Growing and Learning Through Change

Reading and reflecting on the quote "Change is an opportunity to do something amazing." I can't help but think about what has happened in my life the last couple of months, and the number of changes that have occurred. When I consider the quote, I think about how these changes are providing opportunities for some amazing things.  Most of these changes have been professional in nature, but their impact has be very personal. 

• Graduating in May with my Ed.D. has brought about a number of changes. My dissertation on principal practices that impact teacher collaboration led to opportunities to provide professional development for teachers and administrators on this topic. Finishing my doctorate has also  provided me with the opportunity to spend more time with my family. One of the best parts of my summer was discovering that both of my daughters have a love for thrill rides. So we spent many summer days at Six Flags Great America riding roller coasters. 

• This school year I started my twentieth year in education. Each year brings a new chapter and changes. While this is my fifth year as a principal, it is my first year as the principal of Alice Gustafson Elementary School and Early Childhood Center. Being charged to lead another building in the district has already provided me with  many opportunities to do some amazing things. Before the year stated I intentionally read books on leadership and made the decision to implement what I learned.  My focus is on building meaningful relationships with staff and students. We have embarked on exploring Twitter as a staff through our Twitter Bingo Challenge, trying out Voxer as a new way to connect, and we have launched a whole staff  Kids Deserve It book study. 

• The last two changes were two things that I recently pursued. After years of lurking on Twitter and mostly following sports and other interests, I made the decision to connect with other educators by participating in a number of different Twitter chats. I have been amazed at how much I have learned, as well as the connections that I have made. In addition to becoming engaged on Twitter, I decided to be vulnerable and share my story through blogging. Blogging has allowed me to reflect and think about my practices and beliefs. This exercise  has given me the opportunity to share my story with educators from all over the country. I have also benefited greatly from the stories of other educators.  Sharing stories and experiences has provided me with new ideas to consider and wonderful ways to grow and innovate.  

The most important thing about all of these changes is that it has made me really think about how to provide amazing opportunities for our students. 

Belonging - why it is so important for our students

What does it mean to belong? To feel like you are connected with other individuals? To make those deep meaningful connections? To be a part of something that is larger than yourself? These are deep and profound questions that everyone wrestles with and seeks answers to during their lifetime.  Our students that walk into our schools and into our classrooms are asking the same questions. They are wondering if they will fit in with their classmates. They hope their teacher will be able to relate to them. They desire to have teachers that believe in them and push them to be better.

Some of what I remember most as a young student, is the unfortunate times where I felt like I didn’t quite belong. When I was in kindergarten I really struggled with school readiness. I was constantly behind, confused, and at times overwhelmed with following the directions. I don’t ever remember my teacher connecting with me, letting me know it was going to be okay, or even recognizing any of my strengths. I also remember having a challenging time in third grade. My teacher wasn’t very warm or welcoming. Her classroom management consisted of berating students when they made a mistake or didn’t follow a direction. I will always remember being scared going into her class. One time when I was a fourth grade student, I was told to go to her class and ask for some supplies. As I crossed the hall to go into her class I felt an anxiousness come over me. As I inquired about the supplies, I was immediately confused by her direction.  All of those feelings of intimidation and fear came rushing back, as she loudly and aggressively repeated her direction.  These two stories are simple examples of educators not creating safe and caring classroom cultures.  I think these examples highlight how damaging it can be for our students if we don’t create schools and classrooms where students feel like they belong.  

I am blessed to have entered into my twenty first year in education. I started my career as a classroom teacher in Tempe, Arizona. I will always remember my first class. I took over for a third grade teacher who retired early. It was late February and I was all of twenty two years old, and ready to take on the world! This particular class was housed in a portable classroom and was the farthest class from the office. I had heard rumors of about how out of control this class was and they had no or little respect for teachers. My first day with the students was a blur. Even as a brand new teacher, I immediately identified that there was no evidence of classroom routines;  students either sprinted back to class from our time in the computer lab or stayed behind and hid under the tables. For the remainder of that school year I spent time trying to figure out how to create positive relationships with the students in order to gain their trust. I learned very quickly that many of these students lived in an impoverished housing project in Phoenix.  They had parents who were incarcerated or addicted to drugs. These students were often left alone to fend for themselves. In fact this particular housing project was cut off from the rest of south Phoenix by an expressway on one side and a busy street on another. Many of these kids didn’t have that sense of belonging in their families and being cut off physically from the rest of the city didn’t create a sense of belonging to the community. My job for the rest of that year  was to build a class community, and perhaps the one place, where students felt like they belonged. In order to do that I played with the students at recess, I celebrated their learning of academics and behaviors, we played music in class, and we created a class t-shirt that each student was proud to wear.

