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3 Reasons To Take Down Your Mission Statement

3/20/2018

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Great leadership is the  single greatest force in human history.

There are a few simple things I’ve come to believe to about leadership. For example, most leaders suck. Many of them prefer people who agree with them. Most are hard to persuade because of their ego, confidence, or simple need for confirmation bias. Most would rather see you fail than see themselves fail.

In these ways, leaders are like most of us. Isn’t my criticism in the first paragraph applicable to almost everyone you know? Even you? Definitely me.

Now, gentle readers, do not be dismayed. I like people. I like leaders. I even like NY Giants fans. (I mean, not all of them. But some of them.) Humans suck for lots of reasons I simply don’t have time for in this 4 minute read.

But just because we all suck doesn’t mean that we can’t get a little better. And nothing in our human experiment is more important than improving leadership. 

Great leadership is the single greatest force in human history. There’s nothing more valuable nor influential. In a world of families, villages, towns, states, countries, corporations, religions, schools… great leaders drive culture. ​

This is because leadership is the business of people.
At the heart of great leadership is great teaching. Why? Because great teaching, at it’s most fundamental, is about uncovering and developing greatness in others. 

And so this one is for you leaders out there who really want to make a difference. 
So what’s my problem with Mission Statements?
I’ve been a critic of Mission Statements Written On Walls* for a long time. (*NOTE: I’m not a critic of Mission Statements themselves. Especially the act of writing them — it can be a remarkably useful way to bring a team together and focus on shared values, visions, etc.)

My problem is with posting them up on your wall at your workplace or website. Yeah, I know it seems like a good idea to put the Mission Statement on the wall. It's easy to imagine that seeing it on the wall inspires your own people and attracts new partners and clients.

I actually think it does the opposite. Here's why.


Three Reasons To Take That Mission Statement Down

1. It provides cover to a**holes. 
When you put a Mission Statement on the wall, no one has to change anything. No one has to act out the Mission Statement because, well, everyone is already doing it. The default IS the Mission Statement. The work is already done. Any of the weak members of your company/team/whatever can just point to the wall and say “that’s what I’m doing” no matter what they are actually doing. Don’t make it easy for those folks — they’re the last people you want to help on your team. They're why we can't have nice things.

2. It’s inefficient and unconfident.
None of you customers or clients will believe your mission statement unless your organization/company actually proves the mission through action. Writing it on the wall says "we're worried you might not know what we believe unless we write it up on the wall." Believe in your culture. Trust your people. Empower your people to BE the Mission Statement. 

3. It turns your mission into a compliance order. 
Every time you or your organization doesn’t measure up to your Mission Statement, your employees/members look at it and see the moral hypocrisy of your leadership. Every leader is a hypocrite at some point or another. You simply cannot be aspirational without falling short from time to time. Posting your Mission Statement can incentivize you and your people to care more about complying with the Mission Statement rather than embodying it. It makes people into lawyers on behalf of the Mission Statement (“well, you can see how we were really trying find a good solution during that colossal f**k up”) or to be harsh critics on the attack (“yeah, we believe in equality so much that so-and-so has been a jerk to every sales team member”).
This is not a new idea
As revolutionary as it might sound, ripping down that Mission Statement isn’t even a new idea. We have tons of aphorisms in our culture that speak to how it doesn't matter what you say-- it's what you do:

“If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and eats like a duck…”
“You know a fruit by it’s tree”
“
You wouldn’t have won if we’d beaten you”

When I was a kid, we used to sing this song at Bible school: “They’ll know that we are Christians by our love.” Look, I wasn’t the best kid at Bible school. But I liked the singing part. And I liked that song.
​

People will know your Mission Statement by how you walk, talk, and eat. No matter what you have written on your wall, they are watching and judging you. Everyone else already knows what you believe. They read it on you every time they interact with you.


​Everyone you 
interact
​with already knows your Mission Statement

​But, look, maybe you can't give up posting that Mission Statement. You love your stencils or fonts or whatever. You paid a lot of money for it, maybe. I get it. If you simply can’t help but put a Mission Statement on the wall of your office or website or whatever, here’s what I suggest:

​
Our Mission Statement:
​
​We ASPIRE to be judged by how we act. Let us know how we’re doing
.


