Don't Forget About Me

"I can think of no better instrument than the human voice."

___________________________

Watched our EMS (Early Morning Singers) and 5th grade perform tonight. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it. I'm still humming, Down By The Riverside. Kudos to Charlene and the kids! Bravo!

After our concert finished up, I headed down to Sierra Vista to watch the 6th and 7th grade orchestra concert. And there I saw our alumni making music and I got teary eyed. How proud I was of those kids that a) stuck with cello from cello school and b) had the courage to attempt to learn a musical instrument in middle school.

Look, I'm a product of a balanced childhood. (Thanks Mom and Dad). I had the privlege of learning and studying music and it made a profound impact on me as a learner and human being.

Yet as I watched the students perform, I was struck with the thought... Once these kids leave Outlook, do I ever really think about them? Do I ever really stay somehow connected? Sadly, my mental answer to this was NO. And it's a shame.

So many times in my busyness of life and work, once those kids leave, part of me leaves with them, yet is that part never to return? As I listened tonight, I was filled with pride and a little shame. I haven't stayed connected like I should have with the kids once they leave.

I don't know how I do this, but somehow, someway, I need to.

Outlier

There are a few books that I've read multiple times (non-fiction) that, because of content, I go back to. Outliers is one of them. Not that there's technical information that's so important it's worth revisiting, but because the stories behind what makes an "outlier" -- in the book's case, a person or people that are far above the norm -- are so unique and important to how we see our world and education.

Take for example, the famous Bill Gates and his fabled story. But closer analysis shows that it wasn't so much his intelligence that lead him to his initial success as it was opportunity and (get this) hard work.

Now when we say hard work, one often thinks of long hours and toil. But just how many hours constitutes hard work. In Outliers, you learn the magic number. It's 10,000 hours or over. 10,000 hours. Think about that. Take that number, divide it by 10 years. That's 1,000 hours per year, then divide by 365 and you're looking at appox 2.8 hours a day to work on something to become world class at it.

This is just one example of the many findings in Outliers. I'll be posting more later.

5 Dysfunctions and the Community

One of our fifth grade teachers referred me to, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and because I'm somewhat of a verascious reader and listener (I have umpteen audio books), I finished it rather quickly. I was both encouraged (mostly) and humbled to see the characteristics of a high functioning teams and low functioning teams.

The old axiom, There's no I in team is said all the time as is But there is ME. Early in my teaching career, I was focused on me, me as an individual teacher and how great my ideas and programs were. And many times, they were unique and interesting, but they were done alone. How hindsight and experience teaches us differently. What I failed to understand in my twenties is that you can accomplish far more, experience greater personal satisfaction and achieve greatness when you function as a team. This was brought home to me in the early 2000s when the school district I worked for received a large federal grant to incorporate vigorous, daily PE.

Before this grant, I worked alone. With the grant, I was able to team with a fellow PE expert, who not only taught me a great deal, but made for an excellent partner. As at team, our teaching improved, our program improved, and ultimately for the final years of the grant, the results were amazing in what children accomplished in terms of their physical health.

Teaming itself is difficult because I think for the majority of us, we don't know how to team. We like the concept, we think we share, but we don't. Why? Well, for one, our society is a society of "me" and not "us". We have, what Stephen Covey refers to as, "the scarcity mentality." In other words, I'm not going to share my creative and engaging idea or thought or program because by doing so, I will lose uniqueness and for some, perceived power. Instead, we should have the mentality "of abundance" which refers to the concept that there's plenty of great things to go around and my sense of worth doesn't come from whether or not I alone have a great idea or program.

But many times when people share great ideas other perceive this as arrogance. "Oh, she thinks she has all the answers doesn't she?" are the thoughts that can cloud the mind. In order to avoid this overcast mentality, we have to create a culture of trust among team members so that such comments are taken in the spirit of team and how that can make the team better, because by making the team better, we're better.

