Authentic Leadership

How many of you, and be honest, have received emails from job seekers about potential openings at your school and don't reply? I'm new to the administrative world, am only an Assistant Principal, and I was rather taken aback at the amount of times I've gotten such emails. Kudos to you, job seeker, future educator, for putting yourself out there and making yourself heard.  Kudos to you for not just applying on the district website, attaching your resume and hoping for the best.  I respect you.  Which is why I'm writing this post. I remember when I first tested the waters of teacherdom 8 years ago.  My dad and I flew down to Savannah, Georgia on my last spring break as a college student.  I brought with me copies of my cover letter and resume and dutifully drove around the historic city, personally handing them out to principals at their respective schools.  I wasn't going to leave anything to chance.  I wanted to get out of the snow, and I wan...

I'm a habitual podcast listener.  I won't get into the details of all the podcasts that I listen to, but I have a group of podcasts in which I don't miss an episode.  I used to consider myself a reader, and I guess I still am, as proven by the books with pages marked by miscellaneous objects, strewn all over my house that I consider myself in the process of "reading".  Some of those books I've been reading for years.  Podcasts have largely replaced books in my life.  I almost cringe saying that.  They are just easier to digest and I've got a lot to digest at the moment.  I listen to podcasts when I'm doing yard work, house work, driving, and when I fall asleep at night.  I found myself in an unfortunate position a few weeks ago that sent me into a panic...it was time for bed and I didn't have any new podcasts episodes to listen to!  I know- woe is me. Haha, I just did a google image search for "woe is me" expecting to find Cookie the Co...

It's been a while since I've posted anything of meaning on this blog.  I was named Assistant Principal in my district in January of this year and as a matter of fact, it's been since then that I have said anything.  Not because of fear.  Not because I was so incredibly busy figuring out my new role that I didn't have time to blog, even though that would be a fair and pretty honest assessment.  As a matter of fact, I'm a man of analogies and the closest one I could come up with in my attempt to start my new role as an AP in the middle of the school year at a new school was like trying to start watching a trilogy in the middle of the second movie and trying to figure out what in the world is going on.  Anyways, since beginning as an AP 8 months ago it's been an amazingly exciting, flustering, rewarding and hardest 8 months of my life. In January, the month I began my administrative career and more accurately, my last day as a 5th grade teacher my 2 year old daug...

I'm going to go out on a limb here and make BOLD statement. Ready for it? "Teaching students HOW to Google is one of the top 3 skills you should teach in a given school year." The other 2, in my opinion- in case you are interested: -  How to have a perfect conversation/work in groups/work with peers, etc. -  How to use technology in a responsible way. -   How to Google effectively. From Google Search Education website: "Web search can be a remarkable tool for students, and a bit of instruction in how to search for academic sources will help your students become critical thinkers and independent thinkers." This thought led me to this video.  Top 10 Google Search Tips and Tricks. I wonder how you can teach a 3rd grader how to Google like a pro?  Or, perhaps they already do!

I read a tweet the other day by @realscientists that said, "We've raised a generation of people who can DO math, but most don't UNDERSTAND what they're doing..." and if I could have made a standing ovation tweet, I would have.  Perfectly said. Maybe the tweet had such an impact on me because it is something I noticed this year in my classroom.    One example in particular is that my students do a pretty good job with the math but are struggling with the problems.  In other words, they can find a NUMBER but they struggle to find an ANSWER to a problem. I have a few theories as to why this is happening and what we can do to fix it. One, they are terrified of failing.  They've gone through hardcore testing for at least 3 years now and because of the stakes of those tests and their fear of failing them, they have allowed that to bleed into their every day academic lives and are now governed by it. Two, they've never had to.  This isn't a dog on t...

Here we are, two weeks away from an extremely well deserved break, spending a great amount of time...testing.  Now is about the time that I start drawing out my plans of my latest, yet to be invented invention.  This invention is called- wait for it- iBrain.  No, that name isn't very creative.  Test Eliminator 2000.  Ehh, let's go with iBrain.  Anyways, iBrain looks like a USB cable that plugs into the ear of a student- any ear.  The other end plugs into a computer.  You wait 5 minutes while everything the student has learned up to THAT point is downloaded into a convenient little, easy to read, spreadsheet.  Bingo bango boom, you have what you need to plan the upcoming semester.  Oh yeah, and all the accountability stuff too.  5 minutes is all it took. Of course I am being facetious and thinking rather wishfully.  I know.  I understand the need to assess our students for both planning purposes and accountability purpos...

As you've probably noticed from my posts so far, I'm a big fan of providing authentic experiences to my students in the classroom.  But, as an aspiring administrator, I also understand the importance of providing authentic learning opportunities to the teachers and staff as well.  This past Friday, my principal did just that. You see, we are having a much lower than expected turnout for kindergarten registration this year.  Furthermore, we have identified a pre-K program that would do wonders for our kids preparedness when they eventually come to us.  This pre-K program is also having lower than expected registrations.  My principal, understanding that our community has a lot on their plates in terms of...well...life...asked us teachers to head out to the various neighborhoods, go door to door, and hand out fliers Friday afternoon (it was a half-day for our students- the afternoon was set aside for PD).  Needless to say, some staff members were horrified ...