Bending In The Breeze: Being A Mindful Leader
Today, while learning to be a more mindful leaders while at Harvard we did a meditation exercise looking out the window. This exercise was done in the Gutman Library at the Harvard Graduate School of Education during a session of Inner Strengths of Successful Leaders. I looked out and saw the tree that I have included a picture of in this post. It was a little windy out and the tree was gently bending in the breeze. It made me think about how as mindful leaders we must bend as the winds of difficulties blow in our everyday lives. I have seen wind break a tree that does not bend while leaving others that bend untouched.. After every windstorm there are broken branches scattered everywhere. I think, just like a tree we have a choice to either bend or break, or duck behind a windscreen.
While I agree with the observations regarding flexibility, resilence, and being adaptable. There is a fact that everyone must recognize. The tree that is highly flexible must also be rooted deeply or in a forest where the root systems intertwine and provide additional strength. A high rise building that moves up to 9 meters at the top requires a very strong foundation. A person who can bend with the circumstances must have core values and mindsets that are deeply rooted. Sometimes we need to take our mind for a walk, which was the whole purpose of the meditation at the window. We need to be aware of those things that are serving us well.
When we have difficult meetings, phone calls with difficult people, or are thrown difficult circumstances (which we will be) we need to take a mindful moment. In this mindful moment we are bending like the tree in the breeze. We need to be aware, take a moment to breathe, and show some compassion for ourselves. Also, in difficult situations we must recall what matters most to us as leaders. Another great leadership skill to remember is that when you feel the impulse to explain, LISTEN! Remember, act out of your values.
Furthermore, don’t try to get rid of difficulties, but build a bigger playing field so your values can be brought to the forefront. The leadership reality is that we will get overwhelmed. When thrown, we need to ratchet down the reaction just like the tree bends in the breeze. When thrown, our bend will be listening, looking inside to explore patterns and identify where we might be wrong, and take responsibility.
Finally, mindful leaders are poised. When we practice mindfulness we are able to bend with difficulties because of our presence and clarity to know what is happening. A great quote is, “What you resist persists.” Think about it; if the tree resists the wind and does not bend, it will break.
The Right Concepts
“It is virtually impossible to make things relevant for, or expect personal excellence from, a student you don’t know.” ~Carol Ann Tomlinson
You have probably seen this quote from Carol Ann Tomlinson before, but it is so true it bears repeating frequently. I was reminded of this again this morning during my morning personal study time (yes, even on Thanksgiving day) when I was reading an article in one of my favorite periodicals, The Chronicle of Higher Education. An article entitled, “Colleges’ Prestige Doesn’t Guarantee a Top-Flight Learning Experience.” The article was about the National Survey of Student Engagement, which was released last week. This survey is known as Nessie, and was done to to identify educational quality at the institutional level. The data was collected last spring from 355,000 freshmen from 622 institutions. The research used two indicators for quality: student-faculty interaction and effective teaching practices. This research really caught my eye because of my belief in the three Rs of education: rigor, relevance, and relationships. The most important of which I believe is relationships. In fact I have blogged about this in the past. Click here to read my post entitled, “You Want Me To Do What? Teach.” Needless to say, my long and storied career in education would never have happened without the great relationship forged by Dr. Hobe Jones and myself. Obviously, this relationship has affected my feelings, attitude, and allegiance to Purdue University. I have been very blessed to have been very involved with Purdue in many ways since graduating with three different degrees.
Interestingly, this research involved asking students questions that included how often they talked with faculty members outside class about career plans, course topics, or other ideas. Wow, that is exactly what Dr. Jones did! We talked daily. Yes, you heard that right even on a campus on a university the size of Purdue with over 34,000 students. The College of Agriculture has mastered the art of making a big university small. It is really about understanding emotional intelligence. The days are gone when the preeminence of IQ as the standard of excellence in life was unquestioned; a debate raged over whether it was set in our genes or due to experience. But here, suddenly, was a new way of thinking about the ingredients of life success. Emotional intelligenc involves using emotions to promote thinking and cognitive activity. Emotions help prioritize what we pay attention and react to; we respond emotionally to things that garner our attention. Dr. Jones, through our relationship, was making sure I was paying attention to important decisions that would affect my life forever.
