"In Their Words"

Here is my 2013 Commencement Speech "In Their Own Words"

Each year I get a little nervous thinking of the proper things to say in regards to the graduating class.  Our superintendent and class speakers have shared words of wisdom, advice and some funny memories.  Traditionally I try to characterize the group, give you all a look into the impression they left on everyone at school as they graced our hallways.  This year instead of choosing my own words, I surveyed the class and asked them to describe their classmates in a one simple word or phrase.  

May I present to you the Class of 2013 - In  Their own Words.

Hannah - Sweet, Smart, Musical

Hunter - Funny, Cool, Outdoor-sy

Ryan - