#KidPowerClub

It is truly a story I have reflected on my entire life, but never really shared with too many people. I was just five years old, I was shy, and I wasn't sure how to make friends in that new neighborhood. My mom threw open the garage door, told me to have more fun than anyone else, and I would have friends by the end of the day: the Kid Power Club was born. I became the president of my own club, I made a great group of friends, and I never forgot the lessons my mom taught me that day. 

40 years later, I just had the opportunity to stand on stage for 12 minutes and share this story with over 400 people. The tale was originally about making friends as a child, but it has evolved into a report about the importance of our relationships as adults. When we build a network, we have access to better ideas, we have more access to the fuel that inspires inspiration and growth. 

This short talk was the opening keynote at the CapCue Techfest, right here in my home town; I was honored to open the show in front of many of my own colleagues, friends and family. As it turned out, the amazing team from the Sacramento Educational Cable Consortium captured the gig on video and have created this page where the video can be found. I shared it with my mom, and she told me it made her cry. #MomPride is real. You never know what stories are going to be the ones that shape your deepest beliefs, but sometimes, when you share your story, you realize the impact a single lesson has had on what you believe in most.

Last night I came home from #FallCue. What an amazing two days of inspiration. It isn't just the sessions, the resources, or the presentations: it is about the people. Fall Cue is like one big Kid Power Club meeting, where everyone is having more fun than anyone else, where the network is drawn together and no one is afraid to give away their best ideas. If you'd like, take 12 minutes, watch this video and I think you'll know exactly what I mean.

Birthday Parties are for Everybody.

It only happens once a year. All your friends get together. Moms make sure everyone's hair is parted straight and clothes are pressed, but we all know by the end of the day there will be frosting behind our ears and ice cream stains on our shirts. The gig can be at a roller rink, pool-side in someone's backyard, or at a neighborhood park - the location doesn't matter. Everyone who attends gets a little SWAG, a bit of grub, and at the end of the day, no onlooker could really tell which of the exhausted party goers was the actual guest of honor, because birthday parties are for everybody.

I remember my mom taking me to a birthday party when I was 8 years old. I wasn't a shy kid, but I didn't know a another soul at the party. It was a party for the son of a co-worker, so my mom wrapped a gift, slicked down my hair and threw me into the mix. Funny thing is, looking back, I started the day without knowing anyone and ended the day with two new best friends and a room full of people I'd cross the playground to say hello to.

Fast forward nearly four decades: this week, some of my friends and I are throwing a little shin-dig. It only happens once a year. It isn't in honor of anyone, but is really a celebration of everyone. This is the week of the annually awaited CapCue Techfest. On Saturday, we will be gathering 400 like minded EdTech Educators into one festively decorated location. Each attendee, whom I assume are all kids at heart, will grab a little SWAG at the door, play along in a few games and sessions, and belly up to a catered sandwich somewhere around noon. Just like the once a year celebration of a child's first day: this gig is much more about the time we spend together than the festivities that are planned on our behalf. The unplanned consequences of attending an event like this are often the most powerful: you may attend with the intention of learning something new, but instead connect with a person who becomes that friend who inspires you for years to come.

I hope that everyone who attends this weekend sees an old friend, but, more importantly, I hope that each attendee makes a new one. I hope that we all find ourselves in a room at some point, surrounded by like minded people, laughing at our common misunderstandings, as easily as we spontaneously applaud a presenter who wows us with a life-hack that saves us an hour each work week. The most important part of this particular gig is that it is local: organized by volunteers, promoted by passion and intended for everyone. This is going to be Epic!

It's Ok to Never Finish

I just listened to a great podcast by one of my favorite authors, Malcolm Gladwell. He talked about the genius of Elvis Costello, of the famous artist Paul Cezanne, and of the Canadian singer, songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen. Gladwell says that there are works of art and innovation that spring to the minds of some and are instantly finished. The song Bridge Over Troubled Waters, written by Paul Simon and now remade by everyone from Aretha Franklin to Josh Groban, hit its author like an anvil falling from an open window and the song wrote itself to completion in a single sitting. On the other hand, the song Hallelujah, now most famously performed by Jeff Buckley, took Lenny Cohen over 5 years to wrestle from within his mind, and yet, upon release, this first version was a flop. It wasn't until Hallelujah was re-written a second time and and performed by a second and a third artist that it eventually became woven into the backdrop of American music, film and television culture.

Gladwell gives colorful examples of innovations that sprang to life and others that drew out over decades, and to each he assigned a value: Picasso or Cezanne. Pablo Picasso often completed a work on a first attempt, he would work on a single canvas until content that his work was complete; Picasso would sign his name to a piece and then explore onto another work of art, feeling content that the signed painting was finished. Cezanne on the other hand would paint the same piece, over and over, refusing to sign his name to many seemingly completed paintings, because to him they were never completed. Cezanne never finished. Cezanne would literally ask subjects to sit for portraits up to 100 times, and go through as many canvass before he finally signed a work. All the works leading up to his eventually signed canvas were simply formative attempts at an eventual innovation.

Neither method is correct and neither is wrong, there is no single path to innovation. These different takes on creation make me look about the classroom through a different lens. Of course we want our students in the classrooms across America to produce, to bring projects to completion so that we may evaluate their eventual Final Product, but I would argue that in every room arranged with 30 desks there must be a handful of Cezannes. Imagine if Lenny Cohen or Paul Cezanne were rushed to finish a work, to turn it in on time, only to receive a final grade based on a work they hadn’t had time to fully revise. How many students never receive feedback because they are unable to sign their name to a work that is just not complete. How do we allow the Cezanne-child to receive the formative feedback that she needs while gifting her the opportunity to reflect, grow and improve?

Of course we need deadlines and final due dates so that we may evaluate student progress and offer important feedback on completed projects. Afterall, we have a lot of content to power through, and we can’t allow limitless time on every assignment. However, when we are designing opportunities for student innovation, it is important to remember that we may have a Cezanne or two among even a sea of productive Picassos.

My advice is this: allow for innovation. For some Cezanes, it may be ok to never finish. A masterful teacher can find the learning within even the unfinished work, evaluate whether the lesson has been learned, offer formative feedback and guide the group on to the next work of art while respecting that each student has a personalized pace for innovation. Above all, Cezanne was a revisionist. Iteration after iteration changed, morphed and improved his work. For Cezanne it was not the product but the process that captivated his attention. Painting was a process and an opportunity to reflect on each new attempt at innovation. Let's make our classrooms a place that allows for learning to happen through a process of reflection.

The Science of New

Do you remember when you were seven years old and the six month waiting period from the Fourth of July to Christmas Break seemed to take a millennium? Now, as an adult, the same six month stretch seems to happen over a three day weekend. Turns out: there is science behind this. It is the same reason that the trip to a new place seems to take an eternity, driving down unfamiliar roads, searching for street signs or keeping one ear open for the sweet voice of Google Maps to audible your next move in 1000 feet. The funny thing is, on the way back from a first time trip to an unknown destination, the drive home can seem to happen in the blink of an eye, even when the trip out felt like forever.

Neuroscientist David Eagleman explains that “Brain Time,” is effected when we are experiencing something new. As we engage in new activities, we have to slow down, mentally, and take inventory of all the building blocks that make up this new experience. To a child, the memory of Christmas morning is vivid and filled with detailed recollections of joy: these memories are clear because on that morning, a child’s mind is racing to take in every detail of this once a year magical event.  As a seven year old, time doesn’t fly throughout the year because so much is new, so many events across the calendar are having to be deconstructed. A day in the life of an elementary student may hold as many new experiences as a grown up experiences in a month. Imagine, the less new that we experience, the faster we get old, and too often it seems the older we get the less new we create.

For those who have more than a couple decades of roads well traveled under their belt, it takes effort to create new experiences. Often we find ourselves pulling together a unit plan, a lesson, or even a conversation starter that we have used successfully in the past, and why not, common sense says that if it worked well the first time, why wouldn’t it be a home run again? Here comes the science: The first time you launched that lesson plan, it was new, and that was exciting, not only for the students, but for the person who created the plan. You paid attention to every detail, the excitement of the unknown caught your attention and that is why your memory of the event is vivid as a success. The kids were so deeply engaged, during the first time launch of that lesson, not because of the lesson itself but because you were so engaged. There is something powerfully attractive about seeing a grown-up experience something new. So, if we want to slow down the treadmill, bring excitement and memorable joy to our classrooms, we should make a commitment to trying something new.

Dear Admin: Let's Fail Together

Dear Admin,

I want to start by saying that I watch how hard you work. When others in the lunchroom assume that you are just wandering aimlessly from room to room - I defend you. I'm an observer. I see that you are working hard, with all your heart, to keep our school all moving in one direction, and I know that you are doing your best to do right by our kids.

I have been in the classroom a long time. I am good at my job. I build relationships, with kids, and their parents. I engage. I empower my students to grow; I track their growth using data; I share data with my collaborative team. I have perfectly angled borders on my bulletin boards, my room is decked in parent pleasers for Back to School night, I don't fill your office with kids, I attend every staff meeting and I sit somewhere in the middle. What I am saying is - I like the direction our school is heading, I'm following your lead: I'm in.

Ok, well, there is one thing...

Technology freaks me out. It is not that I don't think that I couldn't learn a few slick tips and tricks. It is just that I know, that the minute the tech genie comes out of the bottle, I will have lost my power. The thought of my 30 kids clicking in 60 different directions with every passing minute makes my head spin. I know that in the blink of an eye, and the stroke of a keyboard, students will be down the rabbit hole of flash games and unmentionable keyword searches.

I know this is the pendulum that has everyone swinging, but I somehow stepped off the ride and I am not sure how to get back on. So, I am asking you for help.

I will take the plunge into the icy waters known as the fear of failure - if you will too. I will get the kids on the Chromebooks, creating rather than simply consuming, if you will take the same leap with me.