The other measure, which involved effective teaching practices, qualitatively analyzed the perceptions of how often their instructors clearly explained course goals and requirements, taught in an organized way, used examples to illustrate difficult points, and improve feedback. Amazingly, this list would be the same for what we would call highly effective teaching at the k-12 level. This is why the relevance part of the three Rs is so important. As we look at college and career readiness it is important we have our students ready for the teaching environment of post-secondary education. It was also no surprise that students perceived time spent improving teaching means less lecturing. Students participating in the study stated that instructors who were bettering their teaching used discussions, small group activities, student performances and presentations, and experiential-learning opportunities. It seems to me this research data allows for many partnerships between secondary and post-secondary education.
A Gallup-Purdue Index survey released earlier this year found that graduates were three times as likely to report thriving in their sense of well-being if they had connected with a professor during college. I am certainly proof of this. I believe this is true of k-12 students as well. Therefore, all of us in education have an obligation to be forming positive relationships and using effective teaching practice. After all, these are the right concepts!
Water The Bamboo
I had the incredible privilege of meeting Greg Bell, author of Water The Bamboo this morning at the NWEA Fusion East conference. He was the keynote speaker and having read his book I was very pumped to hear him speak. I use the principles in his book and was excited to have him autograph it for me. He and I have also had great fun tweeting back and forth.
Let me tell you his keynote was just as inspiring as his book! He is awesome. During his keynote he had us all take the Water the Bamboo Oath. Needless to say, I and everyone else in attendance was inspired. I would like to share some of the thoughts with you from his speech.
Here are the highlights:
– Sunrise or sunset…it’s all in your perspective
-Change your perspective; leave the either/or and reintroduce the “and”
-Instead of pushing, how can we stand side by side to address an issue?
-A person pushed against their will has the same opinion still
-Water the right intent
-How we talk to ourselves impacts our reality
-When you change the language you change everything
-Mindset of a Bamboo farmer: Patience, persistence, self-discipline, courage, and belief
-What are you holding on to? Bamboo sheds! Get rid of the things you no longer need. Focus on the right 20%
-Let go of your bad stories
-Don’t keep staring at the closed door. Turn around and look for the open one.
-Individuals and organizations who understand the relationship age will flourish
-Bamboo grows 90 feet in 60 days. Prior to that is shows no growth above ground for 220 days. Symbolic of many of our learners in our schools
-Start your day with this question: What’s going well?
-Don’t be a negaholic! Optimism always wins!
-We need to encourage our students to dream!
-Language matters in your organization’s culture
-Sweat the small stuff and the big stuff will take care of itself
-Catch reverse paranoia. Optimism always wins
-The word “student” in Latin means “eager to learn.” Are you cultivating this?
-Three things that will get you out of poverty: 1. education 2. education 3. education
-Are you a negaholic? Do you only see the negative? QUIT THAT! Instead, ask yourself what is going well.
As you can tell, there was a lot of great information packed into our time with Greg Bell. Can you imagine how awesome all of our lives would be if we followed every bullet point above. Remember, we have an obligation to those we lead, particularly in our schools to be doing this. Also remember, every day with your students could be THE day!
Driven By Data
This morning I was so honored to have the opportunity to present at the Fusion East NWEA Education Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. The conference theme was “Tomorrow Starts Here” and my topic was How High-Performing Schools Develop a Culture Driven By Data. It was exciting to have a standing room only crowd and I hope I lived up to their expectations.
Here is the powerpoint I used for the presentation: Ernest_NWEA_FusionEast
Here are the handouts from the presentation: Ernest_NWEA_HOOSIER HYBRID 7-12 DATA MEETING PROTOCOL Ernest_NWEA_k-8_Data Meeting Protocol Ernest_NWEA_Data Meeting Rubric final
I learned a lot from this group and have shared a list of reasons why we need to create a culture driven by data as a picture in this post. This list was the guide for a very lively discussion. We also had some outstanding tweeting going on during the program using the hashtag #FusionDDI. I am proud to say that we had 66 tweets during the program from 34 different individuals. This was outstanding and further proof of the power of twitter as a professional development tool. In fact I awarded the top five tweeters during the session with copies of the two books I referenced during the session.
