I'm Done with the Negative Ads!

It's election time so that means everyone hates each other.  I'm not a Trump supporter but it amazes me how many of my Facebook friends are so I avoid those posts.  Once its all said and done the internet can be fun again.  Besides, we have the awesome television commercials to depress us every day during every show we watch.  It's like this every election cycle but we power through it and get to the point where the elected officials don't act like they care about us anymore.

I'm numb to this nonsense.  I actually have a good working knowledge of election politics so much of the behavior is expected.  This time around, however, I have a real problem with the local races for the Illinois General Assembly.  The fight is on to unseat incumbent democrats and a whole lot of money is being spent to feed us negative ads with far fetched story lines.  I am not concerned about the incumbents, I am concerned about the newcomers to the scene.  To be fair, the incumbents should be running on their records and accomplishments.  Voters respond to experience and research has shown that negative ads do not motivate people to vote.  Instead everyone went negative with their ads almost immediately.

Despite being a Democrat, I can say that nobody is playing nice or even smart.  The Southern said it appropriately that the negative ads are scare tactics and do personal damage to the candidates.  One negatively ran race in particular has rubbed me the wrong way.  When Terri Bryant originally ran for the State House she was interviewed for an endorsement by the Alliance.  This is a group made up of the education advocacy groups.  I was fortunate enough to get to help interview the candidates and recommend an endorsement.  She did a very nice job on the issues for a newcomer.  Her opponent was not kind to her in his interview and it was quite off putting.  She was given the endorsement and a campaign donation based on her likely support of education issues.

Fast forward two years later.  Rep. Bryant is running against a newcomer with no legislative record, just as she was.  Marsha Griffin is a school teacher new to politics and she has been painted as reckless and unfit to hold the seat.  The newest ad run by Bryant points out that she was teaching on a lapsed teaching license and that she is missing work to campaign.  Maybe Rep. Bryant could be working on the licensing issues teachers have had seems how she has taken money from an education group.  This is the weakest tactic I've seen by incumbents ever.  They should run on their records and challenge their opponents based on their lack of knowledge of the issues or experience handling them.  If you had met Rep. Bryant two years ago, you would have seen the same inexperience.  Another similarity between the candidates, they are both heavily supported by their parties to not lose the seat.  Running out of desperation leads to negative campaign tactics that do nothing to inform voters.  Or maybe Rep. Bryant's record is not worth campaigning on.  Bobcat hunting just doesn't take care of itself you know.

I do not know Marsha Griffin and obviously I will always rise to respond to attacks on a teacher.  Thanks to the campaigning that has taken place, I will not get to know her or her platform.  The strategy is now to fight fire with fire leaving only destruction.  The same goes for the other races in this election.  The newcomers have been painted as bad as those who have sent them campaign cash and we are supposed to equate them with their donors.  I say check to see who is donating to who.  You might be surprised.  Thankfully, I will not be voting in the 115th so I am no threat to that election.

Folks, do your homework on your candidates.  No one is playing fair so its up to us to sift through the BS.  I don't have clever advice or any direction with this but hey, it doesn't look like you have to these days.

O'Doyle Rules!

October is Bullying Prevention Month and Principal's Appreciation Month so I thought I would kill two birds with one stone.  One, I would like to clearly define bullying for parents and two, you have to indulge me as I ramble because I happen to be a principal.

I am in no way making light of bullying with this post.  I think students and parents need to be better educated on the true definition of bullying before we start throwing the word around.  Before you call the office and allege bullying against another, I would like you to consider what I call the O'Doyle Rules.

The researched and accepted definition for bullying is aggressive behavior that is intentional and that involves an imbalance of power. Most often, it is repeated over time.  The key element here is is the notion of a power imbalance.  I get tons of phone calls from parents asking me to look into bullying and it takes a lot of time to follow up.  Most of these scenarios end up being social conflicts in which the students involved do not have the skills to overcome.  Last week it was two former BFF's fighting over a boy.  The more they argued the worse it got and when it hit social media, the parents got involved.  Both side alleged bullying.  That is the problem.  They can't both be bullies and victims.

