Interrupting cow!

Some kids love this joke!  Other kids don't get it.  As I participate in more conversations each day with kids and teachers, I have noticed a continuum of interrupters.  Some people cannot let you finish a single sentence without interrupting.  Some people never interrupt.  They practice Covey's Habit #5 almost perfectly, seeking first to understand before trying to be understood.  Don't we all love to be listened to and heard!

On the interrupting side of folks, there are many different reasons and styles.  Some simply cannot wait to share their own thoughts.  Some are excited about the topic and want to participate.  Some understand your point-of-view perfectly and don't need to hear any more.  They interrupt to move the conversation forward.  Some want to tell your story for you or better than you.

Then there is the method of interruption.  There are the, "Umm hmm-ers."  They voice their agreement throughout your words with a barrage of agreeing hums!  There are the sentence finishers.  How lucky not to need to ever finish your own sentence!  There are the folks who already know what you are saying.  They provide a response before you have even posed a question.  There are the story-tellers.  They interrupt in order to tell you a personal story related to the topic of conversation.  There are the questioners.  They have a question before you finish what you are saying.  In a classroom, you know these kids because their hands pop-up after the first 6 words, regardless of what you have already said or what you still need to say.

My favorite, new interrupting style is the, "Yeah, no" and the "No. yeah."  These folks may or may not agree or disagree.  They usually add their two cents with truly contradicting what has already been said.

With students, it is easy for most of us to handle the interruptions.  As a teacher, you choose the correct response.

How do you handle it with adults?  Is it different?  What about that one person on campus that interrupts everyone, every... single... time?  Everyone has that one coworker that interrupts every single time.  So much that it is impossible to have a conversation.  Do you give up?  Do you interrupt back?  Does your facial expression make it clear that you don't appreciate the interruption?  Do you handle it gracefully, while always seeking to first understand?  Or do you put your head down and simply avoid the conversation altogether?

It seems to be a common response for folks to follow the interrupting lead.  In order to participate with the interrupter, lots of folks are compelled to interrupt back.  Other folks just stop trying to talk.  If you get two interrupters in a group, they just end up talking over each other until the oxygen is depleted from the room.  The silver lining in this situation is the valuable side conversations that ensue while the two of them make noise together.

To make this better for your work team, what do you do?  How do you make sure there is equal voice for each team member?

One notch better

Dave Burgess talks about designing lessons that will fully engage learners.  He is crazy passionate about it!  Read his book, Teach Like a Pirate, and you will understand!  He fully admits that it is impossible to make every single lesson into the best possible lesson.  He says that it takes incredibly hard work, time, energy, and occasionally some cash to make it happen on a regular basis.  He goes on to say that it is our duty as educators to bring our very best to every possible lesson!

He goes on to say that we should consider several facets of the lesson to determine if it is the best possible decision has been made.  In my opinion, this is the key question for making incremental improvements.  How can I do this better???

As you head into this week, look at your lesson plans.  Look at the activities that include a worksheet.  For every worksheet, ask yourself, "How can I make this one notch better?"  Then do it.  As many times as possible.

Worksheets are not engaging.  Students don't like them.  Teachers don't like them.  This week, fully investigate every worksheet and make it one notch better.  Get rid of a few of them.

It ruined my whole day

Yesterday was an abnormal day for me.  I got stuck.  Really stuck.  For too too long, I couldn't get my brain beyond the barriers.  The two people at the table with me later asked if I was having a rotten day.  One of them told me that my mood was obvious when I first walked in the office.  This is not normal me.

Normal me has no problem looking at the current reality and looking for ways to get better.  I look for ways to learn and improve all the time.  Some folks even say I need to occasionally slow down my talk of improvement long enough to celebrate the good things that have been done.  Normal me doesn't stay down too long at all.  Normal me may say one thing one way, then immediately address the same topic with a positive, forward-thinking mentality.

Just like everyone else, my mood can swing back and forth.  I do think that one of my strengths is being able to swing it back to positive quickly.  I don't stay down in the dumps for too long.  Even if the barriers in front of me seem daunting, I usually can get to the pro-active, barrier-beating attitude that is necessary for continuous improvement.