I often wonder what happened to my students as I moved to back to Illinois a few years later. I learned more in the few months that I had that class than my four years at pre service teacher at ASU. I learned what it meant to build up a student's confidence, to believe in a student, to find out the awesomeness that each student possess. Most of all I learned how important it is for our students to feel like they belong. To feel like they matter. To have a place they can call home.

Your Words Matter

As teachers what we say and do matters. It matters greatly for the students that sit in our classes, walk our halls, eat in our cafeterias, have fun on our playgrounds, play on our teams, and participate in our clubs. Each student matters. Angela Maiers spoke about this idea a few years ago. 

No one can really argue with Angela's powerful message of making sure our students matter. We demonstrate our care for students and ensuring that they know they matter through our actions and our words. 

Our school is on a journey to increase feedback to students about their learning through goal setting. In addition, we are teaching our students to develop a growth mindset when they encounter something that is challenging. These approaches require us to think about how we are talking with our students and the message we are sending through our words. Do we really believe they can learn? Do we think they will make their goals? 

When I was in middle school  I received one of those weight lifting benches they sold at Service Merchandise for my birthday. The bench came with a barbell, weights, and at the end of the bench you could set it up to do leg extensions. I was so excited about this gift and being the smallest kid in school I imagined myself getting bigger and stronger. It wasn't long after I received this gift that someone told me that I could continue to lift weights but I wouldn't gain any muscle.  This was someone I trusted so I believed them. I stopped lifting weights and that gift collected dust in the garage. 

I believed this falsehood for a very long time. Those words from someone I trusted led me to believe that no matter how hard I tried I wouldn't gain any muscle from working out. Even though I read research to the contrary, the words this person spoke to me shaped my beliefs. Words matter. I started to work out regularly in my late 30s and I realized that I could gain muscle and get stronger. I finally let go of the comment that was made to me so many years prior.  I am guessing that my story is similar to yours in that you may believe something about yourself that isn't true because of what someone has said to you. Words matter, they shape our thoughts and beliefs. 

We all remember the saying sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me. The truth is words cut deep and wound us. The words others say to us can influence our thinking and what we believe about ourselves. The spoken words from others can build us up or tear us down. We can be the worst culprits in words that tear us down through negative self talk. We tell ourselves we can't, were not smart enough, we don't have the strength, or it is too hard. If we are saying those negative words to ourselves, than what are our students saying to themselves? What do they think? Do they believe they have shortcomings? Do they think they are not smart enough? Not creative enough?

The work being done by Carol Dweck about growth mindset, and Angela Duckworth on grit, is exciting and gives hope to the fact that we can change those beliefs  and thoughts that come from comments from others or from that negative self talk. When I walk into classrooms I get encouraged to see teachers talking with students about these concepts. 

Let's remember the power we have with our words. Let's use our words to build up our students so that they believe in themselves. This is one of the greatest things we can do for our students!

Lead from the heart

In the spring I learned that I would be leading another school in the district during the 16-17 school year. I had some mixed emotions about the change. I loved my time at HCS and I had the privilege of working with so many great teachers. It is the place where I learned about being a leader. After being appointed as the principal of AGS I began to reflect on my beliefs about leadership. I thought about my experiences, some great some not. Through my reflection I came to the realization that the times I connected best with teachers was when I was leading from the heart. It also occurred to me that leading from the heart and showing vulnerability created an environment for teachers to take risks and to innovate. 

Over the summer I continued to pursue more wisdom about leadership through books on this topic. I read books by John Maxwell, John Gordon, Andy Andrews, and Todd Whitaker. After each book I read I became convinced that leading from the heart is not only the best choice in developing others it is the only choice. 