Bullies do not have extended, complex relationships with their victims.  Take the O'Doyles for example.  Billy Madison in the clip (and throughout the movie) was targeted by O'Doyle so dominance could be asserted.  They were not best buds goofing off and it got out of hand (I get that one a lot too), there is a clear showing of power.  This makes investigating a bullying situation easy.  If no relationship exists, I do not have to learn every back story and line up conflicting electronic messages that neither side wants the principal to see.  That, my friends, is an argument that needs mediation and the increased frequency of this shows that we just are not teaching our kids how to deal with people.

In the past six years I have been in my current school, we have had four true bullies by definition.  All ended up in alternative school because it is easy to determine that they sought to exploit people and to dominate them.  If I sent every student that a parent convicts as a bully to alternative school, the student body would be cut in half.  It is critical that we understand bullying and stop making victims out of our kids.

Parents and students take a few steps back before you call the principal and use the word bully.  Can you confidently say that this kid is an O'Doyle?  95% of the time the answer will be no.  Collect information from your kids and actually discuss the situation with them.  All too often I get emotional parents that are not thinking of their child's future emotional health.  I also often get parents that want to use me as their avenue for revenge.  This is totally not fair to me or the other family not to mention that it can be bullying behavior by the parents.

Use the O'Doyle Rules for deciding whether or not you have a bullying situation.  Is this a conflict that the kids just need guidance with? Is there a power imbalance?  You should be able to answer those questions before you call the principal.

5 Simple Truths

It didn't take long into this new school year before the same old parent shortcomings have shown up. We have great parents at my school but even well intentioned adults fall short sometimes and it's mostly because there are some simple truths that get over looked. Because I am a parent and a school administrator, there are some observations I've made over the last ten years that could be helpful to parents. No research to cite here. Just a practitioner’s advice and I hope it helps.

1. Trust your school staff - Teachers, aides, chaperones and administrators see your kids in a different light than you do. They get to see them in their unguarded moments and in a lot of cases, spend more time in a day with your kids than you do. If you want to know if your child is living the way you raised them to live, reach out to school staff and ask. We are partners, not adversaries.
2. Know what self esteem actually is - your child’s happiness does not equal good self esteem. I can't tell you how many times I hear a parent tell me that punishing their child will ruin their self esteem. These folks don't get it. Here’s the formula: Goal Setting + Guidance + Healthy Risk Taking = High Self Esteem. Setbacks and failures can be a good thing in small doses. Helping your kids through setbacks helps build self esteem and encourages resiliency.
3. We will not help you get vengeance against another - This is not the mission of any school. If your student has been wronged either in perception or reality, we should not be helping you get revenge. This week I had parents asking for help in contacting police and DCFS for a minor scrape involving a kickball game. Now, if we really have encountered a breach of the law you will get all the help you need. Like the times I have notified police about parents that drive their kids around to find a kid to fight after a school argument. (Sounds crazy but it does happen)
4. School Honors and Awards do not define your child - My own kids have been disappointed to not earn recognition and their dad is a Principal in the district. Under no circumstances do I expect special treatment for my kids but I do give one piece of advice when they feel passed over: work towards having the last laugh. As adults we have life experience that tells us that these awards and recognition do not guarantee a good quality of life. While some kids scratch and claw their way to award season, I'm pushing mine to live a life that will help them build towards a great adulthood. Be honest, we know that less than worthy kids earn some of these honors sometimes and it is hard to convince your child that's it's okay, but help them work towards the last laugh. The last laugh should be a healthy life and career that honors your family and community, not a momentary instance of glory.
5. Our kids are just like us - Yes they are. The reality is this, kids haven't changed but the world around them has. If we had all the tools they have to be mean the way they have, we would have made the same mistakes. Except in my case I would get my butt busted, not my phone taken away. It is their job to challenge authority and stretch rules. This helps them find their real boundaries. It is a learning process that is important in a school setting. If your child suffers a consequence at school, they are not being punished, they having a learning experience.  This is a jagged little pill to swallow because parents have to deal with the tears, remember I am a parent too so I've been there.

