A Great End To The Year

I have spent a little time reflecting as graduation is about twenty-four hours away on a couple of recent events that have taken place. The funny thing about it is that they are actually two of my least favorite events/activities associated with being a high school principal. Before you read any further, I would ask that no one takes offense and remember that what I have to say is my opinion (though I know it is shared by a number of other high school principals through conversations we have every year!). Prom and Awards Night. Just mention of those words tend to bring sighs and grimaces to the faces of high school principals. Read on and I will tell you why, and also share how this year my stance has somewhat softened.

Prom is a four-letter word, lumped in with all of those other negative four-letter words. Prom reeks of excess, over-indulgence, misplaced values, and cheesiness reinforced by 1980’s teen movies. I have never liked prom, even as student, yet I have been to at least 16 of them over the years! The amount of money that is spent is way out of whack. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t see a problem with kids getting all gussied up and having that kind of an opportunity, but when one looks at the cost, it is ridiculous! And, try to get 16- or 17-year-old girls to focus on anything other than dress styles, hair decisions, and size of heels after the end of February! And boy, I don’t even want to get into what is going on in the minds of the boys!

Awards Night has traditionally been that evening for me that has equal parts happiness and hard feelings. For every student that receives a major award, there are two or three that believe they were slighted. Adults in the audience keep a scorecard updated with number of wins and total dollars. Certain kids don’t show up because they do not think that they are going to get anything, or worse yet, because they don’t care. Understand that these are general observations and not necessarily indicative of any one experience. However, more often than not, I have seen things like this happens and at least from my standpoint, it taints what should otherwise be an evening that celebrates the efforts of a group of students that are grouped together as a class.

I will not say that I have changed my mind completely, but after experiencing both events for the first time at North Fayette, I have tempered my opinions and in some respects, I see hope! Or at least, I feel that there is some perspective. Starting with Prom, for the past twelve years, I have often wondered whom Prom is really for: the students or the moms. Seriously! It has seemed that a lot of moms have been more engaged than the daughters, and for the last nine years, parents were constantly hovering -- some years even watching kids eat! – during an evening that was originally considered a coming out for high school students. People spent more time talking about what so-and-so’s dress cost than they did taking joy in the often overlooked young lady who dressed up so beautifully. But I saw little of that here. More important, I saw a lot of kids having a lot of fun, which is what it is all about. They truly seemed to enjoy each other’s company and were absolutely no trouble at all! The faculty gave the kids some space and was treated respectfully in return. It was refreshing! I still have a problem with sophomores and 9^th graders attending, but that is for another day! It was a very enjoyable evening and a wonderful process to be part of this year.

Awards night was incredible! Yes, there were a few pencils working out there tallying up numbers, and I am sure that there were some questions as to why someone won a particular award and someone else did not. But, the outpouring of support from the community through Dollars for Scholars is most likely unequalled for a school this size. Support was spread throughout the class, but when I watched the students go up and accept, in most instances I thought that folks got it right. You know, the kids that work hard and achieve should be awarded for their efforts and excellence. We don’t give everyone a gold medal regardless of where they finish a race on the track, nor should anyone expect something different when honoring those for what they do in the classroom.

The end of the school year is by nature stressful, but I am enjoying the last few weeks of the 2009-2010 here at North Fayette. Give me a few months to recharge my batteries this summer and we’ll be ready to get going again in August.

Does Anyone Else Think The Way I Do?

From time to time I tend to have rambling thoughts and questions that I ponder. I don’t know if other people ever consider some of the same things, and if so, perhaps someone can provide answers to some of these questions. So, from a mind that wanders, here are some of those thoughts that run through my mind.

Is there are good reason that in youth sports today kids play 45 softball games a season, play seven volleyball matches in a day, or wrestle a 100 matches throughout the year other than for their parents to be able to say that they played that many games? Or because parents pay so much money into these programs that they believe they have to get a return on their investment?

Whatever happened to politicians being public servants that take their turn rather than making a career out of holding office and seeking ways that are in their best interest to stay in power at the expense of those who elected them? Our government comes to a virtual stop because these folks need to campaign to get re-elected, and with the fact that campaigns start earlier and earlier, do they ever just govern?

When an Iowa State fan claims they cheer for Iowa except when they play the Cyclones, or when an Iowa fan claims they cheer for Iowa State except when they play the Hawks, are they truly a fan of their team? In my opinion, a true Cyclone never cheers for the Hawkeyes and vice versa.