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Mike Kleba has been teaching high school English and Theatre for nearly 20 years. Co-founder of Teachernomics.com, Kleba has spoken on stages around the world about the importance and power of teachers in leadership. He believes that humanity’s most important asset is the imagination.

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mikey's mixtapes: sxswedu 2018

2/4/2018

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I’ve always loved a good mixtape.

In the movie “High Fidelity,” the character Rob (played by John Cusack) explains “the making of a good compilation tape is a very subtle art. Many do’s and don’ts. First of all, you’re using someone else’s poetry to express how you feel. This is a delicate thing.”
​
As anyone who’s ever received a killer mixtape knows: a mixtape can not only introduce you to new music, it can change how you hear the songs you already know.

So… I've made you a few mixtapes. I know, I know. We barely know each other. But check it out: instead of songs, I’ve curated a list of SXSW EDU 2018 conference sessions. My goal? To introduce you to some of the hottest innovators in education right now: Teacher Leaders.

I’ll be featuring working preK-12 teachers who are running companies, leading policies, innovating products, and sparking movements, all while they’re holding down a teaching gig. These Teacher Leaders are coming to Austin from every corner of the country– including of course, Texas. Heck, we’ve even got a Canadian teacher bringing some.

The making of a good mixtape is a very subtle art. many do's and don'ts.

Every Tuesday this February, the folks at SXSW EDU will be dropping one of my mixtapes. Each mixtape will focus on an educational trend or movement that’s popping on the national stage at SXSW EDU. Our mixtapes will include a blog post and a curated list of teacher-led sessions, as well as when and where to catch those sessions.
​
Collect all four!
Mikey’s Mixtapes for SXSW EDU 2018

Mixtape #1: Justice League Teachers
Sessions on equity, race, justice, and inclusion


Including the timely “Let’s Teach About Race,” a panel that will feature elementary school teachers Akiea Gross and Yvonne Tackie mixing it up with a professor and edtech product specialist.

02/13 Mixtape #2: Let the Teacher Drive
Sessions about teacher leadership/partnership in schools, industry, and policy


With featured session “Human Skills for Digital Natives,” presented by middle & high school science teacher JP Connolly and WNYC podcast host & writer Manoush Zomorodi.

02/20 Mixtape #3: Teacher Toy Story
Sessions featuring gaming, design learning, and the maker movement

Including “Toy Hacking, Robotics for the Rest of Us,” led by creative elementary school teachers Sara Boucher and Cicely Day.

02/27 Mixtape #4: The First Ones In
Sessions about teachers as edtech champions & the most important power users in the game

Including the visionary panel “Students Can Build the VR/AR Worlds of the Future,” featuring high school teachers Jordan Budisantoso and Mark Suter.

This article originally appeared on the SXSWedu blog.
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Mike Kleba has been teaching high school English and Theatre for nearly 20 years. He’s taken a year sabbatical from the classroom to help lead DegreeCast, a startup that is building a tool designed to make higher ed search more practical and delightful. Co-founder of Teachernomics.com, Kleba has spoken on stages around the world about the importance and power of teachers in leadership. He believes that humanity’s most important asset is the imagination.

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Taking Kids To Spain

1/8/2018

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Spilling in reds, oranges, and blues, the Spanish sun splashes graffiti on the medieval flagstones. They stand there, the children, in their Nikes and Adidas, Uggs and slip-ons. Looking up, their eyes try to adjust to the unforgiving contrasts of light and dark.

“These vaults, the crotch vaulting- look at it, amazing- are the work of unknown craftsman from the 14 and 1500's...” The voice of our guide, Salome, echoes into nothingness, quickly replaced by the muffled chatter of the students. “You are standing in a place that represented the place between heaven and earth for the people of this town. Hundreds of years ago, if you'd been a peasant, you would have been in awe.”

