Coffee, conversation, and a vulnerable look at self-worth

As many people in education cringe at the loss of the freedom of summer, I slowly work my way back into education life. That transition always begins with a trip down to Solsberry Hill, Indiana where I was lucky to join three colleagues and twenty-six students for a service trip that I have been going on for nine years. Once we got back, they had primed me for the return to pretending I am an adult again until I got to today, when I re-joined our girls cross country runners for Day 1 of practice which meant that the summer's pretty much done. This is the beginning of a new school year for me, so I figured I should start it with some pre-teaching reflection. So what do we have to look forward to this year?

My primary goal this year is actually going to be more teacher-focused than learner-focused: Create transparency with my classroom while building professional relationships. Last year I built the classroom experience in M301 around George Couros’ “8 things to look for in today’s classroom” and I am happy to say that I was more successful than imagined (see the image below if you are interested).

This year, I need to take it to a different level because I am happy with what I am doing, but I am exhausted by having to figure out so many things for myself. I came to this conclusion when walking the halls of my school one day and realizing how a simple design of a classroom can drastically change collaboration. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I HATE teacher’s desks and I could write for hours about how much I think they take away from the class environment. But last year, Nazareth got more climate control and less door-stops. Why does that matter? Isn’t air conditioning a great thing?

Yes, I love air conditioning more than most as I am a well-insulated man, but as I walk the halls these days... every classroom door is closed. You can’t walk by and see what’s going on while hearing the knowledge circulating the classroom in conversation. I used to like the informal opportunity to eavesdrop on many great educators because it gave me a non-intrusive glimpse into how the other half live. But this summer, inspiration hit that could solve my age-old “Door Stop Dilemma.”

While on our Solsberry service trip, three of my colleagues and I sat down for breakfast to start our day. At the time, Chris Beedie, world language teacher extraordinaire, and I were discussing the most-recent Ditch Conference we were participating in online. If you don’t know what that is, it is an “Unconference” where video presentations are sent out every morning, a conversation floods twitter afterwords to participate in, and you can work through at your own pace and on your own timeline. I am currently participating in The Hive as well. 

While discussing the video sent out that morning, another colleague and Religion teacher, Laurie Stanton, said, “I wish I could sit in a room and hear about these things because I never know where to find them and I would definitely be interested in them.” At that moment, Chris and I knew the answer to her dilemma: CoffeeEDU. Chris and I had discussed this in the past but now it was time to put it into action. Our idea is to have an informal meeting of teachers after school once every two weeks where we just share what is happening and things we could benefit from. No one really hosts, no one moderates, no one lectures. Just twenty minutes of open conversation over coffee. This is something that benefits someone hungry like Laurie who is always willing to take in suggestions as well as someone like me who has a reputation of being an isolationist to my department, which I am hoping to shed soon. This is going to be my biggest goal as I think it brings that peer-observation and feedback piece I have always been looking for over the last few years to a new level and may even allow me to get more visitors in my classroom because of my “Observe Me” request outside my classroom door. 

Want to try CoffeeEDU? Here is how ours will work: 

• Every two weeks on a Monday from 3:10-3:30 someone will host the conversation in their classroom. I will host the first one with the goal being a rotation so we can see different learning spaces. 
• Group pair share of cool things people have read, experienced, or are looking to try. 
• Kicker: REMAIN POSITIVE to drown out the negative we hear far too often. 
• No attendance mandatory, no RSVP, drop-ins only.

The second part of this blog post is something that I am extremely uncomfortable discussing, but that I need to put down so that I can make progress with. I don’t think any teacher enjoys the idea of vulnerability as we are constantly asked to keep life put together so that we can be centers of strength and guidance for people around us. Last semester though, I finally found some relaxation with the craft of teaching. I didn’t spend every night grading, planning, or responding to emails. Dare I admit this, but people got me out on school nights to enjoy events, trips to the driving range, dinner, or just a conversation and I enjoyed that new dimension of life that I forgot about...one where you balance work and life. Sometimes I feel like the last ten years I have simply spent as a first-year teacher as I fall off the face of the earth with friends while entering the abyss of grading and planning. No one should be working at the rate of a first year teacher after doing it for as long as I have. As I broke free, I felt free. I realized that life can exist outside of the classroom and beyond my job and it was incredibly enjoyable. The problem is: school ended. 

This may sound widely unimaginable to many of you...and it even does to me when I put it in writing….but I am terrible at summer. My teaching career has been a constant battle to outwork anyone and everyone in order to perfect the craft, improve myself, and get more out of students than they ever thought they were capable of in the classroom...but in doing so, I have sacrificed my ability to relax and crushed my ability to think beyond work. It has given me nothing but time to sit and think about what my next step is and what this devotion to my job has left me with on a daily basis, a  job I love doing but on I may need to do less of on a daily basis. As hard as it is to discuss, understand that this is no request for a pity party. I have been thanked, won awards, and been surrounded with colleagues who show appreciation on a daily basis; this struggle is simply one between me and myself. Lately, the question “How do I define my own success and what do I want from life?” hovers over me on a daily basis and has left me with an inability to answer that question. 

