McMillan’s Blog – Every Student, Every Day

An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole, which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments.

But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do. After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream. ‘I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.’ The old woman smiled, ‘Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side?’ ‘That’s because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them.’ For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.’

Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it’s the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. You’ve just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them. We truly are blessed to work in education.  By filtering out the negatives that don’t matter and sharing a positive attitude, we can create a much more successful school.

At Thimmig, we are committed to doing everything possible to get parents involved in the school and at home with their child’s learning.  Staff are continually encourged to reflect on the following:

Do parents know what their child is learning each day? Do parents know where their child is in relation to the learning objectives? Do parents know what their child needs to do at home to make at least a year’s growth? If the answer was no to any of the questions, what can you do to make sure they can answer yes to each one? Together we can make sure that every student, every day is successful!

Parents are the first and most important teacher in a child’s life.

Click the link to see a 5 minute video on how important parent involvement is.

Click Here

In the book Brain Rules by John Medina, it explains that exercise improves cognitive abilities such as long term memory, reasoning, attention, and problem solving.  Essentially, exercise improves a whole host of abilities prized in the classroom.  Kids pay better attention to their subjects when they have been active.  Kids are less likely to be disruptive in terms of classroom behavior when they’re active.  Kids feel better about themselves, have higher self esteem, less depression, and less anxiety.

Summary

Exercise boosts brain power

• Our brains were built for walking -12 miles a day!
• To improve your thinking skills, move.
• Exercise gets blood to your brain, bringing it glucose for energy and oxygen to soak up the toxic electrons that are left over:  It also stimulates the protein that keeps neurons connecting.

As a staff, we spent almost a full day establishing what we value at Thimmig Elementary.  We had some great discussion and I strongly believe that we now have become more clear to what we all need to do.

Mission

Every Student, Every Day

Vision

100% of our students will make at least a years growth in all content areas.

Values and Commitments

Instruction

We will give instruction based on the district ELTs.

(What does this look like?)

• Use assessments to identify when ELTs are met by using a variety of formative assessments to monitor and adjust instruction (formal, informal, verbal)
• Break down the ELTs into chunks and make the ELTs understandable to students; “the plan of how to get there”
• Use and provide descriptive feedback that is meaningful and accessible to students allowing them time to reflect, process, and act
• Engage in a planning process that begins with the ELT and identifies a progression of learning targets to help students accomplish a level of proficiency defined by success criteria

All Thimmig teachers will commit to using the core curricular tools with fidelity.

(What does this look like?)

• Use core materials as the primary source for instruction for below, at and above grade level; use data to determine if other resources are needed
• Differentiation is a necessary
• Must know where your students are
• Collaborate with vertical teams to explore the resources available and how to use them

We will ensure that students will receive the time, focus, and intensity of instruction required for each student to make at least a year’s growth.

(What does this look like?)

• Pre-assess and use available data of prior and current year for grouping, instruction, goal setting (student and staff), to focus on achievement. Be reflective with instruction and data to ensure that students make at least one year’s growth.
• Use classroom management skills to minimize distractions, maximize learning time
• Effectively use intervention time as well as time kids are in other groups to meet achievement goal.

We will work in teams to review student achievement data and use this information to make decisions about changes to instruction to ensure growth.

(What does this look like?)

• Maximize time during collaboration by focusing on team DDD to make instructional changes and focus on best practices
• Create a useable dashboard and really use it
• Daily content specific formative assessment used to adjust instruction to meet the student’s needs
• Utilize the “Problem Solving Team”

We will Transform Students into Learners using the Seven Strategies of Learning.

(What does this look like?)

• Team will provide rubrics, exemplars, VIPs, self and peer assessment opportunities, student growth charts, ELTs/targets and use Say, See, Do model
• Students can explain what they did well and what they need to improve on based on exemplars, feedback, and assessments
• Giving lots of opportunities in a risk free environment to self-evaluate and time for them to take ownership

We will ensure effective and safe classroom and playground management using strategies from Tools for Teaching and PBS.

(What does this look like?)