I really could do this all day. I see a myriad of diverse situations that challenge me each day. Remember, I look to no research for this advice so it's completely unscientific but comes from a good place. I actually care that my families have a good school experience too and I see them as partners, not roadblocks. Parents can make themselves roadblocks by not realizing these simple things. Have a great school year.

100th Blog Post

Well it took me about seven years but I made it to my 100th blog post.  I'm not sure how I have stuck with it so long but it has been more rewarding than I thought it might be when I started.  For the sake of looking back feel free to visit my most notable posts:

First Post (Poorly written with comments I wish I could take back)
Most Visited (17,000 + views)
Least Visited (1 view but a personal favorite)
Most Controversial (Lost some Facebook friends over this one)
My Favorite

If you took the time to look through any of these you can definitely see that this is an evolving endeavor for me.  Blogging is, for me, the exchanging of ideas.  The internet allows me to publish ideas and for others to engage them whether they agree or not.  I actually first was turned on to blogging in 1994.

That last sentence may sound a little weird.  The history of blogging can be traced back a ways but blogging as we know it took off in 2001 or so.  As I said, I am a believer in the exchange of ideas.  The first time I had that light bulb moment was in high school.  My friend's dad, Harry O, wrote a column in a small paper called the Weekly Review.  I couldn't wait to pick a new issue and read what he wrote.  We were not affiliated with the same political party and I often did not always completely  understand the issues he was writing about.  But, by reading his column I wanted to learn more about what was going on in our community.  He was a great writer and very engaging.  That's how blogging was done in those days, in print.  Not everyone had access to be a published columnist back then but now we do.

The internet and social media provides the ability to not just make us published authors, but also to read from a diverse group of authors.  I would not consider myself an author mostly because I am a terrible writer, but I can share ideas and engage other people.  My reach has not just been in my local community but across the nation.  Yes, little ole me has engaged people from a far off lands that I will never meet.  They were drawn to the ideas I've shared because we share a common profession and value set.  How awesome is that to know you can have that type of reach?

So what are you waiting on?  It is true that a lot of people will not read what you write.  It is true that people will not always agree with your perspective.  Don't let that hold you back from sharing ideas.  Someone can benefit from what you write and you may just feel liberated for writing it.  Take the leap and start a blog.  You just might make it to 100 and beyond.

Heartbreak is the Quality of a Great Teacher

At EdCamp West Frankfort this year I sat with many gifted and caring educators from all over the region.  In one particular session the conversation shifted to the notion that teacher training does not adequately prepare people to teach in today's climate.  After all, the game has definitely changed in the past few years with RTI, SB7, SB100 and now ESSA.  Yes the acronym machine is still running at full capacity.  My comment to this was that teacher ed programs especially don't prepare you for your first heartbreak.

My first heartbreak took place in my first year of teaching.  I was subbing for a teacher and as I began to carryout the plans for the class, I noticed a student with her head down appearing to be asleep.  We will call her TW.  Because I was a sub I had to be tough and not let the kids take me off the beaten path laid out by the teacher.  I asked her to keep her head up and participate.  She looked at me and then put her head back down.  I got out a referral form and wrote her up.  I laid it on the desk beside her head and she saw it.  She then told me, "Your name must be Mr. Ass because you're an asshole!"  I wrote her up again and sent her out of the room.  I think I may have only wrote four slips my hole first year and she was two of them.  I didn't see much more of TW that year but she found her way on to my World History roster the next year.