When one of my kids makes a poor choice and forces me to make a tough decision as a parent, I usually bounce back from it really fast.  I don't want my children seeing that one negative event can ruin a whole day.  When I am working on Title One documentation rather than working to improve teaching and learning, I don't let the government-mandated paperwork ruin my whole day.  I push through it as quickly as possible so I can spend time on more important things.  Even if I am forced to use up an entire day to meet a due-date because of my continued habit of procrastination, I do so with as much of a positive spirit as possible.  I may get grumpy on occasion, but I typically bounce back quickly.

Yesterday, I let the barriers blind me for longer than normal.  And I was lucky to have these two folks with me.  They did not let me bring them down.  They didn't let the fact that I was stuck get them stuck too.  They listened to me and considered my thoughts, but they did not let it impede their desire to implement the much-needed improvements to a campus-wide process.  Yesterday, I simply could not see the benefits of the new process according to our current reality.  They refused to see the barriers I saw as insurmountable.

When I initially came aboard my current campus as principal, I was tasked with hiring a new assistant principal.  I told the committee, "I need somebody strong enough to tell me NO."  I'm glad she is here.  I also needed someone with a true coach's mentality.  Someone who knows how to make me examine my own words and thoughts.  Someone who is not afraid to engage in rigorous professional conversation and hold me accountable for rational thoughts and words.  I am lucky to have an instructional coach of the highest caliber.

Because of them, I was held to a high standard.  I wasn't allowed to negate the importance of the improvement efforts that will surely benefit our students and give our teachers a better system for working with struggling learners.

Sometimes, when one of those days rolls around, the best thing to do is to trust the good people around you to not listen to you.  Trust them for their passion and their character.  Know that they share your goal and they want what you want.

31

I just met with a 1st grade teacher who has thirty-one adorable little ones in her room.  Thirty-one is a bunch in Texas!  The state says there should be no more than twenty-two children in classrooms of Kindergarten through 4th grade.  Sometimes, we put more kids in a classroom when we cannot find the right teacher.  Luckily, the teacher I met with today is the right teacher for this classroom!

Thirty-one kids have not changed her desire to meet their needs.  Thirty-one little humans has not diminished her willingness to extend her own learning and become a better teacher.  Some teachers may downshift a bit and simply strive to survive.  The brightness of this teacher shines brightly!  She thrives!

Her work this year is absolutely not easy.  She has already made several major adjustments to the routines that have worked for her in previous years.  I asked her if she had been able to shift more responsibility to her students with so many of them.  Through a big grin, she said, "Oh, yes!"

In the past, she would welcome kids into her room and take their daily folders from them and put them in order.  With thirty-one, she now focuses her energy on the classroom environment and has student helpers put those folders in order!  I do believe the new process is good for those little student leaders too!

Thirty-one kids has not slowed her desire to learn!  She had to find a way to ensure her students learned the first grade sight words.  Even before she received her class roster, she wanted to improve this part of her language arts instruction.  Some teachers may have seen thirty-one names and decided to do what has always been done in the past because it was familiar.  Not her!  Even with thirty-one, she designed a better way to personalize their sight word development!  I cannot wait to watch her efforts!

She is also working to design guided math groups this year.  Some teachers would have seen thirty-one and headed the other direction towards more whole-class instruction.  Not her!  She has already noticed that she can really provide more targeted instruction with small group instruction!  I encouraged her to have fun with this effort and to bravely try new things!

Thirty one kids would scare a lot of teachers into survival mode.  Not in this classroom!  I know thirty-one students who are in good hands!

Malice, Ignorance, or Busy-ness

Tim Ferriss constantly says, "Do not attribute to malice what you can attribute to ignorance or busy-ness."

There are times we hear things that make us wonder if someone is out to get us.
"Why would she try to undermine the good work I am trying to do?"
"I've already vetted this idea with the team.  Why would she suggest such significant changes to our plan?"

