Codex Vitae

In General

Meta-beliefs

6 blind men and the elephant. We all have pieces of reality – all true, all incomplete, all wrong if considered complete. "You have your way, I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way and the only way, it does not exist." ~Nietzsche

Principles

Find something worthy to care about (youth engaged in their education, particularly teens). Then be relentless about being effective in this cause.

Selfcare

Productivity

Beliefs

Believe everything that David Allen / GtD says (although I find it incomplete). The mind is for having ideas, not holding them. Have a system that frees up one’s mind.

Pre-Decisions

Any commitment made – write it down.

Aspirations

Figure out the roles piece. I can turn projects into widgets and crank them out but not roles – ongoing commitments to hold to some standard.

Food

Beliefs

Calories in / calories out are all that matter for weight loss and maintenance.

But mood and effect of food are caused by much, much more and that in turn affects weight. I don’t have any particular beliefs about nutrition – I treat much of it skeptically.

Pre-Decisions

Always eat protein based breakfast. Less hungry later. Protein tends to keep me in good energy.

Aspirations

Want the ideal cupboard of allotments of the correct calories and best effect on my energy and then eat nothing but.

Physical Fitness

Beliefs

Exercise helps EVERYTHING else – the mind, attitude, psychology, fitness. It’s essential but not sufficient for weight loss. Food plays too big a role. Cross training, aerobic, strength and balance/flexibility cover it all (though despite this belief, I primarily just run).

Pre-Decisions

Run three times a week. No matter what – through injury, sickness, bad weather, any location. Have kept this up for over 5 years.

Aspirations

Do have a similar commitment to all around fitness that includes what I listed in beliefs.

Mental and Emotional Wellness

Beliefs

Proper balance to spiritual and physical. Meditation is best practice for me for emotional wellness. Mental – so important yet don’t do anything in particular to address it. I feel like I am always applying my mind. Love chess, crossword puzzles. But, best application of the mental is to real-life organizational adaptive change.

Pre-Decisions

Meditate every day no matter what.

Aspirations

Design a life where there’s time to indulge in deep thinking.

Relationships

Beliefs

We are the average of the people we surround ourselves with. Our identities are malleable and are a function of emergence that occurs in interactions with other.

Pre-Decisions

Be nice.

Aspirations

Be nice

Material World

Abode

Beliefs

I love things and when having taken a test found that I had a hedonistic value. I enjoy nice things. BUT, I adjust easily to whatever my conditions even when meager.

Pre-Decisions

Carve out my own space – some sanctuary.

Aspirations

Be happy with what I have. Make the most out of whatever I have.

Money

Beliefs

Just a means of exchange. Not meaningful in and of itself.

Pre-Decisions

Save & budget.

Aspirations

Generate a passive income and or “endowment” I can live off of.

Consumerism

Beliefs

I focus on what is functional.

Pre-Decisions

Spend very little on myself regarding things.

Aspirations

No clutter. Nothing more than what I need/want that is functional.

Work

Career

Beliefs

Despise work that I’m not motivated to do – has no meaning for me. But, if I find meaning, it’s no longer work. Others see me as a workaholic but it doesn’t occur that way for me.

Pre-Decisions

Do what I love. Quit what I don’t. Work within my strengths.

Aspirations

Design my career so that it is only flow work.

Business

Beliefs

Doesn’t apply to my personal life. Philosophically I tend towards believing in free market.

Pre-Decisions

Look for market solutions before resorting to government.

Aspirations

Would like to have a much deeper, comprehensive understanding of economics.

Learning

Beliefs

One of my strengths. TH White from Once and Future King: “The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”

Pre-Decisions

If I’m every confused, stuck, sad…learning something. See above.

Aspirations

Become a learning machine like Tim Ferriss, Josh Wozniak.

Passion Projects

Beliefs

What life is for.

Pre-Decisions

Journal frequently. Don’t feel like I am yet pursuing passion projects as I would like so next best think is to constantly record thoughts, lines of inquiry.

Aspirations

Endless: chess master, languages, school of life (alain de botton), philosophy, economics, theories of emergence, cognitive science….etc.

