final exam anyway.

• We can’t take that field trip with the class because that would be too much time away from preparing for the annual state or provincial exam.

• “Stop being so creative,” a colleague comments. “You’re making me look bad.”

Consider how personal technology is changing the way our students do things.

We’ve entered a 24-7 work cycle. Official

homework as we know it will soon

fade.

Information Age is old school. We’re in the High Concept Age, and we have the tech to pursue it:

Twitter and other social mediaTwitter and other social mediaDaily newspapers downloaded for analysisDaily newspapers downloaded for analysisMuseum school partnerships and Virtual ToursMuseum school partnerships and Virtual ToursQR codes attached to classroom activitiesQR codes attached to classroom activitiesStudent-designed appsStudent-designed appsKhan Academy and similar on-line tutorialsKhan Academy and similar on-line tutorialsGraduation in four states now requires one course taken completely Graduation in four states now requires one course taken completely on-lineon-lineGoogle DocsGoogle DocsGoogle Glass/Eyes – wearables, implantables, augmentsGoogle Glass/Eyes – wearables, implantables, augments

MOOCS – Massive Open On-line CourseMOOCS – Massive Open On-line Course Crowd-SourcingCrowd-Sourcing MIT Open Courseware MIT Open Courseware TED talks and ed.Ted.comTED talks and ed.Ted.com Screencasts (ex. Camtasia Studio)Screencasts (ex. Camtasia Studio) VoicethreadVoicethread MoodleMoodle PBL’sPBL’s PreziPrezi iMovieiMovie EdmodoEdmodo

Just because we can’t fathom the logistics doesn’t mean we abandon the principle.

#1 Most Common Characteristic among the state Teachers of the year:

They broke the rules.

Thanks, Gordon Dryden, for yesterday’s promotion!

It’s not an answer chase.

It’s a question journey.

“We went to school. We were not taught how to think; we were taught to reproduce what past thinkers thought…. …Instead of being taught to look for possibilities, we were taught to exclude them. It’s as if we entered school as a question mark… …and graduated as a period.”

-- Michael Michalko, Creative Thinkering,

2011, p. 3

“Do they know how to ask good questions?”

-- Tony Wagner, The Global Achievement Gap, 2008

Get students to ask more questions than we do

What should a lawyer never do in a court trial?

Ask a question to which he doesn’t already know the answer.

Sample Acts of Courage for Teachers that Can Be Facilitated by Teacher Leaders

•Ask the larger questions of what we do•Manifest expertise •Retain autonomy: Pacing guides, not mandates; teach out of sequence as warranted•Require all students, teachers, administrators get residential, outdoor education experiences of a week or more•Teach the way students best learn, not the way we best learn (Students use that secret code…)

As leaders, we all have our own philosophy/pedagogy that we believe. To what degree will we allow our teachers to

hold beliefs and conduct practices different from our own?

“Most of the time I’m a leader, but sometimes I have to be the boss.”

-- quote from a highly accomplished middle level principal

Our future depends on this one here.

Could you teach the differences between architecture in the Middle Ages and architecture in the

Renaissance period in such a classroom?

How about the principles of algebra here?

Writer and educator, Margaret Wheatley, is correct:

“We can’t be creative unless we’re willing to be confused.”

Cultivate Teacher Creativity.

Seriously, it’s just as vital as content expertise,

professional behavior, and maintaining proper records.

Do teachers have the creativity to solve their own problems?

•My whole lesson today is based on accessing those three Websites, but the school’s Internet is down, so what can we do instead?•Small groups are not working in my class, yet I know they’re important for many students’ learning. How do I get these students to stay focused on their group tasks?•I’ve backed myself into a corner explaining an advanced science concept, and it’s not making sense to me, let alone to my students. What should I do? •Angelica is far beyond where I’m comfortable teaching, but we have two more weeks in this unit for the rest of the class. What will I do with her that honors her readiness level?

• I’m supposed to differentiate for some of my students, but I don’t see any time to do it.

• My school’s current electronic gradebook system doesn’t allow me to post anything but norm-referenced scores, and I want to be more criterion-referenced in my grades. What can I do?

• Because I’m a veteran teacher, I’ve been asked to be the rotating teacher using a cart and moving from classroom to classroom each period so the new teacher can have his own room and not have so much to deal with his first year. How will I handle this?

