Did I Get It Wrong?

Over the summer, I was working on some multiplication with my son.  Cole is a very competitive young man whether it is with baseball in the backyard, a game of cards, or on his math facts.  At times this competitiveness can be a good thing; however, sometimes it creates issues for Cole.  While giving an answer to math problem, he incorrectly answered the problem.  He quickly tried to "change" his answer once he discovered his answer was wrong.  After this, he was very worried whether he was wrong or right since he "changed" his answer.

I explained that his initial thinking was wrong, but that by making this mistake, he learned from it.  This was not good enough for a 6-year-old child focused solely on "being right."  Even at a young age, Cole was focused on the correct answer...that is what mattered to him.

At CW, we have seen this in many of our students!  Often times, students are so preoccupied with "being right."  They want to tell you that 2+2=4 because that is the "right" answer.  They were conditioned to raise their hand first to give the "right" answer.  Sometimes, we would see students even give up because the "right" answer did not come quick enough.

We believe there is a better way at CW.  We are now entering our 3rd year in creating a culture of thinking.  At CW, we focus on teaching for understanding, rather than for the sake of memorizing and repeating, so that knowledge can be applied to scenarios outside of the classroom. We expect students to dive deeper into their thinking of specific concepts. Our teachers model strategies to promote deep thinking, as well as share their own thinking with their students.

By utilizing thinking strategies in our instruction, we have discovered students are able to go beyond the knowledge level and push for application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation in their thinking. Moving beyond simply asking students to recall information; we have successfully found there are more opportunities for deep thinking to occur along with intellectual engagement permitting students to clarify their thinking. 

As both a Principal and a Dad, I will continue to push our students and my own children to become thinkers...celebrating the growth of their thinking along the way!

Twitter, A Washing Machine, and a CW Connection

The Story…

This past weekend was an exciting one at the Simpson household!  With two young and active kids in Cole and Aubrey, the amount of laundry facing us each week seemed to be growing at an exponential level.  My wife and I had been saving up for over a year to purchase a new washer and dryer.  Our initial thinking was to wait until the Black Friday sales coming up this fall (I am always on the lookout for great deals!)  Unfortunately, our washing machine had different plans.  In an almost poetic whimper a week and half ago, our washing machine finally succumbed to the endless stream of grass stained pants and spaghetti covered shirts.  It was done.

Heading to a nearby store, we found a great deal on a new high efficiency Samsung washer and dryer.  The size of the the tub in the washing machine was huge!  I wasn’t even sure if we had enough clothes to fit inside of it!  Delivery was scheduled for Friday and the anticipation throughout the week grew!  I could hardly wait…my battle I routinely do with laundry was going to be changed forever.  The delivery came on Friday and the installers hooked up the washing machine…my life was forever a changing.

I scampered around the house gathering up every piece of dirty laundry!  I started my first load in this completely amazing and revolutionary home appliance…squeak…squeak…squeak.  Uh?  What was that?  From the depths of the inside of the washer, a constant and very annoying squeak was occurring.  “This can’t be right,” I said in despair as I felt like a toddler who had just dropped his brand new sucker.  After running several loads in the next 24 hours, I knew I needed help.

I didn’t call.  I didn’t email.  I turned to Twitter. 

@SamsungSupport just got brand new WA48H7200A and it squeaks. See video! Very annoying! Can you help?

From there, I exchanged in a twitter conversation during the next hour where they walked me through troubleshooting tip after tip.  It was very helpful and I never had to be on hold or wait for an email response.  The disappointing aspect of this twitter conversation was that nothing helped.  My washer was level.  The hoses were not rubbing against anything.  Samsung was sending me back to the store to order a replacement.

Then on Monday, my phone rang.  It was Samsung.  The store had notified them of my issue and the person on the phone said she was required to go through a series of trouble shooting steps.  Uh?  I said I had already done that with that Samsung and nothing worked.  She said there was not a record of that and it was a required step in order to get a replacement.  I quickly recounted how I had reached out on Twitter and went through the troubleshooting steps.  She was confused by what I was talking about…she finally said that their department does not connect with Samsung’s twitter support and the two systems do not talk with to each other.  The bottom line was I was still going to have to redo the troubleshooting with her in order to get the replacement.

