Why You Should Be Teaching Your Students to Beg

Why You Should Be Teaching Your Students to Beg

by | May 12, 2014 | Blog

My wife and I have made a concerted effort to decrease the amount of interactions our 2 year old daughter has with technology.  We haven’t so much decreased her screen time as just avoided it all together.*  However, if you’re a parent like I am, then you know that your  child has an uncanny ability to chip away at your resolve.  Between ear twisting whines to sweet smiles our daughter has learned the art of begging, leaving shame in her wake to finagle her way into getting what she wants.  Lately, as her reasoning ability has begun to develop it’s been interesting to hear her try and use logic to get what she wants: “I can’t take a nap today because it’s cloudy,” or “I’m sad, can I have ice cream because it’ll make me feel better.”  Of course, when despite all her effort we still say no, she resorts to dramatic flails of her hands in the air with an exacerbated “please!” Truthfully, although I don’t want to give into my daughter’s iPad fix I’d like to see her sharpen her ability to beg, or said differently, sharpen her skills of persuasion.  I think we undervalue this skill in schools, and outside of schools we often relegate it to the used car salesman.  In doing so we miss an important skill-building opportunity with our students.  No not the art of car salesmanship, but the important skills of persuasion, argument, rhetoric, empathy, resilience, networking/community-building and many more. In fact, this is an area I continue to try and build in myself.  If you’ve been around me lately, you know...
How to Reclaim the Workshop

How to Reclaim the Workshop

by | Apr 16, 2014 | Blog

As far back as I can remember I’ve always been interested in working with my hands.  As a small child I would play with my dad’s tools in the basement, eventually making my own little workbench and collecting an assortment of tools.  When I learned to write I created a sign and placed on the wall, it read “ANdys Woke Shop”.  It was like something out of a cliche Sears commercial.  In our basement my dad had purchased a brand new band saw that sat on his work bench.  Being the great dad that he is he allowed me to use it with his supervision, even when I was so young that I needed a stool to see the cutting blade slice through anything in its way. Conscience of safety he hid the bright yellow safety key used to lock the on/off button when he wasn’t home.  But being an ever curious and sneaky child I’d sleuth around the workshop until I found it and continue experimenting with the saw and building an assortment of objects especially wooden swords, each one slightly better than the next.  Somehow I managed despite being a young 6 year old to not slice of a wayward finger.  These are the memories that come to mind when I hear the word workshop.  A place where things are cut-in-half, pierced with nails, painted, screwed together, and fixed.  Workshops are where things are built. Although I spend less time building woke benches (I mean workbenches) and using the band saw today, the word workshop is still in my regular vocabulary.  It’s been adopted by schools to...
Introducing The Learn[ed]Leadership Podcast

Introducing The Learn[ed]Leadership Podcast

by | Mar 27, 2014 | Blog, Podcast

It’s that time of year again, Spring Break!  For my international teacher friends this means trips to Bangkok or some other far flung low-cost destination.  Living in Hawaii I am blessed with a number of beautiful locations to celebrate a little time off.  Whenever a wonderful holiday break comes in the year, I’m remind of something an inspiring educators once told me when I asked how he kept balanced.  He said, “I think balance is bullsh*t. If you think that anyone ever achieved anything great by living a balanced life, I think you’re living a dream…When you’re passionate about something, your life is not in balance, you achieve greatness when your life is not in balance..[But since it’s not sustainable] at a certain point in time you have to…recharge your batteries…and this is why our school holidays are so important. We’ve got students and teachers working at 100% all the time, and I want them to be doing that…with the understanding that when those holidays come around you take them, change gears, spend time with your family, and restore those energy levels.” I’ve learned by now that rest isn’t always laying around in the sun.  Sometimes it’s doing something you’ve never done before or learning a new skill.  So with that said I’m pleased to announce my latest tinker, The Learn[ed]Leadership Podcast.  I know that we don’t always want to take the time to read through somebody else’s blog thoughts, especially when there are dishes to be done, homework to grade, etc.  Also I’ve found through some of my interviews that somethings are better said than written.  So take...
The Logistics Filter