Sometimes we feel ignored and we wonder why.
"Does he not care?"
"It was a simple question.  Am I not important enough for a reply?"

The next time you don't get the response you were hoping for, or perhaps you don't get a response at all, you do get to choose how you feel about it.  You can choose to feel as if the other person is purposely treating you poorly.  Or, you can choose to attribute their poor response to a lack of knowledge on his/her part, or because he/she is legitimately too busy.

Once that shift is made, your response to the situation will become more pro-active and more successful!

A better idea?

Trying to come up with ideas to solve a problem?  A lot of times, one idea hits the table, then someone says, "Does anyone have a better idea?"

Usually, the one asking that question is simply looking for more ideas.  Unfortunately, asking for better ideas can limit other folks from giving potential solutions.  By asking for better ideas, it is implied that the first idea was a good one to start with.  It can also make folks try to decide if there idea is better than the first one or not.  When people worry about whether their idea is better or worse, they might just choose not to share it at all.

A better way to say it, "Thank you!  Does anyone have another idea?"  No judgment.  No comparison.  Simply an invitation to get more ideas on the table.  

Last chance

I'd rather give a kid one chance too many rather than one too few.

There a comes a point in time when you have to decide that enough is enough.  You have given Little Glenn just about all the chances he could possibly need to make better choices.  Well he makes that same poor choice again and you are done!  Unless you are not done.

When do you say that enough is enough?  When have you given a kid his last chance to learn that lesson and make the right choice?  Do the other teachers admire your ability to set limits early and fast?  Or, do they admire your ability to give chance after chance after chance with the patience of Jobe?

I don't know too many kids who wake up and say, "Today is the day I interrupt my teacher so much that she loses her cool and drags me to the office!"  I do know some kids that may seem to wake up that way though.  For the 88th day this year, Little Glenn has interrupted you incessantly.  He didn't wake up deciding to be the supreme interruptor, but he is wearing that cape anyways.  Does he get chance number 89?  Or was yesterday his last chance?

Think or DIE!

Eric Weinstein says that we must, "Think or die!"

Sounds a bit extreme, doesn't it?  To put it in context, this quote comes from an interview discussing his opinions on change, innovation, and status quo.  Doing nothing of significant difference is like like death.

He also says that simply choosing a different tool out of your toolbox is not innovation.  He believes that true innovation comes from creating new tools.

Educators talk all the time about needing more tools in their toolboxes to meet the needs of every learner.  Which tool will be the ONE that fixes the kid that has always struggled???  Indeed, it is one of our toughest challenges!  How do I strive to help each and every single student find success in my classroom and in my school?

By the time a child has struggled through a few years on your campus, there is a good chance that every tool you own and quite a few borrowed ones have been tried on the kid.  There is not a single tool, strategy, program, or app that has succeeded for this kid.  Now what?  Time to create a new tool!  Time to do something different!

How far outside of the ordinary are you willing to go?  How much difference are you willing to allow to create a successful learning experience for this kid?  Remember, nothing has worked so far.  Will a little bit of difference make the difference?  Or...do you need to do things that have never been done before?

Be brave, have fun, and create something new!

At my old school... (2.0)

"At my old school..."  People at the new school hate these words!  Especially if they hear them all the time.  They don't want to hear it!  They don't want to hear about how much better everything was at your previous school!

"At my old school...," sounds like such a slap in the face.  As if the way that things work at the new place aren't good enough!  Every time folks from the new school hear those words, they get defensive because the way things are at this place have worked fine enough for several years now.  Quit judging your new home based on your old home.

And while we are talking about it, quit asking why we do things the way we do things!  You wouldn't ask unless you thought this way was terrible!  I know you are judging us!  Don't come here telling us everything is bad and everything you did at your old school is better!

Or...

That new teacher sure does come with a different set of experiences!  I bet we can learn a lot from her.  She seems to know what she is talking about and has been at several different schools and districts.  My career has only been here.  A new perspective may be just what we need to make improvements!  We have been doing so many things the same way for so long, it is good to have someone on board with ideas for making things more effective and efficient!

