Never Be Average!
Cord and I
This week I am going to let one of my student’s words be the focus of my post. A couple of weeks ago you will remember I blogged about our basketball team (to read the post again click here). Well this week I would like to use a paper Cord Barricklow, a member of that team, wrote as a class assignment for an “I Believe…” statement. It is so exciting to have a student who combines leadership traits, faith, integrity, and values into such a balanced package. We talk a lot about leadership and life lessons in my classes and let me tell you, Cord gets it. But here I’ll let you judge for yourself. You’ll see why I say I learn from my students every day! I have taken the liberty of putting some of Cord’s most profound statements (in my opinion) in bold and italics for emphasis. Please join me in celebrating this young man’s beliefs. We can all learn from Cord. Enjoy!
Never Be Average – by Cord Barricklow
I believe in the fight to excel above others. To fully commit yourself into whatever your dream is and be the best you can be. You can achieve anything you want to with hard work and dedication. Know that you are the best at what you do. Never be average.
In order to be the best, you have to believe in yourself and know that you are capable to be that star. You must have the Muhammed Ali confidence, Ali once said, “I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.” It can be seen as cockiness but it is much deeper than that. It is an attitude, a swag to what you do and what you love. When you put all of your blood sweat and tears into a single goal, you have the right to know you are the best.
You may not really like the training, it will get tough. Ali puts it into the best words. “Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” That’s what has to fuel your fire. Sure, it is a struggle to maintain the level of determination to keep grinding it out, but without struggle what’s it all worth. Nothing is given to you in this world, and when you push yourself, you will get what’s necessary to be a champion.
You may need some luck in your journey, but I believe that luck is hard work, cleverly disguised. With great skill and good luck, you can achieve anything. People are born for a greater purpose than to just survive. God put us on this world to thrive at the challenges we face, not just to turn away and survive them. And when you achieve that prize, that goal you have pushed for, you give him all the glory in your victory.
I work everyday at the things I push to succeed in. Whether it is rodeo, basketball, or school. If I don’t consistently work on my game, someone else might be getting better than me. I cannot be average, I must find the push within me to get to the top, and stay there.
And when you achieve the greatness that you worked so hard to obtain, you will know that you made it, that you are not average, that you’re a champion! This I believe!
Do You Edify?
Today, as is the case most days, one of my students has provided the teaching and I am obliged to do the learning. Garrett Breedlove (@Goob_22 on Twitter) tweeted me that the word of the day was “Edification.” You may recall that Garrett was the facilitator of learning for one of my blog posts last fall. To read that post (Attitude Is Like A Cold) again click here. Now I have to admit, I didn’t even know what “Edification” meant. So off to my Dictionary App I went, and guess what the definition was? “1. The act of edifying.” I hate it when that happens! So, I looked up “Edify.” That’s when the learning began. Here’s what it said: “To instruct or benefit.” Now, that’s good stuff!
Wouldn’t it be great if we were all edifying? That would mean we would be instructing or coaching and benefiting others all the time. What a great world it would be if we were all striving to “Edify.” I was then reminded of a conversation I had just yesterday with my good friend Kevin Eikenberry. I shared my frustrations with him about a leader of a meeting I was in the week before who had just not taken her own professional development serious enough and was, quite frankly, giving wrong information. I shared that I had gone back to his book Remarkable Leadership:Unleashing Your Leadership Potential One Skill at A Time and read the part where he talks about that as leaders we must always realize that the others in the room may not be at the same knowledge level or leadership ability as us. Kevin, in his normal wisdom, shared that we have to find a way to coach and provide that information to others in a way that benefits all. 
As a person who leads from the middle most of the time this makes so much sense. During our conversation it clicked that really I have to take the same approach in all my leadership roles that I take with my students. That being, to always facilitate learning from where the students are right now, and not where I want them to be. Really, I was approaching this leader wrong – Instead of instantly correcting, which is what I did (honestly, because I knew I was right & wanted to be seen as being right) I needed to “EDIFY.”
