Rethinking/Rebranding “Back-to-School”

Posted on by drentsminger

Last week, my wife and I were conversing about our “back-to-school” experiences as children. She reminisced about how she was so excited to go back to school. She elucidated her enthusiasm for meeting her new teacher and seeing her new classroom. She declared, “I couldn’t wait to meet my new teacher, see my new classroom, and see my new desk/seat!” She also recalled her excitement for back-to-school shopping. She would go back-to-school shopping with her entire family. She detailed her peculiar admiration for school supplies (special pencils, pretty-looking paper, extraordinary erasers, etc.) and how she loved these experiences and the back-to-school time of year.

For me, back-to-school was completely different. I was never excited about any of it. I wasn’t looking forward to meeting my new teacher. I was dreading my new seat in my new classroom. I loathed back-to-school shopping. In fact, I usually just handed my school supply list to my mom and she went to the store by herself and purchased everything. Interestingly, I have a feeling that my experience isn’t all that dissimilar compared to many kids, past and present.

I began to cogitate on the following: As educators, what can we do to ease the transition back into learning after summer break? I’m not talking about simply getting students excited about going back to school. I’m talking about getting students excited and prepared for re-engaging in cognitive activity. I’ve seen the back-to-school parades on youtube and twitter. I’ve seen entire school rallies with popular sports mascots encouraging students to “get back in the game”. I’ve seen schools begin the school year with field trips and field days in order to ease the transition. I’m sure those types of activities certainly have the potential to excite students about being present in school after the culmination of summer break. However, I see getting excited about simply being present back at school as different from getting students excited about re-engaging in learning.

I also thought about a typical response to my cogitation: Students should continue learning throughout the summer. Thus, if students continued learning all summer (by going to the library, experiencing museums, engaging in activities at day camps, etc.), re-engaging in learning once school started back up wouldn’t be such a shock to the system. I completely understand the validity in that notion. Yet, I try to think about the kids like me (and the kids worse off than me). It’s not that my parents didn’t help continue the learning journey throughout the summer. They did. I went to summer camps. My family and I traversed the plethora of museums throughout Illinois and beyond. At dinner time, we talked about all the fun stuff we did during the day. We engaged in continuous dialogue about world events. My parents encouraged me to read (though, don’t tell my mom, I rarely ever read anything over the summer). Put plainly, I simply did not care about re-engaging in learning, let alone being present back at school.

In addition, throughout my years in education, I’ve served students who did not engage in a single learning activity the entire summer. I assure you, this is not an isolated incident. Unfortunately, this happens everywhere, regardless of race/socioeconomic status/culture/etc.

Therefore, as educators (parents are educators, too), what do you do to get your students (or your children)/prepare your students (or your children) for re-engaging in learning? Have you seen a school/district successfully rethink/rebrand “back-to-school” to encourage the dive back into cognitive activity and not just garner excitement about being present back at school?

Any tips or tricks you’d like to share? Feel free to do so!

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Dear Representative Jeanne Ives: We Need to Talk

Posted on by drentsminger

I apologize for the delay in blog posts. It’s been a while since I’ve written. I’ve been busy this summer! However, I could not ignore an opportunity to write a post focused on Jeanne Ives and her deleterious comments regarding teachers, unions, and the teacher pension system in Illinois.

Her comments have circulated social media for few weeks now (Facebook Link; Youtube Link). I find the following quote most troubling: “I’ll get out my checkbook and I’ll send a property tax bill to my county to pay for bloated administrative salaries in public schools… in public schools where on average, in the state of Illinois, less than half of the students are ready for college… Just over 1/3 are even reading or doing math at grade level… Maybe I should send them more money…”

Undoubtedly, she’s passionate. You can hear it in her voice. I appreciate that. Yet, imagine if she were more passionate about clarity. Before I begin to poke holes in the validity of her claim, I’ll first share the following troubling statistic/fact (allowing me to situate my response): Schools with less than 10% of students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds score as well as or better than the highest achieving nations (Finland, Shanghai, etc.) in the world. In fact, if one were to analyze a data set showing level of achievement and percentage of students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds, one would see an inverse correlation between the two. Therefore, as the percentage of students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds increases, the level of achievement decreases. In no way am I saying that poor students cannot achieve. Quite the opposite, in fact, considering I dedicate my life to showing that they can. I’m simply sharing this information to highlight the importance of not conflating separate issues in education. Are there overpaid administrators in education? Possibly. Yet, it’s important to understand that one issue does not exist as a result of the other. Put plainly, student academic underachievement is not a result of (possible) bloated administrative salaries. When considering student academic achievement (or lack thereof), there are far too many concurrent variables at play (poverty, student/family mobility, etc.) to make a claim that one of those variables is significantly more profound than all the others. One may see her conflation (as I do) as a complete misinterpretation of issues facing educators today. Thus, it would behoove her (and the many politicians like her) to leave education to those who have the knowledge and ability to bring about the necessary changes.