As I near a new school year, I know what will happen. I will have packed classes of kids to sell on my classroom experience and I will probably fall back into bad habits...while hopefully doing a damn good job. I am hoping that by putting this down in a reflection on my blog that I revisit it and try harder to break that system, but every great educator is a work in progress. Whether you are beginning your first year as a teacher, your thirtieth, or aren’t even in education, I hope you find some time before the grind begins to do some reflection and goal setting. Not every goal needs to be a SMART goal, but it is my belief that great goals should always leave you feeling slightly uncomfortable. For me this year, mission accomplished.

We are in the final sprint of the school year, but I am no sprinter...

The end of the school year always brings great stresses. Teachers are trying to keep the students’ minds in the classroom as the weather breaks, while students would rather do anything but continue the process.  As a teacher that doesn’t like the word “stress,” I simply need to take in reminders that this last part of the year is not to be rushed, that I can’t get too negative, and that I have to take my abilities to the next level for students who may not be fully interested in going there. As I begin to hear the mutterings of “just get me to summer”...”I can’t wait for graduation”...or…”There is just so much happening and I have so much going on”...from both teachers and students, this week’s sprint found one teacher who was not joining the race; me.  

This is not a message of arrogance, I just found myself in a meta-moment, hitting the pause button before becoming impulsive and joining the race (sometimes it pays to be the slow one).  Something that has allowed me to do so is a personal challenge that I have taken on, and it has really changed my view on the process of teaching. This is something that I learned from a non-teacher, and it has made the end of the year more delightful than any other one I have experienced.  That person was Sheryl Sandberg, who is known for her “Lean In” philosophy and whose book, Option B, that she co-wrote with Adam Grant, made me try something new to find the good in my day that she calls her “Three Points of Joy.”

“To help Sandberg rebuild her self-confidence, [Adam] Grant suggested she write down three things she did well every day. For six months, almost every night before she went to bed, Sandberg made her list. Grant and his colleague Jane Dutton found that counting our blessings doesn't boost our confidence or our effort, but counting our contributions can.”

I decided to take on this process, but make it my own.  I wanted to start smaller and aim for my own personal goal, finding reasons to be optimistic every school day in order to remain inspired to continue to give my best to my students until our final class period together.  I called it my Optimism Journal and have been maintaining it since April 9th in a tangible journal as well as a Google Doc to see what I found more beneficial. While discussing the idea with a few colleagues, a new teacher to our department this year, Ms. Sobol, decided to take the plunge with me and we have been doing this side-by-side on a Doc after every teaching day while even including a “bonus” or two on the really good days. She probably is regretting giving in on one of my new ideas so early in her career at Naz, and I will continue to bring more to the table, but she has been a delight to work alongside with and I look forward to reading her comments and stories daily.

At first, I felt very self-conscious about the process. I am not the journaling type and I am terrible at being accountable to myself for things like this; I can’t even maintain a calendar.  In this case, doing it with someone else was really helpful. I did not want to miss a day or disappoint the person reading it, but now it has become something I really look forward to on the daily. I am proud to say that I have gone for months without missing a day.  The most self-conscious part of the entire process was knowing that someone else was reading my words of praise and I feared coming across as egotistic. Now that I have learned to share and built trust in the process, I wouldn’t want to do it any other way.

As I continue to wade through the pessimism of the end of the year, I find myself looking forward to finding things that I can include in my two bullet points to end the day.  Instead of leaving in a bad mood, this helps me focus on the positive and create a positive closure to my day, sending me home in a better mood than many days in the past. I even find myself floating back through it and reminiscing many great days that I would have forgotten about.  I start to recognize the small things that happen during the day that I would have otherwise forgotten about quickly and I really enjoy seeing what is going on in Ms. Sobol’s world because we teach all different preps and levels.

This process has been a fun one but I didn’t think it had a purpose other than for the obvious, some positivity and a nice compilation of memories until I was asked by the senior class to give a Senior Breakfast Reflection today.  In trying to think about how I connected to this class, what I would say, and how I would begin...I went right to my Optimism Journal. I relived the class and thought about how good I have it. Below is the reflection I gave to a class that will enter a new phase of life.  I used the bullets from my journal to structure my talk so you will see some examples of how simple and brief this process is. I am always happy to simply be a bystander in the final days but, today, I really enjoyed providing some closure to a great year. To tie this to my blog, I sat down and took a reminder to make sure I don’t sprint; instead, take in the moments. While many are ready to push everyone out of the door, as if they aren’t already sprinting out of it, I was reminded to hit pause and appreciate what I have.  

2018 Senior Breakfast Reflection

“Standing here with you today, I am absolutely humbled to have been nominated to do this. As a person who devotes much of his life to this craft, this is an opportunity for closure with a class that I love in many, many ways. I honestly do not know what you expected to hear when nominating me...would you expect a sassy sarcastic remark about you not having your notebooks on your desk right now? Maybe a creative melange of uses of the word melange? Possibly giving a talk about beginning your 401K and that if you stay single your pockets will jingle? I prefer a different route though, one that we traveled together this school year. You see, I have taught a senior-only schedule for four years now.  Every year I enter a great relationship with a class and then at the end of the year we break up as you venture all over the country and world to continue doing the amazing things you do, leaving me to repeat the process over and over again, hoping to establish the same connection I had with a previous class with the current. I thoroughly enjoyed the class of 2017, but 2018 was very different. Eclectic is the best word to describe you as your passions, interests, conversations, and approaches are so very diverse. You were so eclectic and autonomous that, I will admit, I struggled to find the heartbeat of this class early on. I felt unnecessary to your journey and wondered if I still possessed the ability to connect to the heart of a class.  As I contemplated what I could do to innovate to your standards, I began something I call an Optimism Journal at that point, something I keep digitally and tangibly with a coworker that I learned from Sheryl Sandberg, CMO of Facebook. Every day, I write down a minimum of two things that made me proud, happy, or kept me connected to my classes. Your names are personally littered throughout that journal. They include funny ones like:

