Thrivapy: Live, Learn, Have Fun

Like most educators, I am always interested in articles about best teaching practices.  This article is a very good and quick read that captures the essence of this topic. As an independent school administrator, I also submit into the discussion the NAIS (National Association of Independent Schools) Principles of Good Practice for Teachers and Supervisors of Teachers . I find both the similarities and differences between the effective teaching descriptions and the Principles of Good Practice , especially the detail of the PGP list. My Thoughts On Effective Teaching | Connected Principals

There is not a single part of a school that I do not enjoy spending time.  It could be just about anywhere.  Libraries, classrooms, lecture halls, gyms, hallways, dining hall – anywhere I go, I like to get a sense of the “energy” of a school in session.  One of my favorite places to go is the faculty workroom (lounge).  Over the course of many years and more than a few different schools, this “sacred” place on campus has been both a source of inspiration and professional discourse as well as a caldron of negativity and office politics.  The key to avoiding the pitfalls of negativity, I offer this strategy for success:  Know when to “get out of the kitchen.”  I am fortunate that my current school promotes a healthy professional environment.  This is in no small part due to the example and leadership provided by the Headmaster.  On the other hand, I know of other schools in which it appears a perpetual culture of insecurity and mistrust exists.  These are not healthy places, and from m

The topic of education reform does not necessarily come up much as part of my role as an independent school administrator.  Because we exist to serve our own mission, such reform efforts do not necessarily make a significant impact on how we operate our school.  Educational reform does, however, provide a wonderful backdrop for creative thinking and the discussion of ideas.  As such, and because I believe that any improvement in education (private or public) is beneficial to all educators, I would like to propose an idea for public school reform that is based on the independent school model – one that has shown to be quite successful in preparing students for life outside of school.  This idea is not without some merit as Vermont considers a similar idea for some schools . Independent schools are governed by a Board of Trustees who hire the school’s Headmaster to run the operation of the institution.  Boards are basically responsible for a few items ( a more complete list of Board fun

The 2010 Edublog Award Nominations are due by Friday, December 3, 2010.  I am happy to make the following nominations. My Nominations for The 2010 Edublog Awards are: Best individual blog: Justin Baeder Best school administrator blog:  Jonathan Martin If you haven’t checked out these blogs, please do.  I have found them to be a wonderful resource for anyone interested in education. If you would like submit nominations, please check out the link above or click here .

Continuing my series on great teachers is John Dewey .  Anyone who has studied education has likely been exposed to Dewey’s philosophy of education.  Even in today’s push for 21st century reforms, including learning by doing, Dewey’s name remains among the most mentioned in conversation. Feel free to comment or suggest future entries in this series.

One of the more consistent themes I found while  doing the literature review for my research into the leadership orientations of independent school heads was the frequency of use of the human resource frame by educational leaders and teachers.  For those who are unfamiliar with “framing”, I am referring to the concepts put forth by Bolman and Deal (2003) addressing the way leaders interpret situations and make decisions.  Bolman and Deal (2003) describe 4 frames (structural, human resource, political, and symbolic) from which leaders use to organize and evaluate the numerous pieces of input regarding a situation.  The frames these leaders use will determine the decisions they make.  Theory is, therefore, the more frames a leader can employ to evaluate a situation, the more likely the leader is to make a good decision.  If multiple frames are used, leaders are then “re-framing” in order to determine possible courses of action that would not be clear unless multiple frames are used.  Of

Does this sound familiar?  You have listened to your teachers and have gathered input and suggestions on how to address an issue at your school.  With their help, you put together a great idea and begin to implement the idea with great anticipation that the students will soon reap the rewards of this hard work. After rolling out the new initiative, things begin to loose steam and what was once a high energy project with great potential is now on life support.  If this has happened to you, don’t worry.  It has probably happened to many of us who operate in the leadership arena.  What you should be concerned about is how to minimize the chances of this happening each time you attempt a new idea or try to implement refinements to existing operations. So, what can you do to help avoid this situation?  I suggest a type of checklist for you to use as you work with your team to design and implement future plans. When I was hired on for my current position, I was tasked with “fixing” the ad

If you are interested in how technology can lead to a more engaging climate in schools, please read this blog post by Mr. Jonathan Martin .  Mr. Martin is an independent school administrator who frequently posts insightful and well written articles about technology and the potential impact it can have on our students. Engaging, not Distracting, the Digital Generation: Responding to the Times’ Wired piece « 21k12

This is a great article for teachers, parents, administrators, or anyone with questions about the effects of digital tools on our children.  Don Tapscott: New York Times Cover Story on "Growing Up Digital" Misses the Mark

A common theme I hear (and subscribe to) concerning great teaching is that there is a correlation between student engagement and effective instruction.  In my own meetings with teachers, I use and hear some form of this in conversation often, but wonder if I take for granted that there is a common understanding of what an engaged student is and how teachers can create engaging experiences.  Therefore, I thought it would be helpful to reflect on what we mean by engaged and how it may appear in the 21st century school. For the sake of this article, let us define engaged as being involved in an activity of great interest.  In order to be “engaged”, by default, the student must “engage”.  To engage, among other possible definitions, means to take part in or be attentive to something.  The next stage of reflection now asks us to apply these terms to a classroom setting. The application of these terms to a classroom should produce a vision or scene of the engaged class.  Your picture can b