I like that she asks us why we do certain things in certain ways.  It tells me she is interested in understanding the rationale behind our way of doing things.  At first, it seemed like she was questioning us a lot.  But now I see that just makes sense for a new person!  Now I see that she really does accomplish most things our way.  

What that really means is that she only makes suggestions for improvements when she has experienced a better way.  Sounds like a teacher to me!  We always steal ideas from each other!  Why would it be different when she offers us something to steal!

At my old school...

Since 1994, my career has taken me through several incredible schools!  Every school had some great teachers, passionate about their students and passionate about excellent education.  Every school also had some that were not so great.  I have also been a part of a few campuses that didn't fit me too well. Most of those loved status quo rather than continuous improvement.  It is probably safe to say that I wasn't a fit in their eyes either!

Regardless, every campus had strengths that deserved to be shared.  One campus truly took care of the whole child.  Students were little humans above all!  Another campus utilized data to drive instruction better than NASA.  One campus blew me away with their constant innovations and collaboration.  

Within classrooms, strengths were everywhere.  One teacher made math journals come to life.   Another teacher constantly pushed the edge of higher-level thinking with her students.  Yet another caught the heart of every single student.  One made excellent learning look so gloriously simple yet it was always engaging and challenging!  Another truly gave ownership of the classroom to her students.  Strengths could be found on every campus!

We all know that educators are the best of borrowers.  Some say we are the best of thieves.  We love taking great ideas from other teachers, giving them a little remix, and making them our own!  And when we do borrow or steal, we gladly give credit to the giver.  It isn't about credit, it is about doing something that improves learning.

So what happens when someone new comes along?  A new teacher joins a campus after success in another school, another district, another state, or even another country?  New teachers bring their own strengths and experiences.  They bring their own biases and opinions.  They also bring their own assumptions and their own gaps in knowledge.

When the new teacher models something that the campus considers to be new and wonderful, teachers copy it and use it.  We borrow that bit of goodness and make it our own!  We may ask questions about it and seek to learn more.  We may share our successes with others and give credit to the newbie.  After all, better is better, and better is worth sharing!

The new teacher probably has questions too.  The thing is, questions from the newbie are often met defensively.  Folks that have been around for awhile often see these questions as derogatory.  The newbie asks, "Why do we do it that way?  In my old school..."

A process may work just fine in the new place, but the previous place used a process that was extremely effective.  If the new teacher simply puts the better process into action, others copy it and love it.  If the new teacher questions the new school's process, it is often seen as negative.  Why?

Each one of us is a product of our experiences.  I am the educator that I am because of my experiences.  My learning experiences, my teaching experiences, and my life experiences made me the person I am.  Same for you.  Same for your school.

If it is your goal to wake up today and be better than you were yesterday, don't be defensive when new folks ask why something is done a certain way.  Instead, ask yourself the exact same question, "Great question!  Why exactly do we do it that way around here?  Do you know a better way that we should consider?"

When someone says, "At my old school...," don't roll those eyes.  Instead, ask questions and see if there is something in that story worth borrowing.  If your new person has ideas worth stealing, be grateful for all that is offered, whether they offer it by showing you, or they simply ask you why something is done a certain way.

When someone asks, "Why do we...," it probably means there is a suspicion that a better way exists.  If someone says, "Maybe we should...," it means the suspicion of a better way is strong. When someone questions the processes, see it as a great opportunity to question them too!  When someone says, "At my old school...," listen with open ears and an open heart.  You might just find your own improvement!

Tomorrow, I will add a post with the same message.  I wrote two and could not decide which one to post!

I'm sorry you feel that way

A long time ago, I was taught that an apology can go a long way towards repairing a broken situation.  Just apologize so you can show that you care and that you are sorry for what happened.

I've kept this in mind for years and years.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not.  Apologies during a disagreement work best when they are heartfelt and they are include admission of a mistake by the apologist.  For example, "I'm sorry I didn't handle that situation well.  I did a terrible job of hearing your needs.
 I should not have ignored you.  I should have listened to your needs better and found a way to help you."