• My many lunch laughs with the squad before class
• Homeroom putting challenges
• A few random “Daaaaaaaaaad” and Bashar al Assad calls, mixed in with the most annoying noise in the world.
• Our singing of Country Roads too many times to count
• Someone wasting three envelopes because he did not know how to fill one out for Econ class
• Listing Thailand City as the capital of Thailand
• And many, many great memes, songs, drawings on the back of quizzes, or lists of quotes I forgot about.

At the same time, the ones I go back to most are the countless times when we:

• Sat down to work on scholarship essays, college apps, and review for tests together.
• When you provided genuine welcome backs from spring break or good morning banana bread.
• When we sat down to discuss life, your anxieties, and project the positives
• When we traded music, articles, podcasts, or books and discussed them afterword.
• When you approached me and talked to me as a human being, not just a teacher, at Naz events or before/after class.
• When you began to change the world by meeting with the Sisters, contacting refugee programs, proving your empathic abilities in class, or sending countless inspired emails about things you have learned.
• Or when you included me in on your life by sharing pictures, greeting me when with your friends in hallways, or inviting me to read poetry at the coffee house with you.

All great moments. Long after you all graduate, These and many other memories are what will shape the legacy of the Class of 2018 and demonstrate the heartbeat I was looking for. I no longer see this class as much as one, single, class of 2018, it's why I struggled to find your heartbeat.  I see you as individual, genuine, creative, enthusiastic, pessimistic, personal, and moments that I will forever treasure.

These moments will always fill my heart. I may not show it on a daily basis, but you have owned my heart since day one.  If I can offer any advice its to appreciate your own moments. Don’t continue to look so far forward that you miss out on the amazing person you are today and the little things that make everyday amazing.  Don’t set your eyes so far forward on College, degrees, making money and getting to the next checkpoint that you regret missing on days, like today, where we get to spend time together and appreciate how far we have come as a collective unit. Back when I started here at Nazareth, one of my teaching mentors Mr. Michalek always uttered to me, “Maximus, you’re too young to be angry. Never forget that happiness is a choice.”  I hope that you take Mr. Mike’s words forward and live them out, making happiness your daily choice. The journey may have its struggles along the way, but it is the fun part, the part we should appreciate, the part that is full of relationships with friends, teachers, and teammates that you will never forget. As you reflect on your four years at the academy, I hope you find as much joy in the small moments as the big ones.  I hope you come back and connect with us in genuine ways, not just social media requests, as I know my door will always be open, my coffee pot always on, and my big mouth always ready to converse. So take a breath, look around, and be as proud of yourselves today as I am of you on a daily basis. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your time and respect over the last four years, because, Class of 2018, it has been real.  So real that I will always keep you tucked in a very special place in my heart. "

-Mr. Anthony Gonzalez

Change, the only constant

This year has brought many changes for me, many of them good, but the one that has pained me has been my lack of reflection and blogging. Today, we change that. I feel this year has been a weird one that kept me distracted from my own process as we have three new teachers in our department (and very good ones at that), I am back inside the school building and teaching with flexible seating (picture below), and I shifted into teaching the honors level of senior history called Contemporary World Issues. 

These were all great things, but they kept me from the groove that I had been in for the last few years as I had known my teaching team, classroom, curriculum, and got to focus on myself all previous years. Ironically, by focusing on others, it has really allowed me to see a different side of myself as an educator. One in which I do not have to devote my life to grading and curriculum, but rather, one in which I can mentor, create, teach, and grade while also developing a personal life beyond work by finding time to do things to relax and enjoy a school year in a different way. Many things have led me to change this year, this being year nine of my career at Nazareth, but a couple stand out as great demonstrations of the need to begin to “think differently” about education.

The first was that I had the opportunity to attend ISTE, or “Nerd Camp” as I like to call it, in San Antonio last summer and hear from George Couros who is the author of Innovator’s Mindset and an innovative principal. I like to consider him my innovation guru, although he may only know that from my favorites and tweets on Twitter, this summer he brought me back to the core of what I want to do as an educator. He reminded me that “If we want meaningful change, we have to make a connection to the heart before we can make a connection to the mind.” It is not that it was something I did not know, but I needed a reminder of it as I approached teaching a senior class with a legacy of being on the pessimistic side and a tough group to get invested into classes. At that moment, I committed to driving empathy into the core of what I do every day and recently got a reminder of the effectiveness educators can have when our curriculum was brought up in a college admission essay. Senior Bridget Lockie, Class of 2018, wrote and gave me permission to include:

“This year I have had the privilege to learn history in a nontraditional way. I have been required to reach beyond a textbook and learn by analyzing current world events and their contributions to and impacts on our global society, which is something I have never experienced before. During my first three years of high school, my history courses were limited to textbook learning and the memorization of facts, vocabulary terms, and dates. As important as these courses were in developing a firm knowledge base, they never truly resonated within me or ignited an enthusiasm to not only dig deeper, but extend my learning in new ways. My Contemporary World Issues course, or CWI, is opening windows to the world for me, as well as challenging me to look critically within myself and develop a more enlightened global perspective. In this class, stigmas and biases have been discussed openly which allows me to search out similarities between cultures and countries, as well as celebrate the inherent differences.”