Next time I will take the lessons of Garrett and Kevin, and stop and think about how I can provide coaching, instruction, and benefit to others. In other words, provide “Edification.”
Next time you are in a situation like mine think about how you can “EDIFY.” It will make the world a better place. Thanks for the inspiration Garrett! Just goes to prove that Twitter is one of the greatest professional development tools ever.
Frustration
This past week I defended my research proposal (successfully I might add) as part of my Doctoral journey. At the end I was asked if I had any comments I would like to make about the journey. Well of course I did. For one of my comments I used the term “frustrated.” After saying that I quickly tried to correct, and said “I’m sorry, frustrated is not the correct term, I didn’t mean to sound so negative.” My doctoral committee chair quickly jumped in and said “Byron, it is o.k. to feel frustration – it’s part of the process.”
Let me tell you, as a card carrying “Positive/Possibility Thinker” it frustrated me to think I had been frustrated. So in reflecting I thought, “How can we turn frustration into a positive emotion?” Off to Dictionary.com I went. Here’s what the website had to say: Frustration – The condition that results when an action is thwarted by an external or internal force. The blocking or thwarting of an impulse, purpose, or action (who the heck uses the word thwarted anyway?). Also, it is ironic that one of John Maxwell’s Minute with Maxwell videos was on the work frustration this week as well. Click here to watch his video and hear his thoughts on “frustration”
So here’s what I learned: When I get frustrated I need to use the impulse to evaluate my purpose and create actions that will eliminate the frustration. Really, frustration is a gauge pointing us to the next action necessary to carry out our purpose. Frustration happens to you and it happens to me so let’s harness it’s effects for positive action.
I Am An American
My son, Heath, with Purdue Pete
Showing Our Spirit for the Trip to Detroit
This past week at the Little Caesar’s Pizza Bowl in Detroit, Michigan I was reminded as I am at every home Purdue Football game how proud I am to be an American as well as a Purdue alumnus (my wife, Hope, is also an alumna). We made the trip to Detroit a family trip and were not disappointed as our beloved Boilermakers won by a score of 37-32. It was an exciting game with one of the most interesting fourth quarters of a football game I have ever witnessed (I’ll leave that for another story if you did not see the game). We also had a great time pregame with Purdue Pete and all the other bowl festivities.
I Am An American
My post today, however, deals with what I consider to be one of the most moving pregame shows in the world. The Purdue University “All American Marching Band” does a show leading up to the national anthem that includes a portion called “I Am An American.” For a complete story of this show that was first done in 1966 click here. To the left is a picture of the band’s final formation in Ford Field as “I Am An American” was read. I still get goose-bumps and tears in my eyes every time it is done. Amazingly, I had a Western Michigan University fan tell me they were most looking forward to seeing the Purdue “All American Marching Band” perform. That’s pretty cool!
Traditional "Block P" by the Purdue "All American Marching Band"
I close this post and my last post of 2011 as a Proud American and Boilermaker. 
Here are the words for you, see if they give you goose-bumps too:
Values, Dreams, & Priorities
In my reading, studying, and reflecting this year I have been reminded time and time again how our values drive us as leaders. Those same values drive me as an educator as well. I am glad that I chose to read the book The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner. In their book they gave us the five principles of leadership:
- Model the Way
- Inspire a Shared Vision
- Challenge the Process
- Enable Others to Act
- Encourage the Heart
I am not going to write about all of them, but suffice it to say; you need to read the book!
As an educator and leader I must envision exciting and enabling possibilities. As Kouzes and Posner said, “In some ways, leaders live their lives backward. They see pictures in their mind’s eye of what the results will look like even before they’ve started their project, much as an architect draws a picture or an engineer builds a model. Their clear image of the future pulls them forward.” As a teacher leader it is so true that I must live my life backward.
It is important that we see the end goal of what a great school and educational system looks like. Indiana’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Bennett, has been a great modeler of this. As a teacher I must live life backwards, by seeing where the students need to be at the end of a course. So how does one live life backwards effectively? VALUES, PRIORITIES, & DREAMS!