Apologies during disagreements are meaningless when they don't acknowledge your own actions.  The most common is, "I'm sorry you feel that way."

Uggghhhhh....

If we are really close, I can appreciate the sentiment.  If we are friends or family, and you want me to know that you feel badly for the way I feel because you care about me, those words make sense.  If we are really close, telling me you are sorry is really just commiseration or sympathy.

If we do not have some type of close relationship, please don't apologize for the way I feel.  "I'm sorry you feel that way," is not an apology.

First nods

Who are your campus leaders?  I'm not asking about the principal or the AP.  Not the leadership team.  Not the chair of the hospitality committee.  Who are the teachers that others look at for those first opinions on change?  Who are the ones that guide the opinions?  Who are the teachers that are looked at for the first nods of approval or disapproval?

These folks may be the first to speak during every group discussion or they may not speak at all.  They may be the most tenured teachers on campus or perhaps they are new and they have quickly gained huge amounts of respect due to their enthusiasm and success.  They may have earned it through student success and a passion for teaching or perhaps they earned it by a no-nonsense attitude and a willingness to hold on to the status quo.  These unofficial, yet valuable leaders make a difference.

Their opinions drive attitudes.  They drive motivation.  They drive organizational growth.

Who drives on your campus?  Is it the innovators?  The movers and the shakers?  Or is it the TTWWADIs?  Is it the passion-laden teachers who will literally do anything for their students and their school?  Or is it the clock-watchers?  The ones who just wait for that bell to ring?

Most importantly, regardless of who the leaders are, what can we do to grow more leaders that are full of passion for excellent education and absolutely love learning?

Stop light volume

Early in my teaching career, I had a construction paper stoplight in my room.  Each color on the stop light represented the desired volume.  Green meant talking was OK.  Yellow meant that whispering was OK.  Red was for silence.  I moved the light based on my desired volume for each activity.  It was well-planned.  I purposely chose the volume that would best fit each learning activity.  I also used it to control the volume when it seemed to get too loud.

Twenty years later, Amazon sells a Yacker Tracker for a hundred bucks and it senses the volume and changes the light automatically!

If the students were working on projects or inquiry-based lessons, the light was green.  Talking was OK.  Green was also lit for projects and cooperative learning activities.  Yellow was lit for independent work.  Red was lit during reading time and some independent work activities that I chose to be silent.  I can't remember why???

The problem with the stoplight was that my kids didn't always agree with the volume that I wanted.  So I spent too much time trying to enforce the "correct" volume.  It didn't seem to matter how many times we practiced the correct volume, I always had kids who showed me they didn't agree.  After too much time and energy, I finally asked myself, "Why?"

I asked several other teachers for better strategies to control the volume,  I wanted more tricks in my bag.  I tried several of them, but the results were the same.

I looked another direction for an answer.  I looked at my rationale behind the different volumes.  I tried to simplify things so that my students could better understand the expectations and more importantly, so I could maximize learning and spend less time fixing the volume.

I started by asking myself, "When does it absolutely need to be silent?"

I came up with two answers.  When someone is talking to the whole class, everyone else should be quiet.  That one seemed easy.  Also, some assessments needed to be quiet.  Several other learning activities crossed the board when I thought about silent.  What about reading time?  I decided that short conversations about reading made for better learning.  What about videos?  Short conversations about the videos made for better learning.  What about work that was to be graded?  This one was easy to let go as I strongly preferred a standards-based grading system!

I also asked myself, "When is whispering the correct volume?"  I listed several possibilities, but the only time that I could come up with where whispering was the best volume for everyone's learning was during silent reading time.  I guess "almost-silent" reading time would be more appropriate!

Looking at these new guidelines for class volume, it seemed to me that they were more natural for human beings!  When someone else talks, everyone should listen.  When the majority of people are concentrating silently, everyone else should respect the quiet environment by talking as quietly as possible.  Most importantly, when we are learning, we should be talking!

Now, when designing learning activities, rather than thinking about the best volume, I invest time thinking about how to elicit the best talk.  Evoking great questions.  Involving the learners in thoughtful discussions.  The one doing the most talking is doing the most learning!