As the learner charged with leading our staff, It must be scary: the thought of trying something new in front of all of us adults can be a little intimidating. What if you tried some new tech trick to engage staff at a staff meeting and it bombed? What if you stood in front of the staff and committed to using a Google Doc, as a staff meeting agenda, and you set the sharing permissions wrong? What if our staff meeting got completely derailed because we had to stop the meeting to make sure everyone could access the agenda? What if you used a Google Form to get feedback from the staff and you accidentally shared the editable form instead of the viewable form?! What if you asked staff to place their names on a Google sheet indicating which Adjunct Duty they prefer and somebody accidentally deleted everyone else's work?! What if you spent hours taking pictures and editing a video that you placed on youtube to show the staff, and on the day of the meeting, the internet went down?

The answer to each of the horror story questions above is this: you would fail in front of our whole staff...and that would be a good thing.

You would be showing our staff your willingness to try something new. You'd show that you weren't afraid to experiment, innovate and use technology to leverage the creativity of the entire staff. You would fail, you'd struggle, you would feel a flash of embarrassment and a sense of shame, then you would smile, then you'd shrug, then laugh. Then we would smile, then we'd laugh, then we would all realize that it is ok to fail. The whole staff would recognize that if you had the courage to fail in front of the adults, then we should have the courage to do the same in front of our kids.

I'm am looking forward to taking your lead on failure. I will only embrace failure as much as my leader does, so, for the sake of our kids, I hope you are a huge failure this year with technology! Good luck, we are all counting on you.

Sincerely,

The teacher who sits in the middle of the staff meeting.

Opening Night Jitters

Each of us has rehearsed the raising of the curtain in our mind more than once. Summer has come to a close, and whether you are the teacher standing in the front of the classroom, the student in the back seat closest to the door, the parent dropping off at the curb or the principal standing at the flagpole, we have each built up Day One in our minds to be possibly our greatest victory or our grandest failure. What is it about the first day of school that makes even the seasoned veteran second guess the most well laid out plans?

From every vantage point, the opening day of school is filled with firsts, and firsts can be filled with anxieties. The first time you meet your new teacher, the first read aloud to a new class, the first school-wide announcement, the first morning line up in a new line. I have been on the staff side of opening day for almost 20 years: I still toss and turn the night before opening just praying to not oversleep!

When I used to direct school plays, I would have to coach young actors through the opening night jitters every season. It never seemed to matter how well rehearsed the show was, and you never knew who was going to get the biggest set of jitters: one show it might be the lead and another you may have to coach a spear-carrier off the ledge just to get him to walk on stage in a single scene to announce the coming of the king. Regardless of the position within the cast, one sure-fire method I always found useful was this: If you have the jitters, you are probably focusing too much on yourself; you are not aware that you are surrounded by people that are just as nervous as you and maybe need your help even more than you need theirs. Walk out on that stage, make lots of eye contact with the people around you, be a comfort to others, help them by speaking slowly, smiling, and really listening when they speak. The best cure for the opening night jitters is to focus on finding someone to comfort.

So, for each of us who are preparing to raise the curtain on a new school year, I wish us all good luck and a safe journey. If anyone is feeling a little case of the opening night jitters: walk into school on Day One and find someone more nervous than you, make a little eye contact, and let them know that they are going to be just fine.

Have an amazing 2016-2017 Launch!

Play, Smile, Create a Sense of Joy

I remember sitting in the staff room in 1997, I was a substitute teacher, trying to figure out the gig and was willing to take any sage advice I could find. One would be mentor told me, "Eat tuna fish for lunch and wash it down with black coffee, then just get right in their face fifth period - they'll never act up again." This was just one of many pearls of wisdom that were doled out to the fresh group of educators looking for that silver bullet solution to gaining the attention, control and approval of our classroom constituents.

When I read the book, Blink, by Malcom Galdwell, it struck me like a rock: within the blink of an eye, we make a first impression. As humans we instinctively make a judgment to determine whether or not the person running the classroom has our best interest in mind, whether the teacher cares about us individually and whether or not this is a person we can make a connection with. Paul Tough, the author of Helping Children Succeed, clearly assembles research that points to the fact that kids, especially those with the highest risk factors for failure, learn best in a room where there is a relationship between the teacher and the learners.

So, on that first day of school, in those first moments, although it may be tempting to, "Lay down the Law," or to get the syllabus completely read through, I would suggest something a little different: Play. Smile. Create a sense of Joy.

After nearly 20 years of working in education, I have found that those who set the rules and regulations aside on day one, and instead, invest deeply in building relationships right away, are those educators that have the most productive rooms in the long run. Rather than single-filing in, finding our seats, learning the procedures for roll call and hearing a lot of grown up talk about the launch of the new year justifying the need for order, imagine if each student were greeted at the door with an individual conversation and a small slip of paper leading her on a personalized treasure hunt through the room, while the teacher spoke to each new entering student. Imagine the delight of students of all ages if the loudest laugh came from the teacher and the first structured activity was a progressive Rocks-Paper-Scissors tournament that ended in the mounting of a plague upon the wall highlighting the name of the champion and signed by all of the tournament’s participants.

In award winning researcher Berne Brown's Ted Talk regarding vulnerability, she unpacks the key to allowing powerful relationships to blossom. She explains that when we close ourselves off, and don't allow for vulnerability, we protect ourself from the pain of rejection and rebuff. However, in doing so, we psychologically have also walled ourselves off from the feelings of Joy and Pleasure that come from truly falling into a meaningful accord with another person.

