The Learner

I have spent the better part of the last 6 years becoming a more accomplished assessor.  I go to workshops and in-services and talk about assessment with teachers, with parents, and with other school and district admin.  Recently, however, I reversed my role and signed up to be a learner.  Not to understand the learning this time, but to actually be the learner.  It was a fly casting course—something that I am already quite accomplished at—but for a new style (for me) of fly fishing.  Instead of casting a one-handed rod, I signed up for some instruction on casting my new spey rod, a rod that is much longer and requires you to cast it with two hands.

As a learner, I generally consider myself a fast one.  I had already caught fish with this rod, and expected myself to advance quite quickly.  The course was being taught by an out-of-town casting expert of international acclaim, and who—to make matters even more exciting—had personally designed the new rod that I was using.  This man travels the world to some of the most exclusive fishing locales, helping people cast.  That’s right, these select lodges don’t fly him up to guide their clients, they fly him up to help their clients improve their casting.  And, here he was in my town, ready to teach me all day.  I was ready to leave an expert caster.  I was ready to think about getting my master casting certificate.  Every time I closed my eyes, visions of perfect casts on a perfect morning on the perfect river etched themselves onto my psyche.  Every time I landed a “lifetime” fish.

It was a very humbling experience.

Things started out fine.  In fact, they started out great.  We were shown some basic casts on a park lawn, and—on the lawn—I did wonderfully.  I was casting accurately and for distance, and with a few pointers from the instructor, was starting to see movies of those earlier visions replayed in my mind.

And then we moved on to the water.

And then things fell apart.

I found myself suddenly very frustrated at the simplest of tasks, and nothing...nothing...was happening as I expected it to.  Looking back, I was rushing.  I was ignoring advice and pretending that I was following his tips and techniques when I knew, deep down, that I really wasn’t.  I started to feel jealous of the others;  I could see that they were performing better than I was, so why was he spending so much time with them.  I mean, I came here to be trained by the expert, so why wasn’t he training me?

I had some good casts mixed in with tonnes of bad ones.  I was overpowering the rod, casting too hard (sound familiar to any golfers out there?).  There, that one was a good one...did he notice?  Aw, that was crappy...is he looking?  The thing is, the more I tried to “do it myself”, the more he seemed to ignore me.  And every time that I noticed myself calming down, focusing on the techniques and casting better, he seemed to be right there at my side coaching me through.  The more I “got” it, the more he came to help me work on my technique. 

It was interesting for me to step back and take a look at what was happening that day.  He was there to give me what I needed every time that I was ready for it.  When I was fighting with myself early on in the water session, he let me fight with myself.  When I was ready to learn, he was ready to work with me.

So, what kind of learner am I?  And how can knowing the answer to this help me to make learning more successful in my school for my students?

Well, here’s what I know.  I am generally a good learner.  I try to take the time to learn things, and  I don’t want to “just get the answer”; I want to be able to explain the process required to get the correct answer.  I try to learn things well enough that I can teach them to someone else, because by that point I know it well.  I do—I admit—want to get the right answer, every time.  I also can get caught up in the time crunch of scheduled learning, where you try to pack learning into time compartments and act like it can start and stop on a clock.  I guess what I learned most is that even when I am prepared and motivated to learn on a topic that is intrinsically motivating for me, I can still have learning challenges.  I think that if I can remember that lesson, then I will have the patience and understanding to know that this can happen to my students, too.

Grad Gift Season

Grad season is upon us and the high schools are busy making the proms evenings that everyone will remember for a long time.  If you have a grad in your life, you may want to consider one of these very unique gifts as they move from student to lounge lizard on their parents couch, and they "relax", "take it easy" and start to "find themselves":

Or how about a hoody backpack?  It's the perfect accessory for the young adult who is still torn between image and fashion, between function and defiance, between career path and "Mr. Fun":

Or, more seriously, how about a book that will actually help them navigate the financial decisions that they face in the next stage of their lives?

One Thing Leads to Another

I’ve had many conversations about closing doors, usually revolving around someone moving somewhere and wanting to share a piece of their mind to someone else before they go.  My advice comes from experience, and is always the same:  take the high road.  I have switched schools, school districts and provinces in my education career.  Sometimes, I have moved and not returned, and other times I have landed right back where I started.  Wow, how embarrassing—and hurtful—things could have been If I had told someone off only land right back beside them for another tour of duty together.

The same is true for so many things in and around any organization, especially one with as many stakeholders as we have in our schools.  People who work with our hot lunch programs also run successful businesses in our neigbourhood, and our parents and friends are the doctors, dentists, businesspeople, labourers, and family in the web of connections that we call our community.  The older I get, the smaller the world seems to get.  I have played 6 degrees to Johnny Depp so many times that I am pretty confident that I will end up at a BBQ with him one day.  My point is that we live in a world that is far more interconnected that many of us want to believe, and everything (as my dad would say) comes full circle.  

