Connecting School Work To Real Life: 2014 National Quality Education Conference
The challenge to all of us in education is to find ways to make learning visible by connecting school work and real life for the students we serve. One of the ways to do that is to call on “the hand in the back of the room” and answer “why” with real world relevancy. Students understanding, mastery of basic science curriculum, and ability to use science concepts have been shown to improve when the science concepts were taught in the relevant and real world context of agriculture. Teachers many times fail to provide a context through observations, inferences, and actions appropriate for students to make the connection to the real world. These connections help the students to understand higher-level science concepts.
Through my research I investigated low student achievement in science and the social change impact of real world application through a study of agricultural science. Other current research on teaching science in a relevant context and the opportunities for cross-curricular collaboration were also investigated. I will be presenting on how to use transformative educational strategies to help students move from memorizing facts and content to constructing knowledge in meaningful and useful ways.
I am very excited to be presenting at the 2014 National Quality Education Conference this Sunday, November 16th in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I will be presenting my research on the effects of teaching science concepts in the real world and relevant context of agriculture. While at the conference I will be tweeting using the hashtag #ASQEd. I will be encouraging those attending my session to follow me on twitter @ByronErnest and also tweet using #ASQEd.
Here is the Powerpoint presentation I will using in my presentation: NQEC2014_Ernest
Here are PDFs of the handouts I will be referencing: Ernest_NQEC2014_Handouts_1 Ernest_NQEC2014_Handouts_2
Being an educator can bring an array of challenges. How can you continue following standards, make learning fun and innovative for your students, encourage creativity in the classroom, raise state testing scores, ensure students are college and career ready, and apply student learning in unexpected ways? Discover how continuous improvement strategies, tools, and support can be implemented in order to improve processes to help address some of these challenges and increase student achievement at the 2014 National Quality Education Conference.
Key Learning Outcomes for the 2014 National Quality Education Conference:
1. Discover innovative ways that processes have been made more efficient to allow resources to be applied in unexpected ways from pre-K–12 through higher education.
2. Learn how the Baldrige Criteria can be applied to improve learning, services, and fiscal health.
3. Understand measures that have been taken to narrow achievement gaps and ensure that all students are achieving their goals, regardless of baseline data, and socioeconomic background.
4. Learn advanced practices in continuous improvement as applied to classroom and broader institutional improvements.
5. Find out what tools, practices, and professional development programs designed to assist districts in implementing Common Core standards and in measuring achievement based on these standards.
As you can see it is going to be an exciting learning experience. Don’t forget to follow my tweets from the conference at the hashtag #ASQEd.
Different As Dilly Bars – 2nd Edition
With the end of October came the end of National Antibullying Month. In my opinion, however, every month should be antibullying month. What was fun for me was to bring an activity I had done in the past to my new school system, Hoosier Academies. A few years ago I did a project called Different As Dilly Bars. Click here to read the post I wrote then. Our theme this year was that we are all 99.9% the same. Genetically, we are all 99.9% the same and it is only the .10% that makes us different. Just like there are five different flavors of Dilly Bars: chocolate, butterscotch, Heath Bar, cherry, and mint; they are all vanilla on the inside and the only difference is the flavor they are dipped in. It was exciting to bring all the students together at our elementary school, middle school, and high school and talk to each group about how our differences are really our strengths. It is really asset based thinking – the fact that we all bring strengths to every situation we are in. Again, our strength lies in our differences not in our similarities.
I talked to the students about how there are five different flavors of Dilly Bars, but there is no, one best flavor. If I like Butterscotch and you like chocolate it doesn’t make one Dilly Bar better than the other. The strength is in the fact that we have both to choose from and you can have what you like best and I can have what I like best. The students were then able to pick a Dilly Bar flavor of their choice to eat!
People should be recognized and respected for who they are individually, who they are as defined by the characteristics they possess, and who they are as part of the groups to which they belong. At a minimum, when we think about diversity, we need to consider not only race but gender, religion, physical challenges, economic status, age, disability, sexual orientation, and learning differences. Indeed, some people define themselves not by their race but by one or more of these other descriptors. And, as I said earlier all of those differences become our strength when we all come together. Human diversity is what we espouse to embrace, but seldom do fully embrace. The 21st & 1/2 Century begs for an understanding among peoples and cultures. We have a mandate to teach our students the importance of attaining this understanding with an open mind and a willingness to challenge old beliefs.