No offense to any particular schools, but I am now aware of two schools that refer to their girl’s athletic team as Lady Pirates. Does this sound right? Aren’t lady pirates wenches? From an English teacher perspective wouldn’t ‘lady pirate’ be an oxymoron? I never liked the sound of it. Can’t they just be Pirates?

A question was posed in one of the classes I observed lately in regard to the existence of a double standard between males and females in our country. The students certainly agree that it does exist though there was a significant difference of opinion on the extent of the standard. What bothers me a great deal, especially being the father of a teenage daughter, is how so few girls recognize that at the root of the double standard is power. Why do so many young ladies, and for that matter so many women, give up their power to a male?

Is it safe to say that American patriotism really got it’s biggest shot in the arm as a result of the Miracle on Ice at the 1980 Olympics when the U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! chant first appeared? Did that victory over the Soviet Union lead to the eventual failure of the communist regime? Would a victory this year have toppled Canada?

Do I understand correctly that our representatives in Washington, specifically an ethics panel, have said that it is okay to steer special projects toward their financial contributors? So by today’s standard it is ethical to give government contracts to people that throw you a big sum of money to help get you elected. Wow! In my mind, that sure sounds like “bribery!” Ethics sure have changed!

A recent item in the newspaper shared theses results from ten years of research: students with high quality teachers learn more than those who do not have high quality teachers. No kidding! Another instance where we spend millions of dollars researching common sense!

We Need More School

About seven years ago, I went through a transformation in regard to my opinion about year-round school. From the time that I first understood the school calendar, summers had always been sacred to me. Certainly as a kid, I valued time off from school and all that went with the summer, swimming, baseball, picnics, vacation, time at grandparents. As a teacher, I saw summer as an opportunity to do two things: supplement my income and continue my education. I pursued both with zeal every summer of my teaching career. Once I became a principal, I also became a parent. Summer gave me a chance to finish those things up that I couldn’t get to during the school year, as well as to spend time with my kids. We have had some great vacations to wonderful places, as well as spent a lot of time watching ball games and other things our children have been involved in. But as I stated at the outset, my opinion has changed.

One reason that I have changed my mind has nothing to do with school. It is more from the perspective of what has changed in the American family. When I was in school, my mom was home every day in the summer and my dad had a work schedule where he was flexible enough to get to ball games in the evening. Each day we had work to do or 4-H projects to work on in the morning, and usually we hit the pool in the afternoon, at least until I was in high school and worked for area farmers. Today, many of our students are with a babysitter, or home alone. Some high school kids work, and perhaps here there are more that have the opportunity for some good, full-time summer jobs, but many do not. I was fortunate because I had a lot of quality family time in the summer, but times have changed. And due in part to that, I think that a lot of our students would be better served to be in school.

The other major “whys” are numerous. We need more time to teach students what they need to know. Looking at those that come into school, they are not as well equipped as they once were due to changes in the family structure. But once we get them, the expectations are much greater than they were when we were in school. What educators are being asked to teach, and what students are expected to be able to do when they graduate, is so much more than it was just fifteen years ago it is hard to comprehend. To be competitive in the global economy, our kids need to have a more solid foundation of content knowledge and skill development. In addition, we need to have a more serious approach to school. There was a time when that was not an issue, but today the value of an education has diminished in the eyes of many. If we are not careful, the America of the future will include an underclass similar to what we see in some of those overpopulated countries on television. Imagine the level of poverty seen in Mexico City and Mumbai!

So what if the powers-that-be made the decision to go in that direction? What is the fall out? A good friend of mine lives in Highlands Ranch, Colorado and when his boys were in middle school and elementary, one attended a school with a traditional schedule and the other went to a year-round school. His comment to me was that it just takes organization and scheduling. Both boys had some time off in the summer, so that is when they took vacation. Both boys had some time off in the winter, and they vacationed again! They did not see an issue with family time with one of their sons having going year-round that could not be overcome. And because some of the breaks were staggered for the boys, they got to spend some quality one-to-one time with each of them that was not possible before. I guess it’s one of those glass-half-full situations if you choose to have that perspective.

If at some point we go year-round, we need more school, not just spread the year out. My proposal would be 200 days for students and fifteen to twenty days of training for teachers. No early outs or late starts for professional development. That would all be taken care of with those 15 to 20 days of mandatory professional development for teachers. Let’s have more time for kids and more time for teachers to learn how to improve their craft. A consistent criticism of teachers is that they get the summer off. Okay, make them 12-month employees like everyone else and take that criticism away. But, make certain to compensate them accordingly and include adequate time for this to continue their growth through new learning. Great idea? It is not original! I stole it! But, it is an idea whose time has come.