• Use Classroom Management Tools for Teaching
  • Working the crowd
  • Say, See, Do teaching
  • Praise, Prompt, Leave
  • VIPs (Visual Instruction Plans)
  • Relationship building
  • Time on task
• Procedures and routines will be taught, practiced and followed through inside and outside of the building
• Keep expectations consistent throughout building
  • Each grade level
  • Each staff member

Professionalism

We will focus on student learning when making all building decisions.

(What does this look like?)

• Making tough decisions to positively impact student achievement
• Do what is best for students (not what’s convenient for teachers)
• Shared decision making school wide – when possible
• Thimmig kids are all of our kids

We will have a Growth Mind Set.

(What does this look like?)

• Seek opportunities to learn and be willing to take risks
• Be open to feedback and suggestions for improvement
• Set goals that are attainable and measureable
• Celebrate success
• Create a risk free environment that allows opportunities to learn from professional development, colleagues, and all grade levels

We will have a 212 degree belief.

(What does this look like?)

• Choose to do more than what is expected because you have a desire to make a positive impact on the building and community
• Support each other by sharing what works in order to work smarter, not harder
• Be positive and support each other
• Narrow the focus – one thing at a time
• Taking care of yourself

We will establish positive partnerships and relationships with students, parents, colleagues, and the community.

(What does this look like?)

• Proactive communication with all: students, staff, and parents
• Honesty and sincerity with parents, students, and staff
• Look for solutions, not blame
• Use communication (class web pages, e-mails, Friday folders, newsletters, website, PTA, conferences, Back to School Night) with parents teachers, students and teams for positive growth
• Attend school functions and get to know parents

We will be a positive influence on school climate and show respect for colleagues, students, and parents at all times.

(What does this look like?)

• Go to the source and be solution driven
• Be positive, smile, project a welcoming attitude
• Be on time – following building norms
• Model a positive attitude and be supportive and respectful
• Golden rule

We will create an environment where staff members enjoy it here, are excited to come to work, and are a valuable part of the creative effort.

(What does this look like?)

• Support, trust, encourage each other
• Smile, project a positive attitude
• Value and share each other’s strengths and knowledge
• Be friendly and approachable; be a great listener

On Wednesday, the 40th CASE ( Colorado Association of School Executives ) Convention began with a great keynote speaker, Dr. Bertice Berry.  She was very funny and inspiring. Her message left me ready for the start of a great school year.

She ended her session with a powerful quote…

“When you walk in purpose—you collide with destiny.”

At Thimmig, we will walk with purpose and destiny will take care of itself.

To learn more about Dr. Berry, check out her link

http://www.berticeberry.com/

I just returned from a fantastic training in Colorado Springs called Tools for Teaching presented by Fred Jones.  I have read most of the book and believe it to be the right work to raise student achievement.  Another great thing about the book is that just like most things in teaching, it can also be applied to parenting.  So as you are reading this post, you can look at rules through the lens of a teacher, parent or both

The price of a rule is defined by two things, 1) the cost of teaching the rule, and 2) the cost of enforcing the rule. Green teachers treat classroom rules as a kind of behavioral wish list. They announce rules without computing the price. More experienced teachers know that rules come with a price.

Teaching rules takes time. It takes as much time as teaching any other lesson complete with anticipatory set, modeling, guided practice and independent practice. If you don’t teach it correctly, they won’t learn it.

Enforcing rules takes more time, and it will always be inconvenient. It requires that you stop whatever you are doing in order to deal with the situation. Before you make a rule, therefore, imagine yourself enforcing it – class period after class period, day after day.

If you make a rule and fail to enforce it, you have just defined your own rules as hot air: Experienced teachers, therefore, understand the rule of rules:

Never make a rule that you are not willing to enforce every time.

If, for example, you ask the class to pay attention while you are speaking, but you fail to deal effectively with side conversations, students know that paying attention is optional. If you ask the class to take turns as they speak, but you occasionally recognize a student who interrupts because he or she has a good idea, students know that they are free to cut each other off during discussion.

Classroom rules are ultimately defined by reality – that is, whatever any student can get away with. So the students just watch. Everything you do is a lesson.

