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Earlier this month I set out to write a piece on how instructors can provide more voice to their students. Through the course of speaking with other high school instructors, Rodney Obaigbena from Apex High School asked me, “How do you define voice”. This excellent question caused me to pivot. This is the first of three or four articles on voice. The subsequent submissions may address “why student voice is important”, “how can instructors become more voice-giving”, and “what are the outcomes of an environment in which student voice is paramount”. As is usually the case, you will see many of my students’ voices throughout this article. They are in quotes and italics. Culture has so much impact Four years ago I made the move from Indiana to North Carolina. I was very fortunate to have landed a position as a marketing and business instructor at Wake County’s 27th high school, Apex Friendship (AFHS). I was looking very forward to helping develop a positive, learner-centered culture. On our first day together, our principal, Matt Wight, put on the screen this quote,   rom that moment, I knew I was in the right place to have an authentic, positive impact on education. Matt continued to reinforce this idea when AFHS hosted a community viewing of the documentary, Most Likely To Succeed. The film, and the follow-up book had a profound impact on my perspective of the “traditional” model of education relative to what students actually needed. I began my journey to better understand what it would take to help change education for the benefit of all stakeholders. I consumed books from a myriad of authors, Creating Innovators and The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner; Creative Schools by Sir Ken Robinson; Missions Not Mandates from Amy Fast, What School Could Be by Ted Dintersmith, and others. I took my mission to help reform education to those on whom it would have the greatest impact, the learners; I wanted them to have a say in what happens in ‘our’ learning lab. “Our school’s shape us into point focused robots, so stressed on the goal of having all A’s and the highest GPA, that we completely demolish our own potential.” I have been encouraging student voice all along . . . As a part of a unit on career exploration in Personal Finance I engaged the class in a discussion that centered around these questions, 1. What do you believe the education system is designed to prepare you for? 2. Does the system do a good job of accomplishing their goal? 3. What do you believe education should prepare you for? 4. Do you believe education prepares you for what it should prepare you? The discussions were very lively. Our young learners have a lot to say. These are some of the results. “. . . In a world where critical thinking is so valued beyond high School, it would be idealistic if schools attempted to build upon it. Unfortunately, classes don’t value critical thinking as much as memorizing forgettable, dull information. . . .” “The only passion we have in school is the passion to have the best grades, not the passion to be the best at what we love doing.” “Educating shouldn’t be, and never should’ve been about limiting a young kid’s identity to an A or an F. Education should be liberation and growth through knowledge, not a prison.” “The greatest fault in our education system is that students aren’t being educated nor encouraged to learn, but instead are told how to get a 4.0 GPA.” Through the course of in-class discussions I asked, “what is the most important thing missing from school? Without hesitation, a girl responded emphatically, “Student voice and choice.” But not until Rodney asked the aforementioned question did I ever stop to think what exactly student voice or agency was. So, What is Voice or agency? From The Glossary of Education Reform, “In education, student voice refers to the values, opinions, beliefs, perspectives, and cultural backgrounds of individual students and groups of students in a school, and to instructional approaches and techniques that are based on student choices, interests, passions, and ambitions.” “When my teachers get me involved it makes learning so much easier and fun. It is also much less stressful and makes school itself worth it.” The glossary went on, “Student agency refers to learning through activities that are meaningful and relevant to learners, driven by their interests, and often self-initiated with appropriate guidance from teachers. To put it simply, student agency gives students voice and often, choice, in how they learn.” “I believe that if your not passionate about something , then there's not really a point in doing it since you won’t learn from it or use it in any way.” In his book The 8th Habit Dr. Covey describes voice as,[a] unique personal significance - significance that is revealed as we face our greatest challenges and which makes us equal to them. When you engage in work that taps your talent and fuels your passion - that rises out of a great need in the world that you feel drawn by conscience to meet - therein lies your voice, your calling, your soul’s code.” One student said of their experience finding their “soul’s code”, “In the past, it has been rare that I genuinely want to work on a project in my free time. Of course I still put in the necessary work and then some, but at times I didn’t have the passion to push myself to the next level. This year, I am unbelievably happy to have chosen a project I am 100% passionate about.” He went onto say, “I didn't base my decision on what my parents, classmates, or even teacher (I say this with the utmost respect Mr. Jackson) thought I should do, I chose the plan I genuinely wanted to tackle." When our instructional leaders take the time to develop students’ voices and truly let them exercise their own choices, we unleash creativity, and our young learners will never cease to amaze us. Give them the key to their "soul's code". "Student voice; a founding purpose of Applied Synergies Partnership!  