Every student has unique cultural experiences, types and amounts of schooling, varied interests, and preferred ways of learning. As students learn, they approach each task with the beliefs, values, and information acquired through their respective backgrounds and knowledge of the world. It is exciting to me that they bring a wealth of experiences, knowledge of vocabulary and concepts, and hopes and dreams to the classroom. It is our job as educators to facilitate a way for our students to express this knowledge and their aspirations in a safe and nurturing environment. With asset based thinking teachers remove barriers to learning and replace them with sound pedagogical practices and culturally competent learning environment. Students’ differences are viewed as assets and respected when planning quality instruction and all students have opportunities to make connections between prior knowledge and new learning, build on existing schema, be active participants in a community of learners, and have numerous opportunities to converse and interact with peers and adults. Above all, in an asset driven classroom and school, all students are provided numerous opportunities to experience success.
Remember, we are different as Dilly Bars. But, it is in those differences we find our strengths.
National Standards Day
Yesterday was a great day at Hoosier Academies. We brought our entire staff together around the idea of making sure that all of our curriculum was aligned to the Indiana Academic Standards, we were teaching to the standards, and how we would use rigor, relevance, and relationships to be good stewards of our students’ achievement. Our teachers were very engaged and there was incredible collaboration all day.
As always, I am using my blog as a way to reflect on the day. For this post I am going to bullet point the top tweets that were done during the day using the hashtag #HoosierNSD. The tweets were great and so was the learning. Also, I have attached the powerpoint that I used to guide my introductory kickoff session to the day. Here is the link for the powerpoint: Ernest_NSD_k12_2014
Here are the top tweets from the day for you to think about and reflect on:
-21st Century Learners? That’s old school. #HoosierNSD is creating 21st&1/2 Century Learners!
-Push for best effort. With effort comes results.
-Acknowledge a student that reaches an expectation, praise a student that exceeds it.
-Assume every kid is your brightest and best!
-Focus on the now and move forward – not on what went wrong #teachlikeachampion
-Describe the next move, not what went wrong #teachlikeachampion
-Positive framing by modeling and narrating your workable goal! It isn’t impossible. #TeachLikeAChampion
-Relevance makes rigor possible; relationships make anything possible.
-Reviewing not repeating. That’s RIGOR.
-Rigor: ask higher level questions and push students to respond at a higher level.
-If they had to buy tickets to your class would they come?
-5 Steps to get to quadrant D. Reaching for the summit one step at a time.
-Less than 5% of high school lessons provide opportunity for student collaboration! This needs to change! We can do this Hoosier Academies.
-Was your lesson worthy of the student’s undivided attention???
-We have to bring the engagement up. Not just Hoosier, but all high school teachers.
-Teamwork makes the dreamwork
-Getting to know those you work with makes a difference
-Reflection is important. Why we are having #HoosierNSD.
-Thankful to have a minute to take a step back, learn the standards, and focus my instruction. #thirdgrade
-Make school work more like real work.
-Demonstrate the rigorous and relevant learning.
-My pillar of rigor would be action.
-Teachers have to make schoolwork more like real work.
-If you say it can’t be done, then you are doing it wrong the first time.
-Rigor and relevance and don’t forget motivation in our virtual environment.
-Great day! Real-world project based learning in HS English. How do literary themes connect with my students’ worlds?
-Real world application can only exist in the virtual world if strong relationships have been built for optimal engagement.
-Rigor and relevance and backwards planning are our best friends.
-Students need collaboration, critical thinking, oral and written communication
-Taking students to the 21st 1/2 Century and beyond
-We’ve been in the 21st Century for 15 year! We’re here. Think 21st 1/2 Century skills.
-As it relates to teaching, these three remain…rigor, relevance, and relationships. But the greatest of these is relationships.
-We’re spending a day breaking down standards.
-Teaching to one standard is not enough. You need to make them all connect together in a meaningful way with purpose.
-It is virtually impossible to make content relevant to students you don’t know – Carol Ann Tomlinson
-Key pieces of education: rigor, relevance and RELATIONSHIPS.
As you can see, some great learning went on. You can’t help but think about making education rigorous and relevant when you reflect on theses tweets. Additionally, the tweets reinforce the importance of building relationships with our students.
What Is Your Organization’s Microclimate?
While flying into Denver, Colorado today to get my connecting flight to Indianapolis I noticed what appeared to be clouds stuck on one side of the Rocky Mountains. I have included pictures I took out the plane window here in this post. I then decided to do a little research on this because it really made me think about my journey with Hoosier Academies right now that we have themed, “Hoosier Climbs Everest.” To me, it looked like the clouds were clinging to mountains or stopped on one side. I compared this in my mind to the obstacles and storms that happen as a school system or any other organization is working very hard to put the culture, processes, and learning organization in place to be high achieving.
Mountains also experience more severe weather in the form of rain, sleet, and snow on their windward sides. Think about it, organizations that are in turnaround mode are on the windward side of the mountain. These landforms do not so much attract clouds as cause them to form, in a well documented meteorological phenomenon. They are, in fact, a very important factor in meteorology — without mountains, the Earth’s climate would be very different. To continue my analogy we must realize that the culture we are building will also build the climate of our organization.
Air currents are constantly traveling across the surface of the Earth, usually in patterns that remain consistent. In the United States, for example, the prevailing winds run West to East. As air travels, it picks up water molecules in vapor form, which remain vaporous in the higher pressure at low elevations. When the air encounters mountains, however, it is forced to rise.
In the same way that the air is forced to rise when it reaches the mountain, we know that as we climb the mountains of building and improving our organizations that storm clouds will develop. Just remember, these are a necessary part of the meteorology and climate building of our organization. And, just as certain weather patterns can be dangerous when climbing mountains (remember the Everest disaster of 1996), we must too watch the weather patterns on the organizational mountain climbs we are making with our teams.
With the Continental Divide running northwest to southeast though the center of the park, two distinct weather and climate patterns are created. Typical of the east — Estes Park — side is a dryer, semi-arid climate with annual percipitation of 13.10″. The west — Grand Lake — side is marked by a moister climate with 19.95″ of annual percipitation. I have been on both sides of the Rockies and both sides are beautiful. Therefore, we can use this analogy to realize that the different weather patterns will drive the climate of our organization. Therefore we must always understand how these climate patterns of our organization are developed.
Large mountains often form their own microclimates, with extreme variations in weather depending on whether the observer is on the windward or lee side and what the elevation is. Think about it, our organizations form their own microclimates as well. Improving an organization can be as daunting a task as climbing Mt. Everest and we must make sure we are balancing the weather patterns of the windward and lee sides of the mountain. We need to make sure we create a balanced microclimate of shared leadership and learning.
Education: Our Military Mission
While flying home from Calgary, Alberta Canada today I had the chance to finish reading Tom Vander Ark’s amazing book Getting Smart. In his book he give vivid descriptions of the ‘digital revolution’ coming in our educational system. One part of the book really jumped out at me and reinforced the topic of using relevant contexts to improve student achievement and performance, and increase student motivation and engagement. Vander Ark tells the story in the book of how the U.K. ministry of defense has tapped Lockheed Martin to train all of its aircrew for the next 25 years. There are at least four things that K–12 education can learn from the military and specifically the relationship with Lockheed. First, they really understand how to differentiate. Something that education and specifically many teachers still struggle with. We should be using Lockheed Martin to help us understand how. In their model, Lockheed Martin creates rapid pathways to mastery and the flexibility to test ways to blend different components and types of learning for different types of students.
Secondly, some of the training is conducted to simulate the stress of realistic situations, but with the safety to fail. Our facilitation of learning needs to use more real-world-connected learning—more opportunities for students to see why learning matters and to experience the consequences of actions. It is why my own research in the effects of using agricultural science to teach biology concepts is so important. Students learn at a much high level when taught in relevant contexts with high rigor. Simulations, internships, lab experiences, inquiry based and problem based learning, can all help make learning real. This in turn has the students solving real world problems. Third, the military is really good at job training and preparation. We need to step up our game in the area of Career and Technical Education (CTE) in the United States. The military takes a systematic approach to certification. As a former CTE I know the value of these programs. The problem is there is a great deal of variation in the quality of programs from school to school and state to state. These programs need to be leveraged to not only provide certifications, but also the relevant context for teaching the core subjects of math, English language arts, science, and social studies.
Finally, the military is an outstanding example of a learning organization. By learning organization I mean an organization that is constantly learning from others, the team members are learning from each other, is free from risk of failure, and is able to put lessons learned into play. The military has perfected the art of being a reflective practitioner; something we know is important as educators, but rarely take, or make, time to do. The military after action reviews are something that every teacher and school leader should take time to study and learn from. Additionally, the military is great at forming partnerships and have systems in place to learn at a high level from those partnerships.
In conclusion, we need to leverage the partnerships we have in our own states and communities to help us provide the four things we have learned will help us achieve Getting Smart!
Reference
Vander Ark, T. (2012). Getting smart. Jossey-Bass: San Francisco, CA.