Recently, Jeanne also blasted a teacher on twitter, claiming that “support of unions = chaos in schools.” As you can see in the picture accompanying this post, I responded with a comment to get her thinking and to encourage her to explain to me how unions contribute to chaos in schools, considering that chaos is prevalent in a considerable amount of non-unionized, failing charter schools (I’m still waiting for her to get back to me…). In addition, I always think it’s wise to consider how successful districts or world nations deal with prevalent education issues. For example, Finland works closely with its teacher union in order to best serve its students. Granted, as an administrator, I’ve had many difficult conversations with teachers’ unions and union representatives. However, like Finland, I believe that in order to raise achievement for all students, it’s considerably more propitious to work with unions as opposed to lumping them all together into one picture/broad stroke and developing evil machinations to bring about union demise. Jeanne’s comments really brought me back. Teacher/union blasting was so 2014. I think Diane Ravtich should send her signed copies of her most recent work.

She also made comments about the “state’s pension problem.” This will be short and sweet. If I’m not mistaken, politicians have voted to borrow against teacher pensions for decades. These politicians have never paid back the loan. I’m no financial expert. However, it’s rare in life to get a loan and never have to pay it back (sarcasm). The pension system was never designed to serve as an interest free loan for politicians to use as they see fit.

Of course, it’s truly unfortunate when people who have widespread access to such a large array of people don’t think before they spread misinformation. At the same time, her comments truly demonstrate her lack of understanding. Not that politicians need to be experts in all fields. However, a working knowledge regarding some of the basics would certainly help.

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Turns Out, Happiness is the Key (or, at Least One of Them)

Posted on by drentsminger

Did you know the following benefits of happiness (Achor, HBR, 2012):

  • 56% greater sales
  • 3 times more creative
  • 31% more productive
  • 40% more likely to receive a promotion
  • 23% fewer fatigue symptoms
  • Up to 6 times more engaged
  • 39% more likely to live to age 94
  • People who are happy and positive are more productive, which results in a better ROI for companies and school districts.

I attended a 2-day Happiness Advantage workshop in Schaumburg this week.  At first, I was skeptical.  I mean,  I already knew happiness was important.  I knew being happy was a big part of success and creativity.  I knew that happiness helped fuel relationship building.  However, I didn’t know the aforementioned specific benefits of being happy.

Also, happiness is a mindset.  We must make a choice to be happy.  As obvious as that may seem, I never truly thought about happiness that way.  I thought that if I worked hard and became successful, I would be happy (almost automatically).  However, that thinking is backwards.  I must first choose to be happy, which will help my brain work better, and then potentially help me become more successful.  As the presenter mentioned, negative emotions narrow our focus towards fight-flight, whereas positive emotions broaden the amount of possibilities we process, thus, making us more creative, thoughtful, and open to new ideas (Fredrickson, 2004).

In addition, I learned that we have to be careful.  Apparently, it’s fairly simple to fall into the “darkness” or be negative (which shouldn’t be hard to believe.  Just turn on the news).  What is more, I also learned that there are specific habits that people engage in order to remain consistently happy.  During the training, I made a commitment to try at least one of these habits for 21 days.  I’m hoping this commitment will become a habit so that I can begin working on developing another one of the happiness habits.

To clarify, it’s not that I’m not a happy person.  I am happy.  There are many things that make me happy.  However, as the presenter also said (or asked), we’re not always happy at work.  He asked a poignant question: why do we always wait until retirement to be happy?  We should be focusing on ways to make work happy, so that happiness is part of our regular routine and so happiness is also shared with all the people with whom we come into contact.

I definitely plan to live by what I learned.  I was about to say, “implement what I learned.”  Yet, what we learned can’t really be implemented (in the most literal sense).  The Happiness Advantage focused on a paradigm shift/mind shift/seeing the world through different lenses (emotional lenses).  The presenter wasn’t selling a program or some type of scripted curriculum.  Being happy is within us all.  We must choose to be happy.

Let’s bring this post back to the classroom and apply it to my context as an educational leader.  I believe the rubber will truly meet the road when I’m faced with the plethora of issues that plague educational leaders (or, educators in general) on a daily basis: student misbehavior, problematic parent, having difficult conversations with teachers, etc.  When I’m faced with those challenges, I hope I can remember what I learned from the Happiness Advantage training.  I hope that I can remember my commitment to being happy, and spreading that happiness to others.

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What Do We Have Control Over As Educators?

Posted on by drentsminger

This post is a partial continuation of my most recent post, Considering School Improvement in Underserved/Disadvantaged Areas.