The high school kids appear split into groups on this, in classic adolescent fashion. Some are bored and tired, barely aware of where they are. Others are fighting the ennui, trying to make sense of any of it. And then others: transfixed, mouth agape, eyes filled with wonder.

how do you think they got up there, dude?


              ---


​and I ask myself:
how did nick get to this moment of wonder?

I make eye contact with one of them, a boy named Nick. It's been a long trip from NY to Spain and we've been here for days. I raise my eyebrows with a “what do you think?” expression. He looks at me and says, “Wow, Mr. Kleba, I had no idea. It's incredible. How did they do all this?” 

The right response to him is, of course, "How do YOU think they got those stones up there, dude?" The ensuing conversation would be lovely and productive.  But I pause.

I look back up to the towering heights of the stone arches, questions of my own echoing in my head. Nick's reaction is the holy grail in education, the sublime moment. Normally at school, he's distracted and out of it, watching the clock. I've had him in class. But right now, he is wide open, ready to learn, thrilled by the idea of understanding more. He's prime meat.  In the cool dark of this cathedral, he is so bloody teachable. At this moment, he could learn just about anything.

And I ask myself: how did he get to this moment of wonder? What series of events led to this kid's specific experience? Why is he in the zone while others are not?
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​Getting a person to the place where she is willing to learn is the single most important job of a teacher. Sure, we've got to keep the buggers in their seats, patrol them for petty crimes, and drag them through mazes of mandated tests, forms, and procedures. But, mostly, it's about getting them into the zone.

The best teacher you ever had-- think about him or her for a moment-- was a master at getting you in the zone. You never liked math until you had Ms. Murphy. Social studies made no sense until Mr. Psota breathed life into it. Chemistry was an inscrutable cloud until Mr. Ferris helped you pilot it.

In the zone, you found yourself more interested in learning. You let your wonder free. You forgot about the burdens of everything and became engaged in the matter at hand. You suddenly cared about how or why something worked.

Nick got in the zone because a bunch of teachers, working outside of the typical parameters, did a lot of stuff to help get him there.

  1. TRAVEL. He had to leave the world of comfort and stability back home. Getting out of the unfamiliar was required. Strange language, strange food, strange bed-- all of it had an impact.
  2. INVESTMENT. He needed to be invested in the trouble of it all-- paying a lot money to travel helped with that, but so did the work of packing and traveling he put in.  
  3. GREAT MATERIAL. He had to be confronted with something worth learning, something bigger than himself. Something with undeniable value and meaning in of itself.
  4. CREATIVE TEACHERS.  He needed teachers who could create and facilitate zone moments.
We only went to Spain so that Nick, and others like him, could get into the zone. The best thing we did was carefully pluck the kid out of the routine of his life and give him a way to appreciate something.
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​​We are having the wrong conversations about education.  We want a more perfect education system-- and it's crazy.  We are spending too much money and time keeping kids in systems. Our education culture is stilted in its repetitive, construct-based model. We don't need better curricula-- we need better teachers. Frankly, we don't even need better testing-- we need better opportunities for the kids.  
We can't address what's not working in education by taking all the kids on field trips- that's not the point.  But creating conditions for kids to experience beautiful, inspiring, and challenging moments should be our prime focus.  And, culturally, politically, and economically, we aren't even talking about how to do it.  

Can we afford to take kids to Spain?  No, definitely not in this economy.  But can we afford not to?

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Mike Kleba has been teaching high school English and Theatre for nearly 20 years. He’s taken a year sabbatical from the classroom to help lead DegreeCast. Co-founder of Teachernomics.com, Kleba has spoken on stages around the world about the importance and power of teachers in leadership. He believes that humanity’s most important asset is the imagination.

This piece originally appeared on iBlogAmerica hosted by blogspot.
All photos are mine, collected on a student tour in Spain, 2012.

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4 Reasons Why Leaders Who Act Like Teachers Win

10/4/2017

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Everyone can remember her favorite teacher. For some, it was a fifth grade teacher who read books aloud to the class. For others it was a softball coach, a mentor at a new job, or professor at university.