As educators, we hope that we instill great values in kids, one of which for me is to inspire lifelong learning. I was taken aback by this because I felt that I wasn’t as calm, cool, and collected as usual as I was teaching outside of my comfort zone, but realized that when you build a great curriculum with a great team and get kids invested, they may feel things for learning that you will never see in the way you assess them. Therefore, maybe it was time to focus way more on the experience, the conversation, the connection, and the empathy than on the process that so many others used.

Another thing that really rattled me recently was a podcast from my business guru Adam Grant in his new podcast called WorkLife in which he discussed how people manage their emotions at work while trying to manage everyone else’s, and in doing so, often end up burning out. If you haven’t listened, check it out, but it hit way too close to home for me.

As teachers, we spend our day combatting constant pessimism, selling our curriculum, hiding our true feelings, and isolated in a room full of people most of our days, but when we come home we still can’t be home. How do we manage to have a personal life and professional life? I was asked this question by 2016 graduate Julia Durnell (Go Redbirds!) who is studying to be a social science education major. As part of her class, she had to interview an educator and I was delighted to be chosen by her. In answering her many, great questions, I entered a period of self-investigation. Do I separate myself from my job? What is my true goal? How long can I continue to do this without burning out?

As I reflected on this, I realized that I started this process a year ago by connecting more with teachers inside and outside my department, especially when sharing an office with our religion department. I had the opportunity to see what others were doing and invest myself into their curriculums as well. In having a large hiring class, more teachers are at events outside of school, allowing us to get out and appreciate a different side of work while establishing meaningful connections instead of simply being colleagues, something also addressed in an Adam Grant Work Life podcast episode. In being back in my classroom, I have created an open-door policy (Sorry John Hay, this one is a little different than yours #USHistoryjokes) in which I have a sign outside my door asking any teacher to come in and join our class randomly when they want, for as long as they want. Sadly, I have only been taken up on it by four teachers, but that is still four more than last year. 

Why do I mention this? It is not to come across as arrogant or ahead of the curve, but because it has allowed me to be happier in the classroom and more aware of what is going on beyond my classroom. As Spring Break finishes today, I look forward to a special time with my senior students. I know most complain about senioritis and having to motivate our kids looking forward to graduation, but I have to remain positive in how I see this time as well or else I will go crazy before they finish as all of my classes are senior level. It is a time where they try to move quickly as I remind them to slow down. It is a time where they are so excited for the future while reluctantly admitting they are going to miss what they currently have. It is a time where I get to send them off on an amazing new journey in life and hope for a few emails in return. And it is a time that will allow me to do a little less teaching and a lot more listening, golfing, and reflecting.

So what are my goals for the end of this year? Invest. Invest myself in my great department, working to co-teach some lessons and get to see them do the great things they do on a daily basis and learn from them. Invest myself in people beyond my department, observing and seeing what happens beyond our hallway. Invest into my curriculum, as it is a time to rebuild and recreate. And lastly, invest into myself by making sure that I allow myself to be real, relax, refresh, and then rejoin new students with the same creativity and energy that I hope to bring to the educational world on an annual basis.

Don't Teach Seniors

It is that time of the year.  The time where all of the cliche teacher phrases infiltrate every conversation making small talk worse than ever, if that is even possible.

“Just gotta survive the next few weeks”...”How is it now that our senior class is gone?”...”I just have so much going on”... and my least favorite: “Oh, so you’re a teacher. Psh, I should have done that...summers off!”  

Sure, we are all guilty of dropping some of these into our daily conversation at some point while distracting from real, human conversation, but the end of the school year is more than that to me. In teaching nothing but seniors I have grown to appreciate my last couple of weeks of going to school without students because it allows me time to think about my year, create content and structure for the following year, and find some closure while missing my students.

A parent posed a question to me at the beginning of the year that has sat heavy with me.  It was: “Do you enjoy teaching seniors? Every class you connect with leaves you...that has to be hard.” I never really thought about it in that way until that moment.  Most teachers get to see their students continue to develop in their school career after teaching them, forging connections and re-visiting the “good ole days” while passing in the hallways. Many high school teachers have the opportunity to teach other grade levels, distracting them and driving them to the very end of the year. They get to see them progress, get frequent visits, and continue to inspire new thoughts and conversations as the years roll on.  I do not. Every year I get to invest my full self into a class and then send them away, hoping that the emails trickle in and that they stop by so we can talk about college, life, and history over black coffee.