The books I referenced were Driven By Data by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo and Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck. Both of these books offer so much toward developing a culture driven by data.
Finally, I want to give you some bullets of top tweets from the program:
-“If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over.” ~ John Wooten
-Data chats must be a regular part of your school culture.
-Data chats should be a safe place for teachers
-If your teachers change their teaching, can your students describe how it changed their learning?
-For a data driven culture to really work – there has to be coaching, observation, and feedback.
-Action plans developed after data analysis can be more effective if they are shared with your students.
-You have to describe the data without judgement
-If you don’t see it, it doesn’t exist.
-Assessments are about growth, not gotcha!
-Effective analysis – dive deep! What happened and WHY?
-Effective interim assessments should revisit material from earlier in the year, not just graded unit tests.
-Assessments must be cumulative
-We tend to assess what we taught best
-Data driven instruction gives proof that what we are doing is working, or not.
-Just because you’re teaching…it does not mean they are learning
-I wanna be a Sherpa! Let’s get good at using data! Not just me…but the culture of our schools.
As you can see this was a pretty thoughtful group this morning. I hope I had a small part in helping them be Sherpas of their students’ learning.
“Deer In The Headlights”
I have been to several great conferences lately and I realized something about some of the so called “experts” that present at the conferences. Now I have to be careful here because I was a speaker at all of these conference. But, I realized that in some cases the person doing the presenting has not had the experience of being the “deer in the headlights.” Usually this term is associated with being a bad thing, but I have come to realize that it really is a great thing. To really become an expert or great at leading in a certain area or circumstance you really have had to be the “deer in the headlights.”
Having successfully served as a principal for a takeover/turnaround school that broke the failing school cycle and came off the “F” list; I can say I truly was that “deer in the headlights.” I still remember that first day of the students coming in, the looks on their faces and saying, “what have I got myself into?” Then a week later after our first round of NWEA testing and seeing that only 19% of our students were on grade level, I was not only the “deer in the headlights,” but the deer smashed in the front grill of your car. Then we began to navigate and I fell in love with our students, as did the whole staff, and we turned the school around. That experience is truly at the top of my list for my career.
My experience under fire really honed me as an educational leader. I learned so many things that I could have never learned had I been in an “A” school. There were so many issues to navigate: students not on grade level, behavioral issues, staffing issues, students’ personal and family issues, operations issues, facility issues, extracurricular issues, teacher coaching, and many, many more. Don’t think for a minute that I believe myself to be an expert leader in all of those areas, but let me tell you I did have to lead the charge on all of these areas and I did learn and grow from it.
So, my point in this post to my blog is to not be afraid to be the “deer in the headlights.” Don’t be afraid to take on projects or career changes where you will be that “deer in the headlights.” I seem to have moments like that every day, but I am better and growing from it each and every day. I can think of many leaders who have become very status quo about their own professional growth and development. Really, those individuals are like old farm equipment sitting in the fence row rusting. Don’t let yourself become rusty.
I have been reading Water the Bamboo: Unleashing the Potential of Teams and Individuals by Greg Bell. I am so excited to be speaking at the same conference (NWEA Fusion East) this weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina. I can’t wait to have him autograph my book. In his book he suggests developing a personal mission statement. I did. It is: In my professional life, my vision is to always be the “deer in the headlights.” As Bell says, “To accomplish a great vision you will need laser-like focus.” Just imagine the learning I will be doing!
Eliminating Hoops & Hype in Education
I have had an absolutely incredible first day at the 2014 National Quality Education Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin put on by the American Society for Quality and the ASQ Education Division. I was excited to speak on my research of connecting school work to real life, but was more excited to hear the other speakers. Additionally, as always, I learned a great deal from visiting with the other program participants. This post is a compilation of my learning from the first half of the day. You can also check out my tweets from the day by using the hashtag #ASQEd or following my tweets at @ByronErnest.
The day started with Lee Jenkins as the keynote speaker. Lee is education’s expert in continuous improvement. He started by talking about removing the hoops and hype from education. Hoops were described as waste in a school’s time, money, and enthusiasm (staff and students). Hype is a change with no way of know if we’ve improved. The secret to removing hype, according to Jenkins, is to have baseline data to know if an intervention is working or not. Much of Jenkins thoughts on this come from the book: The Toyota Way To Continuous Improvement by Jeffrey Liker.