Politics / Society (my addition beyond template)

Beliefs

The majority of people are well meaning. Just read somewhere that one’s politics is one’s genuine attempt to improve the world.  I think that is mostly accurate (there’s always a small percentage of bad people). The three big domains in society are (a) government (which in turn has balance of power among three branches), (b) the market and (c) public choice (ie., unions that organize, black lives matter). Ensuring the conditions so that all three live in balancing each other is the best approach.

Pre-Decisions

Assume good intentions, be pragmatic, DO NOT demonize others.

Aspirations

Get a better understand and be real articulate about the three domains I described above.

Director & Teaching Positions at Expeditionary Learning School, NM

Director Position Open: August, 2011

Río Gallinas School for Ecology and the Arts, Las Vegas, New Mexico

Expeditionary Learning Public Charter School, First through Eighth grades

Río Gallinas School for Ecology and the Arts is an Expeditionary Learning charter school with a commitment to social justice and experiential learning. We have an excellent track record for hands-on learning inside and outside the classroom, and are experienced and successful in developing engaging expeditions that are interdisciplinary and arts based.

Our School:

            *Public charter school associated with the West Las Vegas School District

            *110 students grades 1^st through 8^th 

            *emphasis on fine and performing arts and ecological studies

            *a diverse student body in a rural, primarily Hispanic population,

            *77% free or reduced lunch program

            *Two campuses and adjacent Grow Dome greenhouse/learning space

            *Has met Annual Yearly Progress each year

            *7^th year charter school, 6^th year Expeditionary Learning program

Our ideal Director candidate would probably be:

*compassionate, energetic and visionary,

*a dedicated and collaborative educator,

*inspired by children, sensitive to their social and emotional needs,

*passionately dedicated to equity and access in education and the          transformative value of a caring community

*familiar with and dedicated to Expeditionary Learning approaches,

*interested in serving an educationally challenged and diverse population in a beautiful rural northern New Mexico landscape,

*enthused by the arts and by working toward ecological solutions,

*a strong manager, comfortable handling budgeting and financial matters (in conjuction with a contracted business manager/fiscal agent),

*committed to non-punitive management,

*academic coach

*able to work collaboratively

The candidate must possess, or be able to obtain by August, an administrative license.

Upper School Teacher (5th, 6^th, 7^th, or 8th grade)

Our ideal candidate would…

            *enjoy collaborative teaching

            *have a passion and experience in outdoor adventures

            *be able to teach in an interdisciplinary manner

            *be experienced in Expeditionary Learning protocols

            *be a creative curriculum developer

            *be ecologically concerned and positive

            *exhibit strong and compassionate classroom management

            *have a love and appreciation of the arts

            *drive a school bus (hey, we can ask)

            *enthusiastic in supporting individual student gifts

            *New Mexico teacher certification grades k-8

            *be cross culturally sensitive

            *speak Spanish

            *want to serve a diverse population

            *love to ski, kayak, bike, snowboard, hike, and / or raft

The position starts August, 2011.  Salary and benefits are competitive and commensurate with experience.  Río Gallinas School for Ecology and the Arts is an equal opportunity employer.  Río Gallinas School does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, color, sex, age, veteran status, or disability.

To apply, please send a letter of interest and resume to School Secretary Renay Cole at Río Gallinas School, 301 Socorro Street, Las Vegas, NM 87701.  Letters of interest and resumes may also be emailed to renay.cole@riogallinasschool.org; please get confirmation of email receipt. 

Application Closing Date: April 22, 2011.  The position will remain open until filled.

For more information about our school, please see riogallinasschool.org

For more information about the position, email Naomi Swinton, Chair, Governing Council: nmswinton@gmail.com

Professional Development Center and Grad Nation

The Professional Development Center at Eagle Rock School has been working through networks and organizations, bringing together schools in large numbers who are working with disenfranchised youth. We see General Powell's Grad Nation campaign as part of the mission we have been working on for the past 17 years.

Read more at Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center for the role we play.

Anger, Blame and Organizational Priorities

In a previous post, I mentioned two educators who widely share their materials on quality professional development. Their blogs show off some nice clips of their own professional development sessions. Meanwhile, I still have photos on my digital camera because I'm not sure how to download them onto my computer (more importantly, I'm never sure where these photos go when I download them or how to manage the files into logical categories). You will notice no nice clips on this blog. Using and integrating technology is not my area of expertise and I'm not always clear on how to direct my own learning in this area.