I am a reflective learner and strategic thinker. Education is important to me, as a student and as an instructor. It hasn’t always been that way. We learn from our experiences, which in turn shapes the perspective we present to our students. To know why I present much of what I do and how I help my students gain perspective, you first should understand the roots of my frame of reference. My ongoing education is so much more than books and classrooms. My personal educational experiences are challenging. Shall we say my background is varied. I’m not entirely sure from which class I hail, lower, middle upper, or any other label society has used. I am sure it doesn’t really matter; I am who I am today because of the past decisions I have made and others made for me. “The un-examined life is not worth living.”― Socrates  My mother at the Cradle Society, December 5, 1966 I was adopted by the only parents I’ve ever known when I was seven weeks old. The only thing I know about my biological mother was she was single. I was born October 13, 1966 in Cook County General Hospital, Chicago, Illinois. I was “picked up” from the Cradle Society in Evanston on December 5th of that same year by Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Dold Jackson Sr. Adversity came at an early age when my parents divorced. My father eventually left the family when I was about 4 or 5 years old. He moved West to California and remarried. When I was in 4th grade it was determined that I had some kind of learning disability or back then they didn't call it ADHD, I think it was hyperactivity. I was put behind a tri fold screen. Allegedly, its purpose was so that I wouldn't be distracted. I took care of that when I went to the Scholastic Book Fair and bought some posters and used them to decorate the inside of my screen in my fourth grade classroom. That drew a lot of attention, including the teacher's ire; she took the screen away. When I was nine my father and his new wife sued my mother for custody. Though everyone advised against fighting it, my mother chose to; she never backed down from a fight; she had grit! The custody suit was settled in my father's favor. For the next seven years I became a human ping pong ball, a zip code collector. I attended nine schools in three states over seven years from fifth grade through high school graduation. This taught me adaptability, flexibility and an affinity for networking and conversation.  I don't have a picture of me with my Dad and my Mom together. When I arrived in California after the custody suit was settled in my father's favor, I began at the California Center for educational therapy . After a few visits it was determined that I did not have a learning disability;I was actually quite intelligent. Once I was given some strategies for reading and math my scores quickly went up. I had entered the educational center in 5th grade with approximately a 3.2 math level and a 2.7 reading level. When I left there at the end of the 6th grade I was doing math at the 7th grade level and actually reading at the 9th grade level. It was about the same time that something went down, I can't quite remember what, I went from California back to my mother in Grosse Pointe. In the middle of my 7th grade year my mother decided to move from Grosse Pointe to Hilton Head, South Carolina. There I would finish 7th grade but not start eighth-grade. I ended up back in California with my father and stepmother. Thus began my tour of CA boarding schools; Pasadena to Pebble Beach, then to a public junior high; three schools in 1 year. Times were not good: My father was drinking quite a bit and my stepmother left him. I ended up in Culver city with my sister and her boyfriend and another roommate. It wasn't pretty. The following year may very well have been my best high school year. My stepmom and dad got back together. One of the conditions was that I would go back to boarding school. Another fall, another boarding school; this time in Ojai Valley. My father took out tuition Insurance, just in case. That 10th grade year I was captain of the JV soccer team played basketball, had a nice girlfriend, got good grades, made good friends. I returned for my junior year. The following year didn't go nearly as smoothly; my father started drinking again, my stepmother left him and I met a young lady I wish I never had. She and I were asked to leave the school after holiday break because our promiscuous behavior was too much for the gossip mill to handle. So back to South Carolina I went. I did not pass go,I did not collect $200. I went directly from school to the airport. My things were shipped to me. It's the middle of my junior year February 1983; I was completely clueless, directionless, had really no idea what I was doing or how I should be doing it. I finished my junior year in such a state. That summer I met the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. She eventually became my wife, and she is still the most beautiful woman I know. She and I had an awfully fun senior year. We may have been out of school nearly as much as we were in school. I walked the stage with my class but did not receive my diploma until I completed summer school in 1984. Silly me, I thought the next logical step was college. Silly parents, so did they.  