On that first day of school, when first impressions are not an option but a reality, there is nothing more attractive than looking to the front of the room and recognizing a person seeking Joy rather than control. Be vulnerable, allow the kids to see the kid in you, don't worry about covering the rules right away, because as my friend Phil Boyte loves to say, "Rules without Relationships create Resistance."

Don't be Afraid to Commit to Culture

My son and I built a skate ramp. It is really a mini-quarter-pipe; it only stands 3 feet high and 4 feet across. The idea is to learn the “Drop-in,” the “Kick Turn” and the “50/50 Rock n' Roll,” all in the comfort of our own front yard. The challenge with learning any skateboard trick at my age is a fear of failure. I know, we all talk about failure as a learning opportunity, but in this case, less is sometimes more. Today I must have hit that ramp 50 times trying the same trick over and over. Each time I'd make a run at it, and each time I would come up just a hair short of pulling it off. My 12 year old said, "It’s scary huh? You just have to commit." It floors me when the boy who can never remember to pick up his towel off the bathroom floor drops some Yoda-style wisdom that shifts my paradigm. He was right, and I did, and everything worked out, without any broken bones!

This past week, many of our staff attended a 4 day Responsive Classroom training. Our school is committed to building a high quality and supportive culture both in the classroom and throughout the common areas of our school - Responsive Classroom is one important piece of that puzzle. We could spend our time, energy and financial resources on any number of commitments. In fact, many of us on the leadership team find ourselves saying, "We can afford to do anything we want, we can't afford to do everything we want." So, deciding what to commit to is probably the number one function of our leadership team. It is scary: we are all afraid to fail when it comes to high stakes testing, serving special populations, ensuring the 21st Century soft skills, and the list goes on. The truth is, each is a thread that woven together makes the tapestry of our industry. So, with so much to work on, why are we so committed to culture?

Our commitment to building culture is not a program, it is not about a purchase, nor an adoption, for us it was about a commitment to our students as students first. There is fantastic research that demonstrates our most at risk students do not respond to academic intervention until they have created a relationship with the person delivering the support. These same relationships make formative feedback possible, open the dialog between student and staff regarding bullying and allow for students to connect their hopes and dreams to learning, thereby making academic projects relevant. Our team believes deeply that culture is the garden bed, if the bed is cultivated well, anything can grow.

It doesn't matter if you are trying to master the 50/50 Rock'n Roll on the skate ramp or if you are launching student led conferences: both need a total commitment. Once the ramp-rider believes in himself, and fully commits, any trick becomes possible. Once a school fully commits to building a culture founded on strong relationships - the possibilities become limitless. Every school strives for academic and social success for its students, and these targets become infinitely more obtainable when a school commits to building a supportive culture, where staff and students are connected; a place where each student is involved in the building of successful processes; a place where all adults agree that language matters and logical consequences are only one step in restoring relationships. When a school commits to building this type of culture, all things become possible.

Growing Butterflies

My amazing wife, with a few clicks of the track pad, added a butterfly kit to our Amazon cart. Within just a few days, we were the proud parents to a jar full of caterpillars and within another week, those caterpillars were wrapped up tight in a chrysalis stage, transforming from worms with legs into majestic flying creatures. Our four year old daughter, and even our 10 and 12 year old boys, each stopped by from time to time, while passing through the living room, to peek into the butterfly basket to check in on the transformation.

The lessons of this amazing spectacle are limitless for those of us in education. First, it is important to remember that even though, at one point, the caterpillars look as if they are doing absolutely nothing, to the naked eye it seems as if they have wrapped themselves up in a self-spun blanket and have gone off to sleep for several days; it is at this point that each one is actually rearranging their molecular structure by, at one point, liquefying their current existence and transforming their body into a completely different organism. This first magnificent feat reminds me that I never believe a student isn't learning. It just isn't possible. Even though, to the naked eye, a student may seem docile and disengaged...there is always learning happening. There is danger in assuming a student has stopped learning just because they are sitting quietly in a chrysalis stage at a desk by the window. If I assume a student is disengaged because they are lazy, and I let them out of participation, the student has just learned that grown-ups who don’t believe in her will let her off the hook. What a student learns is dependent on the environment. Just like the caterpillar, when a student is given the right circumstances for learning, a full metamorphosis from kindergarten to college is the outcome.

Next, as a butterfly begins to emerge from this incredible time of transformation, there is an observable moment of struggle for life and death. The head may emerge from the chrysalis, then a leg, maybe an antenna or two, and finally a wing. There is this moment however, when it seems as if the butterfly has given up. Breaking free from its past is just too difficult. It is at this moment, when the butterfly seems that it can not make it alone, that, as a good butterfly parent, you feel compelled to help. It would be so easy to just peel back that last piece of hardened shell of the chrysalis to allow the butterfly to break free - it feels like the ethical thing to do. However, it is exactly this moment of productive struggle that helps the butterfly build enough strength in its wings to eventually fly. If you help the butterfly emerge, it will never fly. In our classrooms we have to inspire the productive struggle. We have to set our students up to do hard work that will eventually lead to individual success. Too often school is a place where children spend the day watching adults work very hard - it should really be the other way around. If we know each student well enough, we can set personalized targets that, with a little productive struggle, we are sure each can meet. Once each student feels the inspiration of success, they will be ready to fly to the next challenge.