In my opinion one of the biggest mistakes teachers and coaches make is teaching and coaching a person where they want them to be instead of where they are. One of my values in education is realizing that we must allow our students to be bad at something before they can get good at it. Let me tell you a story:
An important philosophy I have is allowing students to be bad at something before they can become good at it. The best example I can think of is Scott Martin,[1] a student who was a terrible public speaker. I use many student presentation activities in my classes, so this young man had plenty of opportunity for improvement. While having Scott as a student, a teacher made a comment to me that he did not have students make presentations because they were so poor at it. I remember saying, “Shame on you! How can students get any better if they are not allowed to try, with us helping them?” We must be willing to stand beside our students and allow them to be bad at a skill while we are teaching them to become proficient. Scott Martin went on to become a gifted speaker. In fact, he emceed the opening ceremony for our new welding shop. He did an outstanding job for the ceremony which had school board members, advisory committee members, business and community leaders, and parents in attendance.
As Kouzes and Posner said, values serve as guides to action. It is important to have our values driving us. As a teacher leader those values are equally important.
Many times when collaborating with other teachers it is easy to let that learning time turn into a gripe session about issues that are about the adults (general frustration) and not the students. It’s easy for me to bring the group back to what’s important by reminding them that what is important is the goal of a first rate learning environment for the students of Lebanon High School. In order to speak up w must know what to speak about. Our values give us that voice. Kouzes and Posner said, “Personal values clarity drives commitment.” So for us to have our priorities in order and dreaming positive dreams we must first know what we value most.
[1] Scott Martin graduated May, 2009. Author has permission to use this story.
Power
For my post this week I thought I would do something a little different and share my top ten highlights from what I consider the best book I read in 2011. The book is Power: Why Some People Have It – And Others Don’t by Jeffrey Pfeffer. I read this book a while ago, but I have found myself using or thinking about the content every day.
Here are my top ten highlights in no particular order:
- Get over yourself and get beyond your concerns with self-image or, for that matter, the perception others have of you. Others aren’t worrying or thinking about you that much anyway. They are mostly concerned with themselves. The absence of practice or efforts to achieve influence may help you maintain a good view of yourself, but it won’t help you get to the top.
- Power tends to produce overconfidence and the idea that you can make your own rules, and these consequences of having power often cause people to behave in ways that cost them their power and their position.
- One of the biggest mistakes people make is thinking that good performance – job accomplishments – is sufficient to acquire power and avoid organizational difficulties.
- Therefore, your first responsibility is to ensure that those at higher levels in your company know what you are accomplishing. And the best way to ensure they know what you are achieving is to tell them.
- Being memorable equals getting picked…You can’t select what you can’t recall.
- “Feedforward,” which emphasizes what people need to do to get ready for the subsequent positions and career challenges they will confront…focusing on what you need to change to accomplish future personal goals can be much more uplifting than going back and reviewing past setbacks or considering areas of weakness.
- Launching or re-launching your career requires that you develop both the ability and willingness to ask for things and that you learn to stand out. People often don’t ask for what they want and are afraid of standing out too much because they worry that others may resent or dislike their behavior, seeing them as self-promoting. You need to get over the idea that you need to be liked by everybody and that likability is important in creating a path to power, and you need to be willing to put yourself forward. If you don’t, who will?
- Condoleeza Rice is right: people will join your side if you have power and are willing to use it, not just because they are afraid of your hurting them but also because they want to be close to your power and success. There is lots of evidence that people like to be associated with successful institutions and people – to bask in the reflected glory of the powerful.
- People give away their power by not trying. If you don’t try, you can’t fail – which protects our self-esteem. But not trying guarantees failure to win the competition for power and status.
- The best, most talented people want to work with those with the most power and resources, so those with access to important resources have advantages in hiring precisely the sorts of smart, hard-working individuals who can further their success. It’s an old but accurate and important story: power and resources beget more power and resources. Your task is to figure out how to break into the circle.