Learning To Lead Together
As is standard operating procedure for me after some type of professional development, I have written a post reflecting on my learning. The Kappa Delta Pi Learning, Leadership, and Practice: Educating Global Citizens International Research Conference in Calgary, Alberta, Canada really caused me to reflect on my own leadership journey. Many of the presentations touched on environments, situations, and leadership that were in place, enabling me to get to where I am today. This post is a compilation of the thoughts I have had over the last couple of days and those of the presenters.
There are really five characteristics that great educational leaders that I have been associated with possess: Passion for learning, Supervisory intentionality, Reflective Conversations, Learning Culture, and High Expectations. Other Characteristics of exemplary leaders include moral purpose and interactive visibility (awareness). Great leaders then coach and mentor learning leaders who are “schooled by the system” so they are ready to move into all leadership positions. These all start at teacher leaders.
Highly effective schools with highly effective teachers promote environments where everyone can be “Learning Leaders.” Everyone in an organization fits into one of these three categories: Aspiring, Beginning, and Experienced Leaders. Because of this coherent and coordinated quality learning opportunities to support school leaders must be a part of career long professional learning. As a leader, we are a leader of learning. As such you have a responsibility to take part in career long learning.
Leadership Matters! School leadership is second only to classroom teaching as an influence on student learning. High performing school leaders regularly lead, sponsor and participate in formal and informal teacher learning. Every person in the school shares the leadership for student success. Great school leaders build a strong connection between learning and the collective leadership. High performing schools have fatter decision making structures. This fatter, more effective structure comes from shared leadership. Shared leadership works through its motivational impact and the school staff works to create structures for collaborative decision making. The school then really becomes a shared learning school.
When a school becomes a shared learning school it can more effectively address three of the most important factors of a school: Learning, Well Being, and Engagement. There are four parts of effectively building a shared learning school and classroom: Setting Direction, Developing People, Redesigning the Organization, and Managing the Instructional Program.
Built correctly, a shared learning school has an instructional ethos where there is an an acute awareness of the instructional actions and an acute awareness of teaching and learning in the school. Then everyone in the school become designers of worthwhile tasks for students.
Educating Global Citizens
As I write this post I am flying over the beautiful Canadian countryside on my way to Calgary, Alberta, Canada for the Kappa Delta Pi Educating Global Citizens International Research Conference. This will be my first time to Calgary and I just know it is going to be a breathtakingly beautiful place with lots to do. I am super excited to be able to attend this conference. I was turned on to Kappa Delta Pi when I was invited to membership as 2010 Indiana Teacher of the Year. I have even had the opportunity to make professional development videos with KDP on educational leadership, effective student engagement, and highly effective facilitation of learning using technology. Kappa Delta Pi has become an important part of my personal professional development. I am even more excited that I am a conference presenter on my research entitled, “The Impact of Agricultural Science on Student Achievement and Performance in a Biology Class.”
I cannot wait to share the impact that teaching in a relevant, real world context can have on student learning. I have shared the powerpoint and supporting documents as a blog post as well entitled, “#KDPLeads.” Click #KDPLeads to read that post. My goal is to effectively facilitate a discussion and planning session that helps teachers, administrators, and other stakeholders to use relevant contexts to facilitate highly effective learning. Really, shouldn’t that be the goal of the whole conference and all our schools?
Furthermore, I picked the sessions I am going to attend (Conference Program) with one simple goal in mind: I want to learn how to be a better leader of highly effective principals and teachers in our school corporation. To do this, I want to hone my personal call to action of: delivering wowful educational leadership! It is always exciting to go to an international conference. The chance to connect, interact, and learn from leaders all around the globe is exciting. As a believer, promoter, and practitioner of global connectivity and citizenship it is a chance for me to model asset based thinking. In other words, no matter where someone comes from or their cultural orientation, he or she brings assets to the table. And, I for one, want to learn from everyone in attendance at the conference.
With the goal of connecting with everyone, I have created the hashtag #KDPLeads to organize all of my tweets and hopefully others at the conference will tweet their learning and thoughts to this hashtag as well. I am always amazed at what a great professional development tool Twitter is. Even those not in attendance at this conference can follow along and even make comments. How cool is that? So, make sure you follow me at @ByronErnest and learn with me at #KDPLeads.
