Don't Make Cell Phones an Excuse

Photo Courtesy of @NetReferee

I had a conversation recently with a coach.  We were discussing the low turnouts for summer camps and workouts in our district.  I'm a big sports guy and I have even been known to coach a little bit here and there.  My mind immediately went to wondering what team cultural issues exist that prevent kids from working over the summer.  Before I could complete that thought, the coach explained that cell phones and video games were ruining the kids and they were getting lazy.  I became frustrated but not with the coach.  This was probably the 200th time I have been told this.  Folks, this line of thinking is a horrible excuse for us parents simply not engaging our kids in real discussions about their technology use.  For the most part I think we are scared to do it.  

Let me be very clear, I am a huge tech advocate.  I believe in mobile technology in schools and that we should be models of productivity and learning as we use them.  The parents that think that the cell phones are taking over, like some kind of alien invasion, are simply not aware of how to empower themselves as parents and become the safety valves for their children.  We should realize that for every great thing we stumble upon, there will be downsides to using them. It is our job to minimize those downsides for our kids so their behavior does not become destructive.  We are the adults and we have to start adulting.  Our kids can't do that on their own.

There are researchers and experts beginning to define the idea of screen addiction.  Do I think there is such a thing?  Yes.  I actually show signs of it from time to time.  Many feel that screen time is akin to drug-like effects on the brain and we should begin to take it seriously.  I agree and I would like to open your eyes to this sobering reality.  Our kids are the largest consumers of things and the the internet is no exception.  Apps and games are designed and marketed to keep kids in front of their screens as much as possible.  There is a reason your child is constantly begging to download an app is because they are looking for a new fix.  I will by no means be a hypocrite and say that I do not do the same thing but I usually have one game app on my phone at a given time.  I do not toggle from app to app but the main reason for that is because my brain is not the well oiled machine that my kid's brains are.  All the more reason to take control of the devices in our home.

There are apps for parents to help limit accessibility and content.  I think most parents do not use them or even know about them.  Some parents fear the push back from their kids, especially those with pre-teens and teenagers.  There is a reason that we are encouraged to talk to our kids about drugs.  It's because research and tragic events have told us it is a good thing. It's also because we know that kids cannot practice anything in moderation.  If you need some action research on that look at anything on YouTube.  Using an app to monitor or restrict access helps your kids and family practice moderation.  You are not an evil dictator, you are a parent.  Cell companies also help monitor and restrict.  If you are not comfortable with using an app, just contact your wireless company and set up their parental controls.

We always have a lot at stake when we are talking about our kids.  We cannot use the excuse that cell phones are the problem when we are the ones that pay the bill.  We are really only creating an excuse for the lack of assertive parenting.   We are not perfect as parents but we work at it.  We are always looking for new ways to teach and model for our kids.  If we ever get really good at it, we will write a book but for now you will have to settle for this call to arms for our parents.

My school is a Bring Your Own Device School (BYOD).  They can bring any personal device they choose to use in the classroom.  Of course there are restrictions and expectations.  Of course we ask them to use apps that help in the classroom.  Of course we use NetRef to help us monitor behaviors and keep students engaged.  We can't ignore the fact that mobile devices will be a center piece of our kids lives as they become adults so we have taken the position that the school should help teach this and not run away from it.  Are we perfect?  Not even close but we are consistent and try to adapt to the changes in new apps and technologies.  We are willing to be assertive and serve our kids.  We need our families to do the same.  Don't make cell phones an excuse.

Let's Prevent Tragic Stories

I usually get motivated to write in this little blog because something is going in the world that frustrates or challenges me.  Its easy to get motivated under those conditions.  Today I sit here inspired to teach and maybe inspire someone else to teach as well.

As I was scrolling Twitter, I found an article that caught my eye.  This is significant because Twitter has been serving as my information stream during our school funding and budget crisis lately.  Maybe amidst the mess God decided to remind me of the real reason I work with kids.  The story was about a young lady convicted of involuntary manslaughter after encouraging her former boyfriend to kill himself via text message.  What we see here is taken life and two families destroyed.  The gist of the post was what the legal ramifications were for this scenario and will new legislation be spurred on from the conviction.  I would like to encourage anyone reading this to click the link above and read this very powerful post.  It is geared towards parents and it will encourage you to think.  Honestly, this is not a new situation to me.  Electronic encouragement of suicide happened many times this past school year.

It may not be popular for a school principal to admit that his students have engaged in this behavior.  The closed minded person has already mentally asked themselves, "What is the school doing about this?"  To answer that question, the action that can be legally taken by the school greatly depends on the facts of the case.  If your kids argue online, call names and eventually threaten each other with violence, that is not school's area of jurisdiction.  The only way a school can discipline students for off campus behavior is if there is a nexus to the school.  99% of the time there is no nexus to the school building.  These types of incidents are almost always reported to the school.  I appreciate when students or parents share with me on situations concerning student safety.  Regardless of school action or legal authority, the school can monitor or help students on both side of the issue.  The goal at my school has always been to help students through these situations and to encourage kids to help each other if they feel someone is in trouble.  The discussion, however, will eventually lead to calling a student a bully and demanding action against the kid using disparaging language.

