Wednesday, August 24, 2011
The Earth, moving
I know you're in F-L-A visiting Mickey and I hope you and the family are having a great time. Did you guys have a good earthquake? It was interesting here yesterday. That's kind of my inspiration for writing today. Beside the fact that you've been much more prolific with your posts and the competitor in me wants to keep up, if not outright beat you.
This will be a weird post. I had a number of experiences yesterday that kept bringing one thought over and over into my head. And the recognition of that thought was a little jarring, a bit sad and something of a revelation. So I thought I'd share.
So I had three meetings and a mixer yesterday. Two of the meetings were at Tompkins Squrare Middle School, one at IS289 and the mixer was at the High Line. My first stop, TSMS, was the first meeting of a new committee charged with engaging students and parents of the school in the iZone work. The work itself isn't incredibly complex (switching to a competency based assessment system). But it'll involve a restructuring of their report cards and transcripts, so they are reaching out to parents in some pretty proactive ways. On my way into the school, I got stuck at the security desk. As I'm standing there watching the guard sign me in, two teachers walk through and said good morning to her. They complimented her hair. So I start chatting with her about the style, asking her name and had a pleasant talk with her. She was nice and, after lunch, she didn't make me sign back in, she just waved me through. When I went back to the school today, she recognized me and didn't make me sign in at all. All thanks to a little chat. I realized yesterday I learned that "be nice to people and talk to them" from you. So, Thanks Jeff.
Later in the day the earthquake hit. I was still in TSMS, meeting with the AP, Eric, the Principal, Sonhando, and the technology support guy, Justin, from ImpactEd. When the quake hit we all stood up and went over to the window for a better view. As the earth was shaking (it really wasn't that bad) I look up. Suspended in the window above the four of us, shaking with the window frame, is this big air conditioner (you know, like the ones in the Guild). It spooked me. But instead of shouting out, I say, as calm as you please, "uhhh, guys, maybe it's not the BEST idea for us to be watching the window shake directly under this big, heavy, metal box." We all chuckle and move into the room. Suddenly, all of them are riffing off my joke. Eric came up with a headline detailing our deaths, Sonhando quipped a quick obiturary for himself. The jokes broke the tension (if not outright fright) of the situation. I used humor to relieve a tense situation. You taught me that. Thanks again, Jeff.
So I left the building; Justin and I had another school to go to and we ended up traveling together. The trip involved over a 1/2 mile walk (from 6th street to Delancy street). A long time to walk and fill up the silence. So I started asking Justin about his story, how he had come to develop this grade book software and how he had ended up in New York. He told me about his love-hate relationship with Engineering school (that aligned almost exactly with my own). Before I knew it we were off the subway and standing on Warren St. heading toward the school. Awkwardness over, no hitch in the conversation, no strange pauses, just a nice exchange of stories to get to know each other and the use of a shared experience to connect. Hmmmm. Who did I learn that from? Thanks, once more, Jeff.
Then, I had to pick something up at Tweed and the whole building population is out on the steps -- they had been evacuated and were being let back into the building. In the crowd, I was able to say hello to Alex Shub, Corey Beder, Melissa Silberman and Lynette Lauretig. Those names sound familiar? And why do I know those people? Who (either directly or indirectly) facilitated my meeting of all those folk? Who taught me to keep those contacts in a way that I could access them and connect with them on the steps of Tweed? Thanks, Jeff.
You figure out my repeating thought, yet?
So the last happening was the mixer at the High Line. In case you don't know, the High Line is an old elevated railway in Chelsea that has been converted to a park. If you haven't gone, yet, I highly recommend it. There was a mixer there of all the iZone teams (from iLearnNYC, iZone360, and InnovateNYC). After the tour we all had dinner and drinks at The Lot, under the High Line at 30th street. So there I was with my self-bought beer, standing alone watching the crowd (as I am want to do). I'm a bit intimidated (there's a deputy chancellor in the crowd) and feeling anxious -- you know me at parties. But as I'm standing there, I recognize that unless I work this crowd, I'm never going to make the connections I need to dig into this work. So what should I do? The answer I came up with was to sit down with one of the top guys and make a joke. So I sit down at Tomas Hanna's table (Chief of Innovation) and told them that there weren't enough fat, bald guys sitting with them and I was here to even things out. Corny? You bet. Did it get a laugh? You bet. The rest of the night passed quickly with me making the right connections and sharing enough stories to make my work that much easier.
