Disclaimer: For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of a TED Talk, you should really watch some. Click here for one of my favorites. 

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I watched a TED Talk recently entitled, "How great leaders inspire action." In it, Simon Sinek discusses his idea of a Golden Circle which begins in the middle with answering the simple question of "why." 

Why is the "why" so important? Well, to me, the "why" focuses us on a destination, a vision, or a promise. It makes sure that we do not waiver in how or what we are doing, so long as we retain connection to the "why."

Since I watched this TED talk two weeks ago I have been trying to come up with a good answer for my educational philosophy. Here is what I have so far: The best learning is conducted in communities and the best communities let you decide how you best learn while supporting you with dignity. 

It is important to me that I use this concept in everything that I do. When I teach a class I want to make sure there is some element of group dynamic involved, be it discussion, group-based presentations, class trips, etc. When it comes to professional development I want to include the choices and knowledge of my colleagues in the sessions or learning going on. And when it comes to leadership, I want to trust and show faith in my fellow educators so that I do not always have to have the right answer, just know the right people.

I think the School District of Philadelphia has lost its answer to the question of "why." Instead, they are focusing more on the "what" and the "how." I truly believe the people who work downtown have their hearts set on helping children - they just get so focused on the latter two questions they don't stop to answer the most important one.

This may be the beginning of a short series of posts on my (and others) thought processes on planning for next year and beyond. If you see something missing, please comment/email and I'll try to include it in the future.

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One of the major changes I've made in my lesson plans toward the end of this year was allowing my students to focus on tangible products instead of mere assignments or activities. Over the past year I have had mixed success with lessons I thought were engaging and entertaining because the students were worried about their grade. I was worried about their learning and wanted to have conversations, but when there are a few bad peas in the pod, it becomes quite difficult to run those discussions.

In response to that, and thinking higher up on Bloom's Taxonomy, I began making my students create and evaluate instead of simply applying knowledge to math problems. Instead of me making a problem set, I had them make a problem set. Instead of me lecturing them on topics, I had them make presentations. I find the kinds of questions they ask me interesting because they want to ensure they are correct in what they are doing while also explaining it to themselves. This definitely promotes higher-order thinking.

One of the best artifacts I am about to experience is a presentation by my first-year students on what they have learned this year. They have been working for 3 days to create presentations and one group in particular has made a song

With that in mind I want to share a document recently shared with me by a teacher friend in Philadelphia. I think he is on the right track with his activity ideas, but needs a bit more help in the creating aspect of learning. Check out his ideas for next year here.

Yesterday I attended one of the best professional development experiences of my life: EdCampPhilly.

For those of you who are unaware, EdCampPhilly is part of a larger movement of grass-roots educational experiences organized by educators who are dissatisfied with what is out there right now. Instead of lectures on differentiated instruction by those who cannot do so for their own peers, the schedule is collaboratively created the morning of the event and posted as a google doc for all to see. Participants can run sessions or just attend the ones offered and "vote with their feet" by coming and going into rooms as they please. Additionally, there is a constant backchannel of tweets going on, with shared resources, session information, and meet-ups being organized (just point your twitter account to #edcampphilly to see it). Basically, it is exactly what I love: collaboration, technology, and educational pedagogy all wrapped up into one.

This is not that difficult a thing to do - all it requires is a few dedicated individuals to find a space, get some funding, and advertise it. I highly recommend checking it out at some point in the future - whether you are a professional educator or not.

Thanks to all those who organized and attended the conference. I hope to keep in touch with many and learn from as many of you as possible!

In case you haven't been paying attention, there is a budget crisis in the School District of Philadelphia. The budget plans completed recently by the School Reform Commission have reduced expenses by $600 million dollars - cutting programs left and right and threatening to dismiss hundreds of teachers.*


*Except those in Promise Academies, apparently. I have made it very clear to many of my colleagues that I disagree with the Renaissance School Initiative and would never want to work in a Promise Academy. That being said, the fact that the District is attempting to exempt those teachers at Promise Academies from the unfortunate cut in teaching staff is abhorrent. Schools that are supposed to get extra support due to their longer school day/year are now being asked to get something that Israelis call "Protectzia." I am guessing you can probably figure out what that means.

This is my first post where I am asking for a lot of feedback. In my quest to become a better educator I am recognizing the importance of the external support that we need to better ourselves. Today is a Professional Development (PD) day in the School District of Philadelphia and we are having some great conversations at our school about what we are going to be doing curriculum-wise next year as well as how to effectively use technology to implement that vision.

I would love for any readers out there to share stories of your PD experiences, both good and bad. What speakers have been brought in for you? What programs are you learning about? What decisions are you making as a staff/department/etc? Please share for everyone to learn.

This post is a reprint of this op-ed written on the Huffington Post. Dan is a close friend of mine and I am glad to share what he has written below.

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Not tho' the soldier knewSome one had blunder'd: 
Theirs not to make reply, 
Theirs not to reason why, 
Theirs but to do and die...

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, "The Charge of the Light Brigade"


It's no longer quiet on the education front. As reformers ready their guns, stockpile ammunition, and curse through sludge, their critiques of our nation's education system continue to crescendo. But, as Dave Eggers and Nínive Clements Calegari wrote in a April 30 op-ed for The New York Times, those bombarding our schools have chosen a peculiar target for their first assault: teachers. What's odd, Eggers and Calegari observe, is that the reformers are doing something that would be insane in any other context.

They are blaming the troops for losing the war.

Victory, the reformers say, is in the classroom. The war against our failing schools, they say, will be won or lost by the army of educators on the front lines. If we lose, it's their fault. And from this point, Eggers and Calegari argue that we need to provide our classroom commandos with more robust support in the form of better pay.

I have a different perspective on this metaphor, one that Eggers and Calegari refer to but don't explore: I want to know who blundered and sent the Light Brigade charging into the Valley of Death. Where are the generals, the colonels, and their lieutenants? Where are the superintendents, the principals, and their assistants?

It's hard to win a war if you don't have good officers. It's even harder to build an excellent school if you don't have good administrators. Has there ever been a great school without a great principal?

Two middle schools in Washington, D.C. provide cases in point. The first is Sousa Middle School, which was once labeled an "academic sinkhole" by The Washington Post. In its September 2010 cover story on American education, Time reported that Dwan Jordan, the "aggressive new principal," had successfully led the school to 30 point gains in math. The second example produced less dramatic statistical results, but only because it was cut short by heartbreak. Brian Betts, the principal who was tragically murdered last spring, so radically improved Shaw Middle School's culture that 100 of his eighth graders successfully petitioned the school district to let them stay there for ninth grade.

We often hear stories like this about extraordinary classrooms led by transformational teachers, the Jaime Escalantes of this world. But in order to hear more stories about extraordinary schools, it's clear that we need transformational administrators.

Yet instead, we have an education system filled with leaders who make teaching feel like trench warfare. About 50 percent of teachers leave the profession before they've finished five years in the classroom. According to a 2009 survey by the Urban Institute, when asked why they left, over 40 percent of first year teachers reported that the most significant aspect of the job influencing their decision to quit was their administration, double any other contributing factor.

What we have in this country is a lost generation of teachers, disheartened, if not downright destroyed, by the lack of leadership in their schools. It's no wonder that much like the troops in the trenches who travailed the terrors of World War I, they are laying down their arms and fleeing in droves. If half of the employees in any other profession were giving their notice during the first five years of their careers, wouldn't we start asking questions about their bosses?

Actually, that's a good place to start. In order to fix this problem, we need to develop a comprehensive and rigorous system for evaluating administrators, and we need to begin by asking questions about them. We need to survey those most affected by their leadership--students, faculty, staff, and parents--about the culture of their schools, and whether that culture is conducive for success. I give priority to school culture because I believe that when it is positive, results will follow. In some cases, administrators that bring fresh air to the climate of a school are dismissed before the winds of change can settle.

Of course, student outcomes must also be a component of any system for evaluating administrators, some combination of test scores, graduation rates, and other measures of achievement that show us that their noble efforts lead to excellent results. But, in addition to holding them accountable for their impact on children, we must give our administrators the support they need in order to succeed: the flexibility and resources that make managers in other fields effective. Too often principals are so tied down by staffing and funding decisions made at the district-level that it is frankly unfair to assess them solely on student performance.

On the other hand, we still need to stop focusing our malice on the teachers who actually tough it out. That's not to say that many of them aren't busily digging academic sinkholes: there are legitimate concerns about the quality of the teaching force. But we have no idea how many potential Jaime Escalantes walked out the doors of their schools, never to return, because their principals were Custers or MacArthurs. They are lost forever in a labyrinth of HR files.

Worse yet, the generation that will truly be lost will be the one that is to come. They will face a school system like a war zone, a wasteland, riddled with derelict buildings, populated by disenchanted souls. It's no wonder that they are already less literate than their parents. If you had seen what they had seen, my friend, you would not tell with such high zest, to children ardent for some desperate glory, the old Lie; dulce et decorum est pro patria teach.