Here are a few excerpts from books that have shaped my view on leadership:

“Great leaders are great because people trust and respect them, not because they have power.” - Jon Gordon, The Carpenter: A Story About the Greatest Success Strategies of All


“[Good leaders] have more than an open-door policy—they know the door swings both ways. They go through it and get out among their people to connect.” - John Maxwell, 5 Levels of Leadership: Proven Steps to Maximize Your Potential

"Every single thing you do matters. You have been created as one of a kind. You have been created in order to make a difference. You have within you the power to change the world." -Andy Andrews, The Noticer: Sometimes, All a Person Needs is a Little Perspective

"Great principals never forget that it is the people, not programs, who determine the quality of the school." - Todd Whitaker What Great Principals Do Differently: 18 Things That Matter Most 

The last three years were spent working on my Ed.D. in Leadership. The title of my dissertation was At the Heart of Professional Learning Communities: How Principal Leadership Practices Influence Teacher Collaboration. I was interested in investigating how leaders impact the way teachers work together. Doing the study allowed me to talk with teachers, specialists, and principals. My findings from the study echoed previous research about principal leadership practices. 

• Teacher participants mentioned the following leadership characteristics/practices that demonstrate being a caring leader: transparency, openness, frequent communication, patience, willingness to truly listen, and demonstrating vulnerability. 

• Shirley Hord describes a second set of supportive conditions, in her attributes of PLCs,  as friendly interactions and relational trust. A participant in the study summed this idea of relational trust best - "I think from my experience, it’s just having conversations with her, just feeling comfortable. I feel that I can say anything to her and I’m not going to get like backlash because I said something she doesn’t agree with, positive or negative. I think that trust has built up over years, it wasn’t there right away, when we first met, when she first came into the building. But just seeing that she’s one of us, she doesn’t over power us and she’s not that micromanager"

• Leaders need to model how to extend trust in others. Covey (2006) describes the extending of trust as empowering others and comes from a fundamental belief that most people are capable of being trusted and will run with that trust. Principals who extend the trust to their teachers to do the right work to build powerful PLC teams. They give their teams the autonomy to do their work which leads to teams being more creative in solving problems and meeting the needs of their students.

As a leader I must continue to lead from the heart in order to connect with teachers and to build that relational trust, so I can bring out the best in others. As you lead your districts, buildings, or classrooms how will you lead from the heart? How will you bring out the best in others? These are questions we should constantly think about as we walk our halls, talk with our students, and listen to our teachers. 

I recently discovered Audible and have been listening to books while at they gym or on my ride in to work. The book I am currently listening to now is Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't by Simon Sinek. I came across this audio clip that demonstrates the importance that we have as leaders in creating a positive culture. A negative work environment actually impacts the health and well being of employees.

Leading from the heart means we care about the people we serve. We care about who they are, who they are striving to be, their health, their well being, and their personal lives. When I read books, listen to podcasts, and participate in Twitter chats it is to continue to learn and grow as a leader. I use these learning opportunities to reflect on my own practices. I want to make sure that I am leading from the heart, that I am connecting with teachers and students, and that I am creating a positive school culture where teachers feel comfortable to take risks and be innovative for their students. 

It's going to be okay.

The other day I was reminded of making a mistake when I was publishing on social media. I quickly was embarrassed and disappointed in the fact that I made such a silly mistake. After a moment of feeling this way, I moved on realizing that I can't go back to fix it. Instead,I focused on learning from my error and trying not to make the same mistakes in the future.

If I look back on my life, I can recall many mistakes and failures. In fact, if you were to ask my girls they could share my many famous mistakes. Because we discuss our mistakes in our family, my girls often ask me to retell some of their favorites, and then we laugh. Here are a couple of the highlights, or maybe I should call them low lights.

• Driving over a parking curb. I was with a few of my high school buddies and we just finished hitting some balls at a driving range. We pilled into a Volkswagen Rabbit that I shared with my sister. There wasn't a car in the parking space in front of us so I put the car into first gear, let the clutch out, and much to my surprise up and over we went over the parking curb. Then we got stuck. That was so embarrassing, and man did my friends laugh! After several minutes of enduring their laughter they helped me and luckily we were able to get the car unstuck.

•  Breaking my wrist sledding down the stairs. When I was in middle school my younger sister and I used to take a small board and ride it down the stairs. At the bottom of the staircase was an orange buffet cabinet. To avoid crashing into the buffet cabinet, we would grab onto the railing at the last second. After dozens of successful attempts I was at the top of the stairs ready to go again. My sister gave me a push and about halfway down the stairs I fell off of the board and tumbled down. I braced myself to avoid hitting the buffet cabinet and heard a pop in my wrist. 

