RFK Ramblings

All 50 States

Last night I filled some of my time by playing a game on line that tested my ability to name all 50 states.  I was, needless to say, overconfident.  I began by trying to name them alphabetically (shamelessly adding another piece to this simple task).  Then I changed my approach and started to list them based on region.  I was truly thumbing my nose at this ever so simple task.

Soon two things started happening.  First, it was clear that I was forgetting states.  Second, and more of a concern, is that I was running out of time.  Oh, I guess I didn't mention that this game involved a time limit which likely explains why I suddenly started to forget the names of states.  Funny things happen when we add time limits to seemingly simple activities.

Have you ever had to run out of your house and then later remember that you've forgotten something?  I did just last weekend.  In a tremendous rush to get out of my house and on the way to a wedding when I remembered that I had forgotten shoes.  My only guess is that time played a factor in my forgetfullness.  The time factor increased my stress to a point where my ability to remember simple things was debilitated.

Of course, forgetting Minnesota doesn't mean I suddenly lack the knowledge of a 6th grader it only means that I needed more time.  The use of time in a classroom is a powerful tool underappreciated by teachers.  It is clear to me that it is a delicate tool that needs to handled with care.  Too little time and it may lead to wrong or forgotten answers.  Too much time and it may lead to lazy performance.  The use of time at all, however, will always provide a level of stress that will keep students and me it seems working fast.

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The Big 3-0-0

This morning I hit 300 miles in my car on a single tank of gas.  I know that by itself that seems like a very ho-hum accomplishment, but consider that I have been aiming at this target for over four years and I think it's easy to see why I'm so pleased. 

It was over four years ago that I first noticed that I kept coming close to 300 miles per tank of gas, but could never quite get there.  I would often get to 280 before having to fill up.  A couple of tanks I even got up to 295 but alas had to fill up before getting those last five miles.  I really had no idea when I filled up the other day that this tank of gas would be the magicial tank that would get me to my goal.  Even now reflecting back on this morning I am overcome with the complexity of hitting 300.  Clealry, for this driver, this is a unique number.  It is most unique because of all the factors that have to be just right for it to be achieved.

No matter how well I drove over the past four years - and trust me I drove really well some of those weeks - I needed to have as little traffic as possible and a schedule that included an abnormally large amount of highway driving.  I also needed some nice weather for the week.  I didn't have to be too hot or cold but no rain or snow.  My car needed to be in good driving condition, so the tires had to be inflated properly and any fluid that could impact mileage had to be at their proper levels.  In the end it seems that a lot had to go right in my quest and most of it, if not all of it, was beyond my control.

So my role was to keep my car moving quickly on the highway and have a busy schedule.  Everyone else had to be doing their part as well to keep this goal a possibility.  I wonder how common that is.  For the perfect day or the perfect lesson to take place how much do we really control?  How many other factors are at play?  What happens if one of those factors is off?  What if your classroom phone rings during a lesson that was, up to that point, perfect?  Is perfection gone until your next chance?  I suggest that it's our ability to cope with the curves or bumps that allow us to ever attain perfection.  Nothing ever goes smoothly the entire way...I sat in traffic yesterday afternoon for example.  Our ability to plan for the things that might go wrong and stay level headed when they do get us closer.

It just so happens that on Sunday an average pitcher for the Oakland A's pitched a perfect game.  That means he retired every batter he faced for the entire game - 27 up, 27 down.  Many have approached that level of perfection, but that was only the 19th perfect game in major league history.  I promise you that while that was a perfect game there were imperfect parts to it.  He, the pitcher, probably threw a few pitches he thought were bad, but were just missed by the other team.  For him, on that day, he knew how to cope with whatever was going wrong around him and it worked.  Clealrly it just doesn't happen that often. 

Humming...

I fully admit that there are times I want to record people.  I know full well that recording people would not be appreciated by most and serve really no actual purpose because most would have no interest in listening to themselves for instructional purposes.  But if I could...

I would record little league coaches.  On my son's little league team his coach likes to shout out a constant stream of instructions to the kids who, by the way, are 9 and 10 years old.  The instructions are meant to be productive I'm sure, but I do not think they have the desired effect mostly because there are too many of them, but also because they are spoken in code.