TW was a tough kid.  Always looked angry and didn't see the value in anything.  At least that's what I understood of her the six times I saw her the first semester.  I just happened to be on the truancy review team and she landed on the docket for a meeting.  I was prepared.  I was ready to explain how she wasn't attending and was not making up missed work.  I was ready to tell the social worker about her attitude and her lack of drive.  I was a well prepared professional ready to participate in the system of getting this kid to love my World History class and therefore love school all together. (insert sarcasm here)

Instead I got to hear her story.  She had a drug dealer for an older brother.  From what I heard he was a successful one.  She had an addict for a mother that rarely left the house.  No one had any insight on her father but she had three younger siblings.  TW walked them to school everyday and was their caregiver at all times.  She was only 15 and her childhood was being robbed from her.  I felt foolish for not taking the time to understand her but hey, I was just utilizing all the rules and tools we were taught in teacher school.  We were always told that teaching was an art and a science at SIUC, but what was never in any book was the power of the relationship.

My relationship changed with TW.  The way I spoke to her and how I articulated her value all changed.  She noticed the difference and attended more.  She was making up school work, passing my class and even smiled a few times.  When I had lunch room duty she would be my enforcer if a kid didn't listen to me.  She would always ask if I wanted to cut in the lunch line.  It is safe to say she didn't learn anything about world history and I'm okay with that.  She did learn that she had a positive connection with a dedicated adult.  It wasn't until this realization that I considered myself an actual teacher.

Here is the tough love part.  If you are a teacher and have yet to have your own heartbreak or feel incapable of one, go find a new job.  Kids don't need people who get a teaching degree so they will have a "job".  Kids need people who get teaching degrees because they realize the unlimited potential to change lives.  Those are the people who get their hearts broken often.  They care about the outcome, therefore it's personal.  Despite moving out of the classroom and into an office, I still get my heart broken and want to crusade for a student quite often.  But now it's different.  I get to support teachers that get passionate for a student that they can't reach.  I get to help them realize what I did so long ago.  Heartbreak is a quality of a great teacher and if you are doing you were meant to do, you won't just have one and you won't allow yourself to avoid them.

Leveraging Technology

I was provided the opportunity to attend the International Society for Technology in Education Conference (ISTE) this year in Denver.  This is a huge conference of over 14,000 educators coming together for the purpose of learning, sharing and leading with educational technology.  This is the second one I have been to and it was just as great as my first.

In education we tend to have a lingo all its own especially in the acronym department.  Over the past year one word that has been used and used again is “leverage”.  This term is used more commonly in ed tech circles and I have always wondered why.  I know what it literally means and that it is appropriate terminology for the discussion, but maybe there is something else going on there.  You might hear the following when it comes to devices or technology related projects, “how are you leveraging that?” or “We can leverage that by…”  In either way the word is used to show how you are taking the best advantage of the technology.

I myself am not one to hinge the success of a program on the devices.  When I go to tech conferences I go for ideas.  I then use those ideas within the boundaries of my students, staff and available resources.  When I wrote about my school’s BYOD initiative it was simply acknowledging that was the best way to help our kids be successful in the setting we have.  If I had my heart’s desire we would be 1:1 with Chromebooks and Google Classroom.  I realized working in rural districts that there is a reality that must be recognized.

In my last post I made the observation that it seems that parents will the buy an expensive bat for their kid before they even know how to use them.  I see this often in schools.  We are distracted by the shiny toys and lack leadership when it comes to implementing a true program that stimulates learning and opportunity.  Sure it looks good in the paper and social media but is there a learning outcome attached?  Can it serve as a springboard for additional learning?  How does your community benefit from this new thing?  Are there policies in place to ensure that a clear pathway is between your students and the learning outcome?  Are we leveraging the technology or the learner?

I wouldn’t ask these questions if I had not faltered myself.  Failing is learning and I should have a Ph.D. by now.  In my first run at BYOD we left some of those things out.  I think I was too excited about the larger philosophy of students living in a mobile world and we need to teach in their world.  This is not to say that philosophy is incorrect but I left out many practical items that would help student and teachers embrace it more.  We pulled back from allowing Smartphones in our first year because the student behavior factor was not taken seriously and we did not know how to respond except to dismantle the policy.  We retooled and now have a solid policy in place.  Our first full year back has been peaceful and with a few bumps we are settled in.