Recently, I filmed our instructors teaching lessons and wanted to post the video on a school server for other teachers to view. I spent hours one weekend trying to transfer the film from a camera to my laptop and then trying to move that clip to the server. These were hours confronting the difference between compressed and uncompressed film and learning that my conversions to Quick Time only pick up what is in my project library in iMovie. I couldn't transfer film to the server and didn't know how to manipulate the film I was importing. I wanted to toss the camera and laptop in the nearest trash bin, as I experienced the equivalent of road rage.

I wish I had been more reflective in that moment and thought -- "hey, it's my fault trying to do something on the weekend when no one is around to help and I probably should have listened better or taken better notes when I was instructed on how to do all this." Oh...how those opportunities to reflect just go whooshing by. Instead, I ranted. I sent an email to a colleague complaining about the lack of technology support.

My wise and thoughtful colleague replied, "I'm sure that we all have a perspective on something that could/should work better. I guess the trick is continuing to explore those things with an eye toward the overall priorities. Some things will rise in importance and some we'll just have to live with as is. I do think that in the absence of any guiding principles with regard to organizational priorities, any one of us can become consumed with our own perspective."

He got me thinking about how any one who is experiencing any problem at any time could be prone, as I was, to wondering how others could improve. We operate always and automatically from our own self-interests and forget about the needs of others. How many teachers are teaching right now while I'm composing this blog wishing that I or my department were in their classroom helping them with their instruction, taking more time to provide feedback on their lesson plans or working on their behalf to gather resources they need to teach? I am learning to be more patient in getting my own needs met as well as empathetic about what others need.

Another point raised in my colleague's response, is that some of the frustration could be mitigated if we were all clearer on organizational priorities. That way we would know what is on the horizon for planned improvement and how we were all playing a part.

Take Leadership in School Reform

ACE Leadership High School seeks the founding instructional leader for a cutting edge small high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico

The New Mexico School for Architecture, Construction and Engineering (NMACE) will open in July 2010 and our goal is to name the Principal in June of the 2010. The Principal position is the most critical initial hire for the school and he/she is considered to be a co-founder of the institution who is chiefly responsible for further developing and ultimately implementing the vision of the school. Our goal is for ACE Leadership to be a catalyst for reform in New Mexico and across the country and the principal will be intimately involved with creating a strategy to make this happen.
The Principal will be a partner to the Executive Director who is chiefly responsible for the business operations of the school and public positioning of the institution as a leader in school reform. We envision a dynamic working relationship that leverages philanthropy, public-private partnerships with the construction industry, and relationships with policy makers to ensure a lasting impact of the school.
ACE Leadership has a three pronged strategy for change:
9-12 high school (325 students) focused on preparing low income young people of color to become leaders in the construction profession
Re-engagement Center (100 students) focused on providing industry specific coursework and support that prepares young adults who wish to re-engage in high school and transition to an apprenticeship upon graduation.
Professional Development Center that will ultimately replicate the ACE Leadership model, provide for the ongoing training needs of the staff and disseminate the best practice to others outside the institution.

Essential Facts: Opening July 2010 ∞ 430 students when fully developed ∞ Year round calendar ∞ six annual weeks of staff planning/training ∞ Competitive compensation and benefits ∞ Relocation expenses ∞ Sponsored by the Associated General Contractors, the most highly regarded Construction industry organization in the country ∞ small high school leadership experience and applied learning expertise are the key attributes for the position.

Contact: Tony Monfiletto, Executive Director New Mexico Building and Education Congress, (505) 573-4024, tmonfo@gmail.com

Participate in Student Exhibitions

We celebrate National Exhibition Month (http://tinyurl.com/CESNEM) three times a year at the nationally recognized Eagle Rock School & Professional Development Center (http://www.eaglerockschool.org) located in Estes Park, Colorado.

At the end of our trimesters, Eagle Rock students prepare a presentation that displays evidence of their learning during that trimester. The presentations are made before members of the Eagle Rock community and a panel composed of guests who may be teachers, administrators, community members, representatives of participating school districts and higher education, and others who are interested in alternative assessment, education renewal & the progress of Eagle Rock School & our students.

Each student prepares for a 30-minute discussion of her/his learning: 15 minutes for a formal presentation and 15 minutes to answer questions from the panel.

