A little nourishment from Seth Godin

This isn't the first time I have mentioned Seth Godin on my blog. I will be the first to admit that I am obsessed with his work. I've also recently learned that I am not the only teacher who has a marketing blog at the top of his reading list.

Why? Contrary to popular belief, I think teachers are salespeople. I think we have to sell ourselves, our lessons, and our vision for a classroom community. I think we need to be aware of the world outside us and the trends that influence the children who are sitting in front of us. Most of all, I think we have to realize that kids have a choice. They might not be able to choose whether or not to be in your class, but they can choose to give you their attention. That is why I like Seth Godin, and that is why I enjoy reading a marketing blog in my spare time. More than anyone else in the world, marketers know what it means to fight for your attention. I'm a fighter.

Seth's latest blog post made me get excited about the new school year. He talks about how few online ventures are overnight successes. The world is abuzz over web 2.0, with companies thinking that they can create a living, breathing online community overnight. It doesn't work that way. Likewise, you can't create a living, breathing classroom community overnight. I am guilty of trying to force things. I want the class to bond by the end of the first week of school. I want them to hang on my every word by the end of the first day. And if I start a new project or change the way I teach a concept, I want it to be a success from the minute we begin.

Well, it doesn't work that way and therein lies the problem: Your class will be wild on the first day. You'll set rules and procedures that no one will follow. Your magnificent idea for teaching the concept of multiplication will be an utter flop. Yet you have a choice. You can let the bumps in the road get you down, or you can pressure on with the knowledge that you are dong the right thing.

Four years ago, my students and I built a garden in the back of the school with a Native American theme (including a wigwam, canoe, native plants, and more!). It was a fun, meaningful project for that first group of students. The next class? Not so much. The class after that? Nope. I had put so much thought into the actual building of the village that I never figured out how to make it meaningful year after year. I was tempted to knock it down and move onto something else. Not only was I unable to make it meaningful for my subsequent classes, but my dream of having the entire school utilize the garden never materialized. It was a major bummer, to say the least.

Rather than give up, I decided to press on. Last year, we kicked off the year by having each child in the third grade become tour guides in the village, giving tours to other classes. Later in the year, they all contributed to our spring planting of corn, beans and squash. For the first time since the garden was created, an entire grade felt like they were part of the action. The garden and its key features (wigwam, canoe, etc.) even inspired us to create various crafts, plan an archaeological dig, and play games. Finally, four years later, the vision started to become a reality. It wasn't there yet, but we were on the way.

But that's not all. Perhaps it was just a coincidence, but I saw more classes than ever heading outside for various projects last year. One fourth grade class worked with us to plant a tree and create a new garden on the side of the school. Several fifth grade classes took ownership of the garden beds outside their classrooms. A reading instructor took it upon herself to plant forsythia in an area where rain was washing away the soil. Another teacher spent several days hauling rocks from a construction site in her car. She used the rocks to outline one of the garden beds. That same teacher arrived at my doorstep the other day to see if I had an extra watering can, as she was heading over to the school to water a few hastas that she had transplanted.

For me, treating this project like a marathon - rather than a sprint - made all the difference in the world. I might not be in the business of educating children (from a "profit" standpoint), and I might be more interested in "helping" children than beating the competition, yet I still think you can learn a lot from the business world. As Seth Godin says, we want to make something for the long haul.

Teaching from the front lawn

If you walk down my street, odds are you will see me outside.....on my lawn, near my lawn, or perhaps hovering above it (in a tree!). I am definitely obsessed with my property, and one of my obsessions is playing around with organic fertilizers.

Last night, I was applying 50 pounds of corn meal with my Scotts rotary spreader (not an easy task since the corn meal is not "granular") when a husband and wife walked up with horrified looks on their faces. They looked down at my legs - which were covered in corn meal residue - as well as the small cloud of dust that seemed to be following me, and they were shocked.

"You better get a mask!" the woman yelled over to me, obviously thinking that I was applying some type of chemical fertilizer. Having seen those little "warning" flags dotting the landscape in our neighborhood, she definitely figured that I was applying something that you wouldn't want to touch, let alone inhale. And while I am not too keen on inhaling a cloud of anything, I had to laugh and share the real secret to my relatively green lawn - organic fertilizers.