I love education. Working with kids and those who help to grow kids has been the greatest honor of my life. Maybe I see the lessons everywhere, but I could not help drawing the parallel between growing butterflies and launching students as productive lifelong learners. I think the lessons I am reminded of are that first, environment is everything, and next, personalizing is crucial to create productive struggle that ends in success. Let’s all spend some time this summer dreaming up ways that we can create an environment that propels students to grow; let’s strive for a classroom that recognizes students are always learning - even when it doesn’t look like it from the outside. Finally, let’s start the year with personalized targeting in mind, to ensure that each well crafted opportunity at productive struggle ends in an affirming success story for each learner.

This week, when the Amazon order arrived, I found out that we are growing Ladybugs! I can't wait to see what happens next!

Project Based Learning and Apple Pie

It is the season of Independence Day, every aisle of every store is stocked floor to ceiling with red, white & blue pool noodles, American-flag emblazoned picnic paraphernalia and patriotic party favors in preparation for backyard BBQ’s across the country. Last night my wife and I got caught up in the season and took the kids to the community theater to see a production of Meredith Wilson's, The Music Man. The show takes place in small town River City, Iowa on the 4th of July, 1912. By intermission the kids were antsy enough to go home, but as I sat in the dimly lit theater, watching the smiling faces sing songs and perform prat falls on stage, it made me realize that each of the players on stage may get far more out of the experience of putting on a show then maybe the patronage that pay the $14 admission. Community Theater is a great form of Project Based Learning.

It seems like a million years ago, but, I began my career as a high school drama teacher - best gig ever. It was like being the chaperone to a publicly funded version of the Little Rascals Clubhouse: we would dream up some scheme and the club would spend countless hours plotting, planning, preparing and producing shows. Although I spent time trying to teach a few standards in between all the dreaming and producing, the truth is, the students learned far more about working as a team, solving problems, making decisions when there was truly no right answer and all this learning was in preparation for a deadline that was publicly known: each of our mom’s would be in the audience opening night when the curtain rose.  I directed that first school play was nearly 20 years ago, and, when I bump into a 35 year old, former drama student in the grocery store, they often explain to me that the skills they learned producing those plays in high school are skills that still help them in their adult life.

Today, as an advocate for Project Based Learning, I realize that back in the old drama room D-103, we were rocking PBL before it was a thing. The power of the modern PBL movement is the weaving together of cross curricular learning and development of the 21st Century, College and Career Readiness Skills, like Collaboration, Creativity, Communication and Critical Thinking.

While the PBL movement is taking on many shapes and sizes within the American institution of Education, most agree that true Project Based Learning is more than the old mission project, where mom and dad help little Bobby assemble a sugar-cube constructed mission that goes from display at open house to the dumpster along with the $50 in art supplies that parents produced to capture the grade. PBL is about creating something authentic, something that includes student voice and choice, projects must offer the opportunity for students to reflect and revise, over time, during the course of the work, and the project must produce a product that is offered up to the public outside the classroom.

Whether you are considering a class play for the students in your charge, or you are a parent with a budding actor at home, I would encourage you to embrace the real learning that takes place when young people are given the opportunity to learn in authentic settings. To be clear, it doesn’t have to be a play, find your passion, connect it to the interests of the kids, create something that is on display for the public to see, and make it an authentic opportunity for learning! For some kids it may be building a website that helps people find lost dogs; another student may share a history lesson only using close up photographs of antiques. It is time to stop believing that college and career skills come only from the drill and kill academy of the academically rigorous classroom. For too long we have believed that standards can somehow be acquired in isolation, then eventually applied in adulthood, by a future version of our students. How will these future adults ever be dreamers of innovations and producers of productivity if we never really let them attempt authentic production until they are expected to also support their own families? Let your son be an actor, let your daughter be a student director, encourage your small group to produce a play as a learning outcome: don’t worry, you are not encouraging future Hollywood starlets any more than PE class alone produces Olympians. Let the computer driven student code and the child who chases light take photos. Structured as an authentic learning opportunity, each of these experiences can lead to a life long pathway of productivity.

As the flags fly and the fireworks flash, I can't help but think that the community theater is one of our American gems, a place where people gather to watch a story, co-constructed, come to life. Classrooms should be the same. Everyday, let's gather our students together, invite them to inspire us with their stories, then we can stand back and let them create, collaborate, think critically and communicate their way into a future that we can't possibly imagine.

Big Wave Surfing

Peff Surfing Tavarua at age 70

My uncle Jeff is that person who everyone goes to for sage advice. He is a lifelong surfer, he flew helicopters in a war long forgotten by too many; when he strums the guitar it lights up a room; and he surfed big waves before big waves were co-opted by ESPN and the X Games. He is that guy that no matter what the stakes or how bad the odds, he never sweats, he always plays it cool. When Jeff was a kid, his older brother nick-named him Jeff-the-Peff and it stuck. Now in his 70’s, people young and old turn to him for one of his famous “Peff-talks.” If you have 15 minutes and you need some inspiration, a Peff-Talk is exactly what you need. Peff once gave me a piece of advice that may have saved me more times on land than in the ocean where it was intended to be used.