Every day we rise, put on our clothes and put on our attitude.  I truly believe that a positive attitude and outlook on life is the foundation for triumph.  EVERYTHING revolves around one’s attitude and we should all model this consistently.  Unfortunately, there are some people who suffer form psycho-sclerosis, which is hardening of the attitude.  They blame their negative attitude on everyone and everything that they can.  The problem is, they are so busy blaming that they fail to take a deep look at their inner being .  They fail to recognize that they are in control of their own attitude and no one else can determine their thoughts.

“A healthy person goes ” Yes, “No,” and “Whoopee!”  and an unhealthy person goes “Yes, but,” “No, but,” and No Whoopee.”

–Eric Berne

From the book – If You Don’t Feed The Teachers, They Eat The Students by Neila Connors

I just returned from spending a weekend at Lake Powell with my family.  It was a wonderful weekend of water skiing, relaxing on the houseboat, and fishing.  Another great part of the weekend is that I had a great opportunity to get some reading in.  Here is a summary of the book that I read.  I would love to know your thoughts.

The Six Secrets of Change

What the Best Leaders Do to Help Their Organizations Survive and Thrive

By Michael Fullan

The six secrets are, in themselves, unremarkable. They all need to work together to ensure success.

1. Loving and investing in your employees in relation to high quality purpose is the bedrock of success
   1. You must focus on your customers (parents and students) along with your employees. All people involved in any organization have to be equally treated with respect – principals, teachers, students and parents. It is the total culture that counts – everybody needs to feel proud of what is being achieved. Developing an inspiring purpose that all can rally around is vital; enthusiasm is contagious.
   2. You need to help them find meaning, increase skill development and personal satisfaction in making contributions that simultaneously fulfill their own goals and the goals of the organization.
   3. “The quality of the education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.” Systems that put the learner first create in teachers fatigue and a lack of appreciation.
   4. Create an environment where staff members enjoy it here, are excited to come to work, and are a valuable part of the creative effort. We will create an organizational morale that will be the envy of others.
2. Connect peers with purpose
   1. You must allow for continuous and purposeful peer interaction where quality experiences and results are central to the work.
   2. This can only happen when: the larger values of the organization and those of the individuals mesh; when information about effective practices are widely and openly shared; and when monitoring is in place to detect and address ineffective practice while consolidating effective ones.
   3. Focus and tighten requirements but also allow your staff to feel empowered. Trust the process and people in it once you establish the right conditions and set the process in motion.
   4. Good people working with other good people get even better.
   5. Replace “bad” competition (you fail, I win) with “good” competition (how do we all get better, but I still want to improve as much as I can). With purposeful peer interaction, people band together to outperform themselves relative to their own past performance.
   6. Change of thinking from “my classroom” to “our school.”
   7. Working in teams is better than ‘managing down’. Positive peer interaction, sharing ideas through collaborative team work, provides the necessary social and intellectual ‘glue’ to develop ‘professional learning communities’
3. Capacity building prevails
   1. Capacity building concerns competencies and motivation. People high on capacity are committed to getting important things done and are collectively and continually learning.
   2. Individuals and groups are high in capacity if they possess and continue to develop knowledge and skills, if they attract and use resources (time, ideas, expertise, money) wisely and if they are committed to putting in the energy to get important things done collectively and continuously (ever learning.)
   3. As a leader invest in capacity building while suspending short term judgment. People do not function well (at least not for very long) when they are scared or angry. Fear and distrust prevents acting on knowledge. Problems get solved when people believe that they will not get punished for taking risks. Fear causes a focus on short term goals can cause people to cut corners and manipulate figures. Helping people develop capacity by being non judgmental is the key. If you don’t learn from failure, you fail to learn. Forgive and remember. Let pressure do its work through the interaction of positive peers and the interactions of the six secrets
   4. Hire and cultivate talented people. Start with good people who possess the capacity to be exceptional employees. Leaders need to ask, ‘what would attract good people to work here’?
4. Learning is the work
   1. Integration of the precision needed for consistent performance (using what we already know) with the new learning required for continuous improvement. In other words, nail down the common practices that work so that you get consistent results; at the same time, you are freeing up energy for working on innovative practices that get even greater results.
   2. The challenge is to strike a balance between consistency and innovation/creativity.
   3. We need to be “all over” the practices that are known to make a difference. Depth of understanding makes a huge difference. Successes are recognized and challenges addressed.
   4. There is a need to: identify critical knowledge; to ensure all are educated in doing the right thing; and verify learning and success – forever
   5. Each and every teacher needs to be learning how to improve every day in the setting that they actually work (observations). People learn in the specific context in which the work is being done. Conferences and outside trainings are superficial at best. Learning comes from observation of others, coaching, and learning through reflective action.
5. Transparency Rules
   1. Assessing, communicating and acting on data pertaining to the what, how and outcomes of change efforts.
   2. Transparency is measuring what has been agreed by all as important. ‘Measurements’ should be guides to direct behavior and not so powerful and not substitutes for judgment and wisdom.
   3. Information overloads breeds confusion and clutter, not clarity.
   4. Using data to pressure and punish causes people to look only after themselves and go for short term results at the expense of more important goals. Transparency of measurement helps all involved develop ‘trust’ in the organization if it is a positive pressure for improvement. Everyone needs to be held accountable to putting into action what is agreed by all.
   5. Respect your extended network by challenging them and helping them to improve. Use date to look at problems and solve them together without threat of punishment.
6. Systems Learn
   1. Secrets 1-5 should be in place no matter who the individual leader is.
   2. Leaders should accept the concept of probabilistic decision making and to consider the complexity of different factors that are likely to act and interact. Even the best decisions are probabilistic and run the risk of failure, but the failure wouldn’t necessarily make the decision wrong.
   3. Leaders need to convey confidence about the future even though they are not fully certain. Stated differently, they can be confident that they have taken in to account all possibilities and have made the right choice under the circumstances, even though something may go wrong.
   4. Maintain an attitude of wisdom and a healthy does of modesty. Leaders need confidence ‘in advance of the battle’ and advice to followers is not to put blind faith in leaders. Leaders need to take action and then learn from experience. They need to visualize the whole while working on individual part. They need to look for patterns and relationships always searching for better solutions; valuing both mastery and originality.

