Summer 2013 Bucket List Update

Before the summer holiday began, several folks in my PLN wrote Summer Bucket Lists of things to accomplish during summer. My original list is at this post and was admittedly quite ambitious, but I didn't to too badly. This is, of course, the follow-up to report on the progress (or lack of progress) on my Summer 2013 Bucket List. 

1. Furnish the house in Bozkoy. This goal was basically completed. I mean we still have some furniture we would like to purchase, but we have a functional house where we can live and enjoy. The first big purchase will be a bed for the guest room, because my father is already stating that he will not come to visit until his guest room is completed and apparently having a bed is on his mental list of items that are necessary.
2. Begin the landscaping around the house. This goal was also accomplished with some very long and painful days for me. When we arrived in Turkey, the yard looked like a construction site. I moved 3-4 cubic meters of rock to one central area of the yard and planted several plants, a jasmine bush, and three fruit tress (apricot, pear, and peach). These trees were chosen because they will be producing fruit during the months of June and July when we are most likely to be there. I love oranges, but they don't produce fruit until November and we will never be there then. :-)
3. Finish reading Schooling by Design. Missed out on this one completely. In fact, I picked the book up once and read about ten pages during the whole summer. :-P
4. Reflect on Out of Our Minds. I finished the book and have been thinking about the implications for how schools deal with teaching and learning. I will be posting more about this in the coming months, but it has impacted the way I will be teaching Creative Writing this semester.
5. Study my Turkish more diligently. I have to say that this goal was worked on a bunch. I had several discussions with multiple local Turks, when Aysem was either busy or not around, and I held my own pretty well. The one I felt the most positive about was when I provided a tour of our house to a couple who are building a stone house in another village. Aysem was away and I handled the tour completely on my own. 
6. Music and Movie production. As Schooling by Design, this was a bridge too far. I only made one short stop-motion video about a disappearing rock pile. I created one song in GarageBand on my iPad, but that was all. Not a good summer of music/movie creativity. Too many hours spent on the yard work.
7. International Ethical Educational Leadership website. I continued my planning for the website and managed to plan out some major next steps that will help to make the site a success when it finally is launched. 

In other matters, please note that International Educators Chat is happening Wednesday evenings (6:00PM) Beijing time in Twitter with the hash tag #intedchat. This chat focuses on the issues and concerns facing international teachers and schools and is hosted by the amazing Brett Petrillo (@brettpetrillo). 

Teacher Evaluation

One of the biggest jobs of any leader is to help drive continual improvement within his/her institution. In US education they have decided that continual improvement should be done through teacher evaluation; even though the research on teacher evaluation has not demonstrated that is leads to improvement in instructional practices. According to Weisberg, Sexton, Mulhern, and Keeling (2009) teacher evaluation does not recognize good teaching, leaves poor teaching unaddressed, and does not inform decision-making in any meaningful way. In addition Duffett, Farkas, Rotherham, and Silva (2008) state that three of four teachers report that their evaluation process has virtually no impact on their classroom practice. Together you have a fairly serious argument for ditching teacher evaluation as a method for school improvement. When 75% of teachers state that evaluation doesn't impact their teaching, but this is the approved method the government wants to use to improve education, something is rotten in the state of educational research. Clearly we need to do something differently in order to improve student learning, and possibly that something different is to focus on learning, not teaching. The April 2013 issue of Educational Leadership is focused on the role of the principal and the articles have some excellent research based approaches and strategies for the improvement of student learning and institutional improvement.

Duffett, A., Farkas, S., Rotherham, A. J., & Silva, E. (2008). Waiting to be won over: Teacher speak on the profession, unions, and reform. Washington, DC: Educational Sector.
Weisberg, D., Sexton, S., Mulhern, J., & Keeling, D. (2009). The widget effect: Our national failure to recognize differences in teacher effectiveness. New York: New Teacher Project.