My sister made life bearable immediately after my Father's departure. That was quite possibly the worst thing I could have done. In the one semester in college I had seen the inside of bars and parties more than I had seen classrooms or lecture Halls. I finished with a whopping 1.2 grade point average, a full point below my HS GPA. I started the second semester, still not knowing what I was doing or how I was doing it. But my girlfriend, who was to become my wife, “tattle tailed”. My parents pulled the financial plug and with it went all my fun. Just before the WF date I decided to drop out before I failed out. I got home to my mother's on Hilton Head. She looked at me when I came through the door and said, “That is quite possibly the best move you've made. You have two weeks to find a job and an apartment and get out”. This was the best thing that ever happened to me. For twenty months I supported myself working two jobs, a clothing salesman during the day and a waiter at night. I grew to realize that a college education was necessary if I wanted to achieve my goals. I returned to USC more mature and responsible and graduated Cum Laude. I later earned an MBA from Indiana University and went on to have a successful career in marketing management. I’ve gained the perspective that a lot can be learned from life’s experiences, learning from mistakes, overcoming adversity and listening to sound advice from a variety of people. Much of the value that empowers me to play a positive role in making a difference in our emerging leaders’ efforts and perspectives is the varied life that I have lived and the lessons I have learned from my experiences. It is important to me that young learners are mindful of the life they are living and learn how to adapt, grow and thrive. We need to help students become lifelong learners, reflective learners, experiential learners pursuing a passion, not a test score. I do the very best I know how-the very best I can;
and I mean to keep on doing so until the end. - Abraham Lincoln Every day I have the chance to learn with some highly motivated, inspirational young learners and educators at Apex Friendship High School. Imagine my excitement when the day before winter break AFHS was selected as number 13 of the near 60 high schools in the Research Triangle area. This came from a NC Department of Public Education study and was reported on by Seth Thomas Gulledge of The Triangle Business Journal. I contacted Mr. Gulledge upon my return from holiday. I wanted to know more about the measurement of “College and Career Ready”. As it turns out, the College and Career Ready Score is nothing more than an aggregate of the end of course English, Biology and Math scores. Really? Not again!
In September I wrote the following as a reaction to the US News and World Report High School Rankings How do you measure whether a high school is great? The US News and World Report of Top High schools came out in early May. It was brought to my attention from a Social Media post that stated something like, “So proud of our school; we made the top five high schools in Ohio.” I immediately went online and found the report; not so I could see where my school fell on the list, but so I could discover how the rankings were done. After all, with the right statistical measures I could be the greatest . . .. I hoped and prayed there would be something about the development of qualitative skills necessary for successful employment, or at least something other than “test scores”? Deep breath . . . In sum, the “broad range” of indicators are state tests, graduation rate and AP and IB tests taken and scores. You can read the entire description of the measurement system here. It generally looks like a composite put together by The College Board. At the top of the description of the measuring system is the platitudinous statement, “. . .a great high school must serve all of its students well, not just those who are college bound, and that it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes to show it is successfully educating its student body across a range of performance indicators.” “Broad range of performance indicators”, really? Test scores demonstrate how successfully we are educating? Educate - from the latin root, educere, which means to draw out to bring forth. Do we truly draw out from our youth their true potential by asking they perform on standardized tests? Are our youth more than proficient test takers? Do we wish for them to be thinkers, doers and innovators? According to the ultimate customer, the employer, we want more than test takers. Therefore, how do we measure which schools are truly doing outstanding work? What other measurements are there to determine the true quality of our work as educators? Check out the work being done to develop “a master transcript” at several high schools and colleges around the country. That was back in May. And today, we are still measuring greatness by standardized tests. This is wrong. A new paradigm is needed. Do we want for our greatness to be measured by tests of knowledge that could easily be found on Google, or do we wish to provide our emerging leaders with skills that they can use to help create value for themselves and others? At Apex Friendship many of our learners and educators work wonderfully together to produce high quality human capital that is college and career ready. Most of that capital investment is in the form of skills learned from meaningful, semester-long projects that engage our students. For four years Apex Friendship students learn with some of the best in the area; no doubt about it! The results of this outstanding creativity and collaboration can not be found