Would you consider being a part of our panel for our winter/spring trimester? The Presentations of Learning will take place on Monday, April 5th and Tuesday, April 6th, 2010. We would be pleased to have you participate on a panel for a morning, an afternoon, or a full day. A reply form may be found here (print and return by mail or fax): http://tinyurl.com/EAGLEROCKexhibitionsRSVP

Because of the scheduling involved, we would like to have your reply by March 1, 2010. If the form is not returned by then, we will assume you are unable to join us for our celebration of learning this trimester. Additionally, we may be able to provide overnight accommodations and meals, with prior reservations made with Kelsey Glass (kglass@eaglerockschool.org )

Please learn more about our exhibitions here (including viewing video samples online): http://tinyurl.com/WHATarePOLs

We hope to see you in April in the Mountains!

Feel free to forward this email to other educators who may benefit from learning about schools that promote and celebrate exhibitions as a preferred form of student assessment!

Spanish Instructional Specialist / Houseparent

Newest position avaialable at Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center. It's a great place to work.

RESPONSIBILITIES: Instructor Component: Develop, implement, and oversee Spanish instruction, coordinate other part-time language instructors (historically we’ve offered Latin, French, Italian, and American Sign Language). Includes opportunity to expand current program; construct curriculum; co-teach interdisciplinary classes; draft and maintain a budget; and mentor a Public Allies fellow (teacher in training). Participate as part of the instructional team. Actively participate in other duties related to a residential, community oriented high school (leading evening and periodic weekend duty, playing intramurals, attending all school events, house parenting, leading an advisory, etc.). Review Eagle Rock's curriculum overview here: http://eaglerockschool.org/our_school/academics.asp

House Parent Component: Depending upon availability move into house parent role (openings occur periodically, candidate would typically not become a house parent until after 1st year on staff). Role includes living in an apartment attached to student housing. Providing supervision and support to up to 8 female and 8 male students. Coordinate the house team consisting of 4 full time staff and 2 Public Allies Teaching Fellows. Review Eagle Rock's living village here: http://eaglerockschool.org/our_school/residential_life.asp

QUALIFICATIONS: BS/BA required, 3 years previous experience in a high school language department with a wide variety of course designs and program models (i.e., Total Physical Response (TPR), Total Physical Response Storytelling (TPRS), the Natural Approach, immersion models, and / or the Communicative Approach). Native speakers are strongly encouraged to apply. Experience with interdisciplinary curriculum design, experiential education, project-based learning, and Understanding by Design process helpful. Experience embedding skill development through active-learning within the realm of authentic projects helpful. Excellent collaboration skills with teachers from other disciplines to supplement and enhance projects with language elements, instruction, themes, and products. Experience working with diverse populations including a mix of LGBTQ students; students from low and middle income backgrounds; students from suburban, urban, and rural settings; and students from diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds all of whom have not found success in traditional educational settings. The successful candidate for this position will possess the following attributes: a deep love for high school students; demonstrated success in collaborative work with external and internal colleagues; adept interpersonal skills; a sense of humor; visionary thinking; a commitment to lifelong learning; and a realization that working at a residential school is more of a calling than a job.

COMPENSATION: Salary competitive based upon experience, excellent benefits, professional development support.

TO APPLY: Position open until filled. Start date August 30, 2010 with possible early start (Summer 2010). Send cover letter (please address 3 components of the job: instruction, community involvement, and house parenting in the letter), resume, 3 professional reference names & phone numbers, and a sample project-based learning experience to Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center, Attn: Spanish Language IS Search Committee, 2750 Notaiah Road, Estes Park, CO 80517 or email to info@eaglerockschool.org. No phone calls please. Eagle Rock School does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. Eagle Rock School proactively seeks a diverse workplace and therefore members of racial/ethnic minorities and other protected classes are encouraged to apply.

Twitter and Quality Professional Development

There has been a lot of talk about Twitter as a useful tool for educators. Some folks I follow on Twitter rave about their Professional Learning Network (PLN) and how they receive so much support from folks far and wide tweeting from the comfort of their laptops.

I do appreciate the tweets that provide a link to material that I find helpful. I’ve bookmarked (“favorited”) links on learning to podcast, making sense out of Google Wave and teaching a lesson on the Bill of Rights. Good stuff.