It is very important that we take an attitude of wanting to be superior to our former selves. If you think about this from a school improvement standpoint it makes perfect sense. We have a starting point and just need to keep getting better from there. Our goal here needs to be to outperform the year before. The secret to this improvement is root cause analysis. When you dig into root causes you find things you never expected to find. When we know the root causes we are able to remove what Jenkins calls “Blamestorming.”
Think about that term “Blamestorming.” We have all done it. We can blame the legislature, political leaders, school leaders, lack of time, too many standards, standardized tests, lack of money, too much money, too many programs, et cetera. But, these are not really root causes. We must dig down deep and find the root causes. Think about this question: Was it the reading program we purchased that improved reading, or the fact that the program required that we triple the amount of time spent reading every day? Think about that. If the root cause was needing to triple the amount of time reading we could have done that without any new program cost, professional development cost, or all the other woes that come with implementing a new program. It is why programs and initiatives don’t work – teachers do! That’s me talking there; not Jenkins.
Remember, if we eliminate the hoops and hype we can optimize our systems for our students and employees and optimize the delivery of our curriculum.
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.
Is Your Group Too Small?
Yesterday I finished the great new book, You Can, You Will: 8 Undeniable Qualities of a Winner by Joel Osteen. If you have not read it; it needs to go on your “to read” bookshelf. One of the comments Osteen makes in the book is: “If your the smartest person in your group, your group is too small.” I loved this comment and tweeted @ByronErnest it. I found that many others loved the comment too because it was retweeted several times. The comment also hit home because I just wrote the post, “Are You The Smartest Person in The Room?” a couple of weeks ago.
When I heard Osteen make this comment (I listened to this book on Audible during my commute) I immediately thought about the advice of always surrounding yourself with the best people. How can your team be great if you are smarter than everyone around you? I’m reminded of my dad’s advice to me at a young age: “Always marry better than yourself!” That’s hard advice to understand, but now coming up on 29 years of marriage; I completely understand it. I certainly married better than myself. Hope is smarter, a better parent, better leader of a household, and the list goes on and on. As I always tell everyone, she is the primary parent! I fail in comparison. In fact I am reminded of a comment my son, Heath, made to his teacher when he was in the fourth grade when asked if he had done all of his reading the night before: “I’m not sure; my mom is out of town for work and dad and I have no adult supervision.” That really is a true story, and of course he had heard me make that comment jokingly before. But, really, there is some truth to it. So, if your still looking for that someone, make sure you marry better than yourself!
The real point that Osteen was making was, however, that we all need to be taking responsibility for our own personal growth to be the smartest, most skilled person in the room, but we need to also seek those who are talented in the areas we are not. The quote from Melanie Joy sums it up nicely: “Educating yourself does not mean that you were stupid in the first place; it means that you are intelligent enough to know that there is plenty left to learn.” We all need to make sure we are constantly taking advantage of any chance to learn that comes our way. For example, I am excited to be presenting at three conferences yet this fall and early winter. I am most excited because of the chance to learn from all the other conference attendees and the other presenters’ sessions. I am positive I will not be the smartest person in the group of attendees and presenters!
So, think about your own situation and find some ways to get yourself some personal professional growth. It may be reading a book (I am always amazed at how much I learn from every book I read), going to a conference, taking a course (I’m proof it’s never to late to start a doctoral program), or finding a coach, mentor, or sponsor. I loved another comment that Osteen made in his book: “While it may be a lot of fun to hang out with Mo, Larry, and Curly; you probably won’t be getting any smarter or experiencing any personal growth.” In other words, who you hang out with matters!
Finally, don’t forget to give of your “smarts” to others. I am always amazed to watch others in leadership positions who seem to want to hire “dumber” than themselves, suppress the learning of others, and just not provide growth opportunities to others. I guess they think this makes them look smarter – NOT! It has always been my personal mission to make sure that when those I have worked with reflect back that they say, “My life is better and I grew personally and professionally because of being around Byron.” Actually, a pretty good epitaph, don’t you think?
Go forth and make your group big enough that you are not the smartest!
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