I did offer a suggestion for her to take to her next team meeting in that their teams should create networks to communicate.  Her response, “Honestly Sir, you are the first person that has ever told me you have used Twitter to get support from Samsung.”

The CW Connection…

This story made me reflect on what we need to do for our students.  Although Samsung had things in place to meet the needs of its consumers, the systems weren’t really prepared to meet customers with where they were at in terms of comfort level in getting help.  They had a Twitter account to help, but it was not tied to anything official.

Simply stated, Samsung was not fully prepared to meet its customers where they were at with technology.

I think about our own students.  I think about my own son who is in kindergarten who can use a MacBook, iPad, and Chromebook. 

Our students are coming to us with expectations and experience using technology to personalize their learning…to achieve their individual potential.

I would ask what we can do as educators to make sure we meet the needs of all students where they are at in terms of using technology to enhance and personalize learning.  Every student is different with their comfort and experiences with technology, just as I was more comfortable with Twitter then calling an 800 number for help.

I am proud of the work our teachers are engaged into to deepen their own knowledge of how to support and embed technology into the art of their teaching.  We are 1:1 with teachers and iPads and I see them learning new ways to innovate every day!  Through the passage of the bond, we will be increasing the amount and variety of devices available to our students in the classroom.  

I see our teachers going to professional development sessions to learn more about using technology to enhance their instruction.  

I see our teachers sharing out resources with each other to learn more about new technology tools.  

I see our teachers spending time at “App lunches” learning about new apps for their iPad and how it can enhance the thinking of our students.

I see teachers empowered to meet the needs of our students.

Simply put, we have to!  If we aren’t prepared to meet our students where they are at and take their thinking to new levels using technology…we will lose them.

The Inspiration of an 11 Year Old

Sometimes on my blog, I do share the personal connection of my life with my professional life at CW.  I guess when I think about it, I do not know how to separate the two.

I am "all in" as Principal at CW.  I bring the same passion and love that I have as a father and husband to my work as a Principal.  In fact, I don't even like using the term work.  All 570 CW students are "my kids" during the day and I readily share my experiences with my own family with the students and staff of my CW family.

This past week was memorable for myself and many members of our CW Family.  On Wednesday and Thursday, our students simulated a Relay for Life during PE and ran over 900 miles combined.  They also raised over $6,000 dollars to support cancer research.

I spent an afternoon running with 3 different 6th grade PE classes.  It was great to see their energy and excitement as they used Chromebooks to digitally track the number of laps each student was running.  There was music playing and shouts of encouragement throughout the hour.

I had set a goal of running a mile with each class.  It was a great idea during the 1st PE class...I felt fine.  However, during the 3rd class, I had begun to question my goal.  Not wanting to let my students down, I was able to finish the mile with all three classes.

What I did not share with my students was that I was running for my mother-in-law.  This past December, she lost her battle to pancreatic cancer at the age of 59.  This is something that has been extremely difficult for our family.  I felt I had a purpose when running with our students...my own purpose.

During the Relay, a teacher shared with my how she had students complete a Visible Thinking Routine called a "step-inside" about putting themselves in the shoes of someone impacted by cancer.  Some of these writings were shared with me.  I was blown away at the maturity and sense of purpose of our students.  Their words in describing the emotions and purpose that the Relay meant for them helped me to realize that many of us had a "personal purpose" when running in the Relay.  There was one girl in particular...an 11 year old student who wrote with such depth and power about a relative who had battled cancer.  She had a sense of personal understanding of the need of for a Relay event! This "personal purpose" provided motivation and greater meaning for some of our students.

This connection to purpose has kept me thinking (that's probably why I am writing this blog post now.)  When we develop a purpose in ourselves and in our students...it leads to passion and motivation. Running in Relay for Life was not something our students felt like they had to do...they had a passion for it.  A PURPOSE!

I left school this week with an even greater passion to make sure all students feel connected to CW so that they feel their time at CW is filled with purpose and passion!