This year’s class definitely held my heart.  They were conversationalists, innovators, creative, inspired, academic, altruistic and empathetic.  They went on digressions about jackfruit, soup, generational slang, rice production, and loved some morning music but then knew how to flip the switch into go-mode when class began. They tolerated my own insanity and passion while maintaining their own identity. The best thing about the class of 2017 was that they emailed me things they found online that connected with class, they lingered after class to have deeper conversations, they skipped study hall to talk about life with me, and they treated me like a human being. I appreciated that.  I appreciated them...and now I have to do it all over again which is not easy. So my advice to you? Don’t teach seniors...and here is why.

Don’t teach seniors if you want to punch your ticket and get out. I would say that you shouldn’t teach at all if you are going to do this, but one thing at a time.  Seniors will expose you for the fake you are. They see the work ethic, they have high expectations, they are looking for meaningful connections with content and educators, and they deserve better (as all kids do).  I do find that teachers who are not yet confident in their craft struggle most with seniors as the kids will definitely take advantage of the situation. George Couros once stated in one of his conference talks that you should aim to establish a rapport with kids that makes them want to cross a street to have a conversation with you when they see you.  I always felt that his view was interesting, but now that I see it, it has been career-changing. Don’t teach them if you aren’t open to real conversation. Don’t teach them if you aren’t willing to be transparent. Don’t teach them if you can’t handle a rough breakup with great classes year after year after year.

This class, my class, has been so fun to get to know.  From side conversations to late night emails, from homeroom rants to drawings on the back of the quiz...this class stole my heart and ran with it.  Although each class has been unique, this senior year hangover I have now has been something I struggle with.

My hangover is not the normal kind stimulated by a “Woohoo summer is here!” lifestyle, it is rather a… “keep me posted while you are off in the world doing amazing things that I can no longer be witness to” kind of feeling.  Although my inbox is full of alumni emails and my days frequently have alumni visits, you will never have that class back in its entirety.  That symphony of human interaction when in deep conversation, the shifty eyes panning in unison when you make a corny joke and they don’t know if they should laugh, the emotional dictatorship you have over them when they consider not coming to school or giving half effort but changing their mind because they fear your “I am not mad I am disappointed speech,” and the genuine class-filled chuckling after an odd comment, encounter, or great joke may take a while to earn...but is so rewarding.

When I started teaching, my mentor, Joe Wejman, who had been teaching for a good amount of years put it best.  When you stand in front of a class, you are playing a character.  As you go from teacher to coach to moderator...students see you in different characters; you are Mr. Gonzalez or Coach Gonzalez.  I now feel like the end of a school year is the end of my show, the only difference being that I have a couple of months to do it all over again from the very beginning, tying everything I have into a new class.

As I send off another senior class, it is time to dig deep and focus on what will come of the future.  The next class will be a challenge to crack.  They will give me a run for my money.  They will also change a lot before the year begins, so I look forward to progress, challenge, and cling to hope that this class will allow me to connect with them in the same way that many have.

As I get ready for that, the other day I reached for a box that lay under my desk all year.  I fill this box with Thank You notes, drawings kids leave me, emails I print out that make me proud, and trinkets kids leave behind.  When I question my abilities, my sanity, or my career path, that box is there and full of amazing things.  Our English dept does something cool that provides great closure for a senior year.  They let students write thank you notes and then we get them in our mailboxes.  I have some that date back to 2009, but I always feel embarrassed to read them due to the candid appreciation students show.  I end my year humbled by them, inspired by them, warm from their appreciation, and thankful for their presence in my life, because there is no class that I would rather teach than a senior class. One day I hope they see what an impact those words can have on people they have worked with. But now, it is time to get the innovative juices flowing and prepare for a new show with a new crowd.

Cheers to the next act…

Mr. G

Appreciating the past while building the future

I have spent the last two years pursuing my Grad School degree in Educational Technology and Leadership and as I worked my way through the curriculum, class after class, I became frustrated as I was paying a lot of money and learning very little.  As an economics teacher who stresses the value of looking at opportunity cost and not over-valuing sunken costs, I began to wonder if I made the right decision, not regarding what I wanted a masters in, but whether or not I was benefitting from complacent professors who cared more about APA format than they did content and learning experiences. When back to school season came around, a teacher appreciation post started floating through my Facebook feed where people highlighted the elementary school teacher who changed their lives or had the biggest impact on them and I realized that I never had that. Then, while perusing Bill Gates’ blog, I saw his post on his most inspirational teacher.  I had great teachers in grade school and honestly loved the school itself, but I did not have a teacher that connected with me in a way that pushed me to pursue a life in education.  Many teachers got into education because someone inspired them to teach that discipline while in school and even though I had the notorious Mr. “Raul” Peters in high school, I do not know why I got into social science secondary education, it just seemed right.  At a time in the school year where I am surrounded by pessimistic students only worried about grades and dreading finals, teachers sprinting out of school with so many things to do, and anxiously awaiting the first email from a student about their semester average seconds after posting them….I thought it was a time to reflect on the educators who could never hear enough thank you’s to be repaid for the positive change they have brought education.  My story begins at Dwight D. Eisenhower High School.  