in a percent score. It is found on the classroom walls, at a dance recital, a choir concert, an internship night, a Battle for an Angel pitch competition, a swimming pool or tennis court. It is in what our children and educators do that make us great, not in a test score or a GPA. It is in the hearts of us all that are passionate about pursuing education purposefully. For this paradigm shift to occur, colleges must use different measuring sticks to determine entrance. Are they ready to do that, for our young learners’ sake? We’ll keep that for another time. Slow chat, indeed. It took me a week to materialize this answer. It came in the form of spontaneous action research. Apex Friendship and other North Carolina high schools assess students on what they have learned in the form of 100 question multiple choice tests. The classroom instructor is not meant to administer their own exam. Teachers rotate to different classes and administer those tests to students who they have may only seen in the halls, but not had in class. I help 11 and 12 grade students learn the intricacies of starting of their own venture. The learners I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time this week were 9 and 10 grade students in introductory classes. I decided to ask them, the first thought that came to mind when they hear the words, Grit, Mindset, Tests and Determination. Given this is the #manyvoicesofgrits, we shall focus on it, Grit. Three different classes, 25, or so, interestingly enough, most answered some sort of breakfast food or sandpaper. Very few equated the word Grit with what many of us older souls think of as determination, reflection and resiliency. Our learners responses on determination, however, illustrated a keen sense of the effort required to make progress in their life. I was in my room this afternoon with three learners, one working independently on a plan, and a team of two, working together for the second year in a row. This time was different in that they did not have a class together, nor with me. They run together. They’re making another run to the international stage in Orlando. Last year they fell short; that has not deterred them, they are more determined than ever. That is Grit! The 11 grade learner of this dynamic duo received a text while working and shrieked, “I got an A in Calculus!” “What is so strange about that, given how much you love math?” “You don’t understand, I had a 72 after the first quarter, my 92 on the final exam earned me an A.” I pointed it out, “What do you call bouncing back and earning that A in calculus?” The learner did not have an answer. I let on it was a four letter word. Nothing. “That is Grit, and you’ve got it.” We have to be conscious of putting labels on our perspectives. We may call it Grit; for others it might be work ethic, and for still others, determination, or whatever. For as long as they possess the characteristic that drives their progress, does it matter what we call it?     In the first part we examined the impact mission and the 8 Cs can have on a classroom. We distinguished between the primary 4 Cs and the proverbial 4 Cs. Without comfort, confidence, and community, a culture of curiosity, collaboration, creativity, risk taking and stretching is difficult to obtain. Does your class have a mission? In the next installment we looked at how we can bring a classroom to life each day. We should seek out ways to show “Triple-E” - enthusiasm, energy and excitement for our content and our learners. If we don’t relate to our learners and our content in some deep way, how can we expect our pupils to be excited about the topic? It is important, each step of the way, we recall the overarching vision, for all learners of all ages to wake up and to look forward to going to school, we want more students to say things like this about more classes, “One of the best parts of my day is going to this class. I get to walk in surrounded by people who are extremely intelligent and do my best work. I don't have to dread being 'PowerPointed', talked at or meaningless tests. The only thing I have to focus on is doing my best work.”  This vision is driven by the data behind the Student Engagement Cliff and our desire to significantly decrease its slope. The 10 Es, similar to the 8 Cs, are not neatly compartmentalized or broken into “teachable units”; they all blend together and learners discover benefits at different times. This leads me to my next set of Es, Excite, Engage, Equip, and Empower. These deal directly with leading students in their learning. In this segment we will address Excite and Engage. Equip and Empower will be covered in the subsequent piece. With Excite and Engage our objectives are to:
Much of what is required in delivering highly 'relatable' educators, ourselves, is gone over in the previous article, Triple E, Enthusiasm, Excitement and Energy; we have to bring it every day. It is one thing for us, as educators, to be excited about our topic; It is quite another to possess the capability to excite our learners about a topic. To increase the excitement level of our learners, show enthusiasm for our content, but more importantly, show real concern for our learners’ interests! Learner capability is linked directly to instructor capability in this domain; an inability of us to bring the excitement may result in little excitement being generated by our learners. “I look forward to coming to fourth period every day because I always learn something new and interesting.”