What we failed to realize is that in BYOD, the devices are not ours to leverage.  Our role is to show students how to leverage their devices to make them learning tools.  We are caught up in the “what ifs” and that truly slows the process towards student engagement and learning.  People at times are not willing to stumble towards this kind of leverage.  We see the cliff and the jagged edges then pull back.  Just like this illustration by @TheTechRabbi.  You can start with a plan or a device but the path towards success is rough.  We have to stay the course and have student learning as the goal.  Our comfort or fears should not be the top priority for a tech initiative.

We have to move past seeing the danger in a kid with a smartphone and show him how to use Google apps.  We have to look past our own lack of knowledge and be trained to engage the mobile/digital student.  It should be in our professional nature to reach our kids in any way we can, to the best of our ability, with their learning and development in mind.  So what are you trying to leverage in ed tech?  It might be a device, a curriculum or a philosophy but it always has to have sustained student learning and engagement in mind.

This game is not just about the bats

I have really enjoyed coaching softball. When I was teaching at Mt. Vernon township high school I stumbled upon being the assistant softball coach and fell in love with the game and the opportunity it creates to lead and grow young people.  The game is fun and I have to admit coaching girls is fun too. During that time I met some great people, learned a ton about the game and it helped shape my perspective on leadership in athletics. It would be a crime if I didn't mention Steve Morris and the impact he made on me in that respect but he also became a great friend.

My wife came across an old photo of her playing in high school. To be fair she was a stand out player that played at Rend Lake College in the early 90’s as well. I love to hear her tell my daughter softball stories because they not only come from an experienced player but they have the parent slant to them. We often laugh when it's pointed out that my wife played when the ball was still white.  Just a simple observed difference between the game then and the game now.

I recently started thinking about the differences when my kid’s $300 bat came in the mail. They didn't have composite bats back then. A kid that was driving the gaps and hitting homeruns did so on pure ability without the help of technology. There were no face masks or heart guards. Kids weren’t scrambling to make a travel team and furthermore, parents weren't scrambling to create travel teams. That's right get mad, I said parents. The days when coaches just went out to coach are gone. It is very typical to see a parent learn the game with their child and follow them through the age groups seeking glory. This has flooded the travel team market and has begun to water down what used to be a truly unique institution.

I know what you're thinking, isn't that what you are doing with your daughter?  The answer is no. I was coaching before I had any kids. I learned and loved this game personally before I coached my daughter’s team when she was four. Let me tell you, going from coaching high school kids to four year olds is quite an experience.

I've wandered off topic. I was thinking that if I have a preference of coaching softball in the early 90’s or today, which would I choose?  This is tough. Back in the day you needed real strategy and small ball skills. Not to mention needing hard nosed kids. The bunt was an active part of the game and not an emergency plan.  If you played softball you were part of a unique subculture that few people understood. Plus you got to wear stirrup socks.

Today’s game is uniquely different.  Playing softball especially travel ball is a standard activity if your child is reasonably athletic. I run across lots of kids that are athletic but learn the game as they go because the opportunity is there. Even if your child lacks the ability they can do weekly visits to their nearest hitting or pitching coach. They seem to be everywhere now and if you run across one that actually teaches bunting fundamentals as part of being a good hitter, stay with them. They truly get the game and want to make a good player out of your kid.  

Don’t get me wrong.  I may sound a little grumpy on the subject but I’m just a little old school.  I get tickled when a parent asks me what kind of bat they should buy their kid.  As if they were shopping for a car.  The truth is whether it’s a bat or a car, your child has to learn how to use them before you invest in them.  It seems so often that we buy the bat and then hope they learn to hit.  Like the bat will fix everything and even might replace time, effort and game experience.  Folks I am choosing early 90’s softball over today’s game.  Simply because they learned the game and played it to their fullest ability.  I’m no fool.  The extra pop off the bat sure does sit well with me as I coach my Ripper kids, but my ultimate goal is they learned something about the game and about other players.  If you help kids continually learn the game they will always want to grow with the game.  That should be the goal of any coach at any level.