First, when giving feedback of any kind it's important to give one piece at a time before moving on to the next piece.  For example, there are many small motions that make up a successful pitch.  After all the small motions it's vital for the pitcher to repeat those motions exactly to get the desired result over and over again.  This coach, however, likes to give them rapid fire like, "Take a big step", "Snap your wrist", "Push down to finish", or my favorite, "Just hum".

So it's easy to understand that by giving rapid instructions he doesn't allow for the player to improve at just one of the pieces before moving on to the next.  It becomes more complicated because much of the feedback and instruction is impossible to understand completely, and that is the larger problem.

There are many examples of feedback that is difficult to understand.  It is further complicted when it is given by an adult to a child.  It is unlikely that the child will ever suggest that the adult give better feedback.  Furthermore, both the adult and the child experience frustration because the child doesn't really understand what to do and the adult doesn't understand why the child isn't listening.  This, of course, leads to a host of other problems involving relationships, confidence, and producing better outcomes.

There are many examples of these issues all around us.  I encourage all of you to find some and write about them, in fact I've written about this topic in the past.  Maybe we can all start recording.

World Series and Assessment

This year the world series is truly unique in that it is the first time in a while that the two teams, the Yankees and the Phillies, are generally considered the two best teams in their leagues.

In recent years that has not been the case as the best teams have been eliminated in earler rounds of the playoffs.  How exactly does that happen if they are the better team?  Simply put the playoffs in any sport are far more random in their outcomes then the regular season.  A playoff series in baseball only consists of five or seven games.  It is hard to determine who is better using such a small sample size.  After seven games of the baseball season it is not usually clear yet who the best teams are - afterall the season is 162 games long.  Over the long haul, however, we get a much clearer picture of how good a team is because we have a much larger sample size giving teams the opportunity to perform to their potential.

The same is true in school.  The more assessments we give students the better picture we get of the tue ability of a student.  In addition, it allows students the opportunity to work to their potential.  Offering more assessments throughout the school year yields major benefits to all students.  Giving only one or two assessments during a marking period doesn't always guarantee that the best students will perfom the best...but they will over time with opportunity.

Instant Feedback

I know I have spoken to many people in the past about the value of feedback.  I am fascinated by all the ways we, as educators, can receive and give feedback if we so choose much faster and more meaningfully than our colleagues could have in previous years.  That is, in part, because of new technology that allows for feedback to be received by teachers immediately and because as educators we are smarter and see things with a very different lense.  Still, anytime I come across interesting examples of using feedback I must write.

The other day I was driving home listening to my favorite radio show when they - the hosts - began talking about the feedback they receive as their show is going on.  They described monitoring their IMs, their emails, their calls from listeners (even the ones that don't get on the air), and various other forms of feedback that include chat rooms and other places where listeners get to post messeges. 

I was blown away hearing it.  This show is not what I would consider to be high art and still they don't want to wait for the ratings to come out to find out if the listeners are actually interested in the show.  In this instance a caller asked if people were enjoying their previous interview cause he did not.  They cited the feedback that had been collected to say that it had, indeed, been positive.

I have said in the past that the challenge is not in the gathering of the feedback but in the use of it.  The reality of feedback is that we all gather it everyday whether we want to or not.  some we use some we discard.  The trick is to make it conscious, to set up systems that we know will give us up to date feedback and then make adjustments accordingly.

Again, if this smart use of feedback can exist on my low brow new favorite satellite radio show then there must be a way to do the same in our classrooms.

Where is the lesson?

On Saturday night during her Semi-final match on national television Serena Williams exploded into an ugly tirade against a line judge that resulted in Serena losing a point and subsequently the match.  I am not so concerend with the tirade.  Great players in every sport have regrettable moments just like the rest of us except they live their lives in the spotlight while the rest of us have the comfort of not having to watch our ugly moments replayed endlessly on tv.

My concern with Serena is her lack of remorse about the incident.  She has said that she just wants to move on and not live in the past and that she does not think the judge deserves an apology.  Most of us would like to forget our embarrasing moments and repeatedly celebrate our triumphs.  Our charachter is revealed most when we have to deal with our own shortcomings.  Everyone looks good in victory, but how do we look in defeat - especially when it is our own doing. 

The fine art of exploding or why everyone is not meant to teach...

I was recently at the gym working out with my trainer.  I was, at the same time, watching another trainer work with a client.  The other trainer was giving his client instruction on an excersize that was new.  as a means of instruction the trainer told his client to step up to apparatus and explode onto it.  I, of course, immediately began to wonder how one actually explodes onto anything.  My thoughts were not meant to be deameaning to the trainer but very serious.  Of course, the issue is not how to explode, but how do we make sure we give clear instructions to people so they can increase their own chances of success.