I probably could go on and on about the thousands of mistakes I have made in my life and I am pretty sure many of them were avoidable (like riding over my principal's dog and crashing into a lady coming out of the beauty parlor when I was on  my bike). One thing I learned is that it may seem pretty bleak in the moment, but it does get better and you can move forward.

I was recently listening to a podcast and I was struck with what I heard. We can have a tremendous impact on our students based on what we say and how we respond to them when they mess up or make frequent mistakes. The following quote comes from In the Loop Podcast Episode 248. In the podcast Andy Andrews is talking about his son. 

If you want to pick out things (your ADD child does) that aren’t like everybody else, you could talk to him about it all day long. And you could turn this happy, awesome, sensitive kid into a quivering mass of jelly. You could take this kid and destroy his belief in himself, destroy his imagination.

What I took away from this statement is the fact that students will learn how to respond to their own mistakes or shortcomings by the way we respond to them. If we are quick to point out their errors or mistakes, students will stop trying. They will stop taking risks. If we show grace and understanding while assisting students to learn from their mistakes, students will grow into the person they are meant to be. 

Todd Nesloney and Adam Welcome, in their book Kids Deserve It, write about the influence teachers have and explain, "We have the power to tear down or build up children who walk into our lives every day." 

What you say matters! How you respond matters! As you think about the students in your room who make those mistakes, what will you do to build them up? How will you support them as they struggle to learn? What will you do so students believe in themselves? How will you foster students imagination instead of destroying it? How will students know it is going to be okay?

Not one of us is perfect. We will mess up.and mistakes happen. It is not about making every effort to avoid  a mistake, rather it is how respond when we make a mistake that matters.

Be a fan!

Recently I took my oldest to her first Cubs game and we sat in the bleachers. It was a lot of fun and I was able to share with her my love for the Cubs. It got me thinking about what being a fan means to me.

Living in the suburbs of Chicago you have two baseball teams to choose from to devote your fandom. You give you loyalty and devotion to the  Cubs or White Sox. I happened to become a fan of the Cubs. I can remember being 11 years old during the '84 season only to see the team loose to the Padres in the playoffs. Then there was the '89 season and a loss to the Giants in the playoffs. After that season there was a long drought until '98 and a loss to the Braves in the playoffs. In '02 there was the infamous Bartman game. The Cubs 5 outs away from a World Series appearance only to lose to the Marlins in the playoffs. The '07 and '08 seasons ended in similar fashion, getting blitzed in the first round of the playoffs. Then last year, a magical season where the team outperformed expectations and made it to the National League Championship Series. Now I see my team has the best record in baseball. Who knows, maybe this will be the year!

Being a life long Cubs fan has brought many great memories, but it has also brought disappointment and heartache. When I was much younger I would be watching a game and if they started to lose I would turn off the TV in frustration. I would easily give up on them and lose hope. I used to say I could never be the manager because if a player made a costly mistake I would want to kick them off the team. With that approach it wouldn't take very long for the team to run out of players.

Being a fan of a team can drive you crazy. One minute you are going nuts because of a great play and the next moment you are screaming out of frustration when things are not going your teams way. It can feel that way at times in your classroom or in your school. Great things happen and you are pumped and so excited and then something doesn't work out and you can get discouraged.

As I think about my role as a principal, I need to be the biggest fan of our students and teachers. I can't turn off the TV when I get upset. I can't walk away. I can't lose hope. I need to be their fan everyday. I need to cheer on their efforts and celebrate their successes. I need to be their biggest fan.

Tips for teachers to be the biggest fan of your students:

1. Celebrate student learning. Students need their teachers to be cheerleaders. To encourage them to try harder, to put in more effort, to work longer. They need teachers to celebrate their accomplishments and to recognize their efforts. Celebrating student learners changes the culture and dynamics of a classroom.

2. Spend time getting to know your students. John Hattie's works tells us of the importance of the student-teacher relationship. In Teach Like a Pirate, Dave Burgess makes the case of taking time at the beginning of the year to build rapport with students and how that sets the tone for the school year. Teachers can get to know their students by eating lunch with students, playing at recess, asking students about their weekends. There are many ways to get to know students. Let them know you are taking an interest in who they are as learner and as a person.