It's easy to read about making a change in the environment, and perhaps it's easy to take a few steps behind closed doors (recycling, using less water, etc) to make a change. But if we are to truly reach the masses, as teachers, we have to be willing to do some things that invite others to join in the conversation. The couple chuckled as I dipped my hands in the bucket of corn meal and rubbed it up and down my arms, and if I had to bet, I bet that they have already told someone about the peculiar guy at the end of the street who was creating a cloud of corn. And if my goal was accomplished, the next time they are in the market for some fertilizer, they'll remember that peculiar guy with the green lawn.

Do you buy it?

After 12 years of teaching, I guess you could call me a veteran. And as a veteran, I have been involved with more than a few meetings. I've seen meetings where ideas have taken off, and I've seen meetings where they've crashed and burned.

The most interesting moment is when the new idea is floated out to the masses. A new math program. A new reading program. A new anything. At that moment, you can pretty much tell how it is going to end.

I am not a big fan of force-feeding a new program down a staff's mouth. Well, at least not down the mouth of a staff that is already achieving at a high level.

When you have a staff that is achieving at a high level, an interesting yet totally predictable phenomena occurs. When something good comes down the pike, they jump on it. When something isn't worth the time, they put on the brakes. And while there might be times when a principal needs to push harder for a change that the masses don't want to make, the fastest path to innovation and greatness lies in fueling the staff's intrinsic desire to make big things happen.

My grade level went from 0-60 in a matter of minutes today. One minute we were talking about a language arts change that few teachers - if any - want to make. The next minute, as the topic changed, so did we. The burst of energy, excitement and innovation followed our principal's invitation to start planning a new interdisciplinary science unit for next year. Within minutes, we had the entire skeleton of the unit mapped out. In fact, we found a way to extend the study throughout the entire year and, in the end, extend the fruits of our labor to the entire school community. It was a powerful time period.

So, why did this conversation take off?
1) The new unit came out of need. I will be moving to fourth grade next year, and science is the one subject that has some holes and rough edges. School-wide, it is the subject that has been given the least attention in recent years.
2) It made sense.

Why did the other one crash and burn?
1) Few people on the staff saw it as a need, and those that did didn't think that the proposed solution was the right one.
2) It didn't make sense...not right now, not for this school.

As our meeting rounded out its second hour, I left with a few "high fives" and a promise to meet during the summer....a promise to meet during the summer to work on a project that technically wasn't supposed to start for another 8 months.

When you can get a group of teachers to leave a meeting on such a high, you know big things are going to happen.

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You are probably wondering what got us so excited. Last month, we decided to introduce an Environmental Week next spring. It will be a week where we basically shut down "business as usual" and rally the entire school around environmental issues. All day, every day, every subject, every staff member, every student. Today, we fleshed out our grade level's area of focus. Since we already study New Jersey as well as oceans and salt marshes, we decided to focus on water as a habitat. Furthermore, we decided to extend the theme to the entire year, looking at different types of habitats right outside our classroom walls. Our study will take us into the woods, along the stream, and near the local pond. We'll travel to an estuary as well as an ocean. We'll not only study habitats, but we'll also create them, planting flowers and creating conditions for wildlife to flourish nearby. It will truly be a powerful year.

I can't wait to start planning.

Does your lesson have it?

I was reading my normal selection of business and education blogs when I found this post.

I have to admit that the title gave me a chuckle or two at first, but the idea struck a chord. A couple of the replies in the comments section suggest that the author might have misinterpreted the definition of a "wienie," but he was definitely onto something. As a die-hard Disney fan who tries to replicate the Disney magic in my classroom, I know what he meant. It's the "extra something" that Disney adds to his parks and attractions to make them worthy of the Disney name.

Any company can create a roller coaster. But when you ride Expedition Everest and see the shadow of the Yeti jump onto the track, you know that you have been sprinkled with the Disney magic. It is that magic that keeps you returning year after year.

So, what makes one lesson or project stand apart from another? To borrow a term from the linked post, it's often the wienie. It's the little touch that you add at the end to make it stand apart from the "same old, same old." It's when my colleague Tom Trubac trumped me by dressing up in a powdered wig for our Colonial day. It's when I turned a garden into an experience by adding a canoe, wigwam, and a "native" theme. It is when we announced that our annual poetry anthology would be combined with original artwork and photography in a professionally bound book. When you add the wienie, a lesson becomes an experience.

