Focus Matters: A Lesson from Star Wars

Remember: Your focus determines your reality Qui-Gon-Jinn

Based on my son's growing interest, my husband was excited to realize that he was ready to watch Star Wars.  With some convincing of my 8 year-old daughter to at least try the first one in the series, "The Phantom Menace" was our feature film for a recent family movie night.  When Qui-Gon-Jinn tells Anakin "Your focus determines your reality," I had an ah-ha moment.  It struck me as good advice that I needed to heed and share. 

Amidst the avalanche of education reform (Common Core, Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium and mandated Teacher/Administrator evaluation) it is easy to lose focus on what matters.  Let's face it, even rooted in the best of intentions and the need to close the achievement gap by ensuring the highest quality of instruction for all students, there is a lot to question about the grounding of these reforms, their impact, and the roll out (ahem...all at the same time). The inability to approach these questions in a thoughtful systemic way has created a culture of stress and concern not only in our school community, but across the nation.  It was clear that something needed to change.  

I realized to ensure the complete success of our students, the growth of our staff, and the moral of our building, it was time to change our focus.  It had to be on something other than Common Core State Standards, TEVAL/Admin Evaluation, and SBAC.  It had to be on relationship building, providing learning centered instruction, creating opportunities for students to become change agents in our school, and engaging our families in authentic ways. We needed to shift our chair and try to see more of those sunsets Jon Harper wrote about in his recent 44 Sunsets post.

So I did something that I hoped my staff wouldn't find crazy.  First, I apologized.  I explained that I was shortsighted for establishing the wrong priorities by choosing TEVAL and CCSS/Rigor as two of our three big rocks. I apologized for putting the focus on what should not be our reality.  Next, I told them it was time for a mid-course correction where we, as a community, would choose the big rocks that mattered. And then, I invited them to create the reality we wanted by focusing on what will empower and prepare our students, on a culture and climate that makes EVERYONE excited to be in our school, and on measurements beyond the "big" assessment. CCSS,  TEVAL/Admin Eval, and SBAC, under current regulations, are still a part of our requirements but there is more to a school, to its culture, to its success than these things.  Last week, we made a decision not to wait any longer to choose a new vantage point. We shifted the position of our chair to see a few more sunsets.

"But we must wait," I said. "Wait? For what?"

"For the sunset. We must wait until it is time."

At first you seemed to be very much surprised. 

And then you laughed to yourself. You said to me:

"I am always thinking that I am at home!"

Just so. Everybody knows that when it is noon in the United States the sun is setting over France.

If you could fly to France in one minute, you could go straight into the sunset, right from noon. Unfortunately, France is too far away for that. But on your tiny planet, my little prince, all you need do is move your chair a few steps. You can see the day end and the twilight falling whenever you like . . .

"One day," you said to me, "I saw the sunset forty-four times!" 

The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Why I Decided to Start Blogging

One of my Big Rocks this year is to become a "connected" principal.  One objective toward this goal is increasing my own digital literacy and use of digital tools for the benefit of my staff, students, parents, and my own professional growth.  

My first step was following  Jessica Johnson's and Dwight Carter's blogs along with their staff Friday Focus/Memos. I was inspired to create a Friday Focus for our school that  highlights "staffulty" and students and shares resources, articles, videos, blogs, or tweets from other educators related to our Big Rocks.  My next step was finally joining Twitter after years of encouragement from a very connected teacher, @PaulBogush, who inspired one of my teachers at a Dialogue 21 Conference so much with his session that she joined the Twitterverse that weekend and fully embraced how web 2.0 tools could change her teaching and students' learning.  As a result of the edchats, the very cool educators I follow, and what I hope will be a growing PLN, I've decided to embark on the next step in my digital journey and create a blog.  I'd like for this to blog to reflect my views and thinking as a leader as well as my learning journey.

I am blessed to work in a district that supports technology for learning.  BYOD was adopted the year before I arrived; each team has a Google Chrome book cart; and I have an amazing LMS/Tech Ninja (Denise) who is constantly demonstrating ways for students and teachers to integrate technology through co-teaching, modeling, and embedded PD.  We also have the privilege of having district Tech Ninjas (Denise and Jeanne) who push our thinking and practice and keep us current.  However, in order for transformation to happen, I know that I have to be a digital leader who models the use of social media and other tools to share and encourage learning and to connect with and inform stakeholders about all facets of our school.  This means being open to change, taking some risks, and sharing the lessons of the inevitable missteps along the way.  I say bring it on!
 

Inspired by a Neal Shusterman Novel --A Note to My Staff

     In preparation for our author visit with Neal Shusterman, I committed to reading at least two of his novels.  Last week I finished Bruiser.  I have to say I was so engaged with the characters that I acted like a YA and read it in one night.  I enjoyed the book for its handling of tough subjects (divorce, isolation, bullying, friendship) and the journey the characters take to accepting the pain involved in dealing with these situations.  The best part of reading a novel is connecting it to past or current experiences.  In thinking about our school's Big Rocks, I was struck by this quote from the character Brontë. 

     "In horse racing they put these slats on either side of the horse’s head, blocking the creature’s peripheral vision. They’re called blinders. They don’t actually blind  the horse, but they allow the horse to see only what’s right in front of it; otherwise it might freak out and lose the race.
     People live with blinders too; but ours are invisible, and much more sophisticated. Most of the time we don’t even know they’re there. Maybe we need them, though, because if we took in everything all at once, we’d lose our minds. Or worse, our souls. We’d see, we’d hear, we’d feel so deeply that we might never resurface.
     So we make decisions and base our lives on those decisions, never realizing we’re only seeing one-tenth of the whole. Then we cling to our narrow conclusions like our lives depend on it.
     Remember how they imprisoned Galileo for insisting the earth revolved around the sun? You can call those people ignorant, but it was more than mere ignorance. They had a lot to lose if they took off their blinders. Can you imagine how terrifying it must be to suddenly realize that everything you believe about the nature of the universe is wrong? Most people don’t realize how terrifying that is until their world is the one being threatened." (Shusterman, 85)

     Last week we were part of department CSIs whose topics ranged from reviewing summer curriculum work, creating assessments, aligning curriculum to CCSS, to digging further into the teacher evaluation plan.  I can imagine that the influx of knowledge and change in some ways felt, at the very least, unnerving to what we know.  So when I read this, I could not help but think about how our Big Rocks are helpful blinders to keep us focused on what is most important in front of us so that we do not feel as if we will not resurface from the onslaught of changes.  Unlike Brontë who is about to witness a family "nuclear fission" that she didn't see coming, we know the big picture.  

CCSS and TEVAL for those who see the big picture, is an opportunity to take our teaching and learning and professional growth to a new level. Implementing the standards themselves will not bring about new waves of student achievement, but the creation of lessons that allow students to analyze, exercise critical thinking skills, and apply their knowledge and understanding using technology and performance based assessments will.  The TEVAL plan while new in someways, overall is similar in so many others to what we already have done as it allows for teachers and administrators to identify and create smart goals, a plan of action, and opportunities to assess progress.  For all of the concern about an end rating, WHPS' approach to TEVAL is what it should be: an opportunity for us to grow as professionals and discuss those areas of need and strength with other professionals who can serve as resources and coaches to continue our growth.   

As we go through the year, I want us to wear the blinders not to keep out the "threats" to our way  of doing things, but to help us focus on the goal of supporting students to grow and achieve academically, socially, and emotionally with razor like precision so the we are not swallowed up by the avalanche of reform.

Image from Venosdale