But this I believe: one day, when this great struggle is over, when all's quiet on the education front, it will once again be sweet and noble to teach for one's country. And, when that day comes, the victors will be in the classroom, and they will be our children.

Here are some snippings of comments to Secretary Arne Duncans most recent blog post for Teacher Appreciation Week. They really are priceless.

"Since every one of the reforms you support (Merit pay, charter schools, high stakes testing) have been thoroughly discredited as having any positive effects by all current research, it is unclear whether you are ignorant, a dupe, or just dishonest about your actual agenda."

"Teachers and leaders in high poverty districts like mine are being punished just in the way you mention. We are given neither financial nor technical support from the experts who come and judge our work in continual drive-by evaluations conducted by retired authorities who presume to have all the answers on paper but give us nothing to make their suggestions possible."

" In order to be able to finish the curriculum in time for the standardized test I am not allowed by my principal to slow down regardless of whether the students are learning or not yet your “reform” punishes me."

"In the last paragraph you talk about recruiting teachers. You have started with a false premise. Look at the actual numbers. There is no shortage of certified teachers. Districts around America are laying off teachers who are not only qualified, but wanting to teach."

"Perhaps if we had been allocated even a smidgen of the USD 4,000,000,000 in tax subsidies granted to the oil and gas industry, these teachers might have be able to continue to serve their impoverished community in the coming school years, no?"

"If you are sincere, then create a fair and equitable evaluation system in which teachers have a real voice in the evaluation of their administrators. Too many administators are neglecting their own duties while working so hard to discredit and distroy the careers of their teachers through the evaluation process"

Today Dr. Arlene Ackerman, superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia, wrote an email to all staff in schools across the District. In it she wrote:

"Our teachers give their utmost everyday to the children and young people they serve. They impart untold amounts of knowledge and create learning environments that ensure every child can achieve his or her true potential. Teachers have the power to make lessons real and make success attainable, for every student, on every day. As the American philosopher Sidney Hook once said, 'Everyone who remembers [their] own education remembers teachers, not methods and techniques. The teacher is the heart of the educational system.'"

Let's analyze for a minute, shall we?

How can teachers "create learning environments that ensure every child can achieve" when we are pressured to have nonsensical 'word walls' and post objectives that don't matter to the students?

How do "teachers have the power to make lessons real and make success attainable...every day" when we take more than 10 days out of the year on standardized testing?

If students remember teachers and not "methods and techniques" then why are scripted curriculum mandated?

If you really want to appreciate us, then trust us. Have faith us in. Support us like you would the troops at war. We will work harder than you can ever imagine to make sure the next generation of kids is ready for the world.

In the spring of 2007 I wrote my thesis focusing on a piece of software made by Carnegie Learning called Cognitive Tutor. It was a type of software known as Computer-Assisted Instruction wherein it ould provide numerous practice problems for a student to answer, getting hints on the way, and would spit back data to the teacher as to how long it took to answer the question, how many times s/he pressed the "hint" button, etc. It was sort of a precursor to the more well-known Khan Academy I posted about a few weeks ago.

When I wrote my thesis, I thought this was going to be the future. Much like the episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation where we sometimes saw children learning without the aid of a human, this would create great learners who understood and could apply concepts.

I'm sure you are sniffing the big "but" coming in now.

BUT what I didn't realize then and do now is that this kind of practice may create high ACHIEVEMENT but neglects high LEARNING. The student simply wants to get a higher score in the game-like atmosphere of one of these CAI programs, or wants to master an isolated skill without context in the real world (like the Khan Academy).

I find myself doing the same thing at this point in time, mainly because I don't know any better. For this reason, I've decided to make a MAJOR overhaul on my grading structure for next year. Instead of providing grades for individual assignments or activities, I am going to grade SKILLS. These skills can be mastered at ANY TIME in a number of ways. I imagine a classroom where students constantly ask me if they can demonstrate their knowledge of a particular skill and I have multiple ways in which they can do that, always available.

I think this will shift my student's focus from the activities to the learning. It will hopefully end a lot of cheating because demonstrating knowledge is much harder than simply completing an assignment. And it will be more self-paced because the learners can demonstrate their knowledge at almost any time (during class, before/after school).

With this in my toolbox I think my students will come complaining to me that they haven't mastered skills (LEARNING) instead of demanding their peers show them the assignment to copy and paste (ACHIEVEMENT).