Now I am going to give you a bonus highlight: Scoop Nisker said “If you don’t like the news, go out and make some of your own.” I thought this was one of the most meaningful sentences in the book. If we want power we must be out walking the talk and creating good news by taking risks and making things happen. If you want to finish the year with a strong read or start 2012 off with power, this book is for you.
Great Educators: 30 Days of Restoration
I am so excited to share with you this week about a book that you all need to buy. The book is Great Educators: 30 Days of Restoration Workbook 2012 Edition. This workbook has been dedicated to all the great educators in the nation. The book is a 30 day exercise for educators to renew an restore their excitement and dedication to their profession. Whether you are a new or experienced teacher, this workbook will help you bring joy and enthusiasm back into your classroom.
This book gives teachers a chance to explore what other educators are doing in their classrooms and schools to be powerfully influential as teacher leaders and highly effective teachers. Each day’s story comes from an award-winning teacher that was nominated to be a part of the book.
Why am I so excited? Because I am featured on Day 24. My plan for Implementing Cross Department Collaboration is outlined in this chapter. Day 24 begins with a quote from me: “Teacher expectations affect student achievement, so it is important that we have high expectations for our students. My personal mission is to use rigor, relevance, and relationships to be a steward of high student achievement.” My chapter deals with realizing the importance of collaboration.
It is important to take time to have a conversation with one another and share successful teaching strategies. Then, teachers will have the opportunity to make adjustments that allow for the creation of innovative ways to teach students how to learn to learn. To do this I introduce a what I call Cross Department Collaboration (CDC). A plan that my Agriculture Science Department uses to meet with anther department each month to share best practices or learn new strategies.
I will let you read the book to learn more about my journey with collaboration and leading our school to become a learning organization. I hope you will consider buying the book. Every chapter has a worksheet section at the end for reflection on the day. This book would be a great source of professional development. Happy reading.
Iron Triangle of Higher Education
I had the opportunity to be a part of a group of agriculture industry leaders providing input to Purdue University’s Presidential Search Committee. I took this role very seriously as I saw myself representing both agriculture and education. The Trustee’s and Search Committee’s goal is to match the skill-sets of the top candidates to what Purdue University needs now and ten years in the future.
This is a tall order given the Iron Triangle of Higher Education: Quality, Cost, and Access. Purdue being in a position to appoint a new President is really a great opportunity at a great time. A time when students must thrive in a global market. This will require what Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, just yesterday said will require “Reimagining how higher education does business.”
“My chief message today is a sobering one,” Secretary Duncan told officials from colleges and universities who were gathered this week at the annual Federal Student Aid conference in Las Vegas. “I want to ask you, and the entire higher education community, to look ahead and start thinking more creatively—and with much greater urgency—about how to contain the spiraling costs of college and reduce the burden of student debt on our nation’s students.” Click here to read his speech. Also, click here to learn more about the administration’s pay-as-you-earn proposal.
Given Secretary Duncan’s call for creative thinking and controlling the cost of higher education and amount of debt students incur I would like to provide a bullet list of the characteristics identified for the new President of Purdue University:
- high energy
- long-term
- familiar with the Land Grant University
- passion for Indiana
- appreciation of agriculture and extension programs
- research and acquisition savvy
- international presence
- able to bridge academia, research and applied science
- global stature – we have to do Indiana and the globe right
- its ok to have have someone with a shorter pedigree to have someone who can be longer term
- Midwestern values
- vision for advancing Purdue University
- balance strategic direction set by the board of trustees, but also foster an entrepreneurial approach
- does not change for the sake of change, but understands why
- able to make smart, quick decisions
- surrounds themselves with smart people
- visionary
- public person
- a person who will know how to staff themselves with the right people
- understands the role of delivery, branding, and recognition
- the person is more important than the resume
- understands public/private partnership
- engagement
- promotes Indiana value-added agriculture
- accessible
- transformational leader
- superb organizational leader
I am sure you can imagine the energy of this almost 3 hour discussion. Purdue Trustee John Hardin said at the end of the discussion, “On a bad day this person needs to be God.” Not an easy task to find a person who can do all of the above. Keep in mind the search committee has had 40+ discussions like the one I was involved in.