After graduating high school, the closest I ever got to returning was when I would go and watch baseball games to see my former coach and talk to some of the guys I mentored through the program.  I didn’t go in, I didn’t see teachers, and I didn’t give back.  After missing my ten year reunion, I was sitting at the local pub and reminiscing with my fellow classmate and good friend Dave about our years in highschool and the stories that made up our four years.  Story after story, we noticed a theme about our reminiscing...almost every story involved Mr. Dominiak or a class that Mr. Dominiak taught as Dave and I both had him for Honors English I and Newspaper class.  At that moment I realized that I owed Mr. Dominiak more thank yous than I could ever give him as I realized that no, he was not the teacher that inspired me to go into history education, but he was the man who set the standard for the educator I longed to become.  I never noticed the innovative, progressive, exciting, and student-centered person he was because kids don’t appreciate pedagogy, but I did appreciate the role he played in my educational career.

I could say that Mr. Dominiak was ahead of his time, but I think he was actually right on time.  When I was in high school, the education world was changing as standardized testing was becoming more and more important and I was falling through the cracks while punching my ticket and working the system to win the “points-game” in education.  I was good at that as I saw my GPA and semester grades as a systematic challenge I always won. Then when I was trying to punch my ticket and get my grade in Mr. Dominiak’s class, he called me out on it after class.  I will never forget it.  I was sitting in the back row, working on homework for another class so that I didn’t have to bring a backpack home, but I couldn’t focus.  I saw this man in front of the room, walking away from his podium, and giving a talk that I deliver to my own students every semester now.

“And there I was...5-6 years old, getting out of my father’s car only to look up at the most beautiful place I had ever seen, Tiger Stadium.  My father patted my head and threw on my Tiger’s hat, then took my hand and walked me in.  As I walked into the stadium the smell of cigars and hot dogs married to create a smell I learned to love, and upon seeing the field I was blinded by the greenest grass I had ever seen, making me look up at my father and smile as I prepared to watch a game of men who appeared as gods to me.  My father introduced me to the beauty of the game that day, a game I came to love”

As I heard his story, my homework went back in my backpack.  I absorbed every word he said, connecting as my own father introduced me to the game of baseball in a way I would never forget, and when I talked about it I connected with the story just like Mr. D did.  I went up to him after class and told him how much I loved it, and he looked at me and said, “I was just glad I had you in class today….I am not used it.”  As I walked away ashamed, Mr. Dominiak yelled, “the White Sox are terrible, and when you are ready to discuss it, my door is open.”  

The following weeks Mr. Dominiak spent talking baseball with me, but he also found ways to bring it into class. It wasn’t a conversation between just him and I, he was connecting to the entire class.  I had never looked forward to a class nor invested myself in a class in those ways as much as I did English I.  He asked me what my favorite baseball book was and I informed him that I didn’t have the attention span to read, to which he responded, “A man who does not read is a man who will never go places.  Give it a chance.”

Soon after, Mr. Dominiak chose the book we would read next and informed me that it was time to give reading a chance.  It was “Shoeless Joe”, by W.P. Kinsella.  I floated through the pages, excited to discuss passages in class and continue to show that I understood more than the basics, not for a grade, but to show appreciation for what Mr. Dominiak had done.  He did not choose curriculum based on what always worked, he let the learners steer it.  He had his hand on the pulse of the class at all times, and because he gave us a book that he knew we would love, we invested into his curriculum for the rest of the year.  He sat with me while reading “Night” by Elie Wiesel and taught me why it was important to empathize with people in a story and he meticulously picked apart my writing until it demonstrated passion and creativity balanced with academic expectations.  He made me fall in love with writing and invest into the stories of people.

As I ventured into my sophomore year, I longed for a class that I could connect with in the same way but it was not until registering for Newspaper class my junior year that I rekindled my love for education.  Mr. Dominiak ran the class and Dave had convinced me to join as he was taking on administrative roles and said that I would love the relaxed nature of the class.  Upon enrollment, I immersed myself into the experience immediately.  The class was autonomous, every student having a role and knowing who they answered to on a daily basis.  Mr. Dominiak did not run the class, the chain of command did.  The Editor and Chief controlled the editors, the editors took on staff writers and recruited photo editors, and if you had the creative capacity and ability to work with Mr. D’s regulations, you earned the ability to become a page designer.  Everything was organic.  Every story, picture, poll, headline, and column was student created and no-one missed deadlines.  You didn’t do a bad job because everyone worked for each other and the product was something we all appreciated.  With hard work, you could climb your way into leadership positions, mine were Features Editor, Page Design, Photo Editor, and writer for the weekly column known as “Gonzo Knowz”....I peaked in high school of course.  The craziest thing was how much time we sacrificed for the end result.  Yes, we had our class time, but that was not enough.  We sacrificed lunch, study hall, after school, and stayed until at least 6pm on deadline days with no reward but our great product.

We were indoctrinated in Newspaper law like: gutters kill page design, the first letter of text should always be size 24 font, pictures should always look inward, and grayscale creates balance on a page.  Although Mr. D may be disappointed in my lack of care for perfect grammar in this blog post, he would appreciate the content and message it would have provided and he would work me through a better product.

As I hit this midway point in the school year, I just wanted to show some appreciation for a man who inspired me to care about more than content.  A man who cared about the process, connecting with kids, and getting students invested into lifelong learning. Sometimes I need to sit back and appreciate the craft even when things may lean to the pessimistic side.  Instead, I look at Mr. D as my continued inspiration to build a better classroom and raise my expectations of self.  Thank you, Mr. Dominiak, and I hope that you realize you taught me far more than English in life.