On the other hand, I look back at questions I "tweeted" to the amorphous group of educators – my PLN – and most just stay out there in the cloud. Looking at the past 20 questions I have posted, about 4 have received direct answers. I’ve asked about resources for counseling first-generation college goers, understanding response to intervention, looking for sources of classroom simulations and researching performance based assessments. No response. Perhaps they were tweeted at the wrong time.

One new and pleasant development has been noticing certain tweeters out there who seem to be engaged in efforts similar to my own. When I rea their blogs or websites and contact them offline, it appears there may be some promising leads.

Specifically, I am interested in how to provide high quality professional development in a school or district. Research points to using local expertise, job embedded work, sustained focus over time and protocols to make the students' work and teachers' practice more amenable to study. This constrasts with bringing in experts and delivering some decontextualized set of lessons without sufficient follow up.

Here are some cool folks I have met virtually through Twitter who appear to be implementing high quality PD.

Neil Stephenson
@Neilstephenson on Twitter
Calgary Science School

Neil has launched an inquiry process around the work students produce in response to projects. I love that he has posted audio of teacher comments, powerpoint of his presentation and a clip of a professional development session. Check out his post on Examining Student Work – Reflective PD

Kim McGill
@KimMcGill on Twitter

Another great one. Check out Kim’s blog here and Open School Network. Kim takes a deliberate and reflective approach to professional development linked to dilemmas experienced by the teachers. The site has useful resources for developing inquiry based professional learning communities.

In fact, since I drafted the comments above about Kim and Neil, Kim organized a web conference using Elluminate and brought together a dozen consultants to discuss the meaning of job embedded staff development. I was inspired by some new ideas to better integrate our teaching context into powerful professional development.

Unbeknownst to these two, they have inspired me to push harder for quality PD as well as share more widely. They are examples of a great contribution to the field.

The Eagle Rock School version of professional development has some similarities. School leadership and staff identify an instructional need (i.e., literacy practices) and we introduce and model how some of that instruction can be incorporated into one's practice. Then teachers are asked to incorporate in a way that makes sense to them and they (a) are observed, videotaped and receive feedback from colleagues, (b) bring their lesson plans and reflections of how implementation went back to a small group and use protocols to receive feedback and (c) bring student work produced as a result of implementation and we use protocols to dig into what we can infer from the student work.

We keep this focus for one school year. Planning the time together is done with a core team of teachers and leadership but all meetings are open so interested additional teachers can come and plan sessions anytime they want. We run the PD planning sessions itself as a critical friends group using protocols to look at our plans and studying some common text together (i.e, reading Linda Darling Hammond).

I am excited about how we can improve professional development here as well as connecting with educators world wide to help me in this endeavor. Maybe Twitter does have something to offer. Follow me at @tiomikel.

Blogging, Julie & Julia

This blog lives in the back of my mind as a nagging concern - I rarely update it, worry about writing something clever and wish I could use it more to promote thoughts on educational reform. I also have so many things I'm interested beyond organizational leadership like teaching & learning, evolution, skepticism, science, politics, comic books & television shows. I journal almost every day but there's not one consistent thread through all those writings.

Now I'm watching Julie & Julia - great movie. And, it's inspiring me to blog more regularly. Julie Powell blogged every day about her efforts to cook every recipe in Julia Child's book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Julie weaves in memories and daily views into her life as she works on the recipes. Would love to develop a thread of my own.

On another note, Julie & Julia is a great story about following one's interest - both were amateurs who dived deeply into an interest and brought meaning to their lives. Great example of how education and learning could be.

Linda Darling Hammond Keynote

School Reform Initiative Winter Meeting at Cambridge, MA
Keynote: Linda Darling Hammond

"Nurturing schools cannot be about flowers peeking out of cracks in the concrete but needs to be a whole field of flowers."

The Path of Learning: Metaphors from the Trenches
(Demonstrating how learning is more like the path of a butterfly than like the flight of a bullet - real attempts at metaphor from young children)

• He was as tall as a six foot three inch tree.

• John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

• He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

• Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

The Need for More Powerful Teaching
See Ferris Bueller clip of Ben Stein's teaching. It's the model of teaching in the head of the policy makers. Just know content and deliver it.