This teacher changed you — made you rethink the world and your place in it. The best teachers don’t just improve a person’s understanding — they change a person from the inside out.

We live in a world where everyone is trying to get a leadership edge. Your company wants to get more attention and convert people into followers/customers/clients. No profession has more experience in capturing and converting followers than teachers.
My nearly 20 years working in schools has allowed me expert access to what makes great teachers such leadership rockstars. You want to be a leader that your team/clients believe in? Engage like a teacher.

the secret to  great leadership?
Engage like a teacher.

1. Be a Contexter.
Every message has context. Simon Sinek told you to know your “Why.” I’m telling you to know your “Who, When, and Where.” I call it Contexting.

You need to be a communication monster when you are a leader. Build your messaging around who you are talking to, their background knowledge, what they care about/are afraid of, where they are, and when they are. It’s not about you. It’s about them.

People aren’t empty vessels waiting to be the recipients of your genius. Have respect for the fact that everyone hears/sees things in a different way. If they don’t understand you, they won’t pay attention to you.

2. Take full responsibility for miscommunication.
People get so caught up in what broke down in a miscommunication. “Whose fault was it?” people ask. Who cares? Even if it isn’t your fault when you were misunderstood, it’s your job to fix it.

Miscommunication is one of the greatest creators of problems in human history. This is true in markets, too. Be the adult in the room. Deal with it.

3. Listen because you mean it.
​Respect and loyalty are plants in a garden. They take time to develop and are easy to kill. If you act like you give a shit but you actually don’t, your listeners will figure it out. And then they’ll not only bail, they won’t want to come back.

You want to build an audience/employee team without loyalty? Fine. Watch them leave when the next shiny object floats by. Pay attention to them — their needs, their worries, their dreams — and they’ll resist leaving you.

4. Your greatest success is achieved through others.
Teachers know: you can’t do anything TO your students. You can only achieve things THROUGH your students.

Your clients need to believe that their success is of critical importance to you — not simply a collateral consequence after you get them to sign a contract. Same with your employees: when the people who work for you believe that you actually care about their success, they’ll work harder and longer for you and with you.

Remember: your people are the ones who “graduate” — not you.

Great teachers aren’t selfless. They are “otherfull.” Make your work about building greatness in others.

Isn’t that what great leadership is all about?
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school yourself

7/14/2016

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The Biggest Obstacle Isn't a Reality:  It's a Dream
Here's the old model, the time-tested, incredibly persistent concept of "school:"

The teacher teaches the student.

It's simple, easy to understand, and has the ring of truth.  We say things like "he taught me so much!" or "I learned so much from her." The teacher is a vending machine, a talking textbook, a knowledge dispenser. We keep the wisdom and dole it out.
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what did your favorite teacher actually teach you?

As a teacher, I can tell you:  this model works-- less than half of the time. The days it works are sublime:  you lecture, digress, and expound. Your students sit in the glow of your brilliance, they eat it up, light bulbs go on, and the music of instruction plays like a street fiddler in the square. You make the magic.

But when that ain't working for you, when the students are bored, lost, or detached-- these are awful teacher moments.  Your students loll in the harsh light of your artificial sun, they list in their seats, darkness pervades, and the clatter of the lecture plays like a rusty chain on the pavement.
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We love a brilliant genius around whom the STUDENTS orbit.

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Anyone can teach anything, we think. 
it's a simple transaction.  

The Great Teacher Fantasy
Often, teachers of teachers claim to want to debunk this model.  The better part of professional development that I have seen in the last 10 years as a teacher seems to be grounded in the idea that the teacher should not be the "Sage On the Stage."  But I don't believe we actually want to debunk this at all.  When we talk about a great teacher, we often talk about this brilliant genius around whom the classroom orbits. 

This old model IS the problem, of course.  We love the fantasy that teaching is simply imparting wisdom. The best teachers are ones whose kids learn the most from him, we think.  