If you want to see a timeline of tweets from our Relay for Life, go to http://goo.gl/00gKKI

Leadership Defined

Over the weekend, I was having an important conversation with my 5 year old son, Cole.  It centered on the topic of being nice (mainly to his 2 year old sister, Aubrey).  As our conversation evolved, we kept on going back to what it meant to be nice.  At first it was hard to think about that being nice was simply saying more than being nice.  All of a sudden we started developing a list of actions of what being nice meant.  

Not pushing

Hugging

Helping color

Reading to Aubrey

The more I thought about this on Sunday and Monday, I started thinking about our 6th grade.  At the beginning of the year, we talked as a 6th grade family that we were the leaders of the building.  As 6th grade students, we help develop a Stand Up culture for our new 5th grade students.  It is our year to really find our leadership voice.

I connected the conversation I had with my son to the important actions our 6th graders would need to think about in continuing to cultivate their leadership.  My son started with a very concrete thought, "Nice meant to be nice."

In talking with some of our 6th grade students today, I posed the question, "Is a leader defined by a title?"  It was inspirational to see their young minds hard at work processing this question.  In one class, a girl started talking about what 6th graders at CW should be doing.  This was a great "aha" moment as we started to connect the concept to leadership to action.  Just because our students have the title of "6th grader" does not make them a leader.  Our students began to think deeply about how their actions develop, but also model leadership to others.

I had our students "step inside" what a 5th grade student is seeing and feeling right now.  I had them journey back into their year last year.  Believe it or not, our 5th graders are developing the actions to become 6th grade leaders at CW.  Some of our students remembered watching the actions of the 6th grade last year.

This powerful image helped to solidify the need of our 6th grade to lead through their actions.  Our 5th graders look up to them and see the messages their actions transmit.  If our 6th graders stop to pick up a piece a trash, or straighten their boots by their locker, or model the hard work of being a visible thinker...our 5th graders notice.  

Not only do our 5th graders notice...they aspire.  They aspire to continue the culture of leadership that is being developed every day by our 6th grade.

Today was a great reminder for our 6th grade that just by being in 6th grade does automatically qualify them as a leader.  It is their actions that demonstrate their leadership!

Retiring 21st Century Learning

Education is filled with buzzwords.  I know of no other profession inundated with what seems like the words upon words of lingo:  Common Core, Standardized testing, differentiation, personalized learning, and the ever quoted “21st century learning.”

21st century learning is a term that was almost a requirement to use at any job interview at the turn of the century.  I looked back at my first cover letter (from 2003) and I used the term 21st century learning.  I continued to use it and hear it in my teaching and during my time as an administrator.

In fact…I was on twitter last night and saw a tweet about 21st century learning!

My question is when will we move from this term and just call it learning?  We are in the year 2015…15 years into the 21st century.  Do we still have to create a special term that we think our students will need in 2015?  

CW was fortunate to have members of the Forest Hills Public Schools Foundation in our building today observing teachers learning how to use the online mapping tool, Stratalogica.  Our Foundation was generous in their financial support and purchased a school site license for this amazing tool.  

In talking with the Foundation representatives, I was reminded of what 21st century learning really meant.  Our students are entering a world that requires them to be adaptive, to think critically, to locate information, and work collaboratively.  In essence, this is what the term 21st century learning was meant to capture.  It meant moving away from memorization and focusing on the right answer.  It meant creating opportunities for students to authentically apply the information they were learning in a real world context.  It meant connecting the learning happening in PE with the learning happening in math and so forth.

I look at the work we are doing at CW in creating visible thinkers who can engage one another in discourse and document their thinking.  I see students who are applying what they learn in one subject to another.  I see students becoming thinkers who are able to adapt to challenges they face.  

I know there was a lot of buzz (well deserved) when the state abruptly changed from using the ACT to the SAT at the high school level as the test included in the Michigan Merit Exam.  There has been a lot of buzz at our level about the upcoming and new M-Step assessment.  Actually, there is always buzz regarding standardized assessment.  I do understand the need to look at new assessments and the implications they have on our students’ ability to select the college of their choice.  Changing assessments does add stress for our families (especially our high school juniors!). 