Effective Teachers (do both / and not engagement in false either/or battles like skills vs. knowledge, basics vs. higher order....it's all "both / and")
...engage students in active learning
...use a wide variety of teaching strategies
...assess student learning continuously
...create ambitious tasks
...provide clear standards, constant feedback and opportunities for revising work
...create and manage a collaborative classroom

"More new knowledge created in a 3 year period than in all previous years of history put together"

Many students come to classroom not accustomed to doing the work of school and beyond being motivated by extrinsic rewards. Therefore they need authentic tasks. But many also do not have skills to be initially successful on authentic tasks. So, the correct response is to provide safety, feedback and revision (rather than what critics say...."don't do authentic tasks until they have the skills" It's "both/and"). Linda recommends the work on formative assessment of Dylan Wiliam and Paul Black research in UK http://bit.ly/60b8rY

What does an equitable teacher do? Consider these questions...

• How do we see the child?
• What tools do we use to learn about children's strengths, experiences, prior knowledge? (promising practice: home visits, positive calls home to parents)
• What is our repertoire of practices for teaching a wide range of learners?
• Can we plan and scaffold the curriculum?
• How do we reinforce learning, sense of competence and attachment?

US Outcomes in International Perspective

Linda Darling Hammond focuses on achievement and equity in Finland, Korea and Singapore as success stories.

We have more percentage (22%) kids in poverty than any other industrialized country. Educational inequality exacerbates the effects of poverty.

What are high achieving nations doing?

• Access to health care and preschool.
• Equitable funding
• Elimination of tracking
• Investments in high-need schools and students
• Lean curriculum focused on higher order skills, supported with technology.
• Performance assessments to guide and gauge progress
• Massive investments in teacher education and school level teacher support
• Assessment systems are entirely local in response to very lean national curriculum.
  

(All covered in Linda Darling Hammond's latest book: The Flat World and Education)

Recommendations for Transformation

• Focus on meaningful learning
• Support for professional practice
• School designs that support high quality learning
• Equitable education funding

Expectations for learning are changing

Ability to communicate, work in teams, problem solve, manage oneself, analyze and conceptualize, create, innovate, criticize, engage in learning new things at all times.. (from Chris Worldlaw in Hong Kong).

NAEP test questions do not test any of the above.
Victoria, Australia has powerful performance assessments.
Singapore has only open ended questions.

_____
Overall, Linda Darling Hammond was pleasant to listen to but mostly preaching to the choir in this setting. I'm not clear that we leave with anything actionable or have a new insight about what we need to do. I think she is on point with all the issues she addressed but it's not hard to find agreement at the level of generalities: need to be more equitable, more support for teachers, more challenging tasks for students.

Fulfilling on vision for PDC effectiveness

The Eagle Rock Professional Development Center is working on behalf of Big Picture to support improvement, reflecting and ongoing learning. We will also be supporting the professional development and support of principals in the network. One of our first events was preceded by visits to the Bronx Guild, Mapleton Early College and Highline. Folks at the three sites agreed that it would be worthwhile to do some focused work on the academic quality of LTI projects. Collectively we designed an event that eventually attracted participants from Liberty and East Bay. Staff from the five schools met at Eagle Rock from Sun, May 31 to Tue, Jun 2 to conduct an assets-based study of various LTI projects that had yielded positive academic results. We used protocols throughout the 2 days to study our most successful work, develop action plans to implement at our home sites and envision a future where these plans were successfully implemented. The sequence of work will culminate with on-site follow up from the Professional Development Center.

This experience has also inspired some possible plans to conduct similar events on a regional basis. Participants left with the following to say...

"As a first year advisor, it was great to talk to other people who were doing the same work especially in a context that was so focused and well thought out." Ed Kessler, advisor, Highline

"This has been the most productive professional development day I have experienced in my time at the Met" David Cass, 11th gr. advisor, Liberty

"The conference energized me, taught me about best practices at other schools, and gave me time to develop a plan to implrement change at my school." Ben Schneider, advisor, Mapleton Early College

"I have a renewed focus on project depth, creative new ideas about how to bring it about, and an awakened memory of what I know works. The asset-based approach was a great paradigm shift for me." Arthur Baraf, Principal, Liberty

League of Democratic Schools

For the next two days, I will be hosting about 15 folks for the annual regional meeting of the League of Democratic Schools. I'll describe this group in a later post. For now, I want to outline my ideas for creating a work oriented meeting for various schools. Later, I will reflect on how well these plans worked.