The pebble in your shoe

How long will you walk with a tiny pebble in your shoe?  It is barely noticeable.  Really, you pay it no attention if something else is on your mind.  But still, when you notice that pebble, it bothers you. How long do you put up with it before you do something about it?

If you are on the move, with somewhere to be, that pebble might just stay in your shoe for awhile.  Because removing the annoyance would require stopping for a moment, removing your shoe, extracting the pebble, adjusting your sock, and putting your shoe back on.  Stopping your forward progress, even if it will ease your journey forward doesn't seem worth it.

With any pebble though, there comes a point when the annoyance outweighs the trouble of stopping.  So you stop, remove the pebble, and those first pebble-free steps are awesome!  Sometimes, you giggle at your self for putting up with the annoyance for so long!  The pebble is gone and progress resumes better than ever!

What about at school?  Are there some pebbles that annoy you just a little bit?  Perhaps a certain procedure that doesn't quite function smoothly.  Perhaps a part of your daily lessons that don't produce the engagement you hoped for.  Perhaps a part of your lesson-planning process that could definitely be better, if only you would stop and address the irritant.  Maybe you are not getting the results you hope for from your current math practices.  Maybe your writing instruction lack true authenticity and the kids don't see the purpose.  Teachers usually know of several things that could be better.

But school is almost always moving quickly.  There doesn't seem to be time to stop and take care of the problem.  Or maybe the solution isn't as easy simple as removing your shoe.  The solution may actually be unknown.  You know there is a better way, you just don't know what it is.  Or, you know you want something to be a little different, you just aren't sure the eventual improvement is worth the effort to make it happen.

It is worth it.  If it wasn't, we would all be walking around with pebbles in our shoes!

Must innovators be fearless?

I was listening to Warren Berger's book on the way to school this morning.  A More Beautiful Question.  It was the last chapter and he quoted somesuch guy who said, "Innovators must be fearless."

I immediately wondered if it was possible to be fearless in the face of uncertainty???
 Can you try something completely new, different, and perhaps unproven without fear?  Can you fearlessly move forward with something that could potentially be amazing...or could potentially be the opposite of amazing?

Being fearless almost seems a little crazy to me.  In order to innovate, I think it is much more important to be courageous!  When you are ready to forge your way down a new path, strength and courage in the face of uncertainty will be more helpful than a lack of fear!  Bravery is not the lack of fear.  Bravery is your ability to persevere in the face of fear!  Be brave!

Between Stimulus and Response

I was thinking about Viktor Frankl's words,

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

While I am sure this may be perfectly obvious to most people, especially anyone who has heard Dr. Stephen Covey talk about this topic, the idea of the space between stimulus and response is the essence of being proactive rather than reactive.  When there is no space created, we simply react.  The more space created, the greater likelihood of a thoughtful response.

Does this idea jive with another oft-heard quip? "Trust your gut feeling."  Can you create a space between stimulus and response and trust your gut feeling at the same time?  It seems that an immediate reaction to something might be your gut reaction, but it also might not be a chosen response.  Oppositely, creating the space after a challenging stimulus is presented gives you time to respond after giving your actions time and thought.  Perhaps this is when you occasionally go against your gut instincts.

What about those questions you occasionally ponder that linger for months and months.  The response you want probably wrestles with your gut feelings until you are sick to your stomach!  What you really want, what you think you want, what your gut is telling you to do, and the sheer inability to make a decision just might be too much space between stimulus and response.

Is it possible that too much time can be created between stimulus and response?  I think so!  While I wholeheartedly believe that space must be created to choose your best response to any given stimulus, too much space will eventually cloud the entire decision.  This leads to indecision...and perhaps indigestion!

Another good quote to end this thinking, brought to you by the Canadian Rock and Roll trio, Rush.

"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice..."

Passionately engaged learning!

I love seeing people passionately engaged.  It doesn't really matter what it is either.  Watching someone intensely study, work, practice, investigate, rehearse, repeat, or try to do something successfully for the very first time is intriguing!