(Sampling from Innocentive.com, page 1, downloaded June 24, 2012)Seeking Orthogonally Functionalized CyclobutanesNavigating the Inside of an Egg Without Damaging ItCleveland Clinic: Method to Reconnect Two Tissues Without Using SuturesSeeking 1H-pyrazolo[3,4-b]pyridin-3-amidesSynthetic Route to a BenzazepinoneMy Air, My Health: An HHS/EPA ChallengeMechanistic Proposals for a Vanadium-Catalyzed Addition of NMO to ImidazopyridazinesSeeking Highest and Best Commercial Application for Breakthrough Innovation in Building Technology/Structural OptimizationDesafio da Educação: Como atrair pessoas talentosas para se tornar professor na rede pública brasileira

“The problem solvers...were most effective when working at the margins of their fields….While these people were close enough to understand the challenges, they weren’t so close that their knowledge held them back and cause them to run into the same stumbling blocks as the corporate scientists.” (p. 121, Lehrer)

Check out InnoCentive at www.innocentive.com/ar/challenge/browse

What would this look like in education?

Consider: Immigrants invent patents at double the rate of non-immigrants.”

(p. 240, Lehrer)

Combination and Re-Combinination

• Hall duty and Teacher Advisory• Service Learning and Students in danger of

dropping out• Miniature Golf and lesson sequence• Students’ cafeteria behavior and architecture• Unmotivated faculty and farming, astronomy,

marble tabletops. • Parental involvement and medicinearchitecture

Miniature golf

Furniture

Math Properties

Grades are compensation.communication.

F.A.I.L.

First Attempt in Learning

Re-Do’s & Re-Takes with

students and their teachers:

Are They Okay?

More than “okay!” After 10,000 tries, here’s a working light bulb. ‘Any questions?

Thomas Edison

A Perspective that Changes our Thinking:

“A ‘D’ is a coward’s ‘F.’ The student failed, but you didn’t have enough

guts to tell him.”

-- Doug Reeves

If we do not allow students to re-do work, we deny the growth mindset so vital to student maturation, and we are declaring to the student:

• This assignment had no legitimate educational value.

• It’s okay if you don’t do this work.• It’s okay if you don’t learn this content or

skill.None of these is acceptable to the highly

accomplished, professional educator.

We don’t let a student’s immaturity dictate his learning and thereby his destiny.

Do not wave from the rim of the pit the child has dug for himself. Instead, jump in and walk with him.

Recovering in full from a failure teaches more than being labeled for failure ever could teach.

It’s a false assumption that giving a student an “F” or wagging an admonishing finger from afar builds moral

fiber, self-discipline, competence, and integrity.

‘Bold Actions that are Possible When We are Brave Together:

•Remove Honor Roll. It has little to do with students’ academic achievement and personal maturation.•End averaging of grades. •Build and use full ropes initiatives courses on school property.•Put vocational training back into middle schools.•Be open to students skipping grade levels. •Train all teachers in gifted education so as to meet advanced needs, at least to some degree, in regular education classrooms, if necessary.•Conduct Principal Coffee’s with parents/community.

• Ask teachers to demonstrate proof of their expertise in the development nature of the students they serve in their lesson plans.

• Turn middle schools into true middle schools, not junior versions of high school, a.k.a. junior high.

• Start all secondary levels at 9:30 in the morning or later.

• Denying students the tools of their daily reality hastens our irrelevance and negates all claims we’re preparing students for the working world. Invite students to use personal technologies in the classroom and teach them to use them ethically.

• Encourage teachers to change the novel declared for the grade level if the current one doesn’t work.

• Ask teachers to open their practice to the close scrutiny of respected colleagues.

• Help struggling teachers instead of dismissing them, and when they don’t respond at first or second, help them even more.

• Ask teachers to teach in the way students best learn, regardless of whether or not it’s the way they best learn. Let’s do the same with teachers and their professional development.

• In a world in which everything can be looked up, emphasize the power of memorization.

• Speak up about schools at community events.

•Adjust the school’s master schedule to support best practices; don’t sacrifice best practices to support the master schedule. •Revise our thinking in light of new evidence – be open to correction from parents, colleagues, and students. •Participate in the national/international conversations of your field. •Ask teachers to put previous curriculum on subsequent tests, even months later, and record the marks, higher or lower, accordingly.•Conduct impact surveys about professional development experiences you facilitate.

•Accept a leadership position in a low performing school.•Accept a leadership position in a high performing school. •Denounce value-added evaluations of teachers, including the use of students’ test scores as highly influential measures of teacher quality. •Make it the policy that we cannot take students out of P.E., fine/performing arts, and tech classes to double-up on their math or reading remediation for exams.

What goes unachieved in students because we chose to be politically safe?

Closing Video Mocku-mentary