The great part about belonging to an organization like Kappa Delta Pi is the smorgasbord of professional development it has to offer. These opportunities are so important for teacher leaders and school leaders because your school’s circumstances will dictate the choices made for professional development. It is also important to note the advantage KDP brings to the market because of all the platforms they make available for members to choose from. These range from live, face to face conferences like I am on my way to, to recorded videos that members can watch on their time. This truly differentiates the learning for members. I am a huge believer that professional development must be differentiated for professionals the same way it is differentiated for student learners – both in modality and content.
It always amazes me when I here educational leaders talking about not having time for professional development. I change that to the question of, “There isn’t time to not take part in personal professional development.” The educational landscape changes so quickly that we must stay current and put ourselves in the best position to create learning organizations where we can learn from others. We must be learning from each other’s mistakes, failures, and successes. The bottom line is we must be sharing the knowledge we have created. There is such a sense of urgency that we must have whether turning schools around or moving high achieving schools to the next level. The students and families we serve are so valuable that we must do everything possible to develop our skills so we can perform at the highest level. Isn’t that what we expect from the professionals that serve us – doctors, lawyers, pilots, et cetera?
If you are not doing so, I challenge you to make time to take part in some personal professional development yet this fall!
Teacher of the Year Learning!
This week I had the honor of serving on the Top 10 Interview Committee for the 2015 Indiana Teacher of the Year. I say honor for two reasons: 1. Because I served with nine other fellow Indiana Teachers of the Year; and, 2. I learned from the 10 candidates we interviewed. This post really has nothing to do with the Teacher of the Year process, but is about what I learned from the candidates and the reflecting I did during the interviews about my own journey in education.
I had the chance to really think about my personal mission as an educator to use rigor, relevance, and relationships to be a steward of high student performance and achievement. From a rigor standpoint we have to remember that acquiring information is not enough, the student has to be able to do something with it.
Relevance is also very important in the equation of highly effective teaching. We know that students are myopic in their vision; they need to be more global. We need to ensure an experience that is rigorous and facilitates learning of global citizenship. This also allows us to facilitate the school and students in developing “community enhancement projects.” These are the projects like cultural events that not only benefit the school, but are a huge benefit to the community.
As educators we need to be “vending machines of knowledge!” Having said that, relationship building with the students is very important. We must get to know the students as individuals, so we can challenge them the way that is best for them! This enables us to learn along-side the students. This relationship building is so important. If we go a little where the students are going , they will go a little where we are going!
Because we are not all linear in the type of students who come to us, our view of teacher effectiveness and highly effective facilitation of learning has had to evolve as well. We have advanced to a time of using data to drive our instruction. We are also using constructive, not destructive evaluation systems. It is really about coaching, observing, and providing feedback for our teachers to become all they can be. Regular and frequent walkthroughs now allow us the “touchtime” necessary to really hone in and coach teachers on one to two areas at a time for improvement.
While I realize there is so much room for improvement in our educational system, I am so excited about all the great things that are happening. I was also reminded in the presence of great teachers why I am on this education leadership journey!
Reading Big Red
I know I write a lot of posts about reading, but this post will be the most meaningful to me personally because I am describing how my love for reading began. Really, I am ashamed that I did not write this post before today because had this story not happened I probably would not be where I am today. I believe that because had I not become a reader, I would not have enjoyed the successes I have in my life. Today I was at a conference and one of the speakers mentioned the book that his teacher made him read over and over that helped him learn to read. This inspired me to reflect on my reading history.
Actually, I never had trouble reading. I just hated to read! I did not find anything that teachers were MAKING me read interesting. It was all boring stuff that I did not understand. Now, if you have followed me at all you know I am all about relevancy and how students have to understand the “why” for effective learning to take place. Students perform better when the learning is relevant to them. I’m passionate about this because I’ve got the research to back it up. We also need to change the context from the students thinking of what they HAVE to read, to what they GET to read. That’s a big mindset change.
My personal story of the journey to my love of reading also reinforces this philosophy. As I stated, I hated reading all the way through my sixth grade year. Then one day the librarian at Markleville Middle School in Markleville, Indiana changed my life. It was not rocket science for Mrs. Wilking! Think about it, most of the solutions in education aren’t. It’s about having educators who care and have formed the relationships necessary to understand the needs of their students and then acting on them.
Mrs. Wilking came to me one day and said, “You know Byron, I think the reason you don’t like reading is that you have never read anything that you enjoy.” Well, duh, I knew that! I just didn’t like reading all the things elementary students are supposed to read. Anyway, Mrs. Wilking made a suggestion that changed my life. She explained that she knew I lived on a farm, had a dog, loved animals, loved to hunt and fish, and wanted to be outdoors every moment of every day. As I think about it, nothing has really changed in my life!
