Feeling Rejuvenated

Why?  I just spent Monday and Tuesday of this week at a state department of education conference for schools that are in formal school improvement who have applied for and won money to use for school improvement coaching.  The money is awesome, they are letting us use it in a way that makes sense for our school.  We just have to attend some dry meetings.  Two days in a huge ballroom sitting in round tables with water pitchers in the middle and fake chandeliers on the ceiling.  Yes, I think you get the picture.  I actually think that I am going to dedicate the rest of my career in education to avoiding "learning situations" that in ballrooms in generic hotels across this great land of ours.  It is a pretty hateful place to try and learn something.  Especially when the learning is looking at a powerpoint and flipping through a notebook.  Page by page.  You get the picture.  Except that the state is empowering us as schools to figure our own ways through the school improvement process which is awesome for me as a leader who definitely has strong views on how to do this.  But I guess that you are not feeling the rejuvenation part yet.

Across town this week, twenty five of our teachers are attending a Responsive Classroom week long training with twenty five other teachers from various division schools.  I finally was freed up to today to attend and I immediately remembered why this is so important.  The social aspect of learning is as important as the academic aspect.  Responsive classroom gets that.  It really does.  The day ended up with our staff in a circle on the floor singing a song and playing a game.  Our assistant superintendent and chief information officer happened to drop by at that very moment and were goaded into joining on the floor.  That is why it is important.  There is a point to all of this and building a community in a school or a school division takes work but it also takes fun and play as well.  

Beginning of the Blog

Just read something from Wired magazine that said blogging is so 2004.  That about sums it up for me.  I am always a little bit behind.  Actually, I am pretty proud of the fact that I appear to be only four to five years behind technologically speaking.  That is pretty good for me.  I don't really know why I am starting this blog except that I have always enjoyed writing about being an elementary school principal.  There is one small problem with that though.  I don't have the time or fortitude to write an article or a book for publishing.  I am having a hard enough time writing my dissertation.  I do, though, have a lot of thoughts about my work.  I don't expect many to read this so it will serve as a kind of online reflective journal for me.  

There is an interesting yet fairly typical article about Michelle Rhee in the latest Time magazine. Chancellor Rhee was a year ahead of me in the Baltimore Teach for America group.  I never knew her but admire what she has done with the New Teacher Project and what she is doing with D.C. Public Schools.  I won't pretend to understand much about the situation of D.C. public schools or what I think needs to be done.  I instead will only comment on one of her quotes in the article.  It's not even a real quote but here it is from a moment visiting schools with the writer from Time: "In the hallway, she muttered about teachers who spend too much time cutting out elaborate bulletin-board decorations or chitchatting at "morning meetings" with their third-graders before the real work begins."  

Now, I have never been a big bulletin board person, as a teacher and principal.  The morning meetings comment hit much closer to home.  My school is in the first year of formal school improvement for not meeting AYP (my second year with the school).  We are in our first year of implementing Responsive Classroom which has gotten our school chitchatting in morning meetings before the real work begins.  We based our implementation on both the literature from and professional development from the Northeast Foundation and the work of Sara Rimm-Kaufmann at the University of Virginia.  It seemed obvious to us that the research showed Responsive Classroom that it helps improve climate in diverse schools.  So far, in our early implementation, it looks like it really is working in terms of less discipline referrals and improved climate, that second claim being completely anecdotal of course.  Also, in my research of Responsive Classroom, it looked like some D.C. schools implemented it years and probably a few superintendents ago.  I have no idea what the current state of implementation of it is now.

Where my concern lies is with the idea that the "real work" of schools is always academic and that it never has a social component.  Those who know me as an educator, either as a teacher or principal, can attest to the fact that I am not the most "touchy feely" person in the world.  I am idealistic or naive enough to feel that we can do both in a school, raise the test scores and achievement of our students but also grow and improve school community at the same time.  Radical and lasting change can sometimes occur in a school with a laser like focus on student achievement and effective instructional strategies but also through morning "chitchat" meetings with our students.  It is important for all people to feel like they belong.