Using Google Spreadsheets for Meeting Agendas

Do you really want your team to collaborate? Do you want to be able to digitally track your meetings, decisions made, actions assigned, and who and when items will be followed up on? The EdTech Team at Korea International School wanted to have these options. During a meeting Steve (@stevekatz) was introduced to this amazing tool by Rolly (@rollymaiquez) from Chadwick International School. It has revolutionized our team and dramatically increased our productivity. I have created a Template that can be used by any group or team; in addition, the instructions on this post will have you ready to be more productive and more collaborative for your next meeting. After following the link, make sure to create a copy of the template from the File Menu. This will give you your own copy in your Google Drive. PLEASE DON'T EDIT THE ORIGINAL! 

The Template looks like this and you can customize all the features.

You can input your team members with this trick. You can also adjust the Priority/Status list this way. 

The Tao of Leadership Poem 9

I had a thought over the holiday that I'd like to revisit the Tao Te Ching, but this time from the mind of educational leadership. My first post will be on Poem 9 from the Tao Te Ching. I enjoy reading the translation by Stephen Mitchell, if this version of the poem differs from your own.

Fill your bowl to the brim

and it will spill.

Keep sharping your knife

and it will blunt.

Chase after money and security

and your heart will never unclench.

Care about people's approval

and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.

The only path to serenity.

At first glance a person might question what possible applications could be tied to educational leadership, but I assure you there are ideas here to learn from as educational leaders. The first two sentences have to do with knowing your own limits. If we fill our bowls with too much or sharping our knives too much, we actually limit what we can accomplish. People who are overburdened rarely work well, so it our job to realize when we need a break. We should avoid focusing on attempting to fill our bowls with all those little jobs that can get in the way of the real work of educators -- paperwork, sitting behind the desk, pointlessly long meetings. Have you filled your bowl too much? Are you blunting your knife? Remember that education is about human relationships, not pushing papers across your desk.

Chasing after money and security is a question about why you want to be a leader in the first place. Did you get into leadership for economic rewards? For more security? Then you did it for the wrong reasons, and as the poem says, "... your heart will never unclench." You can want the money and security of leadership, but without passion and vision you will be lost. With your heart focused on the wrong things, it will remain clenched like a closed fist and your performance will be hampered. Caring about people's approval is certainly a dangerous problem in leadership, because if your worry is making people happy, then you are doomed to be a prisoner to them. Your decisions must be made for ethical reasons, for just reasons, for researched reasons, for the best interest of the community, not for approval. If you follow the correct guidelines to making decisions that are ethical, people will respect you and your decisions, even if they don't approve of them.

Finally we come to the most important concept for leaders -- do your work, then step back. Focus on doing the best job you can possibly do, and then let go. Don't fall victim to being prideful or attached to your work. Be attached to the community, the vision, the mission, but not the work itself. If you step away from your decisions, you can see, admit, and correct mistakes instead of becoming defensive and entrenched. This is the only path to serenity.

Our New Co-Leader

Meet Kristen, from FirebirdHouse.etsy.com, who has gladly accepted a new role on our team as Co-Leader. You all already know Kristen as she has been writing the “Shop Talk Friday” series. I’m really excited about this new change. It’s a big step forward and a nice bit of growth for our team. Kristen will be helping with marketing our blog and writing articles, as well as planning promotions and events.

A little bit about Kristen: “I am a 38 year old (soon to be 39 on May 13th) artist who spent 15 years in sales and marketing while doing art on the side, before jumping into the deep end as a full-time artist about a year and a half ago. My jewelry reflects things that are really important to me - respect for the past, celebrating the connections we all share, recycling, and finding beauty in simple things often overlooked. I have lived in Atlanta for 9 years, and am happily married to Eric, my college sweetheart, and mom to five furry ‘kids’. I am a little bit crazy, love to laugh and have a good time, and cherish my friends and family.”

Welcome, Kristen, to your new role! I really look forward to working with you!

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade FirebirdHouse.etsy.com