We live in a "Guru culture." To be a "great teacher," you just have to be a respected resource of knowledge or skills.  Anyone can teach, we think, as long as a person has content mastery.  Are you a great chef? Then you can teach cooking. Are you a professional baseball player?  You'd be a great coach. Are you a great surgeon?  You'd be a great science teacher.  We've even created our computer models around it.  Data is "downloaded" from an original source.  It's "copied." Knowledge is not mastered-- it's copied and pasted.

The ramifications are enormous. We have come to think of teachers as simply "info and skill distributers." Our whole student testing and teacher evaluation model is based on this presumption. Our cultural conversation about teaching isn't based on teaching; it's based on a fantasy of teaching.
What Teachers Actually Do
Student teaches herself.  Teacher teaches student to teach herself.

Our fantasies about being a great teacher hide what great teachers do. Great teachers don't teach anything; they teach learning. First time parents have no teachers. Nobody could teach Mick Jagger how to sing, Warren Buffet how to invest, Oprah Winfrey how to produce, Michael Phelps how to swim, or you how to do whatever it is YOU are good at.  Of course, teachers helped Mick and Warren and Oprah and the rest-- but no one taught them-- at least, not in the traditional sense. They taught themselves. Their mentors/teachers taught them (and you) not WHAT to do but, rather, HOW to do it.  As have all the great teachers in your life.

Heck, you taught yourself language.  How to walk.  Do you ever think about how your brain must worked for that to have happened?  For it to happen to everyone, everywhere, in every culture around the world?  Great teachers know that students HAVE to teach themselves. 
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Great teachers don't teach subjects; 
they teach learning.

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it's true in every field: 

your best manager, leader, or boss helped you understand and execute the work on your own. 

The fantasy model needs a real challenge, especially as our cultural and political conversations about good teaching begin to gain more and more traction. How can we attract great teachers when we don't even talk about what a great teacher does?

When on the job, the best teachers are barely there. They elegantly and efficiently drop in and out of the learning process. Doing this is complicated and requires extraordinary awareness. It's a profession that is all about "how," not "what." 

Great teachers aren't vending machines. They are catalysts, context makers, inspirers, models, and value multipliers.  

It's why I say teaching is like entrepreneurship: it's about engaging others in answering a question or solving a problem. It's why it's the most important profession in the world. Teachers impact every market and every other profession. How we think about teachers impacts everything.

This is not a moral argument. It's an economic one. 
This article originally appeared in iBlogAmerica on January 20, 2013. Mike Kleba has revised and reprinted his article here.
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Was Your Teacher a Fashion Icon?

7/14/2015

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Yesterday, the cozy village of Manhattan witnessed the opening of the first ever New York Men's Fashion Week.

In an age of style-savvy rappers, red-carpet-swagged celebs, and bespoke-suited NBA stars, how is it possible that 2015 is the first year for NYMFW?

Even the men running for president are getting checked for freshness. So how is this first time for Fashion Week to go Dude?

More importantly, what the hell does this have to do with teachers or education?
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Tyson Beckford attends the 2015 amfAR Inspiration Gala New York at Spring Studios on June 16, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images)
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like teachers, 
designers help others develop a point of view

See the World; See Yourself
Everyone has a style. Each of us has a wardrobe, no matter how casually curated. Even your most fashion-careless friend has a collection.

We all have a point of view.

And while very few of us ever attend a fashion show (let alone fashion week in New York City), we all witness the parade of style around us every day. Again, the most fashionably-tragic people have a sense of this. I know you're probably thinking about your dad, who cynically asserts that he wears the same khakis at least 3 times a week. The man cares about fashion: he just cares about not caring.

And that's the deal. Creating your style is personal. It takes time, experience, and relationships. And, to develop it, you need mentors.
Now take a fashion show like NYMFW.  To be clear, a fashion show is a business convention at its very core. This is New York, baby. It's an arena for scrappers, innovators, and startups. 

But fashion shows are more than a market place-they serve to direct and instruct. Fashion shows reflect and articulate cultural tastes; designers start trends, 
shape trends, and cultivate trends.

Like educators, designers help others create and articulate a point of view. 