Good teachers have a knack for giving concrete, specific instructions to kids.  Obviously this is not a skill everyone possesses particularly when we are trying to explain things that we do very well.  The more specific the instruction the less likely the instructed make errors in form or judgement.  Make an effort to listen to linstructions you give, receive, or over hear and see if the instructions are clear.  Read your childrens assignments and see if they are easily understood.  It's amazing what good clear instructions can do. 

Lost in Barnes and Noble

I took my son to Barnes and Noble last night to meet author Jeff Kinney who has written a very popular series childrens books called Diary of A Wimpy Kid (The Jed Herman Story).  We arrived at B&N at about 6:45pm for a 7:00pm start only to be informed that numbered bracelets had been distributed starting at 3:00pm.  We ended up with number 1745!!!  It was going to be a long night.

The point here is not to retell the story of the night and how we finally did get to see the author shortly before 11:00pm and how we passed the time in a very overcrowded book store.  The point is what did not happen.  Clearly the store was unprepared for the number of people who showed up for this event.  In fact, they ran out of books, and numbers - even making people wait outside.

The point is that they never bothered to adjust their plan once it became clear the orignial one wasn't going to work.  That is, by far, the biggest problem we faced last night.  They monitored the situation, but never adjusted to it.  It's wonderful to go into any endeavor with a plan, but it's only a plan not a guarantee that things will work out.  Leaders, managers in this case, need to re-evaluate their plan when they first find out its not viable.  To carry a plan forward just because that was the plan is irresponsible and ignores the people most effected by it.

That's Why They Play The Game...

A great thing happened late Saturday night.  The Arizona Cardinals beat the Carolina Panthers in an NFL playoff game.  It was great because Arizona had been winless this year in games played in the Eastern Time Zone and because Carolina was undefeated at home.  No one really gave Arizona a chance to win, and yet I am sure they practiced hard all week leading up to the game and at least they believed they could win.

Something else sports related happened back in November as well.  North Carolina University beat Noth Carolina University at Ashville in a college basketball game 116-48 on November 30th.  That game, unlike the football game above, was no surprise at all as the winning team is far superior to the other.  I'll wager, however, that the Ashville team and their coaches worked very hard preparing for a game they knew they would lose.

Sports, as I often write about, provides a great window into the world of education that we can, but usually don't, learn from.  In each of these cases the coaches worked hard preparing their teams to play.  I bet they watched film and analyzed strengths and weaknesses of themselves and their opponents.  It's very likely that no one anywhere said that they shouldn't play the game at all.

The RFK Girl's Varsity Basketball Team has won one game in the past 4 years and yet they still prepare for each one.  There are games that the coaches know they won't win and still they scout, identify the other teams best player and review what they have to do to win.  I have never heard one of the coaches say that they just shouldn't play.

Often the exact opposite happens in the classroom.  Teachers, administrators, parents, even the students themselves decide they shouldn't even try to play especially as we approach January testing time.  Instead of preparing by analyzing the data or identifying what a student does well we debate whether a student should take a test at all.  

It's ok to lose or to fail.  Sometimes its about redefining what success means or about inching closer to success each time you take the test or step on the court.  None of that is possible if you don't play or worse, if you play but make no effort to prepare because you determined the outcome already.  Sometimes we are all the Arizona Cardinals and we win a game we were not supposed to win.  More often we are UNC-Ashville or the RFK Girls' team and we lose - but at least we play. 

Welcome 2009 - Opportunity Knocks

I am not a big fan of New Year's and the insane partying that goes along with it.  Often it feels to me just like another day and, thus, I don't feel the need to celebrate.  I will admit to becoming nostalgic, refelctive, and thoughtful during the New Year's time.

I have started to think about opportunity and the often mysterious ways they get presented to us.  The great challenge of opportunity is how to recognize it.  Frequently its a small, seemingly insignificant event that becomes a domino effect that alters the course of your life.  Think about your current job, how you met your spouse, or choosing a career path - they all started with an event, an opportunity that was small but over time turned big.

So, in '09 like '08 before it opportunity will knock.  Sometimes you may not want to answer the door, but I am encouraging you to get up and open every door - you never know what's waiting on the other side.

Happy new year!!