White Sox > Tigers,

Anthony

2016: Teach Better- A Year in Review

I have always told my students and athletes that reflection is key to progress as much as it is a great thing for emotional stability.  Whether it be the end of a lesson, a chapter, a semester, or, in this case, a year, I find it valuable to sit back and reflect on the greater picture over the course of a year and be proud of what was done while remaining inspired to continue to do better.

I sat back and attempted to create a theme for the last school year but only thought of cliche teacher lines that you see flooding memes everywhere this time of the year.  Then, upon visiting the local pub last weekend, I was absorbed by their slogan of “Drink Better” and for some reason it resonated.  So we will dub 2016 as the year I “Taught Better.” This does not mean that I taught bad in the past, but this year I had the gift of time as I did not coach in the spring, and I had the anger of graduate school because I thought we were supposed to be learning something for all of the money we are investing. Every day, I approached it with the questions: What can I do better to reach more students, bring more content to life, make this more relatable, and enjoy it?  Here are the things I learned.

You need a space for collaboration

We are moving out next year while our building is under construction and I could not be more worried.  I do not fear it because I have to teach outside of my normal classroom or that I am going to be out of our normal wing, but rather, I fear losing our collaborative office that inspires growth and hard work.  Our office can tend to be mocked by outsiders as being a “lounge”, a man-cave, or a clubhouse but I see it as a very important part of our department success.  Yes, we have a coffee pot, popcorn machine, music playing, and plenty of treats, but smack dab in the middle we have a big table that we frequently come around period after period and discuss education.  We trouble shoot, engage with others who are doing great things, and continue to inspire each other to continue to Teach Better.  Instead of hiding in our classrooms or sitting at our individual desks, we collaborate and share during off-time, meals, and before/after school.  It drives us to compete, share, energize, and teach, something that should be considered for every department.

You need to separate school and home

Yes, it took me 7 years to learn this, but separating work from home became very important to me.  My first semester of teaching my mentor and co-teacher sat me down and said, “at some point you need to go home and be home.  You can’t keep working everywhere or you will burn out.”  I was young though, invincible, and I would never burn out.  Then, year after year, I would hit May and be exhausted, angry, and ready to leave work and never come back (for two weeks until camps start of course).  Seven years later, I decided to listen. When I go home, I limit myself to an hour of work but only if necessary, otherwise, I stay at work until done.  I can bring home work on the weekends, but my weeknights am free from it to do grad school homework, cook, and relax.  It is May, and although I am ready to be done, I am much happier and far more content with teaching than I have been in the past.

Seek out your own professional development

Schools do not provide enough professional development so if you really want to innovate and improve,  you need to do it on your own.  This year I have joined three beta-testing organizations, follow five Twitter chats, and have built a great online tech community.  Instead of sharing all of the cool things I am finding, I implement them first, enjoying the investigative process and letting others seek me out when they hear what we are doing in class.  I was always so worried about others that I was running out of ways to make my own class better.  Now, I put my research into practice to prove that what I do has value.

You need to comment, comment, comment

In rolling out Google Classroom, I had a much easier platform on which I could launch discussion boards, assignments, and communicate. I made it my goal to comment in detail on 50% of everyone’s work on a normal assignment and 100% of projects. What I found was, I was commenting on 100% of everything because kids were taking my positive remarks and constructive criticism to heart when I provided feedback, and it made them better in and out of the classroom because they knew I cared about them and their work.  I cannot tell you how many thank you’s I received when posting affirmations on brilliant work and how many kids made a change when I caught them slacking when we both knew they performed below ability on something.  This allowed students to take pride in their work and know that nothing was “just busy work.”

Be a positive role model 

Acknowledge positive role models

Every two months, I dub two students my “Student of the Month.”  I do not acknowledge it in class, do not create a certificate, and do not post anything about them in the classroom.  Terrible award….am I right? Instead, I email home.  I email their parents, the student, and their guidance counselor to tell them that they have raised an outstanding human being.  This is not something that I choose based on academic ability, but rather, usually to broadcast students that I feel have a greater impact to the class than a grade would demonstrate.  They care about others, the content, and me.  They participate, enjoy life, and invest into class.  They demonstrate EFFORT, something I treasure in my seniors.  The impact that this email has is more profound than I ever thought.  Not just for the parents who hear about how great their kid is, but the student who hears about how great they are as a person and that I see all of the many great things they do beyond just earning a grade.  I know that most parents/students cringe when thinking about a teacher emailing home, but I want to kill that vibe.  Try it once...you will not regret it.

You have to use summer to your advantage

Take a month and travel, relax, sleep, break your caffeine addiction, and binge watch Netflix (I suggest Silicon Valley and the Americans). Then, after a brain break,  read Steve Jobs biography, followed by “The Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell, followed by “The Originals” by Adam Grant, and then sit back inspired by all of these books about innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity, only to let your wheels spin for a couple months.  Go on Twitter and participate in EdChats, attend a conference, go to an EdCamp, and meet some co-workers for coffee.  As the summer hits the halfway point, get some ideas down.  Don’t wait until the school year starts to plan and don’t expect work to teach you how to use technology, instead, go out and do it yourself.  Be the independent learner that you hope all of your students become.  