Many fashion brands are named after people for a reason. In a world where stadiums, stores, and skyscrapers 
are named after companies, this is worth noting. The fashion industry knows the power of a personal connection. We want to model ourselves after people we admire.

Teachers know this, too. You can remember the style of your favorite teachers-- whether it was way they dressed, talked, or thought about things. Damn, they were cool, right? They didn't teach you WHAT to think; they taught you HOW to think. The point:  we need someone else's point of view to develop our own. 

And that's why Fashion Week is also Teacher Week. It's all just teachers and students, son. And, speaking of school...

Public School, you can make it easy for yourself and just tweet my VIP pass to your show to @mikekleba.  I mean, we should be hanging anyway, you know what I'm saying? #educatorsunite
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Public School designers Maxwell Osborne and Dao-Yi Chow 

We need to know someone 
else's style 
to develop our 
own style

photo credits: 
-Albert Einstein, courtesy of Mental Floss.  http://www.businessinsider.com/biography-of-albert-einstein-2013-1
-Public School, photo by Public School

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surf school

3/3/2015

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it’s impossible to be cool and complain about how much something weighs.

Surf school starts in the sand.

To be clear:  it starts when you hump your 35lb board over half a sandy mile from the surf shop to the surf line.  I’m not saying that the board was heavy—it’s impossible to be cool and complain about how much something weighs and, let’s be honest: I’m determined to sound very cool while I describe my first time surfing—but I am saying that the sand was hot.

Crazy hot. Cook an egg hot. Motorcycle muffler hot. Erase all creases in your feet and leave your footprints untraceable by the FBI hot.

“I pray thee, good Mercutio the day is hot” hot. 

So, yes: surf school starts in the sand. And, after schlepping my board across the blazing beach in Salyulita, a Mexican town north of Puerto Vallarta, I am ready to be in the water.  But first: a tutorial-- in the cool sand, thankfully under the shade of a gathering of palms in the midafternoon sun.

“Put your whole body on the board—just lay down and let your feet hang off the back,” Gary from France tells us. “Feel the board with your body.” He’s the fit, charming instructor who gets immediately down to business, his accent both softening his direct orders while also completely melting girls in our group and, Jesus, me, too. “You’re too far forward,” chirps Dana, our other instructor, a super fox from the Czech Republic who calls a spade a spade. With their deeply bronze tans, white flashing smiles, and ripped physiques, our instructors had us mesmerized. We hung onto every word (why are surfers such hotties? Because they work their bods, I learn later, my whole sore body barking angrily at me during margarita medication time at dinner).

In the dappled shade, we stretch, boards beneath us, practicing our strokes. We are told to pop up on both feet and to be aware of how being too far back on the board will apply the brakes while being too far forward will bury the nose. We get safety tips: Dana tells us to keep the board between us and the beach. Gary warns us to keep the tether from our ankle to the board clear of our other foot. “You don’t want to be under a wave with your legs tied together.” Sounds like good advice.

And, in about 7 minutes, our instruction on land is over.

“Let’s go,” says Dana, not waiting to see if we follow. She and Gary zip up their form fitting wet suits and lead us straight out into the surf—and, the newbs that we are, simply walk behind them. And, within 15 minutes, everyone has gotten up and surfed at least one wave. The whole lesson took fewer than 25 minutes. Announcement: I am a surfer now. A surfer who surfs.

And that’s what I call good game.

These surfing instructors put on a teaching clinic that morning. It was goal oriented, student centered, and teacher led. It had authentic assessment, practical applications, and demanded performance from every pupil.

They didn’t overdo the help because they didn’t offer much. Or, at least, not much help that impeded our own process. Sarah and Molly, for instance, just wanted to do it their own way. Chris had some questions about fine points. Scott wanted to jump straight to pulling off 360s.  The point is: the teachers weren’t interested in doing anything other than help each of us in the way we needed to be helped.

“Let’s go,” says Dana, not waiting to see if we follow. She and Gary zip up their form fitting wet suits and lead us straight out into the surf.