Personally, I want a transformational, unconventional leader who will think, as Secretary Arne Duncan has called for, creatively and reimagine higher education. Specifically I want Purdue University to be a leader in bridging the gap between p-12 education and higher education. I continue to stress that with all of the great education reforms in p-12 education in Indiana occurring that higher education, including Purdue University, must also make reforms accordingly.
Think about it, wouldn’t it be great if a students circumstance did not determine what type of education he or she received from pre-k all the way through college? Let’s all be unconventional leaders and solve the Iron Triangle of Higher Education – Quality, Cost, and Access.
Mountains of Thanks
Thanksgiving Reflection!
I have several big projects I am working on right now, and yesterday for some reason at the end of my emails to my collaborators I started typing “We have a lot to be thankful for.”
Then I got to thinking that I was typing it, but had I stopped to reflect on all I had to be thankful for? Well, here goes my attempt at doing so. My top ten list to be thankful for:
#1. Isn’t it cool that we serve a God that shows grace, continues to put us in the right place at the right time, puts the right people in our lives at the right time, and all the other great things even though, in my case, we fail miserably at serving him?
(The gap here is to emphasize how much more important #1 is than anything else I have to be thankful for!)
#2. An incredible wife and son. They make me better everyday.
#3. Great leaders who I consider coaches, mentors, and great friends. Such as Dr. Tony Bennett, State Superintendent of Public Instruction; Kevin Eikenberry, The Eikenberry Group; Dr. Dale Whittaker, Purdue University; Dr. Jay Akridge, Dean of the College of Agriculture at Purdue University, Dr. Pamela Harrison, my Doctoral Committee Chair at Walden University; and Dr. Hobe Jones, retired Purdue University Professor who got me into teaching.
#4. The greatest Agriculture Science Teaching Staff in the country: Stacey Hartley, Ambra Tennery, and Kristen Scott.
#5. Outstanding students that are all ROCK STARS!
#6. Outstanding teachers to teach with.
#7. Outstanding school to teach in.
#8. Incredible corporate partners that help me be an effective teacher like SMART Technologies, Apple, Steelcase, Pasco, and many more.
#9. Community that cares about our school and education.
#10. The ability to DREAM BIG & HAVE ZERO FEAR OF FAILURE!
There are things I am sure I will think of after I hit “Publish,” but as I always say, “Don’t let perfection get in the way of a great thing.” I am so glad I took time for this reflection & encourage you to do the same.
Marine Lessons on Veterans Day
Today I had the honor of introducing Corporal Austin Scott for our Veterans Day program at Lebanon High School. Austin was a student of mine and graduated in 2007. Austin was a Marine and served in Afghanistan. During my introduction I read this email that I would like to share with you.
“Hello Mr. Ernest, haven’t talked to you in a while but I wanted to let you know I’m in Afghanistan and that the welding you taught me came in handy for a mission. We only have one certified welder in our company and he was falling behind on getting things done. So I went to him and told him I knew some stuff and jumped on some projects for multiple missions. Now we are all caught up until the next mission comes down. Other than that I am good. I have seen some crazy stuff, but staying safe. Hope all is well with you and thank you for what you taught me. In a way you served the Marine Corps without even enlisting. You are a great man Mr. Ernest. Have a good one.” Austin Scott
How about Austin learning to be a servant leader and using the skills he has wherever they were needed. He spoke today about how you never know where the things you are learning in school will be used. His email reminds me every day how important it is to form the relationships and to make education relevant so that all students, just like Austin did, can apply what they are learning to real life.
Austin, thanks for serving our country and for reminding us how to be a servant leader!
Byron's Babbles 
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