I’ve had the conversation regarding school improvement (especially as it relates to underserved/disadvantaged districts) with so many educators. In fact, after my most recent post, I’ve had multiple educators in my district approach me and thank me for sharing the post and express interest in learning more. Again, I posit that there are aspects of education we can control (or have a better chance of controlling), and think it’s essential that we A) take a look at ourselves and determine if we are honestly doing the “right work” by focusing on the things we CAN control while B) simultaneously acknowledging the copious amount of outside-of-school factors that impact student learning, but not letting those factors define our solutions or plague our thinking/efforts.

This list includes a plethora of aspects in education over which we have NO/VERY MINIMAL CONTROL (not an exhaustive list):

  • Poverty and its various effects
  • Dysfunctional family home lives
  • Lack of parental involvement
  • School segregation/school district redlining/other discriminatory policies
  • Blighted/unsafe school communities and neighborhoods
  • Paucity of school funding
  • For some districts, decrepit schools and facilities
  • Formal schooling is not mandated in Illinois until first grade (6-7 years old)

These are some of the aspects in education I think we CAN CONTROL (or have the most control over) in order to help improve schools in underserved/disadvantaged areas. What am I missing? (feel free to comment!):

  • Teacher quality
  • Administrator quality
  • The support we provide our teachers and administrators
  • The type/quality of the professional development offered
  • Safe/comfortable environment for teachers/administrators to act autonomously/take risks/innovate
  • Level of collaboration between teachers and administrators
  • Building relationships/rapport/respect with the entire school community
  • Instructional practices
  • The hiring process
  • Interventions/servicing students who are experiencing difficulty
  • Curriculum
  • Student engagement
  • Culture building/developing/rebuilding
  • School branding
  • Exercising fiscal responsibility with the funds schools do receive
  • Prioritization of duties/responsibilities

Again, please Comment/Like/Share!  I’d love to know your thoughts!

Calling All School Administrators: Collaborate! Deprivatize Your Practice! Share The Learning!

Posted on by drentsminger

Dr. Brad Gustafson said, “If school leaders are not modeling effective collaboration, can we really expect teachers to facilitate it for students?” (2017, p. 50). Gustafson went on to say, “School leaders must model collaboration if it is to become part of a school’s culture” (2017, p. 53).

I wholeheartedly agree. I first focus on these questions as they specifically pertain to administrators and teachers (before thinking about the trickle-down effect with students). Can we really expect teachers to facilitate or engage in collaboration among THEMSELVES if we as administrators aren’t modeling it OURSELVES? I can’t help but notice some reluctance or trepidation regarding collaboration in my meetings with fellow administrators. Clearly, effective collaboration takes time, effort, commitment, and support. Therefore, apprehension concerning collaboration is most certainly understandable. Yet, purposeful reluctance or defiance regarding collaboration will only serve to harm teachers, students, and school culture.

In order for us to improve as educators (and improve schools and the field of education itself), collaboration is key. We must become comfortable with collaboration. We must become committed to collaboration. One of the most effective ways to begin this process is through dialogue with other educators. It is essential to deprivatize our practice and share our learning (and failures) with others (I completely understand that this may be difficult when systematic issues in some districts discourage failure and risk-taking, thus hindering trust, the deprivatization of professional practice, and effective collaboration). However, if as an administrator (or educator in general), you don’t personally accept the reality that collaboration is key for improving schools, you will hinder your school’s efforts towards improvement.

In my district, we’ve implemented Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) which, when done well, requires high levels of collaboration, risk-taking, and deprivatization of professional practice. We’ve had lots of bumps in the road. It has not been smooth sailing to say the least. However, we are committed to the process and the reality that, without collaborating, our schools will not improve. I can’t speak for the other administrators in my district. But, I can say that I will stay the course, as I’ve seen wonderful results regarding collaboration in our PLCs. It must be noted, PLCs are not the only avenue through which educators can collaborate. Educators from across the world have collaborated through face-to-face methods and have broken down barriers by collaborating through asynchronous means using social media. Thousands of educators have embraced technology to help build their Professional Learning Networks (PLNs). Embracing technology’s ability to tear down barriers to collaboration is a wonderful example of effective, technology-based collaboration. Teachers and administrators are constantly learning and developing (for free!) by reaching out to their PLNs.

Also, collaboration doesn’t always have to start with the school leader. I’ve read about teachers starting their own collaborative efforts (through traditional methods or by using social media) and the wonderful effects these efforts have had on the entire building. However, it is important to understand that if the school leader does not personally embrace collaboration, this will drastically harm the school’s collaborative culture and its improvement potential.

During my next administrator meeting, I will challenge/encourage my fellow colleagues to not only deprivatize their practice and share the learning, but also collaborate with school leaders inside and outside our district. I will encourage the utilization of traditional and more modern methods (such as collaboration using social media) to help our schools improve. These types of collaboration, when effectively modeled by the school leader, can lead to positive changes for teachers, and eventually have a positive impact on students.

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