Yes there are obstacles and conflicts that will have to be resolved. Being an old 4-H’er, I often wonder about how county fair will be possible if the kids are in school? Well, we may need to move fair dates to fit into a break. Or, perhaps activities involving school age kids will be in the evenings. Or maybe the fair becomes an educational activity that partners with the school in some capacity. While I may not have all of the answers, give me enough time and I will find them!

What I know is that the world has changed. We have to change to better prepare our kids for that world. We also need to drop some of the “protectionist” beliefs we have and the denial that exists. Folks, it ain’t going back to the way it used to be! The world is going to have an impact on the students that live in our communities. If they are to have any hope of living at the same standard of living you and I enjoy, we must look at change. Let’s start with more school!

Our Kids Are Too Fat!

A headline in the Des Moines Register last week caught my eye: Child obesity called national security risk. I wrote about this earlier in the year in one of my newsletters from some information that had been released earlier on findings from the Department of Defense. Now that it is front-page news and our Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack weighs in, I think that more attention needs to be given to this epidemic.

A report was released by a group called Mission: Readiness. That report claims that 75% of all Americans from 18 to 24 cannot be enlisted in the military because they are overweight or have other issues that would disqualify them, such as a criminal record or inadequate education. While the current recession is making it easier for the military to find recruits, the obesity problems will create some long-term challenges. Statistics from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention state that in our country, 42.5% of men and women in that age bracket are either obese or overweight. To add a little more perspective, the average young man or woman would have to lose about 34 pounds to be at normal weight, and broken down further, the average young Iowan would have to lose about 40 pounds. Both the military and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are pushing Congress to deal with this national security threat.

Already we have seen changes at school. We can no longer sell certain kinds of beverages through our vending machines, and there are also restrictions on food that can be sold, such as regular pop and candy. Our food service program has specific guidelines that they must follow in terms of food, preparation, and portions. At North Fayette, we have made the adjustments in our beverage machines as well as what we make available to our kids through our BPA program, which provides snacks to students. Carol Stanbrough, our food service director, has also worked hard to put better nutritional choices in front of our students. And, Brenda James and Trudy Campbell are working with a group of students to establish some grassroots efforts among our students to make better choices. And, more is ahead as stronger restrictions of what we make available to our students will be in place.

While I did not get to watch every episode, I did catch a few of NBC’s Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. I also have bookmarked his website and have checked out a number of the interesting pages and links that are included. One of the things that this world-renowned chef is trying to do is change the eating habits of Americans. This is a challenge that many believe to be impossible, but Mr. Oliver has started by working with the Huntington, West Virginia schools and their food service program. Working with many skeptics, he has attempted to put quality, fresh food choices in front of the students. It has been inspiring to watch his efforts and commitment. This has become somewhat personal with me as well because I am at that stage in my life where my bad habits have caught up with me. I am easily 40 pounds overweight and after recent physicals, my blood work has come back with some scary realities. As a teenager, I had no problem passing the physical for acceptance into the United States Military, but now I am hard pressed to exert a great deal without being fatigued.

So where do we go? As parents we need to get back to preparing fresh food for our children and help them established good eating habits. We also need to make certain that they are engaged in exercise on a daily basis and appreciate the benefits that healthy living will have for them in the future. I am a skeptic right now on whether changing school lunch programs will make a huge different in the obesity levels of our youth. Once again, public schools are being required to take on parenting roles. However, we are educators and we must continue to prepare our youngsters for their future.

Driving Ban, Texting, and Facebook

A few weeks ago our state legislature passed a ban on the use of cell phones while driving for teenage drivers with restricted licenses, and forbids adults from texting while driving. It may sound kind of dumb, but as the media covered this issue as it was debated, it struck me that so much of the conversation was on the younger drivers. Obviously they do not have the experience behind the wheel that we older folks do, but when it comes to texting . . . kids rule! If anyone can multi-task with one of the tasks texting, it’s a teenager! My texting skills have improved a little bit, but I am a Rookie Leaguer compared to the average 15-year old! And, once I started using a Blackberry I have successfully texted while driving. Yes, I have done it and frankly, it may have been one of the dumbest things I have done. I cannot do it and maintain necessary control of the vehicle. So, while I have texted while driving three or four times, I have stopped and am no longer texting behind the wheel. The law is a good law, but you know how it goes. People still speed in spite of the posted limits. I hope people internalize how dangerous it is, and I know our students are getting a good dose of information through driver education about the potential perils. I hope that parents are serving as positive role models for their kids because they are the strongest teachers they have!