As I reflect on my year, I am very proud.  I provided some great kids many great opportunities to learn many great things.  I formed bonds that I am proud of, taught lessons that reflected my work ethic, and let my students leave as more educated/prepared individuals than they came in as.  Now I am going to nap, cook, read, and bike ride until you are ready to sit down and start planning for next year with me.

Put your students in the driver's seat

I wish I could say that I have never had to convince a colleague or student that the use of technology is enhancing the educational experience, but I seem to do it weekly if not daily with the general public or even people at our school. As I reach into my toolbox of arguments that help others understand why I choose to do what I do and why I see it as successful, two or three arguments jump out at me. As I perused some readings for this week, I came across a quote that I had to include, “ one [argument] is that the world is changing and we will need to adapt schooling to prepare students for the changing world they are entering. The other is that technology gives us enhanced capabilities for educating learners, and that schools should embrace these capabilities to reshape education.” (Collins & Halverson, 2009, p.  9)

“Trying to prepare students for the 21st century with nineteenth-century technology is like teaching people to fly a rocket ship by having them ride bicycles” (Collins & Halverson, 2009, p.  10)  Wasn't it Einstein who defined insanity as continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result?  Wasn't John F. Kennedy looking to enhance education in the United States so that we would be more educated than generations previous?  Why do people feel that we can educate students the same way that we always have,  but have students reach new levels of education and conquer new things? It is obvious that our students are very different than students were decades ago.  They have higher standards, seek out college degrees, spend more time in school or in school activities and have desires to work jobs that do not even exist yet.  If we do not equip them with the best resources for growth, learning and understanding, how can we expect them to reach new levels of progress?  As students are immersed in a life where technology, information, and knowledge surrounds them, how can we ignore these things and not bring them into the classroom? How can schools be the only place where students unplug? Shouldn’t it be the opposite?

“To prepare students to communicate in the emerging world requires not simply the traditional reading and writing, but learning how to communicate using different media with people who do not share the same assumptions” (Collins & Halverson, 2009, p.  13). Is technology scary to bring into the classroom? Yes.  Do parents and outsiders fear that their kids become iPad zombies who can’t communicate, look beyond a screen, or become addicted to technology? Yes. Just because we are scared of what may happen, does that mean that we should keep students from taking advantage of using technology correctly because it may be distracting, scary, or costly? Let me give you an analogy to you answer that question.  

When cars were invented, they were scary.  They were unsafe, reckless, expensive, and new.  Did we keep kids away from them, reserving them for just adults and then thrust them into a driver’s seat one day? I hope not. We put kids in the back seat, showing them how the technology can be used for good, how to treat it, and let them understand that it could be dangerous.  When ready and trained, we let them take the wheel and hope that they continue to use it in good ways, but allowing them the opportunity to make mistakes and find value on their own.  Without cars, they would never leave the house, meet new people and develop connections with a greater world.  So why is driving a car allowed, but not driving their own education? 

Great teachers take time to train students before putting them into the driver’s seat.  They let them take the back seat and push buttons, laugh, play and see value.  Eventually, you let them touch the radio, have the front passenger seat and include their friends.  One day you are going to hand the keys over, though, and do you want your kids to be dropped into a world where they never learned digital citizenship, the power of search, and how to collaborate?  Then they are expected to do it as an engineer, doctor, marketer, or educator?  We must prepare them for a world that is dynamic, not static.  My students do this by building websites, completing group assignments from home, checking into their personal SEO, and creating content for the world to see.  They play the stock market when learning it, they budget their life at 23 to see what an actual budget looks like, they blog to take on the role of a journalist, and they build business websites just like entrepreneurs do so that when they walk out my door, they don’t know simply how to read, write, and listen, but rather how to adapt, create, debate, and live.

“Educational technology can be considered as a design science and as such, it has developed some specific research methodology like ‘Design-based research’. However, since it addresses also all fundamental issues of learning, teaching and social organization, educational technology makes use of the full range of modern social science and life sciences methodology. Globally speaking, research methodology for educational technology relies on general research methodology, in particular on approaches of the social sciences” (Schneider, 2010). As I make my final plea, think about how our world is shifting.  Do we ignore it and move forward doing what we have always done hoping that what we are doing will be enough? Do we limit our students to the knowledge of a textbook and a teacher? Or, do we remove the limitations of the classroom and show that learning is a lifelong process that students can drive while a teacher facilitates.  I no longer use a textbook in my class and it is rare that I lecture.  Students are taking on real-world tasks and then have Q&A and research days to bring information to the table.  If I am the only one who teaches them, then what will they do when they venture through life without me?  Instead, I want to inspire them to be their own motivation, teacher and their own biggest fan.  As they work with using technology to do things they never thought they were capable of in the past, I want to make sure that they get the credit, not me.  As I shift to a facilitator, that is when the real learning happens because now my students are equipped to learn, collaborate, build, dream and create 24-7 instead of during a 50 minute class period.  My students will be raised to be entrepreneurs, why not yours?

Collins, A., & Halverson, R. (2009). Rethinking education in the age of technology. New York: Teachers College Press

Schneider, D. (2010). Educational technology. Edutech Wiki. Retrieved 21 March, 2016 from http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Educational_technology