When you are surfing big waves, there is this terrifying moment affectionately known as living through the spin cycle. Paddling for shore as hard as you can, a wave lifts your feet directly to the sun and when you pop to a standing position, the world disappears below you and just then there is a moment of free fall. Next, if all goes well, you are cruising at top speed, down the line, the wave collapsing behind you like a massive fluid dinosaur rolling down a hill. Then it happens: maybe you take your eyes off the horizon, maybe you just glance down and something wobbles - the wave has got your board, you launch superman-style off the front of the stick in a diving position praying that you will punch through the wall of water in front of you and emerge out the other side as the wave rolls onward toward the shore.

No such luck. The human body is over 60% water. The wave is 100% in control. You enter the wave and become the wave. As it topples and crashes, you go with it. Right side up is now upside down and no effort you could possibly make has any bearing on the direction your limbs are being pulled. Surfers call it the spin cycle and it is a terrifying place to exist for any amount of time.

Peff asked me one day: “Can you hold your breath and count to ten?” He said no matter how big the wave, when you are being pushed or pulled, dragged across the reef or spun in the spin cycle, all you can do is relax and count to ten. If you know you can hold your breath for 10 seconds, then there is no reason to panic. You can't fight against the wave. So, go with it, stay relaxed, allow the machine to complete its cycle and all the while just count to ten. Jeff said, “You’ll always make it to the surface by ten, if not, you can panic then.”

In my nearly 20 years of working as an educator, I can think back to more than a few big wave wipeouts. The worst happen when I have just glanced down or maybe stared too hard at a problem that only got bigger because of the attention I had given it. It seems the unspoken lesson may be, that in an effort to avoid the wipeout in the first place, it is best to keep your eyes up and your focus on the direction you are headed.

Regardless, there are those times when, without fail, we all wipeout: an angry parent, or a whole room of angry parents; a news crew at the curb because a student made a horrible decision; a news crew at the curb because a teacher made a horrible decision; almost any news crew; the fire alarm during the homecoming dance; 20 kids fighting in the intersection; that first moment you walk onto campus in the morning to find the entire school has been tagged with gang graffiti overnight; senselessly losing a student; losing a beloved teacher; the phone call in the middle of the night and that moment before you answer knowing it can't be good; the list could go on and on. The truth is, no matter where you are in your career, whether you are in the classroom, and your list is filled with big-wave wipeouts in front of students, parents and administration or you are the principal and you get stuck in the spin cycle at a staff meeting, just relax, hold your breath and count to ten.

I have been lucky enough to coach some amazing people during my career. I have watched new administrators get grilled sitting across the table from advocates with a blood lust. I have sat with teachers in parent meetings so tense you could strum the room like a harp. Each time I have the opportunity to work with anyone in this industry, who may meet a force moving full speed ahead like a wall of water, I give them the same advice. You can’t shout back at a roaring wave and you can’t change its course. Relax, count slowly inside your head, stay poised, allow the force in motion to roll past you, without expending too much of your own energy, then you can get back on your board and paddle again. It is one of the hardest things to do, but staying calm, resisting the urge to meet force with force, always pays off. I have found that regardless of position or title, the person who stays relaxed, and fights the least, is always looked to as the leader during a crisis.

Every terrifying moment passes. Each of them go more smoothly when you are able to use Peff’s technique and avoid panic. A large intake of oxygen just before the point of impact, then counting to 10, will get you through almost anything.

Always Look Back

Our school sent some fifth grade students to the local Air Force base on a field trip. So much fun: flight simulators and dreams of aerial somersaults captured the attention of all but a few. The lessons were ubiquitous: engineering matters, preparation is key to a successful mission, math is EVERYWHERE. The lesson I latched on to most was this: a pilot may spend 30 minutes in a briefing meeting to prepare for a rather mundane one hour flight, then one hour in the air, but once they land, they may spend two and a half hours debriefing. That means the pilot spends more time talking about the flight after she has landed than the time it took her to prepare and fly combined!

Can you imagine the implications of this same structure in our education industry? What if for every one hour math lesson, you took 30 minutes to pre-brief the mission, then you delivered the lesson, then spent TWO HOURS debriefing that single lesson!

This past Thursday was our last day of school. We had all staff, over 120 of us, all in one great big room. We hired a fantastic caterer, we printed individualized name placards with personalized notes enclosed; we scrolled a Google Slideshow: each slide featured a staff member's picture and a note written by one of our parents showing gratitude for our staff. The day kicked off with a waffle bar and rolled right into celebrations as we passed the mic. We all laughed, a few of us cried, but we all seemed connected after 180 days of the struggle.

My favorite part of the day was the reflections. We built a 30 foot long timeline; it had the school logo and it was decked out in the school colors. The timeline started in August of 2015 and ended in June of 2016. Some amazing staff had pre-placed some pictures of major events and celebrations on the timeline, so, to someone who didn't know better, they'd think the timeline was completed before our reflection walk even stated. In front of the table were nearly 300 printed pictures from events and photo opportunities throughout the year. Staff took a gallery walk across the printed pics, grabbing the ones that made them smile, then cruised down the timeline for some inspiration. We then had time to share, via post-it note, memorable moments professionally, personally and as a team.