Fullan’s advice is to capitalize on the synergy provided by the six secrets. By employing all the secrets accountability is inbuilt. A powerful quote about wisdom required for leadership, from Fullan’s book is,’ the ability to act with knowledge, while doubting what you know’.

‘Leaders who thrive and survive are people who know that they don’t know – are crucial to enabling others’. Finding the balance between guidance and listening, between directing and learning, are the roles of future leaders. Leadership is about creating an atmosphere where people constantly learn; it is about energizing other people to make good decisions and to learn from them; it is about releasing the positive energy that exists naturally within people. It is ‘about improving the lot of people around us’.

Leadership is creating the conditions for other to find happiness through being involved a worthwhile purpose.

As Fullan concludes his book, ‘go for it!’

Today, I was watching “Kung Fu Panda” with my daughter.   During one of the scenes, a main character says, “Yesterday is history, the future is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why they call it the present!

We must learn from the past, keep our eyes on the future but focus on the present.  Make each day count and take risks based on knowledge and insight.  Show up every day with enthusiasm for the days events.  Watch as others become inspired with this contagious excitement for the present.

Here are some great sites to continue the learning journey over the summer!    The brain, although part of the nervous system, is like a muscle.  The more you work it, the better and stronger it gets.

All Grades –

http://www.eduplace.com/kids/hmm/ - H&M Math Website

http://eduplace.com/kids/hmr06/ – H&M Reading Website

http://eduplace.com/kids/hme/k_5/ – H&M Writing Website

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/clf/tguidesitemap.htm – Computer Lab Favorites

http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/parentsHome.jsp – Scholastic Main Page

K – 2^nd Grade –

http://www.buildabear.com/play/play.aspx?id=26 – US Geography Game

http://www.buildabear.com/play/play.aspx?id=19 – Country Memory Game

http://www.fossweb.com/modulesK-2/index.html – Science Website

http://www.starfall.com/ – ABC’s for Kinders and Learn to Read for 1^st Grade

4^th-6^th Grade -

http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/welcome/ – Welcome to the Web

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/web_games.htm – Geography – many levels

http://www.yourchildlearns.com/map-puzzles.htm – Maps and Puzzles of the World

Math Websites –

http://www.mathplayground.com/index.html

http://www.multiplication.com/

http://www.funbrain.com/

http://www.nlvm.usu.edu/

http://www.aplusmath.com/