Both of my boys play soccer.  They love soccer!  Every now and then, I catch one of them alone in the yard, working on a new juggling move.  They try it over and over and over again until they get it right.  Then they try it over and over and over again until they get it right pretty much every time.  There have been a few occasions where I watched them from a fairly close distance and they didn't even notice I was there.

This type of passionate engagement is magic!  It is where the brain grows and the deep learning occurs.  I have seen this same type of intensity in classrooms many times.  Amazing lesson design in an amazing learning environment makes it happen!  It is not easy.  It doesn't happen all the time.  But when it does, it is the kind of lesson that the teacher will always remember.

I have a few of my own teaching memories of these magical learning activities.  Building bridges, the Bike Accident Trial, and hiking in the dark come to mind rather quickly.  I loved these more than the kids.  I loved them because the kids learned from them and THEY loved them.

These are the lessons worth repeating!  These are the types of lessons we want more of!

No Conflict? No Innovation. Know Conflict? Know Innovation!

Karen Valencic said, "Without conflict, there is no innovation."  Indeed, we tend to make our greatest innovations when we are left with no choice but to do something different.  If the "different thing" works, it is an innovative success!  If the "different thing" does not work, do we still call it innovative???  I think we should.

What about those who operate on the edge and do new and different things on a regular basis?  What about the trendsetters?  Where is their conflict?

I believe it comes from their passion and their relentless pursuit to improve.  Even when a lesson goes well, these are the folks who push to do better.  They may find a new app that will increase student engagement and focus student dialogue on the learning target.  They may create a new project for students based on a neighborhood problem.  They may ask the questions that nobody else asks.   They are the ones who constantly challenge the TTWWADI mentality.  They might even cause a few folks to shake their heads in disbelief.

These teachers first moved their desks out of rows and into small groups so that kids could collaborate.  It is almost a challenge to find desks in rows in 2015.  These are the same ones who first tried teaching kids to read in small groups with appropriately leveled texts.  Twenty years ago, these teachers were trendsetters.  Today, guided reading is the norm.  These trendsetters wrote grant proposals to buy iPads for their classrooms way back in 2010 so their students could access relevant and timely information globally, rather than from outdated encyclopedias.  These days, educators are fully aware that technology needs to be in the hands of students!

Teachers who make things happen find their own conflict.  Unlike folks who cringe at the thought of conflict and change, these passionate educators smile at the challenge of doing things differently!  They relish the thought of doing something better!  They innovate!

Simply complicated

It may be as simple as choosing YES or NO.  It may be as simple as STAY or GO.  Maybe you simply need to choose between THIS or THAT.  Whatever decision you need to make, if the different parts of your brain and heart argue for both sides, that decision becomes complicated.



When your brain and heart are very much in agreement, the simple answer remains simple.  Even if the actual decision involves many factors and the ramifications impact lots of folks, a complicated decision seems simple.  What seems clearly right, is simply right, regardless of the complications.

Like animals!

My family and I love to hike.  I also love the fact that taking a long walk outdoors seems more outdoorsy when I call it a hike, but that is another story.  On those days when the mornings and evenings are a bit chilly, but the daytime is warm, I love to look for lizards and snakes catching sun on rocks and fallen trees.  They can be tough to find because they don't move too much.  In the wild, it is an animal's natural disposition to expend as little energy as possible most of the time.

When a cold-blooded animal sits motionless on a rock, it is trying to conserve energy and gain heat.  In hot environments, animals find shade and stand still to conserve hydration.

I think this may be the reason that it is so hard for me to walk out the door to get some exercise!  It is a built in mechanism that is telling me to take it easy!  Seriously though, when improvement is needed, no matter how badly, it usually feels more natural to be still and not move.  Even when the desire for improvement is evident, our animal instincts often times tell us to maintain the status quo.  But we are not your average animals!  We have the ability to choose action, even when it feels unnatural.  We are capable of forcing ourselves to be proactive because we can foresee the end results.

Doing nothing may be more comfortable than facing new challenges, but hindsight tells us that facing those challenges beats watching our status quo crumble into failure.