So who did I learn that from?
Listen, I've spent a good deal of time talking and thinking (and even writing) about the debt of gratitude that I owe Michael. I feel like he recognized something in me and drew it out in a way that I hadn't been able to do before. This is what was jarring to me, and a bit of a revelation: what I haven’t thought about (or talked about or written about) is what I owe you. Yesterday brought this into focus for me, man: the skill set I'm called upon to use to further my current work is populated mostly by skills I learned from you – either directly taught or picked up working by your side. You've taught me to be curious about people and to make them feel special, even if just for a 2 minute conversation. I can use corny humor to break tension. You taught me to question people to help them tell their stories and connect with them through shared experience. I can create and use a professional network to further professional goals and create opportunities for me and the kids that I work for. And I can use personal attributes to endear myself to those who populate my network. That's all you, man. That's all from you.
So this post is one big, long, wordy, elongated thank you. I wanted you to know that I'm owing a great big chunk of my current success in this new job to you. I am so thankful that our paths crossed; I’m so much the better person for it.
Thanks, man. I'm missing ya a lot.
Peace,
Al
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Do what we do (not say what we do)
What awesome video from Arenessa and Alex! Thanks so much for posting them! Miss those kids...
Another whirlwind couple of weeks in the world of innovation (or innovation according to NYC) for me. I want to tell a demoralizing and heartening (all at the same time) story of a PD session gone horribly wrong. I also want to comment on your cool and fascinating policy paper. Which one do you wanna hear first?
Yeah, I thought so...
I loved your analysis of Hess and Rothstein's opinion and prescription for narrowing the achievement gap. I particularly enjoyed your nod to objectivism while putting in nice little textual hints to your feelings about both plans. And, of course, I agree -- particularly in your assessment of Hess. It always makes me wonder, when I read simple-plan advocates like Hess, why they refuse to see some pretty big problems with their proposals (like, as you so-well point out, the cost of an effective testing regime or the difficulties in replacing the ailing teacher-prep programs). But then, given what's been happening in Washington over the past decade, it's easy to believe that our society is ready to be swayed by such sloppy thinking.
What interests me most about your paper, though, are your three remedies. You know that I would whole-heartedly agree with each of your initiatives (especially the fair and appropriate teacher performance assessment system). I believe that each of those initiatives would go a long way toward closing the gap. I'm wondering, though, about the absence of some of the staples of our work. No performance-based academic assessments for students based in real-world work? No real-world internship requirements? No replacing of the current diploma system with a certification-based achievement system? Hmmmm... I hope Fannie Lou hasn't swallowed up your ideas of real education.
:)
Let me take that smiley as an opportunity to change the subject. I want to relate to you the demoralizing and heartening PD experience of last week. I'm sure you remember me texting you during this time, ranting about the delivery methods of the presenters. Here's a little background. Last Friday, I went to a roll-out of iLearnNYC's chosen online platform, Desire2Learn. This was a PD targeted at principals with the goal of introducing them to the platform. The Desire2Learn (D2L) platform is an online-learning site with enough resources to develop online-courses for just about any credit-bearing course (from remedial courses and credit recovery to advance placement calculus). So what would have been a good way of teaching the platform to principals? I know, how about an online course that allows them to wrestle with the platform and shows them the potential? How about a scheduled time with computer access and experts around who can help? How about grouping principals together so they can work on the course at their own pace, but still have others around them who are trying to do the same thing to share tips and tricks? Sounds like a good session, right?