Not many people have asked me one of the standard questions that are commonly asked teachers: what has changed since you started as a teacher? This year I cannot believe how many problems we have had with Facebook. I’m not blaming Facebook! I have an account and earlier today I found that I have 18 fellow Oakland High School alums seeking to be my Facebook friend. I am not passionate about Facebook, nor do I spend a lot of time on it. But it is a way to stay connected to friends that I do not see very often, or have not seen in a long time. (My wife still says that the telephone works just fine!) They call it “social networking” which is a term I don’t really understand, and frankly, I have never liked the term “networking” applied to human interaction, but that’s for another article! I think Facebook is pretty nifty, but like a lot of things, it can be misused.

The problems we have had at school are no different from the pencil and paper note passing that has gone on in schools for a hundred years. It is just a lot quicker and it can reach a lot more people in seconds. Problems happen when an adolescent’s bad judgment collides with technology and they fire something hurtful toward someone through Facebook. And then their target quickly fires back. And, all of this is happening while others online are being entertained and reading along and then some of them join in and away we go! I cannot believe that kids fail to recognize that if they send it out in cyberspace, they cannot take it back and it is there for everyone to read. There have been some very serious harassment cases in parts of the country that have involved cyber-bullying, but up to this point what we have are basically two kids that are mad at each other fighting their fight through a Facebook account. By the end of the year I bet we have nearly a ream of paper of Facebook copies that have been brought into us by students who are upset about what was written to them or about them on Facebook. One thing I haven’t understood it why they continue to include the person posting hurtful things on their account as a friend! Makes sense to me that if someone is running you down that you get rid of them from your list of friends!

Brain research has shown through studies of CT scans and other studies of the brain, that the adolescent brain is not fully developed, particularly that part that is involved in choices and judgment. Many kids are very responsible and make good choices on what they put out on the Internet. But there have always been those kids that do not handle things well and make bad choices; those that lack responsibility and tend to act before they think. Now, when they do something stupid on Facebook, it’s out there for everyone to see. Maybe like the cell phone ban while driving, there could be some regulation on cyber-communication. However, that is not really practical or necessary when all that really needs to happen is that parents require their child to include them as a friend on Facebook and monitor what they are putting out there for others to read. Not a bad idea!

It’s Like A Kick In The Gut

Last night I received a phone call from Larry Otten, good friend and middle school principal at Creston. Larry and I worked together for nine years and worked with a lot of the same kids. The phone call last night was not one with good news. Larry told me that they found Travis Henry dead. He had killed himself. Travis was a freshman this year, and while he was not one of “my kids” since I moved to North Fayette this year, I knew him because he attended the same church as we did when we lived in Creston. And, his mother was a teacher for me at the high school. The irony is that earlier in the day, the family of James Kosman held his funeral in Creston.

James graduated last year, but apparently was hanging out with a bunch of high school students when he made a real bad choice and was electrocuted before he dropped 35 feet to the ground. I got to know James pretty well almost exactly a year ago when I went on a trip with him and 41 other students to Washington, D.C. and New York. One of my jobs on that trip was to keep and eye on James and a few other young men because they were a bit ornery. We didn’t have any problems, and I got to know James a lot better than I had in the nearly four previous years of high school. In particular, we had a real good talk on the bus between Washington, D.C. and New York.

It may sound a bit callous, but I am to the point in my life and career that I can say that nothing surprises me any more. But death at such an early age under the circumstances that they two boys died does cause me to pause and wonder “why?” I am not going to provide commentary on the conditions under which each of the deaths occurred, nor ponder as to why they happened. I am going to state how I feel and why.

Before I do that, I also have to add that back in October, David Reeves, took his own life. Compounding the sadness was that only months prior, David’s mother Lynn lost a valiant battle with cancer. Of the three young men, I knew David the best, as did my daughter, who used to play in the saxophone section with him. Like the others, David was a young man with a world of potential and unlimited opportunities in front of him.

The staff and students at Creston are hurting. I don’t think anyone can truly understand the challenges of conducting school each day under such a cloud of grief and sadness. But I know the teachers there work very hard every day to keep school in front of the kids. The problem is that a lot of the emotion is gone because in so many respects, it has literally been sucked out of them.