The environment in which we operate has a huge impact on learners’ perspectives. NC CTE demands that Business and Marketing Classrooms be set up with desktop computers. If at all possible, avoid this pitfall; insist on laptops. Multiple studies indicate the positive impact on behaviors and learning of flexible classroom settings. Flexibility is very hard to come by in classrooms with desktop computers. Flexible seating helps foster collaboration, camaraderie and the bee-hive like climate you want to promote. Kids should be saying things like, “I think it is a real authentic learning environment where students can truly thrive if they put their all into what they do. I think this model and environment should be employed in other classrooms at our schools.”
The excitement that comes from meaningful self-discovery is immeasurable. Time is spent in the comfort and confidence stage in which learners get a clearer understanding of their strengths, weaknesses, skills, interests and career pathways that are in line with their values. The class is constantly mixed up as described in Triple E using random seating for the first 6-8 class periods. Early on, learners are regularly engaged with different classmates. Peers review one another’s early assignments including essays on Trust in Relationships and Plans to Improve Weaknesses and Capitalize on Strengths and Research on an Entrepreneur of their choosing. In addition to creating excitement and wonder, it also helps students learn accountability. Learners begin to feel what it is like to be responsible for their production in a group before they are actually made into teams. Feeling cannot be underestimated in the pursuit of engagement; Emotions are key to having students willingly join the adventure that is about to begin, Experiential Entrepreneurship Education, the topic of my final pieces. “My favorite part of it all was my heart was so full. I had a moment where I knew this was the feeling. The feeling that gave me a purpose do something for good. It got me thinking about all the potential ideas I could pursue. This is no longer just a project. This is real.” Excitement can also be generated by demonstrating service to others. Early on ASaP learners are shown the benefits of giving back to the community and is a recurring theme throughout the program. At their best, people feel most fulfilled when they have a voice in how they can help others. As a guide to some of the major problems that have to be solved around the world learners are given an infographic highlighting the United Nations Sustainable Development goals.  In the ideation phase of the project learners are encouraged to develop ideas that might help solve one of these world problems. This year some notable examples are:
When learners take ownership of their ideas, the excitement and engagement levels are exponential. Listen to the words these learners choose to speak of their endeavors, “To us presenting our project is more than just regurgitating information. . ., it is an opportunity to share our brain-child and passion with others. We are incredibly proud of our work and never find presenting it over and over to be a burden. Each occasion is an opportunity to enhance our skills, tweak our pitch, and continue to spread positive ideas.” Engage: The level of engagement expressed above doesn’t come about by accident. Educators have to meet their kids where they are so as to engage them in their learning and provide opportunities that are relevant to their interests. ASaP provides many opportunities to engage the learner in meaningful activities - in-class discussions, field trips, mentors (known as Innovation Coaches in ASaP) whole-class presentations with peer critique, guest speakers and special events at nearby universities or civic organizations. See the home page for articles about my learners opportunities.