If only that had been the plan. Instead, they made the principals sit at computers in a hot (hot, hot) tech center (air conditioning was broken). Then they sent speaker after speaker (5 before lunch) to the lectern each with their own powerpoint with little or no real information for using the platform. One guy talked how D2L was chosen, one guy talked about how tech support would be given, one guy talked about why the content partners were chosen. One guy even talked about how what he is doing is NOT what we want teachers doing! It was miserable. Utterly miserable. After lunch, there were more speakers and finally, at around 2, they "allowed" the principals into the platform (I hear, I left right after lunch when it was clear we weren't getting real access to the platform). I sent a series of emails to the folks who were responsible for the presentation (as well as to executive director of my program) trying to get them to understand that as long as WE continue to use traditional methods to impart information, we will have one HELL of a time changing instructional practice.
So that's the demoralizing part. The heartening part was that the online course that I wanted -- well, it HAD been created. I was given access to it and it's a thing of beauty. So I am getting my teachers to learn the platform by wrestling with THAT course, rather than go to the trainings that are TELLING them what to do instead of SHOWING them what to do.
My take-aways from this experience?
- Even the people who are in charge of innovation do NOT, themselves, default to innovative practices.
- That there needs to be many, many minds examining each aspect of the change and vetting each experience through the lens of the vision.
- The people who are envisioning this change might not have enough knowledge of the work and practice of the people accomplishing the change.
All that sound familiar?
Ok, that's it for this week. Hope all is well with you!
Peace,
Al
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
AYV student created video
Here is the video that Alex and Arenesssa worked on at AYV summit. As you can tell, Alex created the music and raps in it. Good stuff.
http://youthvoices.adobe.com/galleries/events/24-2011-adobe-youth-voices-summit/media/360?page=1
Hope things are going well.
Best,
Jeff
Monday, August 8, 2011
BG students in California for Adobe Youth Voices Summit
Check out this video of our students in Cali for the AYV summit, great stuff
http://youthvoices.adobe.com/galleries/media/351
Best,
Jeff
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Race to Close the Gap
This is the assignment for my midterm:
1) Comparative essay on Rothstein and Hess (5-7 pages double-spaced): Hess and Rothstein present two opposing perspectives on what is "wrong" in today's public schools and what policies should be enacted to improve them. In this essay, you should briefly summarize each author's position, and then spend the remainder of the essay: 1) analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each argument; and, 2) offering you own conclusions and suggestions for how, if at all, we should go about trying to improve American K-12 education. The due date will be determined during the first class period. This essay is 20 percent of your grade.
Here it is
http://al-jeff-education.blogspot.com/p/papers-and-other-writings.html
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it..... : (
Jeff
The Story of Policy
One of the things I check on when I am online is the Global Potential blog. BG has 5 students in Nicaragua and DR working with communities on leadership, community, sustainability and language lessons. I read Antoinette from Evan's crew post and I had to share, enjoy
Tonii´s Blog
Published by Hogla under Uncategorized
The start of something new! We met our half way point and I went crazy for respect. Meaning I was in my own world. I love being here but it´s hard to know we´re about to leave. So many people I didn’t get to meet yet, so many faces unseen. Time isn´t on my side with this one and it hurts to know I can´t stay and hurt even more to know I do want to leave. Thinking back on the day Frank said “the day would come where theres no them and us it´s we”. At first it sounded like a crazy different language to my ears but now it makes sense because I am one of them. Different background only make the person wiser and 5times stronger and this case it make me a new Antoinette the one who thank the nature of thing for blessing her with this trip. That opens her eyes to new ideas and made a new place in her where they will always be with me. Truthfully the weeks are flying past and every week is a different struggle to get through. Like this week I learn that if the group decides on something and even if I disagree with them it about everybody choice not just me but I always have a voice and it´s up to us to change the things we don’t like you just got to get people stand behind your idea. That’s the first step to being successful when it comes to turns on life because all dreams could come true but it how you step it up to make it happen. Right now I know what I want to do when I get back. I want to be the person stepping up and spreading the word about GP. I have an idea to go to most of the Bronx school and explain how big of an impact this could be. Not only on the A students life but on the IDC students life because tell you the truth if they didn´t care they would be there. However by giving them the trust to travel and the strength of leadership you giving them the second opportunity to believe they could do anything. A lot of kids living in New York need that encouragement, they need that helping hand and I want to be the one spending the word so they could know it´s out there. Well got to go talk to your again soon hopefully.
When I am done with my midterm, I will post up for you to destroy.
Best,
Jeff