A few weeks ago, as we were about to wrap up our tour of the local composting facility, I found myself thinking that the trip needed something else....a wienie. The facilitator said that we could see the finished compost. I wanted more. He said that we could see the truck that grinds it. I wanted more. Finally, he relented and let us watch as several yards of lawn waste was poured into the enormous shredder. The chips flew 40 feet into the air to a chorus of "ooohs" and "ahhhs" from the students.

Now THAT'S a wienie!

To choose or not to choose....

I was just reading through the latest posts on bigideas.org. The blog throws out a question each week and invites a group of educators, led by Grant Wiggins, to chime in. This week's topic is: How much choice should students and parents have in their educational experiences?

As a parent and a teacher - in the same school - it is an issue that crosses my mind frequently. Other parents often walk up to me and say, "It must be great being able to choose your kids' teachers." The thing is, I've never even offered a preference, let alone use my position to push my child into a particular class. I just trust that things will work out.

I'm not the first teacher to have a child in the school. I'm not the first to sit back and let the principal decide. But if I did decide to put in a request, I definitely wouldn't be the first one to do so, either.

The fact is, I am totally torn on this issue. On one hand, I would love to choose my children's teachers. Yet every time I am tempted to do so, the words of one of my friends hits me like a ton of bricks. She sent two kids through the school where she works maintains that, whenever she wasn't thrilled with the teacher that her child had been assigned, it turned out to be an incredible year. In the end, she was glad that she stayed out of it.

I know my kid. I'd like to think that I know the teachers in my school. But what I don't know is how my child will mesh with any given teacher, or with the class as a whole. I just have a hunch.

And I'm not the only one with a hunch. It seems as though every parent has a hunch. Like any school, there are a few teachers who are the stars in the parent community, and there are a few who don't get the recognition that they deserve. As both a parent and teacher, it is difficult to hear the misperceptions that exist in the community. If I can't trust myself to place my child into the right classroom, how can I trust a parent community whose perceptions are often influenced by a few vocal members?

I don't know what the answer is. I do know, though, that the public won't stand for being cut out of the process for much longer. In an age where one can go online and purchase anything that they want, at the price that they want, in the blink of an eye, you can't expect them to sit back and trust that decisions will be made in their best interest. Public education seems to be one of the last areas where the age of customization hasn't hit in a big way.

Yet choosing a teacher is more complicated than purchasing a sweater, especially when most of our parents are working 9-5 and have very little contact with the school, its teachers, and its programs. When I first came to Hawes, a parent could walk in the front door at any point in the day. She could wait outside the classroom. She could grab a cup of coffee in the library. Not anymore. In the name of safety, the doors are locked during school hours. They congregate on the playground, but it isn't the same. On top of that, our after care program is bigger than ever, as more and more families require two incomes.

So, where does that leave us?

We may be years away from allowing parents to choose teachers, but we definitely need to find a way to bring them back into the school. We need to be more transparent, more accessible. It begins and ends with communication. As a teacher in the school, that communication comes easy for me. That is why I am comfortable with letting the administration choose my children's path. My challenge is to communicate with the other parents in a way that enables them to have that same level of comfort. And if we reach a point of comfort where parents can take a greater role in teacher selection, that might not be a bad thing.

Powerful outdoor connections

I notified my class today that there is a group in town that is considering a plan to build a ball field in the woods. The news came a day after we planted a tree outside, a week after we explored the woods in search of dark, rich soil to feed our plants, and two weeks after we launched an outdoor poetry unit. Needless to say, they weren't happy. Some were downright angry.

If we stayed inside all year and only studied the "great outdoors" in a text book, I don't think they would have cared.

Wish I had been there

My colleague, Lisa Sargenti, took her class outside today. I saw them disappear into the woods as we were writing poetry on a nearby field. Her class had just read A Log's Life and headed out to see the life cycle of a log in action.

I walked into her classroom after school and was met with a wave of enthusiasm. In the span of 30 seconds, Lisa told me about the book, the trip, and the multitude of photos and artifacts that were collected. It was definitely one of those "Wish I had been there" situations.

Over the course of a six hour day, Lisa's students did many things. Five years from now, I bet they'll only remember one.

Bringing the classroom outdoors isn't easy - but its worth it.