Here's the agenda
Theme: Making the Invisible, Visible
"...there is only one thing I would want schools to guarantee, it would be to help all young people acquire the skills and self-confidence they need to feel visible in the world." ~ Sam Chaltain from Degrees of Freedom

Thursday
8:30 am - Eagle Rock gathering: witness an Eagle Rock ritual for supporting youth voice
9:00 am - Framing of meeting: intro to Eagle Rock, emphasis on theme (we're all hear to get better at incorporating youth voice), and emphasis on process of work, sharing and producing content.
10:00 am - Restorative Justice training: folks from Boulder Valley & New Vista High School sharing their practices
1:00 pm - Dilemmas in Democratic Governance: Eagle Rock students will present dilemmas and challenges regarding youth voice and governance. Participants will provide feedback using a consultancy protocol.
2:45 pm - Sharing resources from member schools: Run as a World or Knowledge Cafe. Each school has a home base and participants rotate to different tables. Throughout, we are looking into the question of what makes us a network? Who are we as a region? Who are we to each other?
4:45 pm - Closure

Friday
8:30 am Eagle Rock gathering: witness an Eagle Rock ritual for supporting youth voice
9:00 am Featured Speaker: Sam Chaltain: Sam will highlight some principles of democratic principles in schools. Schools will then work on their own projects with Sam providing coaching based on his presentation.
1:00 pm Creating content on online community: Somehow (not sure how yet) help participants think in terms of creating a product based on our work together and posting that online.

We'll see how it goes.

Using Twitter for PD Conversations

I was minding my own business last night, surfing the web and checking my twitter feeds when I saw a tweet that read:

hrmason: Heather Mason, 8th Language Arts, Merritt Island, FL, USA #educhat

I wondered why this person I was following just randomly identified herself in this way. I noticed the tag #educhat at the end and did a Twitter search for that term to find....

thorprichard: Yeah, #educhat is an informal live intl. discussion about education using Twitter.

At the search window, hundreds of education related tweets began scrolling. Some folks enjoyed finding new people...

@ScottElias: Best thing about #educhat - finding new ppl to follow!!

Others launched polls...

wgraziadei: What criteria do you use to follow (for that matter unfollow) a user? Poll http://twtpoll.com/?twt=twa123 #educhat

And many shared resources....

clinds: Just heard about LearnCentral in Live Classroom 2.0 Ning archive - looks like an amazing tool to collaborate w teachers-anyone try? #educhat

To review the content of this evening's chat or to share it with colleagues, use the hashtag at http://search.twitter.com/ #educhat

And, about 1000 tweets later, we signed off with...

Educhat: Thank you for joining us. Please take the time to join us at our next meeting on April 6, 2009. Goodnight! #educhat

In addition to using Twitter to engage in backchannel conversations at conferences, this was my favorite use of Twitter.

PDC Work - part 2

A few ideas I want to weave into the strategic stance I drafted in the last post.

1 - Sustained contact time on a single focus spread over time Consistent with a recent report titled "Professional Learning in the Learning Profession," our professional development center would emphasize choosing a focus, working together with a school for at least 50 hours and spread out over 6-12 months.

2 - People on the ground have the capacity to invent their own solutions This falls under our assets based approach. However, I think there are so many specific elements to the assets based approach that it warrants listing them out. The last post listed the concept of "positive deviance" and now we have the belief in the capacity of people to invent their own solutions. More can also be written on the "strengths based" movement, positive psychology, growth mindset, appreciative inquiry and learned optimism.

3 - Building teams in this work is a high leverage point More brains are better than one and only different perspectives can really produce new knowledge.

4 - Whatever theory or concept we are working on, it must be grounded in the work produced at the site Studying student work together or videotaping teacher practice provides the reality test when we are discussing more abstract concepts of differentiation, scaffolding, or project based learning. It takes far more disciplined energy to keep returning to our work than it does to have abstract debates on what works best for students. Our approach is more empirical.

Professional Development Center work

I'm drafting some ideas for how to best describe the strategy for The Professional Development Center at Eagle Rock School. Here's what I've got so far.

Guiding principles: Assets based and actionable. We begin from a place of working with schools and organizations from the stance that they already have all they need to move closer to their vision. They may need someone like us to unearth their assets and identify signs of positive deviance. Further, we are strict about turning any insights into actions. We provide clear descriptions of what the folks in an organization must do rather than just describe outcomes.