The end product was so amazing it was hard to take it down. Literally hundreds of post-its with truly heartfelt and impactful memories of moments that spanned across the ten month timeline. Someone remember the day they announced they were pregnant, right next to a teacher who scored their first bundle of joy from Donors Choose. On one end of the timeline somebody got engaged, and on the other end they got married. People remembered CUE Conferences, workshops, staff lead PD, field lessons, special guests, school events and one person recalled that a particular student of hers had a "Complete Breakthrough" on October 23, 2015.

Somebody might ask if it is worth it. Why take the time to feed people, celebrate them, and ask them to spend time reflecting on a year that is in the past? Some people may say it is "Touchy Feely." I once had a superintendent look me right in the face and tell me that, "Morale is bullshit, results are what matter." Well, excuse my printing it on the internet but I think that opinion is bullshit. Our staff prepare for challenging missions all the time, they often fly solo without even a wingman overseeing their six: the very least we can do is to take a little time to debrief the mission before sending them off on 8 weeks of R&R, then launching them back into it all over again in the fall.

Always Changing

I've got a great gig, as the Executive Director of an incredible school with two campuses, I try to split my time equally between hiding in my office cranking out Board Briefs and what not, versus popping back and forth between campuses to catch a glimpse of all the magic that is Kindergarten through Eighth grade. There is no easy gig in education, but some are certainly more consistent than others: what I dig about this job is - it is always changing.

This week I drafted some PD plans for the 16-17 year on Monday morning and then got to swing by Kinder-Coders as they launched Bee-Bots and rocked some entry level Hour of Code in the afternoon! Between Tuesday and Wednesday it was reviewing Bylaws, Board Calendars, and coaching principals in the office, but in the halls the STEAM Days continued K-3 while the 4th graders staged a three ring Pioneer Day with all the trimmings.

Parents, staff and students dressed in gold rush regalia, students learned to write with quills, spin

rope, pan for gold and even hung out with a real blacksmith on site who stoked the fire and bent iron ore to the delight of all! The Pioneer day ended in the afternoon with a full blown square dance in the cafeteria!

The next morning I met with the construction team and watched massive bulldozers push dirt at the new school site where we have just broken ground. By the mid-day the the eighth graders demonstrated their physics chops by competing in the "Protect Your Melon Project," (like an egg-drop but larger and with a sillier

name), meanwhile while sixth grade math students tried to explain solar power by disassembling cell powered lights. That night was the Governance Committee Meeting followed by the Board Meeting. By Friday, I looked back at the week and realized that this gig is different every day and always changing...which for anyone who has taught 4th/5th grade...you know how I ended my week.

Yup, the boys were separated from the girls into two separate rooms. The third room was solitary confinement for those kids that didn't get a permission slip filled out by mom. I drew the short straw this year because we needed someone to man the boys room to watch the annual 19 minute, right of passage film, all about the power of puberty: Always Changing. So, there I was with 54 ten year old boys in Mrs. C’s room. When the movie was over, I asked the boys if it was ok that Mrs. C step out so we could talk...just us guys. Silence and head nods. The movie was still processing in their minds. Each wrote at least one question on a slip of paper and placed them in the box. Part of my job is negotiating multi-million dollar contracts, I have been asked point blank questions that I shouldn’t answer for fear of due process, but no previous experience prepared me for a room full of pre-pubescent boys all angling at an appropriate way to ask the big questions that were on all their minds.

Needless to say, there is never a dull moment at my job, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

A Glimpse of Reflection

Have you ever walked past a storefront window, maybe you looked down to check your phone, and out of the corner of your eye, you caught a glimpse of your own reflection? At first you have that lighting fast reaction and for just a split second you think, "Hey, I know that guy," then you realize it's you. Maybe you love the way you look, maybe you realize it’s time to buy a treadmill, or maybe you wonder, "Is this the way everyone sees me?"

A couple weeks ago, +Jay Willis called me up and asked if I would like to tell my #EduLeader story on his podcast: Educators Lead. To be honest, I was super flattered and thought, "What the heck? I'm in!"

I blocked off an hour of time, shut my office door, and when the time came, I jumped on the wifi and rapped with Jay. He and I had never met, but Jay must talk to a lot of initially nervous people, because, within a few moments, we were talking shop like we'd worked together for years.

Jay asked about this and we talked about that, and before I knew it I was telling stories I hadn't even remembered that I'd lived. Once you reach far enough back and uncork the past, the stories seem to have a way of taking on a life of their own. Before I knew it, our time was up, and Jay was letting me know that the podcast would be posted soon.

It is genuinely the busiest time of the year in the busiest job I have ever known, so, the weeks that flew by made it easy to forget that I was waiting for the podcast to post.