Mrs. Wilking went on to explain that she had a book she wanted me to read. “Please read it,” she said. The book was Big Red by Jim Kjelgaard. The book is about a boy and his dog. From the moment Danny sees the beautiful Irish setter, he knows Red is the dog for him. Fast and smart, strong and noble, Red is the only dog Danny wants by his side. Soon, neither boy nor dog can stand to be apart. Together Danny and Red face many dangers in the harsh Wintapi wilderness that they call home. But the greatest test of their courage and friendship will come from an enemy more cunning than any they’ve known before–a bear who is the undisputed king of the wilderness, a savage killer called Old Majesty. I got goosebumps just writing this description! How could a boy like me not love this book!
Well, needless to say, I was hooked! Mrs. Wilking had made reading relevant to me. That same year I read almost all of Jim Kjelgaard’s books, including Irish Red, Outlaw Red, Stormy, and Snow Dog. I loved these books and have been a rabid reader ever since. In fact I just finished book 42 of my goal of 60 for the year. Let me tell you, the book still has to be relevant and interesting to me for me to read it. And, as you know I believe reading is a very important part of my personal professional development.
A wide variety of meaningful texts must be available to teachers and students and form the core of the curriculum. The texts must be used in ways that make them relevant to the students’ lives. Texts may be used in their entirety or partially. Additionally, there is a significant academic achievement gap between African-American, Latino and Caucasian students. One way to reduce this gap is to help struggling readers who attend public schools improve their reading skills. But, to do this, struggling African-American & Latino readers need to be exposed to books that relate to their lives, capture their interest, and shape positive life outcomes, as well as address academic progress.
All students need to be read to, need to read consistently throughout their school years, and read meaningful books and texts that relate to their lives and culture, capture their interest, and shape positive life outcomes, as well as address academic achievement. Only then will the academic achievement gap start to get smaller. If it had not been for Mrs. Wilking understanding this back in the early 1970’s I might have become one of those non-readers. Thanks Mrs. Wilking for recognizing the need for relevance in reading.
I have to close by telling you that I had the chance to thank and talk to Mrs. Wilking about her influence in my life many times before she passed away. I am thankful that I had the opportunity to do that. I think about her often and the example she modeled for me as an educator!
PS: The copy of Big Red that I read was checked out of the library. I now am inspired to find an original copy of the book. If you know where I can get one, let me know. The original book published in 1945.
Are You A Sherpa?
This past week at our Back to School Professional Development and Family Expo I did a session using a case study of the Mount Everest -1996 disaster. I have actually posted about this before. Click here to read Mount Everest Leadership (Part 1) or here to read Mount Everest Leadership (Part 2). Out of this case study session last week two themes really emerged: We need to become the Sherpa’s of high student achievement and “Hoosier Academies Climbs Everest.”
Technically, “Sherpa” refers to an ethnic group of people from Nepal, or those hired to guide mountaineering expeditions in the Himalayas. Thus, most of us cannot hope to become sherpas (though sherpa is sometimes used as a proprietary eponym for those who haul the belongings of others or invoked to imply knowledge of high altitude mountain climbing). Yet the allure is great–sherpa guides are people, mostly men, who don’t just climb mountains; they were born to climb mountains. They are physically disposed for this act more than anyone else. It makes me consider the question: what was I born to do? What am I physically, mentally, or emotionally equipped for that 99% of the earth’s population is not?
Amazingly, for me I believe that I was born to be an educator – most recently an educational leader. I also really believe our staff came out of our kickoff expo with renewed enthusiasm that they are the ones physically, mentally, and emotionally ready to do what 99% of the population is not – educate children! I am excited for us to be leaving Base Camp today as we start our school year together and begin our summit journey up Mount Everest! The analogy of us as educational leaders to that of a Sherpa is great because they are successful by helping those around them reach their full potential. We must be Sherpa’s of high student achievement for the families and students we serve. Also, great Sherpa’s do not just look up the mountain and say, “Let’s go!” Great leaders carefully plot out each step to ensure a safe and successful trip. I believe we have a great plan and we must now execute with fidelity. Additionally, Sherpa’s routinely deal with unexpected weather, animals, obscured paths, and many other obstacles. Rather than becoming derailed, they build contingency plans and adapt in real-time.
We all know as leaders that there will be challenges and obstacles and as servant leaders must provide support wherever and whenever it is needed. I am so exited for all of those that have accepted the role of an educational Sherpa to help facilitate a great school year filled with many summits of student success!
Byron's Babbles 
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