The educator’s art comes in balancing project work, information/knowledge exchange, field experiences and the passion behind the project. The onus is on the educator to help the learner make connections between their project and all of these events. These opportunities for connection often take the form of reflection Fridays, peer evaluation and self-grading. (Much more on this to come in the ‘equip’ section to be published later.) One student said, I have definitely begun to develop an entrepreneurial mindset because when thinking about our product, I am not just thinking about the idea anymore. I am thinking of the whole project itself. Another described his passion as, “I am unbelievably happy to have chosen a project I am 100% passionate about. . . . an Independent business plan, built around an idea that I have genuine interest in exploring.”  These events require the learner to be engaged as a participant, not solely as a spectator. Therefore our roles are much more than teacher; we are facilitators and guides, the true meaning of educator. As an example, while ASaP focus is on gaining wisdom through experience, some basic knowledge does have to be imparted before we can learn how to apply it to the project. Therefore, learners have to read materials thoughtfully and ask themselves the question, how does what I’m reading apply to my business plan? (See student quotes below.) Educators have to provide meaningful experiences in which students can provide answers to tough questions.
As far as “putting kids out there”, ASaP student partners engage in 4-5 field trips a year, including DECA conferences. In the first nine weeks learners go on 2 field trips, the first to HQ Raleigh and the NC State Entrepreneurship Clinic and Village. The second is to The Frontier, a local authentic experience that offers a networking event each Wednesday, IMM Cups. ASaP visits this event to listen to entrepreneur’s pitch and for our young entrepreneurs to give their own elevator pitch. Students have said of the field trips,
Moving Forward
Have you developed a vision of your own? A classroom mission? Do you regularly articulate these and encourage the students to do the same for themselves? How are you exciting your students? Are you reading material, worksheet, test driven? Or are you attempting to drive self-directed learning in a reflective learning environment? What experiences do you provide to your learners that engages them in their learning? How do you engage your learners’ thinking and doing capabilities? How do you connect these experiences and events to the learners’ growth? It has taken me fifteen years to hone these questions and begin to develop meaningful experiences in which students thrive. The Student Engagement Slope is indeed affected, positively! It comes from trial and error, knowing your audience/customer/learner, and a basic understanding of the bureaucracy in which you have to operate. Push boundaries, get rid of the box, be yourself and excite and engage your learners and fellow educators. Next up, equip and empower. It is wonderful to see all of the “geared up” teachers and administrators tweeting and such about the summer professional development opportunities. All of these great folks doing great things to grow and learn more about their craft. It brings to mind a chapter from Porras’s “Success: Built to Last”, A Portfolio of Passions-It’s Not About Balance. At the beginning of the chapter is a quote from Frederick Beekner, “To find your mission in life is to discover the intersection between your heart’s deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger.” My concern is that the world does not yet know that it is hungry for transformative education and doesn’t know #whatschoolcouldbe. Do @DrTonyWagner and Ted @Dintersmith have enough disciples in influential positions around the country to make this summer’s professional development truly meaningful? Is there enough PD this summer focusing on transforming education or is most of it tinkering around the same topics or only the periphery of #whatschoolcouldbe? It is not the time for tinkering. Tinkering may just get us more of the same “chasing test scores”. We need to take the time and put forth the energy to transform our schools and our classrooms, #forourkidssake. It is time to #unleashtalent. As Michael Dell said, “It’s exciting to see how fast our kids learn and grow. I’m not too worried about them, especially the ones that like to break the rules and don’t follow instructions. Those are the ones that will do just fine because they know what is important to them.” Most of us in these circles know what is important and we are willing to break the rules for the benefit of our students and for education as a whole; is the world hungry enough to help us bring forth real change?   Unnecessary Stress. . .