This is where I would like to challenge US as parents as we navigate though tough pre-teen and teenage years.  We often demand action against a bully because we want an avenue to free our child from accountability or responsibility.  The reality is, most people do not understand the actual nature of bullying but thanks to popular opinion and media coverage it is now a tool for the angry parent.  Our real goal for our kids should be to teach them how to fix broken relationships.  Instead, we instantly seek out who the winners and losers are in the situation.  There were no winners in the above story, trust me.  We have to work on the skills it takes to help our kids build real and genuine relationships with other kids and how to fix it if they break.

Students use language like "Go Kill Yourself!" for a number of reasons.  In my 15 years as an educator here are some reasons I have observed:

• These students have a massive problem with rejection or failure.
• These students have little to no sense of empathy.
• These students have little patience for others who might be different from them.
• Many of the kids I speak to about this feel simply apologizing makes it all go away.
• Some of these kids will remark that these are just words, so what the big deal?

There is intervention for this but it will take all of us to make a difference.  That means every person in a child's life can and should make a difference.  Let's start with some basics:

• Failure and rejection are a normal part of life and should be seen as part of the growth process.
• When your kid wants to talk about a rough situation at school, discuss all the people involved and how the situation might be affecting them.
• Encourage your kids to interact face to face when solving an issue with a friend.  No electronics!
• Re-enforce that your kid is part of a larger world and process that requires them to participate in their own problem solving.  They are not the center of the world, they are a small part of it.

I'm no child psychologist but I have held hundreds of conversations with kids, parents and professionals that care about the development of kids.  Overtime, I have come to embrace the idea of restorative justice and providing kids with tools they can use for the rest of their lives.  Thankfully, we have not been impacted with a tragic story like the one above but we can all help prevent it.  We should learn from stories and they should motivate and inspire us to do something better.  I will make the effort with my kids and my school kids.  How about you?  We can all help prevent tragic stories like this one.

Parenting with a Growth Mindset

Educators know that the concept of growth mindset is slowly but thankfully creeping its way into teaching practice across the country.  I am quite personally fond of this approach because of my own personal experiences and now that I have enough professional experience, I am re-examining what I think is best for kids.  Take a look at the illustration below.

For many years I have seen the fixed mindset in action, not only on the part of students but also their parents.  If a student fails a class, the response typically is that they are just not good at that.  Students of poverty see their condition as a road block to all “middle-class” success or movement.  I’m certainly glad did not do that or who knows who would be writing this post.  What if we parented this way?  What if we stop saying, “well I wasn’t good at math either.”  Let replace the language we use and start parenting with a growth mindset.

I have a 13 year old daughter that I am very proud of.  Thanks to my social mobility, she has middle-class problems at times.  She has played softball since she was four years old and yes, for many of those years I was her coach.  She loves the game but runs into roadblocks.  She is not super physically talented but she likes to learn.  She recently took up pitching again.  She has been going to weekly lessons to unlearn old ways and learn new ones to help her be successful.  This year has presented opportunities to pitch and she is really enjoying it, but the last two games she has pitched really didn’t go her way. 

The truth is, that I could care less if she wins or loses her games (people that know me personally are surely thinking I am a liar right now).  I care about the process she takes to get there.  We had a rough game last night but the conversation after the game is what was special.  I asked her what she did right tonight.  She quickly replied, “nothing.”  So I quickly corrected her and explained what she did do very well.  We discussed what happened that was out of our control.  I let her tell me what fixes she had to make in the game.  I made her be part of her own growth.  We didn’t lament over the strike zone (we could have though) or what the coach did or didn’t do.  We talked about little victories and what her next opportunity would be like.

This is a micro example of parenting with a growth mindset.  I like to help her with her math homework.  I was not a good math student, but I parent with a growth mindset.  She is not allowed to bring me a blank answer and ask for help.  She must present me with an attempt.  I want her to fail forward towards the goal.  I don’t care if it is wrong when she brings it to me.  I care about walking her back through her process.  A lot of times we don’t’ get it right and leave it up to the teacher for help.  That’s okay because I do not want her to create roadblocks for herself and then create excuses.  I want her to be able to say, “I’m not good at that yet, but I will be.”

Imagine what the possibilities are for kids are if we teach and parent with a growth mindset.  The key to creating great communities lies in our hands.  If we use these critical years to develop a mindset for our learners, they will become adults with a growth mindset.  It is a cycle that is worth initiating as we parent these kids in a world that is growing in complexity and challenges.   

Children are not Pizzas

I had a disagreement with a parent a few days ago.  Her child was threatened with a fight after school and she contacted me to take care of it.  When I suggested that I would talk to both boys and see what is going on with them, she became confused.  I explained that I would talk to all parties involved, see if they had a problem that day and discuss their responsibility for the situation accordingly.  She became offended and felt that I had suggested her child was at fault.  At that point, she became very upset and began to to tell me that my school was terrible and that everyone she knows thinks that I do not take action when it comes to student fights at school.  She further explained that her child would not be returning to the school.  I have thick skin and can handle a personal attack from an unhappy parent but if you really care about what you do, you will reflect on your practice and be mindful of what you are doing.  Even if you think the other party is wrong.