However, I wrote this to our staff this week and wanted to share it with our families:

While I do see the need for our students to practice the delivery format of the assessments, the work we do with Visible Thinking transcends any test.  Our students through, our culture of thinking, will do well no matter what the test is called.

At CW, we are creating thinkers…not test takers!!!!!!!

So I would like to officially retire the use of 21st century learning at CW.  At CW, we are creating a culture of thinking through a focus on visible thinking which pushes our students to engage in deeper learning.  I am excited that our students leaving CW will not only be ready for 7th grade, but they will be ready for life!

CW in Traverse City

Last April, I received an email from my principal’s association, MEMSPA, about submitting applications to present at their annual conference.  When I saw this email, I immediately wanted to “tell our Stand Up story” to other leaders from across the state.  At that point of the year, I had already seen so many instances of how our students were standing up for themselves and others.  Our culture at CW was truly changing and I felt so proud of our students and staff.

After applying, it took a few months for a response, but we found out over the summer that we had been selected to present at the conference about Stand Up.  Judy Bouley, our 6th grade counselor, who has been an inspiration and driving force behind this cultural change agreed to present with me.  The conference was held the first week of December in Traverse City.  Knowing we would be presenting at the conference, Judy and I became more intentional in looking for examples of our Stand Up culture being embedded with our students.  There were many days when we would excitedly say to one another, “We need to share that in Traverse City!”

Countless examples came to light about the work our staff and students have done to create a culture where students Stand Up, Speak Out, and Stand With one another.  During the presentation, we talked about how we knew Stand Up was making difference because we saw it in our students.

Instead of students coming to the office to report a problem, students were coming to tell us about a situation that happened and how they had stood up and that everything was ok!  We saw it in how students would go up to a student at lunch who was sitting alone and invite them to be part of their table.  We saw it when students would create Google presentations about Stand Up on their own and share them with us.  We saw it with the countless emails sent by students from our Thanksgiving Stand Up Challenge.  We saw it when students began to see themselves not has a 5th or 6th grade student at Central Woodlands, but rather has an important member of the Central Woodlands Family.

I have seen it in communications from our families.  Our families come to us about how their children are Standing Up by sharing information with them about things happening at school.

The photo below is from a 5th grade classroom.  Our 5th grade students have only been exposed to our Stand Up culture for a couple of months.  However, I know they believe in Stand Up and this example affirms those beliefs.

While presenting, I became emotional because I am SO proud of our students and staff.  I have never been part of a school culture that is as loving and caring as Central Woodlands.  I felt like a proud dad as I shared our Stand Up story with principals from across the state.  

Our students, staff, and families make this story possible.

David

Veteran's day at CW

Wow...powerful...thought provoking.

Those are words and emotions that resonated with me after our Veteran's Day assembly at CW.  I was so proud at the attention and caring nature of our students.  During the entire assembly, our students were so engaged in learning more about what Veteran's Day is and what it means for our country.

The focus of our assembly was two-fold: 1. educate our students about the importance of Veteran's Day and 2. step inside a the life of a military family to better understand the sacrifices of our Veteran's and their families!

Our Assembly started with the presentation of the flag by 4 CW Students.

Our 6th grade choir also sang the National Anthem and also God Bless America!  

I spoke about the meaning of Veteran's Day and challenged our students to reach out to a Veteran or Armed Forces member and thank them for Standing Up for our country and to commit to Standing Up for others around them.

Mrs. Smith, a 5th grade teacher at CW, talked about her experiences and emotions of being a military wife and mom.  She talked about the multiple moves her family had to endure and the uncertainty when her husband was deployed.

We were honored to have her husband, Lt. Col. Smith, speak about his over 20 years of service to our country.  It was so amazing to watch students listen intently as he talked about the sacrifices he made to keep our country free!  Lt. Col. Smith is truly a hero!

One of our students concluded the Assembly by presenting Lt. Col. Smith a CW Stand Up t-shirt in appreciation for how he Stood Up for our country!