I have been helping a young lady learn marketing since her freshman year three years ago. She was not enrolled in my classes this year. In the previous years she had fun exercising her imagination while proving an alacrity for listening and learning. More importantly she has a knack for making decisions, leading teams and getting things done. One week into this year she was in my room wanting to talk. As we got into it, she expressed how she was concerned that she had bitten off more than she could chew in terms of academic workload, her fall course load was four AP courses, only one of which she was truly interested. Gulp, my heart sank as she asked for advice. We worked with guidance and replaced an AP with Marketing Advanced Studies Honors, a very hands on class. There she teamed up with a sophomore on a DECA written event. She and her teammate worked their butts off to represent themselves and Patriot DECA admirably all the way to International Competition in Atlanta. She also acted as an officer where she lead preparation for our chapter’s competitors, 48 of whom were called to State stage and 24 of whom we took to Atlanta. So here she is taking three AP’s, plus an Honors level course in which she is leading, planning, organizing, overcoming setbacks, researching, writing, presenting, organizing, traveling. Wait, didn’t she say she was stressed out with too much to DO? No, she said she had too many AP courses. Though she is great academically, she, like many others, excels when she is pursuing a passion of her choice with passion and applying her knowledge in a creative way (@Dintersmith PEAK). She has a passion for perfection, a willingness to take risks and to learn from failure. She likes to do things and she is damn good at it. She did not make stage in Atlanta. But she came back and ran for and won office again. After three years she is seventh in the class of 2019, has straight A’s and a weighted GPA of 4.5. Her one shortcoming, she is too hard on herself. We’ll have to work on that next year, her senior year. AP for the sake of AP It was our final homeroom of 2018. I was talking with a couple of girls I’d known since their freshman year and the first day of our new school. One had wished to take my entrepreneurship class, but had not enrolled in the prerequisite. She ended up with an AP she didn’t want, but she “needed the bump in the GPA”. I hadn’t seen them for two weeks because of AP testing. The other had taken a personal finance class with me. I could tell from looking at them they were tired and stressed this last Wednesday of the school year. One commented, “I really hate history, but I took APUSH because it was an AP. I had no fun and I can’t tell you one thing I learned in APUSH.” That semester she earned three A’s, interior design, English and Visual Arts. She has earned a high C in APUSH, a class she cares nothing about. The other commented on her APES class, “I have no interest in environmental science, whatsoever. I took it for the AP”. She too did OK. She has an interest in biomedical technology and took two CTE courses and can't stop talking about them. VERY COOL! Tests, tests and more tests I was putting my seventh grader to bed for the last Tuesday of the school year in which he would have to have lights out by 9:30. He wanted to watch the hockey game. “Why do I have to go to bed? I want to watch the rest of the hockey game.” “No”, I replied, “you have to wake up refreshed for the EOG’s.” His emphatic response was, “EOG’s are stupid; they’ve already given us tons of tests on what we are supposed to learn! What’s the point of giving us a five times longer test on the same stuff?” I couldn’t argue with that logic; plus the hockey game was more interesting, for sure. The Junior year Today, an outstanding person, DECA member and student leader whom I have known and worked with for three years was in my room for lunch. She and others were talking calculus. I printed out a page from Ted Dintersmith’s book, What School Could Be in which he discussed the merits of Statistics, applicable math that helps you think, analyze and evaluate. Ted does not see the need for teaching students repetitive skills that can be accomplished on technology, like calculus. Just then a statistics teacher came into see me. She agreed wholeheartedly and the group discussed the merits of different math courses. Then the bell rang, ending lunch. Sorry, no time for deeper discovery, we have to march off to our next drill and test. I did get the five-minute-passing to walk the student to class and explain how to make the decision; which would she like best and use the most after school? She wants to go into marketing. No brainer for me after 12 years in the field and holder of two degrees including an MBA. She returned after school. She was not there to talk calculus. The conversation turned to how tough the junior year was. Tests, mini-projects with little meaning, SAT’s, GPAS and general stress and fatigue. She showed me some kind of Instagram from another student I had taught twice. In it she said how tired and stressful the junior year was. She received twenty-two amens from other students, many of whom I have taught. The exhausted emerging leader looked at me while holding back a yawn and said, “No one looks forward to school anymore.” Is this what we want her, and others', senior superlative to be? My vision is for all students, at every age, to look forward to going to school and learning. My vision is for classrooms of all ages to focus on satisfying curiosity, fostering creative confidence and developing self-directed, reflective, lifelong learners. My vision is for students’ to experience their education, not to be tested to boredom, depression, or worst. Hands-on learning turns minds on. The US News and World Report of Top High schools came out last week. It was brought to my attention from a Social Media post that stated something like, “So proud of our school; we made the top five high schools in Ohio.” I immediately went online and found the report; not so I could see where my school fell on the list, but so I could discover how the rankings were done. After all, with the right statistical measures I could be the greatest . . .. I hoped and prayed, there would be something about the development of qualitative skills necessary for successful employment, or at least something other than “test scores”? Deep breath . . .