This parent didn't want to find out what was going on and how she could help her child.  She wanted customer service.  She wanted me to punish the other child simply because she called first.  Sometimes I feel like these situations are perceived as an incorrect pizza order.  Fix my pizza for free or I will never order from you again.  The reality is that children are not pizza.  I take a very careful approach to these scenarios because their personal development is at stake.  I talk to all parties involved, witnesses, and watch surveillance video all in an effort to not only find a guilty party but also to help those involved avoid future troubles.  It sometimes also happens that disciplinary action is different for each person involved based on their responsibility in the situation.  I may not have a classroom but I am a teacher.  These are moments that you can teach valuable lessons and gain student trust.  It is labor intensive but is it always worth it.

I stumbled across an artifact from the past that put my mind at ease.  I was cleaning out an old filing cabinet and I found a student handbook from 1980.  When I was in principal school (SIUC) we were taught that handbook language is a primary way to communicate to our families the value system of our school buildings.  Using this lens I had to thumb through it.  Low and behold, there was a section on fighting and harassment.  And here we thought bullying and aggression was a new thing.

As it turns out, things were done basically the same way in 1980.  The core message seems to be that fighting is not okay and problems will be handled on a case by case basis.  This also leads me to believe that they dealt with a lot of fights back then.  I do not even have a fighting section in my handbook.  It is simply mentioned as a prohibited behavior.  There is more language related to conflict resolution and restorative practices then there is about fighting.  When this mom tells me that my school is horrible maybe she is wrong.  School discipline has come a long way.  This handbook only mentions detention and suspension as disciplinary consequence even though paddling was allowed back then.  Now, suspension is discouraged unless we make efforts to intervene on the behavior.  I think this is the right approach because children are not pizzas.

Because the conversation with this mom was so heated, I failed to ask her what she thought was appropriate response to what turned out to be much less intense then she reported.  Surely she had an idea in mind of how I should respond because she didn't like the response that I gave.  By threatening to pull her kid out of my school, she was seeking customer service and satisfaction despite my offering to work on the kids and how to move on.  I think people do not understand our role as chief disciplinarian.  We live and work with these kids everyday in a unique school community that is comprised of students, teachers, and staff.  We all have to get along, learn from our mistakes and I expect everyone to grow in their role in the school.  If we don't do this, the school climate suffers and real learning does not occur.  The result would be a horrible school as this parent suggests.  This is why children can not be treated like pizzas.

The School as a Political Lobby

Photo Credit:@csanchezcrozier

I would like to start this post by extending several thank yous.  I would like to thank Senator Andy Manar and Representative William Davis for their legislative leadership in passing SB1, a bill supporting evidence based school funding.  Even more thank yous go out to the IASA, IASBO, IPA, IASB, Advance Illinois, Funding Illinois' Future and the Vision 20/20 movement.  Without the efforts of these groups, we may not have realized the legislative and political victory that took place May 31st in regards to funding schools.  I am very proud to be associated with such strong advocates for kids, families and schools.

What we saw was a new era taking place for schools and the world of politics.  This has been coming for a while.  I am starting my 16th year in education and during my second year teaching I was on a referendum committee for a new school building for Mt. Vernon Township High School.  Not only was I teaching civics, but I was going door to door begging for votes to get what we felt we needed for students.  Not much longer after that, we are seeking voters in favor of 1% sales taxes to help secure funds that the state cannot or will not provide.  Fast forward a bit and we are mobilizing our districts to support school funding reform. I got in on this action with some rarely viewed videos and a hashtag supporting HB2808 that also supported evidence based school funding.

Over the last decade I think we have been forced to become politically active over issues of equity in the funding of schools.  It is no secret that the current formula is broken and we schools must be creative in making up the difference.  Through these battles we have become effective at mobilizing voters and passing legislation.  All in the name of advocating for our kids and families.  What we do is not partisan and we share common goals for our communities.  Oh yeah, there are more than 800 school districts in the state to mobilize so we can get the numbers.  This makes us an influential lobby that legislators and politicians have to sit at the table with.

Take a look at the voting record for the House vote on SB1.  For representative districts 115, 116, 117 and 118 is was split on party lines.  Terri Bryant told me in an email that she supported the evidence based funding model but did not vote for it.  Dave Severin only months ago was a school board member of a small K-8 district that understand the financial woes of the times.  Brandon Phelps and Jerry Costello voted yes and we appreciate it.  Again, what we want are not issues of political party.  They are issues of equity that hinder so many across the state.

Photo Credit: @kdruben

 I think it is now safe to say that we are an established political lobby.  We are made up of problem solvers by trade and many of us are former coaches that know how to find ways to win.  It is time to put those skills to use as we push on for kids across the state.  If you are a school administrator or teacher, get involved with Vision 20/20.  If you are a community member, get behind us as we advocate for our kids.  If you're a legislator, listen to us.  If you are Governor Rauner, sign SB1 and make a stand for schools and the tireless work they do for kids and families.

If you would like to urge the Governor to sign this bill, you can email him by following this link.