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They didn't see us as students. They saw us as surfers.

Gary and Dana anticipated our questions but left room for our own discovery. They promised us nothing but believed in our reasonable ability to do anything we tried.  They seemed utterly unattached to our respective failures but were the first to yell “you look beautiful up there!” or “lean into it, you’re killing it!” 

Our surf instructors were great teachers for the most important reason: they didn’t see us as students.  

They saw us as surfers.

And we, seeing ourselves reflected in the eyes of our beautiful teachers, believed them.
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Mad men meets preschool

4/24/2014

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Teachers need Don Draper.

Lost in the hot debate about whether or not preschool helps kids later in life are data-supported findings about the value of great teaching.
 
A 2013 study of early childhood education, funded by the Foundation for Child Development, has produced “too much evidence to ignore,” according to the non-profit, nonpartisan New America Foundation.
 
As a part of that research, psychology professor Deborah Phillips, of Georgetown University, found that her seven month study of early childhood education programs in Tulsa, OK exposed what a “model for the whole country” could look like in education.
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Phillips, highlighted in an article on NPR, identifies a handful of factors that lead to a successful preschool. The formula is simple:
 
1.     A well funded program
2.     A low teacher-student ratio 
3.     Qualified, supported, and well paid teachers
 
“The role of the teacher in all of this, researchers say, is the foundation of a high-quality preschool program,” says NPR. 

It’s not a moral problem.  
It’s a public relations problem.

People will pay for what they want, whether it’s alcohol, gasoline, cellphone service, or dinner.  The political debates about education are simply distracting.
 
Education needs to do a better job selling the most important fact in improving and sustaining education:  a great teacher costs money.  

And like dental work, the roof of your house, or great seats to an amazing concert, she is worth it.


For more on the NPR article or the study conducted by the Foundation for Child Development, see:
http://www.npr.org/2014/04/22/305692733/for-early-childhood-education-tulsa-okla-stands-out
http://fcd-us.org/sites/default/files/Evidence%20Base%20on%20Preschool%20Education%20FINAL.pdf
further info for this hilariously short article was found at 

http://newamerica.net/events/2013/too_much_evidence_to_ignore

Image used without permission. As soon as I start making money, I'll take it down. I swear.
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The Biggest and Quietest Movement in Education

4/12/2014

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Picture"Behold Alex's Cold Smoking Contraption" from HarmoniousHomestead.
"DIY" is really "TIY"
So I want to hardwire a lamp in the bathroom.  You know, like a real man.  My plan of attack?  Youtube.

You see, my dad didn’t show me how to hardwire anything.  Sure, he taught me how to put Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage in a bowl spaghetti.  He taught me that five Coors Lights is better than three.  He taught me that winning isn’t everything—but that it beats the hell out of losing.

But hardwiring a lamp? No.  So, back to youtube.  Or, if you prefer, what I call the "TIY movement." A movement so big, I guarantee you are a part of it and don't even know it.

#TIY Strong

Ask just about anyone under the age of 40 how to figure out how to change a showerhead, learn a guitar lick of a Rolling Stone song, or how to put filling inside a cupcake, and they’ll tell you to look it up on line.  

We call it DIY- Do It Yourself.  It’s an empowering idea, one that is about self reliance. It's also a bit punk rock-- "do it yourself" means "you can make it yours."  An enormous swath of the internet is dedicated to people showing other people how to do it yourself.  I think it’s biggest, least talked about movement in education today. 

And it’s got the wrong name.

We should call it “Teach It Yourself.”  It’s more fundamental than simply Do It Yourself: You have to teach it to yourself to do it yourself.  And that is what so many of us do when we need to do something we don’t know how to do.  It’s what I am going to do when I install this f#@$ing light in my bathroom. 

It's time for us to have a much better conversation about why DIY (sorry, TIY) is the best example of the “state of the art” of Education today.

The best of "DIY" is really just great teaching.

Picture
Fishtail buns and advent calendars from OhtheLovelyThings.com
Instructions Make the Teacher

If there’s something teachers notice about the ubiquitous TIY instructions out there it's how good (or bad) the instructions are.  Because great think about instructions all the time- because great instructions allow people to teach themselves.