In sum, the “broad range” of indicators are state tests, graduation rate and AP and IB tests taken and scores. You can read the entire description of the measurement system here. It generally looks like a composite put together by The College Board. At the top of the description of the measuring system is the platitudinous statement, “. . .a great high school must serve all of its students well, not just those who are college bound, and that it must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes to show it is successfully educating its student body across a range of performance indicators.” “Broad range of performance indicators”, really? Test scores demonstrate how successfully we are educating? Educate - from the latin root, educere, which means to draw out to bring forth. Do we truly draw out from our youth their true potential by asking they perform on standardized tests? Are our youth more than proficient test takers? Do we wish for them to be thinkers, doers and innovators? According to the ultimate customer, the employer, we want more than test takers. Therefore, how do we measure which schools are truly doing outstanding work? What other measurements are there to determine the true quality of our work as educators? Check out the work being done to develop “a master transcript” at several high schools and colleges around the country. A new paradigm is needed. Paul Levering of Apex, North Carolina is a certified EOS Implementer, parent of an Apex Friendship High School student, a member of our business advisory board and has acted as a judge for my end of year entrepreneurship competition, “Battle For an Angel”. Thank you Paul for your service and your inspiration. In a LinkedIn post Paul mentions a role in business, the integrator. I replied back that I was informally known in one corporate position some time ago as the synthesizer. I have an uncanny ability to bring together seemingly divergent, even opposing ideas and or goals from different departments to create cohesive and actionable programs. I find this so much harder to do in education where people have built fortresses around their silos. While George Couros, Ted Dintersmith, Sir Ken Robinson, Tony Wagner and many others have espoused some really cool ideas, many in education are still close-minded and reluctant to change. Their motives and deeds appear to be protecting their mediocre methods instead of inspiring the curiosity and imaginations of our youth. Quit lamenting! What are you going to do about it? Synthesize, of course! From Friday April 20 through 25 I was in Atlanta at the DECA International Career Development Conference. Along with two other chaperones, I escorted thirty-one teenagers so they could compete and attend leadership academy with about 18,000 delegates from nine countries. It was one of the most rewarding events in my fourteen years in education. There I witnessed the thrill of victory as well as the agony of defeat for students I mentor, some for as long as three years and one, my son, for many more years, obviously. Each morning I sit in my living room with my first cup of coffee and reflect on what I should do to live my life with purpose. (Patience, I’m getting to the synthesis.) The primary provocateurs for my meditation are Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits and a daily motivational calendar given to me by my twelve year old son for Christmas. I took with me to Atlanta Covey’s Daily Reflections and left at home the calendar. This morning (after not being able to sleep past 3:30) I sat down for the first time with the calendar since Friday April 20. Six of the eleven days from the calendar and today’s reflection from Covey can all go together; it is not hard to synthesize a message. For the entrenched educator that needs a way out of their melancholic mediocrity, for those who fight the good fight in their classroom every day and to all my students that never cease to inspire me, I offer you this synthesis of quotes from a variety of thinkers and doers. The dates are the days they appeared in the motivational calendar or in Covey’s reflections. May 1 - Most all creative endeavors are somewhat unpredictable. They often seem ambiguous, hit or miss, trial and error. And unless people have a high tolerance for ambiguity and get their security from integrity to principles and inner values they find it unnerving and unpleasant to be involved in highly creative enterprises. Their need for structure, certainty and predictability is too high. Stephen Covey April 20 - Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice. Samuel Johnson April 23 - I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man. George Washington April 27 - Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men. General George Patton April 24 - If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers. Carl Sagan April 30 - Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down. Ray Bradbury April 21 - If you aren’t going to go all the way, why go at all? Joe Namath Everyday - Doubt what you will, but never yourself! Me, Dan Jackson I'd be interested in knowing what message you received from this synthesis.  |
Author: Dan Jackson
Experienced Reflective Learner and Strategic Thinker with an ongoing track record of of innovative, adaptive leadership in education and business management. Archives
December 2019
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