And, I really believe that this works with opportunities.  Do you know that guys who always seems to be in the right place at the right time?  Is he always in the right place, or is he someone who lives his life in a way that leaves him open to seeing the opporunities that vavaile themselves?  Do opportunities come more readily to people who are ready to see them?  I think so.

I have been at two significant events in the last two weeks.  Both were important, both were private and both were reasonably exclusive.  At one, we had amazing service and an amazing time.  At the other, we had terrible service and a decent time.  It would have been easy to celebrate the “great” event and to criticize the not-so-good one, but when we stepped back and looked at things the poor service didn’t come from a poor server, rather from someone who was completely overwhelmed because the event was clearly understaffed.  Was that a management decision to make the evening more profitable?  Maybe.  But maybe, someone missed a shift.  Maybe, someone was sick and couldn’t be replaced.  Maybe there was a good plan in place and something fell apart.  In any event, it wasn’t going to make the evening better by reminding the servers how long it had been since we had been checked on, and it certainly wouldn’t have made the service any better.  By loosening off our collars and relaxing a bit—sluffing off the poor service—we had a much better time with our friends than we would have if we had stayed so, well...uptight.  We had a good night, despite the curveball thrown at us, because we were ready to have a good night.

I am reminded of a saying that someone in another district shared with me.  He said that you can never ask a question too many times, as long as you ask nicely.  It makes sense.  If someone has a job that is overwhelming, one that they can’t get through every item that they need to in a day, then they will have to end there day without finishing off every work order.  Most people know that they will eventually take some flack for this, so if you are belligerent to them about getting your needs met why wouldn’t they just make sure that your request is one of the requests that no one gets to?  If the line up of work orders is going to crap on them for not getting everything done, they might as well get the ones done that they can, and if you ask nice—every time—maybe, just maybe, you will get your small favour snuck into the queue. 

I was raised to always shut the door behind me, and that’s fine when it’s the front door.  Experience, however, has taught me never to shut the door when there’s a relationship involved.  So here’s to keeping your door, and options, open.

A Watched Pot Never Boils

I have to say, even if it is a little self-indulgent, that I have been tracking the page views on this blog for the last week or so and wondering if we would break 1000.  Guess what?  We did this weekend.  And, the funny part if that this weekend was so busy for me that for the first time in months I had to just leave my computer alone for a few days.  All I had to do was look away, and it happened.

This blog has been an interesting journey for me.  I started it—as the early followers know—multiple times, and for years had an epic battle with my intestinal fortitude (special thanks to “Mean” Gene Okerland for that) during the great adjective wars of 2009-2011.  I call these the adjective wars because I was flipping between them faster than a black belt at a judo competition.  Did I have the courage to post some of my own thoughts?  The Guts?  The integrity?  The self-indulgence?  The intelligence?

Well, something finally gave and a friend challenged me to get it going.  We made a deal, in fact, that we would each start a blog together and use each other for support (still waiting for your first entry TB).  In any event, I started to blog, mostly once per week.  I try to write about things that I see and things that I feel, hoping that somewhere someone will find something meaningful.  I was really nervous.  I can’t stress enough how nervous I was, but something very strange and positive happened: I liked it.  I didn’t like it because I felt self-indulged and I didn’t feel self-absorbed, rather, I felt like it helped me sort out my day.  I am a very reflective person by nature and having the chance to write down my thoughts and then post them—the ones that can be posted—has been very healthy.  It is also something small that I etch into every week that is creative.  I actually set time aside to do this, and even though that time shrinks more than it grows, and gets moved around to accommodate all of those other Principalish demands, it is time set aside for me. 

So, where do we sit after 8 months and 46 posts?  Well, I have a very diverse group o f page view origins as you can see from below (including countries with more than 1 page view):

I would have never expected people from Europe and Asia to find the blog, but they did.  I have one follower (thanks RB), and a bunch of people who seem to check in every week.  Only one person has ever commented, but that is kind of neat in it’s own way.  I mean, I have never asked for a comment and things have evolved into more of a reflective piece for me.  My original plan was to have far more content that was “classroom ready”, but it always seemed that one of those pensive moods would catch me that that was the direction I would go.  I’m not doing anything new; people have journaled forever.  The difference for me is that I feel somewhat accountable to post something each week, and the anonyminity of an “audience” makes things so much easier because I am writing about what I want and not about what someone else is expecting.  Did that sound right?

This has been a very positive part of my growth this year, and something that I plan to continue.  I would recommend this as a effective tools for reflection and growth to anyone.  

Here's to 2000!

The Number 1 Pick

Finally, someone who deserves all of the pomp and circumstance with being the #1 pick, and a true role model for our kids.