The Logistics Filter

by | Feb 18, 2014 | Blog

Have you heard the joke about the logistic-minded bride-to-be?  It goes like this.  Once there was a man who fell in love.  He couldn’t imagine living a day without his perfect wife, so mustering all of his courage he got down on one knee and asked his potential fiancé the big question, “will you marry me?”  Understanding how important of a question this was the bride paused to think deeply about what she was being asked, and finally replied, “is the chapel available on that day?” Alright, I’ll be the first to admit I shouldn’t quit my day job for a new career in comedy.  Still my joke has an important lesson, when dealing with matters of the heart don’t think about the logistics.  Of course, that’s not to say that logistics aren’t important, in fact they’re crucial, and really what helps the world go round, but our communities suffer when when we allow logistics to determine our school programs. Lately, I’ve been reminded by the good work Sherry Miller and her crew at Empowerment Unlimited have done to transform schools to help refresh and discover their core mission, vision, and purpose (check out my interview with her here).  Core mission and vision?  Yeah those things we have written in our admissions literature and handbooks.  Often these statements and goals never come off the paper their written on, and at the very least do little to transform and lead the schools for whom they’re created.  Of course this doesn’t mean that schools without vibrant mission and vision statements don’t have a powerful decision making tool, because they do, the...

Identity Crisis: The Changing Role of Teachers

by | Jan 18, 2014 | Blog, Entrepreneurial Learning

Are you a teacher?  Why?  What motivated you to choose a career working with students in schools?  If you answered yes to the first question then your second answer likely includes something like “I enjoy young people,” or maybe ‘”my parents were teachers,” or “I had an important teacher that changed my life.”  Some of you might also say something like “I was always a big science geek.” Of course enjoying students and school communities are an important part of having a successful teaching career, but what does it mean for your identity as a teacher if your content knowledge is less valuable.  Does that change your perception of the role of a teacher?  In the past teachers were the keepers of knowledge, tasked with the job of transferring their knowledge to others, so they could learn to repeat that information on tests, hopefully do a little critical thinking, and participate in a learning system that usually is less real then the real world.* Although this model of education is still replicated all over the world, there are some teachers and schools that are taking steps towards an inquiry-centered style of education, which instead of focusing on right answers focuses on questions and real life experiments (we’re taking very clear steps in this way in the Junior School at Punahou).  In this style of teaching identifying yourself as a science or humanities teacher becomes less relevant, although being able to see the relationship between the two subjects is critical. So what does this mean for the “apple on the desk” teacher who entered this profession because they always imagined...

Getting Risky

by | Nov 29, 2013 | Blog, Education

If you’re a football fan you know that in most cases if your on offense and it’s 4th and 9 it’s time to punt.  Or is it?  The other day I came across this video about the benefits and drawbacks of punting.  Take a look: To be honest, I’ve always preferred going for it on 4th down versus punting it away, which probably says something about my appetite for risk or my tendency toward optimism.  However, the story behind the story in the case of this coaching technique is that the school allowed the coach the freedom to take a risk in an otherwise written chapter in most football play books. Of course it’s helpful that the technique has worked out, but imagine the phone calls and emails that flooded the administrator’s office the first time they tried this and didn’t convert on 4th and 9 with their backs against the goal line…or in a playoff game.  Would you be so confident in your coaching staff to let them continue with their plan?  I’d like to think yes, but I have a tendency to lean towards risk. As a school leader this is a great look into a school’s willingness to accept and value risk taking.  Whether on the field or in the classroom do you promote or punish your community for taking risks?  At my school we’ve been moving our curriculum towards a style based on inquiry and student generated questions and interests.  Of course, this has been challenging in someways because like any change it causes us to move out of our comfort zone.  I think we’re...