Given these principles, we engage in the following strategies.

1 – We choose to work with strategic partners. These are organizations that have a highly developed infrastructure for working (a) with small public schools and (b) directly addressing issues of high school drop out rate and secondary school experience for the kinds of students we work with at Eagle Rock School. Amongst our current partners are The Coalition of Essential Schools (CES), Alternative High School Initiative (AHSI) and the League of Democratic Schools (LoDS).

3- We partner strategically with technical assistance providers like PEBC and Buck Institute. They offer to either train us in their professional development or have us cofacilitate their work. That enables us to deliver our work having had the benefit of their high quality approach -- builds our capacity as trainers, adds value to ERS and adds values to the schools we work with. We are low to no-cost help to them as needed facilitators and we, in turn, learn from their work which is in high demand due to their quality and reputation.

3 – We are using our capacity to host visitors at our school site more effectively by working with fewer schools with whom we can conduct follow up visits. We combine the retreat nature created here while remaining embedded in a school environment. Our follow up visits to their school sites supports the needed contextualizing.

I will continue to flesh out these thoughts and develop a fuller strategy document.

Oprah Winfrey Final Remarks at NAIS 09

"I believe in what you do" ~Oprah

She has sponsored young women to attend independent schools all over the country. Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy in South Africa inspired by independent schools. Sharing her experiences - ups and downs - of having a school.

Benefited from nuns bringing Christmas gifts to her when she was a child on welfare. Wanted to do the same - spread the love, bring unexpected joy to children - in South Africa. During the 3 week effort, Nelson Mandela invited her to stay over his house for ten days. What to say? What to do? Stedman told Oprah, "Why don't you just listen for a change?"

When you educate a girl, you educate a community. Teen pregnancy, AIDS and other social ills go down. Battled the government and architects in an effort to make the Leadership Academy beautiful. Art can inspire. "Why do the girls need closets? They don't have anything to put in them." Why? Oprah: "Because I want to send the girls a message that they are valued."

Oprah was looking for an "IT factor" amongst the girls. Wanted young women who had something to fit in Leadership Academy. Do we, should we do that for Eagle Rock? These young ladies have lost their parents to AIDS, suffer sexual assault, live in poverty. Is it so wrong to be selective within that group of youth in need? I think we dance around that question in student admissions.

First biggest challenge: finding the right staff. Selected students first because she thought it would be harder to find the right kids. Then surprised by how difficult it was to find the right teachers. "I thought because the vision was so clear to me, it was clear to everyone." Not so. Looking for a head of school, dean of academics, counselor.... Issues with staff exist everywhere.

Second learning: "Projected budgets are made by people with a great sense of humor." Spent 2 1/2 times more than planned on everything. Oprah's school pays for everything: appendectomies, coats, braces, transportation. I thought Eagle Rock provided a lot (we do, but this is more).

Now, she's talking about the alleged sex abuse scandal at the Leadership Academy. The case has still not been resolved. The only way to deal with a crisis is to "stay in the moment." Don't get consumed by worst case scenarios. Stay in the moment, tell the truth. "If you tell the truth, you can be criticized but you can never be hurt."

Sidney Poitier's expectations of these girls: To be seated at every table where the decisions of the world are made for the future.

Final scene from Goodbye Mr. Chips. "I think I heard you say it was a pity that I never had any children. But, you're wrong. I had thousands of them. All boys." Oprah feels the same.

Great ending! So acknowledging of educators and saying, "I'm trying to do it too."

Letting my frame of reference get in the way

Second experiment in live blogging. Waiting for Oprah to take the stage and hear her words of wisdom for the independent educators of the world. Meanwhile, a word on Guy Kawasaki's presentation. After discussing the presentation with a colleague, I realized I assessed Guy's presentation using a pretty limited rubric. I heard him say he was presenting on steps to change. Given that's an area of interest for me, I listened for "steps" and did not hear any. First of all, I may have misheard. He may have said principles or qualities of change. In that case, he would have fared much better in my evaluation. Second, after reflecting with a colleague, I see that there was a lot of useful and practical stuff in the presentation. For example, the whole idea of jumping the curve is a way we can frame what we do at Eagle Rock School. Lot of opportunity there. My limited framework for evaluation limited what value I drew from the talk. How often do I do that? How often do any of us do that?