Now I am four hours away. I have a whole new group of young people that I have responsibility for here at North Fayette. But as I said earlier, nothing really surprises me anymore, thus in a strange sort of way, my worries seem to only have increased. When I heard about David, that painful lump immediately found its way into my throat and I fought back tears. However, they streamed down my face when I shared what I knew with my daughter. Actually, my wife Tammy had to speak the words because I could not. I knew that the pain that had to be felt by his dad, brother, and grandparents, as well as close family friends had to be unbearable. Just a week before they buried David, he had been playing the drum with the Panther Marching Band in a snowstorm in Des Moines. And now he was gone. I still find myself thinking about David and pondering how a young man with so many gifts got to the point where death was a better option than life.

When the emails and texts started coming in about James, my initial response was “Dammit! He pushed it too far!” In recent years James had tested the limits in many respects and I know that his parents and others had concerns about risky behaviors that he was experimenting with. When I heard that there were about a dozen high school students out and about at 2:00 in the morning with James, I thought what the heck is going on! And then, just today, I was told that only three of the group stayed with James after the fall waiting for an emergency vehicle and the rest of the kids ran. Now I asked “why?” What was going on that kids would scatter when their friend was lying on the concrete either dead or dying? Why?

And then it was Travis. Many people in Creston attended the funeral for James only to receive text messages a few hours later that another young man was dead. What worries me, it that that lump in my throat is not quite as painful, nor the pain in my stomach quite as bad. I am afraid because I hope that I am not getting used to this! But, that lump and sick feeling in my stomach does grow when I think of the folks on the front line at Creston High School. The principals and counselors, teachers, secretaries, custodians, cooks, and aides. Those folks are carrying a heavy burden on their shoulders. More than anything else, I really feel for Tammy Riley and Angie Bolinger, the guidance counselors. Those two wonderful counselors are hurting. They are the ones that have to be strong and have to be there for the kids, families, and everyone who comes to them. Their jobs are so complex in this day and age that they are stretched when things are normal. And now, everything else gets put on the back burner because so many people need them. And I am also angry because some people have the audacity to throw criticism their way. The critics don’t have a clue. I’ll leave it at that.

Life is precious. Like is tough. Life is worth living. David, James, and Travis, I wish you were still here to give it another shot.

The Sound of Silence

A couple of months ago I attended the monthly Ministerial Association meeting and as we were discussing some issues early in the meeting, one of the pastors made a comment that really struck me. He stated, “When the sounds of children are absent from worship the church dies.” For some reason, that comment really caused me to think and reflect. I certainly understand the impact of a shortage of young people in church. It is no secret that many congregations are getting older in terms of their members and that younger families, for what every reason, do not attend church, as did previous generations. I also thought it a bit ironic because I have been in church when young children were making a little noise and older folks were visibly agitated because of the noise. I have even seen a couple of elderly people “shush” some little kids and tell a young mom that she needed to “quiet her children.” And then, I thought about school. What about school and the sound of silence?

In a number of classes that I have taken over the years as well as workshops and training focused on school improvement and better instruction, a common theme that is being expressed runs along the lines of “when I walk down the hall I want to hear noise from the classrooms.” Now, that runs counter to some of the “old fashioned” methods of running classrooms where students did not speak unless they raised their hands and were acknowledged by the teacher. But what research tells us is that students learn best by doing, and in many respects they have to talk to one another, collaborate and problem solve as a team rather than in isolation. If the only one talking is the teacher, then we should wonder how much learning is going on. Yet, that is still the case in some instances.

For many, many years, teachers have been viewed as the “sage on the stage,” and were the primary source of information. Perhaps you can remember one that was full of wisdom that shared it with you. I certainly can remember Mr. Cannon and those wonderful stories he told in my history classes, as well as Mr. Kenney who was the first to really point out that there was truly meaning in pieces of literature beyond the words that were in print. Today, that role of teacher has changed. No longer are teachers the purveyor of information that they once were. Our culture has changed so much that we do not need to rely on their wisdom. This is not to lesson their importance. On the contrary, they may even be more important! What has happened is that content information is more readily available than ever before. Students can access information faster than a teacher can tell a story. The “sage on the stage” has had to transform to the “guide on the side,” navigating young minds through the minefields of misinformation and training them to use their minds to develop greater understanding. It is no longer good enough to learn content.

The engaged learning environment is one where noise is the norm. Dialogue takes place between teacher and students, as well as student to student. Teams are created much like the workplace where collaboration is necessary in order for a task to be completed. Of course, this transition has not gone as smoothly or as quickly as it should. There are some that remain resistant to “giving up control” over their classroom. And honestly, as I remember back to my teaching days, I know that I needed a little peace and quiet! However, because of the power of collaboration and the sharing of ideas, as well as the need for students to “do” in order to learn, I need to hear noise when I walk down the hallways. Otherwise, I must question whether or not students are learning.