Anyone who has used an easy to follow instructional video or read a great manual (think workout plans or cookbooks), knows that these instructions can be great teachers, too. Great-instruction-givers allow us to invest in ourselves. It's schooling at it's most distilled:  education improves us.

The best of DIY is really just great teaching.  And, with the internet, its reach across age, gender, economic and social class, and geography barriers make DIY instructions the most powerful force in Education today.

Want to do what great teachers do?  Study what makes instructions easy to follow, efficient, inspiring, and delightful.  Look at the wide range of instructions available online and in books.  See how directions are put together, how words and images can be used to model and guide.  Now that's teacher training I could get behind.  Great instructions are encoded teaching.

For my teacher friends and teacher advocates out there: instructions cannot REPLACE teachers, of course.  Great instructions are the products and tools of great teaching.  And great teaching is teaching other people to teach themselves.

Now, the way to CREATE and DEVELOP good instructions is much more complicated, certainly. For one, it's about knowing and connecting with your audience (students). But getting into that right now will keep me from a delicious meal of breakfast sausage spaghetti washed down with a raft of Coors Lights.  

Just the kind of preparation I need to hardwire a lamp.

Images from and thanks to
the awesome blog http://harmonioushomestead.com/2013/08/07/homemade-cold-smoker/
and the fun site http://www.ohthelovelythings.com/2011/12/happy-friday-4-diy-projects.html
0 Comments

What's a coach worth?

4/6/2014

1 Comment

 
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A great coach can change everything.

A lot of attention has been paid to college sports in the last month. March Madness had people around the country filling out brackets. A court ruling on the potential unionizing of college athletes led by a group of students at Northwestern also got a lot of buzz.

But I couldn't take my ears off of a conversation on a radio call in show here in New York on station WNYC.  "The Brian Lehrer Show" brings in all kinds of guests and puts them on the phone with people listening in their cars and at home and work. Like many shows like it around the country, this call in program is more of a community service than straight entertainment programming.  I think Lehrer does a hell of a job.

Anyway, he did a segment on "Coaching" that got me thinking about Teachernomics.  

Lehrer asked people to call in about great coaches they had and the responses were telling. We heard folks talking about track coaches, soccer, trumpet, baseball coaches... even life coaches.  Nearly everyone who called in told the story of someone from her past who gave never-diminishing advice.  Aside from the wise words of a mentor, what other kind of work doesn't diminish or lose its value over time?  Invention?  Art?  

That's got to be the topic for another article.

What got me thinking about the value of a coach, however, had less to do with the lasting emotional/psychological impact on a player or more to do with the actual price tag.  How much is a great coach worth, financially?

The answer, of course, depends.  Little league coaches often get paid nothing or close to it. On the other hand, college football coaches of elite or enormous schools can get paid millions of dollars a year.  

Both render incredible value to their teams.  Some of those little league coaches (or middle school or high school coaches) will do the best coaching the players will get their whole lives. Some highly paid professional coaches will be the subject of great derision. Some coaches, no matter the level, will give advice and instruction that will be cherished for decades. Others will be forgotten.  

What a coach gets paid will have almost no correlation with their effectiveness.

The point is:  we have a huge problem figuring out how much coaches are worth, financially, despite the fact that their players can often easily estimate their impact value on them. Culturally, we don't know up from down on the value of good instruction. Remember that when you hear parties from unions to governments to parents to business talk about the cost of education.

What is the difference between a great coach and a bad coach?  Depends on what you mean by "great." For must of us, it's an important personal question that weirdly has no bearing on financial ramifications. 

What is the difference between a coach and a teacher?  Nothing, of course.

Check out Brian Lehrer's awesome show here
http://www.wnyc.org/story/the-brian-lehrer-show-2014-03-18/

Image from WNYC's "The Brian Lehrer Show"



1 Comment
<<Previous

    just a Fact:

    Teachers are injecting value into every corner of our society.

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