Throughout the school, we have high functioning and low functioning teams. Every orgainzation does. It's my hope and goal that this year we can focus on how to make our teams stronger, thus making us as a whole group, stronger which ultimately leads to better, happy people and just as importantly; better, happier students.

Engaging Young Readers

So many books, so much to learn. Finishing up Engaging Young Readers and trying to synthesize the plethora of information found in this compilation of text centered upon promoting achievement and motivation.

Here are first of some important notes that I took away:

--In some classrooms reading instruction for poorer readers primarily involves the explicit teaching of word attack and word recognition skills, with little time allocated to extended reading and discussion of the text. (Palincsar & Klenk, 1992)

--They (the teachers) immersed their students in meaningful reading and writing activities but also actively taught decoding, word recognition and comprehension, increasing the among of systematic and explicit coverage of these skills with weaker readers in their classrooms. (Pressley, Rankin, et al., 1996)

--A common instructional arrangement that should be avoided is ability grouping, or the practice of sorting a class into three or four reading groups on the basis of ability. Children are often placed in such groups at the start of first grade, and it is not uncommon for struggling readers in the bottom group for the rest of their elementary school years. Ability grouping can undermine the confidence of waker readers, as they are cast in an often permanent hierarchy where the yare labeled as the least successful. (Flood et al., 1992)

The Power of Post Education

Duh. It's a no-brainer. I'm a proponent of post high school education. Partly because I'm a product of college/university life and also because I've seen the staggering statistics in regards to students that attend college and those that don't. I recently worked on a grant that had the following stats:

- Most 8th graders today will tell you they plan to go to college. However, only about half of Latino 9th graders graduate from high school within four years, compared to 79% of Asian Americans and 79% of Caucasians.

-A child from a higher income family is five times more likely to earn a BA degree by 24 than a child from a lower income family.

-A recent study noted that a significant barrier to higher education for low-income individuals was not a lack of opportunity, but a lack of information about college and financial aid opportunities.

You read those stats and are reminded of the power of college. Yet what are we doing collectively as an educational world to promote it, especially with those that need it most, our at-risk kids? Not much, I'm afraid.

At Outlook, we study Brain Rules, the book by John Medina. One of the rules is REPEAT TO REMEMBER. We have to repeat, repeat, repeat...if we want students to recognize and know information. Talking about and exploring what college is has to be reviewed constantly. That's why I'm so excited by our University Points program. Not that it's a competition for our students so much as it is an avenue by which we can use to talk about university life.

We can only do so much at school, I know. Parents and family have to help as well. But before we go to bed tonight, we have to ask: Did I do everything I could for the student(s) I work with?

FIRST DAY

Education is an amazing profession. Truly. Such variety, such importance, such a wonderful opportunity to leave a stamp on the world and to say "I contributed to society in a positive way." Not many professionals allow you to step away from it (ie, summer break) and return refreshed and renewed.

I was so happy and impressed by not only the students today, it being first day and all, but with the teachers and staff as well. Everyone was so professional and the positive things I saw in my walk throughs today were so encouraging. Bravo to an amazing staff of professionals and caregivers.

Though the art isn't up yet (don't worry that will be coming), the building looks good. Kids are walking on the right side, staying polite and this year feels VERY POSITIVE.

Kudos for a great opening, everyone!

And tomorrow, it's kinder time, baby!
Ah, kinders!

Cheers,
Mr. Bowman

Improvements

Research tells us that any time we implement something new it takes 3 to 5 years to see sustained and improved results. WASL results came out this last week and though we have some areas that we still need to hit hard (I'm thinking 4th grade math) we saw major improvement. Yeah!

It's due to the hard work of this staff that the results are what they are. We needed this because in order for us to reach that "escape velocity", which we're primed and ready to do this year, we needed an improvement base and this is what we needed.

I'm excited for the next year, proud of the efforts of so many, and look forward to helping children go to the next level in their education.