Great article about leading school’s in the 21st century.  The first point about being creative speaks to the ability of leaders to see things from multiple angles in order to make effective decisions.  This is very similar to the ability to reframe situations as written about by Bolman and Deal in Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice and Leadership (2008). All in all, the article (linked below) is very good at linking the 21st century skills we are trying to develop with students to the work of the 21st century educational leader. The 21st Century Principal | Connected Principals

This blog post (linked below) was very good at presenting the topic of open-computer testing.  I found it very informative and highly recommend it for anyone interested in 21st century skill building and/or use of the internet for testing. Open-Computer Testing: Putting 21st c. Learning to the Test « 21k12

Great article about education, network literacy, and digital presence for schools.  If you are looking for professional development insights or are interested in the growing trends with technology and education, read this article (linked below).  Education Week Teacher Professional Development Sourcebook: Change Agent

Here are two articles that demonstrate some consistencies and differences between the value added measures from the public and independent school perspective. What is your opinion on value added measures in schools?

A short, yet insightful video concerning leadership communication.

In the second installment of the Greatest Teachers series, I include Jesus into the conversation.  Often referred to as “Teacher” by his disciples, an examination of Jesus as a teacher provides an interesting into how to present challenging concepts through the use of parables and a keen sense of social awareness. I found an interesting paper on the topic of Jesus as teacher that you may also enjoy reading. While I enjoy the exercise of coming up with a list of Greatest Teachers, I am interested in your thoughts as well.  Please feel free to comment and/or send in your our suggestion about a future entry in this series.

I thought it would be an interesting exercise to begin a series of 10 entries that attempt to discover the greatest teachers in history.  As with any such exercise, I hope this series helps identify common traits among these teachers.  I also anticipate some discussion about each entry as well as suggestions for future entries. Please note that the order of when any teacher appears is not indicative of any value I may assign. The first teacher I will submit is Plato.  I found this page from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy useful. Please feel free to comment on the inclusion of Plato in this series and to offer suggestions for future entries.

One of the distinctive characteristics of private independent schools is the ability for each school to define its mission and state it publicly.  It is this mission that should play a key role in attracting and retaining families to the school.  But does your school’s ethos match the mission statement?  In other words, does your mission actually live throughout your school and does it truly define your school’s community?  If so, then I would anticipate that the school is most likely delivering the educational experience that attracted and retains its families and is providing that experience very successfully. In order to assess the degree to which a school’s ethos reflects its mission, all school constituencies are valuable pools for information.  These include teachers, parents, students, alumni, administrators, trustees, etc. Once these groups have been surveyed, look for the common themes that emerge.  If there are distinct similarities, then there is likely to exist a strong

Anyone who has read or followed my blog knows I am an independent school administrator.  I say that because I do not make any excuses for having chosen to serve the needs of private school families. I was pleased to see the comments left in response to the article and would agree with the opinions based on my own experience (see link at bottom of this post). You may also want to read my blog post about the challenge of addressing declining civility in the face of increasing stress and competition:  Global Competition, Results Based Evaluation, and Building a Culture of Civility in Schools: A Catch-22 for Educators Bullying and Civility, in Public and Private Schools - NYTimes.com

I read this article with the hopes of finding an interesting insight into the argument that our schools continue to operate under a mostly industrial age construct.  I was also hoping to gain a perspective on altering that construct to fit the 21st century.  Unfortunately, I was disappointed and left to wonder what the purpose of the article was at all. In it, I found a somewhat rambling narrative that begins with what I think is a negative memory of a high school English teacher (who apparently also was a major influence on the author’s own teaching philosophy).  The article then goes on to paint with large strokes an extremely negative opinion of politics and politicians.  Finally, we are led to believe that student performance, student work products, and any hands-on guidance by the teacher is undermining learning and that their is a difference between being a teacher and a teaching professional – basically teaching professionals are defined by their focus on being “social engineer

It is not uncommon in schools to have a number of people performing various functions.  It is my experience that many of these people, after a few years, end up spending more time on the expanding role they now play than they do on the original role they were hired to fulfill.  In many cases, these high performers do a very good job of juggling multiple roles.  On the other hand, at some point saturation sets in and good people are faced with extraordinary stressors that can impact the good work they do each day. As educational leaders, what can we do to help this situation?  I would suggest one possible solution may be found in some strategic restructuring of roles.  If the new responsibilities that have been added are becoming the norm, can you create a new position for that person that is primarily responsible for these tasks while relocating some of the original tasks to a more appropriate office?  Are you as the leader constantly measuring the skills and talents of the teachers w

Recently, I attended a conference at which the issue of student motivation was a major theme in the keynote and in a few breakout sessions.  In at least two discussions, it was declared (by the session speaker) that the most important job of the teacher is to motivate students.  While I certainly agree that motivation, especially internal motivation, plays a major role in the work students produce and the effort given to learning lessons, I am not sure the “primary” role of the teacher is to motivate.  Let me explain. I think the most important role of a teacher is – drum roll, please – …TO TEACH.  Of course, finding ways to motivate students to do their best will help the teaching and learning process, but teachers are not professional motivators.  Here’s why.  In my playing days, I had some outstanding coaches who taught me plenty about how to play baseball better who were not in the least bit great motivators.  On the other hand, I have observed classes in which the students are hi

Today is election day.  Support democracy and vote!  If interested in education as a voting issue, check out the link to CNN’s election center. Top issues: Education - CNN.com