3. Create and environment for students to be risk takers. Students come to us with a natural sense of curiosity and desire to create. Classrooms need to be places where students take risks and create. When teachers set up a classroom environment where student creativity and risk taking is welcomed; a culture is created where students flourish.

4. Provide feedback. Being a fan of a student means that you are providing feedback about their learning. Not just praising, but giving them meaningful and actionable feedback. Sharing with students what you notice they do well and areas where they still have work to do. Being a fan means being honest and supportive of students and their learning.

Tips for administrators to be the biggest fan of your teachers:

1. Build relationships. Developing this relational culture takes time. In their book  The progress principle: Using small wins to ignite joy, engagement, and creativity at work, Amible & Kramer share how the small wins matter to people. They build momentum and keep people moving. Timothy Kanold, in The five disciplines of PLC leaders, describes the importance for leaders to create a relational culture. Leaders need to connect with teachers and create the atmosphere for teachers to be able to connect with one another. 

2. Celebrate teachers. A talented principal recognizes these moments and knows when to celebrate and recognize them. Richard  DuFour in his latest book, In praise of American educators and how they can become even better states, “Effective principals will not wait for monumental accomplishments before celebrating”.  A culture of celebration and recognition leads to developing further trust among the members of a school.

3. Provide clarity. Providing clarity is so key in making sure teams are working on the right things. A good principal establishes, along with the leadership team, goals and the actions teachers will take to achieve the goals. They also give teams autonomy on how they will implement those actions on their team and in their classrooms.

4. Give teachers space and time to be creative.  Rosenhotz, in Teacher's workplace: The social organization of schools, found that teachers’ regard for their work resides in their schools and those conditions that allow them to feel empowered, fulfilled, and keeps them reaching for new opportunities and challenges. Principals need to provide time and space for teachers to do their work and to demonstrate through their actions that they trust the teachers by giving them that autonomy. Providing teachers autonomy and trusting them as professionals builds stronger relationships

Tim McDermott

Go for it!

Back when I was in high school Nike released its Just Do It ad campaign, The spirit of this campaign was to get people out there and go for it. To stop sitting on the sidelines and get in the game. To go for it. I gravitated to the slogan Just Do It as it kind of spoke to me to take a risk and go for it when I had some uncertainty about a decision that needed to be made. Should I give up my summers to be a camp counselor at Silver Birch Ranch? Should I change my mind about which college to attend and move across the country to go to Arizona State University? Should I become active on Twitter? Should I start blogging?

Perhaps the best example of living out the theme of Just Do It happened almost twenty years ago. I had just started dating a great girl and we both lived in Arizona. We discovered that each of us was planning to visit our respective family back in the Chicago suburbs during the same week. Jenna had flown back and I was set to fly out a few days later. I was going to use a non reservation ticket, however when I arrived at the America West gate at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. The gate was crowded and I soon realized that I would not be getting on the flight that day and had a very slim chance of flying out the next day. I was super bummed because we had planned to meet up in Chicago and  I really wanted to see Jenna. I mulled over my options and quickly decided that I would drive the 1800 miles. So I jumped into my Volkswagen Cabriolet and headed out of town. I drove straight through, only stopping for gas and to use the bathroom. Everyone I knew thought I was crazy to drive across the country by myself. I took a chance. It was the best decision I ever made.  During those two weeks back in Chicago I fell in love with my best friend. I took a chance. I followed that slogan- Just Do It and it made a world of difference. The following summer we got married.

In thinking about your school, your classroom, your students, How will you Just Do It this year? What will you be willing to try? How will embrace a change? What will you do when you face some adversity? What new learning will you do for yourself to be the best you can be for your students?

In twenty years from now what will you remember? How will you reflect on the time you had with students? What will you remember doing that was out of your comfort zone? What will be your Just Do It moment?

Every year we have the honor and privilege of working with students. They deserve our best and for us to try new things, to continually seek ways to engage them, to connect with them, to inspire them, and to believe in them.

If you Just Do It you will not regret it. Stepping out of your comfort zone will be the one of the best decisions you will ever make.

Tim McDermott