When it did, it was just like that moment in the store front window: I heard my voice and realized it was me. There was a story that I told about a kid who had long ago wandered out of my life, I forgot that I even told that story until I listened to the podcast. I have since had a few mom's at my school tell me, "I listened to your podcast, it made me cry." At first, I don't think I realized why people were at all moved by the story of a school administrator, but then it dawned on me: we all spend so much of our lives wearing a mask, trying to look like we have it all under control - I know I do. Every once in awhile, when we are not focused on the mask, but instead are just caught up in a moment, we let our guard down and get just a glimpse of what we look like when we are being ourselves. I think Jay Willis offered me the chance, like the storefront window, to catch a glimpse of myself when I wasn't looking.  

It is an honor to tell my story, and I am #thankful to Jay for helping me capture it. Even the hard times in leadership are worth remembering because we should all take a moment to learn from our own stories.

If you'd like to take a listen, check it out here: http://www.educatorslead.com/johneick/

Why Every Educator Should Present at a Conference

Education is a strange business, I know a hundred amazing teachers: these people proudly perform artful demonstrations to the daily delight of school children across the country. They capture the attention and minds of America's youth, they read the wacky and wonderful words of Dr. Seuss as if they were everyday occurrences uttered at the checkout stand. This incredible tribe of Teachers are shameless as they attempt and fail and try again for 180 days a year in front of the future leaders of the world...

However, if you ask these all-stars to speak about themselves? Ask them to describe the craft they have spent years mastering? Ask them to share a system that they have painstakingly developed and for which they should be deemed a master learner? Well, they'd be glad to share...just not typically in front of a room of adults.

So why should we face our greatest fears, set aside our self doubt and share our open resources with rooms filled with willing participants? The easy answer is: it is good for our kids. When we have to explain a process that we use daily with our children, it makes us stop and really analyze the process that we are pitching, it makes us answer the question, "why," and it forces us to document something into a slide deck or website that we have been meaning to write down for longer than we'd like to admit. I'd say, as ed-tech educators go, I am somewhat savvy with things like Google Forms, but I am 10x more confident today using tech than I was before I made my first presentation.

Step 1: Go to Twitter
Step 2: Find a Call for Presenters
Step 3: Make the leap!

If you are anywhere near Sacramento, and you would like to present on October 1, 2016 at the #CueTechfest16:

Click This Link to apply before June 8, 2016!

The Universe Rewards Action

When I was just a kid, my dad placed a yellow Post-it note on the refrigerator door, it read, "The Universe Rewards Action." I am not at all sure where my dad got those words of wisdom, and I am not sure the words made all that much sense to the 10 year old version of me. Looking back, I now see that this little yellow square piece of paper stuck to my refrigerator was a Post-it note prophecy. Every success I have celebrated, every badge earned, every scar that lead to a great story around a campfire or cocktail lounge, and certainly every bit of deeply held belief: each came from some leap of faith beginning, not with understanding, but with a simple action.

I wish I were writing this blog post 13 months from now, when I would surely be able to more articulately describe my eventual learning that was born on the day Brian Briggs came to my school. Who has time to wait to see what the future me learned from this experiment. The current me knows this: something great will come from this first step.

Brian Briggs is a Director of Innovation and Other Creative Amazingness (or some such incredible title), here in Northern California. I am super lucky to call him my friend, and have had the opportunity to watch him wow the crowds at many a CUE conference. The Briggs show always has first timers learning to roll robots across the floor with creative coding and the Tickle App. It is not unusual to catch a room full of full-grown educators cheering and screaming in unison while they compete for one of Briggs' 3D Printed prizes. Brian always has teachers flying drones, coding on iPads and thinking creatively in 60 minute ed-tech slam sessions all across the map.

On day I asked Brian if he would ever be able to swing by one of my schools and turn our crowd on to the possibilities of programing with primary kids, and, Briggs said he was game! He pulled into the lot on a Thursday afternoon with a trunk full of toys and took my top 10 tech minded teachers for a buckle-your-seatbelt-wild-ride. As a side note: these were no ordinary teachers - they are Super Stars. No joke, if you can dream it up, and it sounds good for kids, they'll do it. This team rocks 1:1 Chromebooks from 2nd - 8th grade, the likes of which I would put up against any Google-tastic team!

The entire team of ed-tech All-Stars dove right in: Coding Spider Drones to flip before landing, teaching Spheros to run a masking-tape maze designed on the floor and coaching Bee-Bots to solve simple equations on a chart. Each member of the team giggled, learned and turned-on to the idea of coding with kids. If we were this engaged, the kids were going to love these tools! At the end of an hour gig with Briggs, the team was fired up, minds were blown and they were dreaming up ways to bring these tech-tools to life with students.

The Brian Briggs sighting was only a couple weeks ago. Since then we scraped together some end of the year money that had fallen between the sofa cushions of the annual school budget and we ordered our own trunk of toys. The devices haven't even arrived yet but already I have seen 3rd Graders rocking Hour of Code in anticipation of the arrival; 2nd Graders tickling the Tickle App on iPads making whales fly across the screen and middle school teachers prepping lesson plans to include Drones before the end of the year!

I am not sure what we are going to learn from this little experiment. I don't know that we will evolve into a full fledge STEAM focused Code Academy because we noodled with a couple robots...but I don't know that we won't. When it comes to learning, there is really never a last step, so, the most important one is the first. The universe rewards action. We decided to explore something new and I'll check back in to let you know where it leads.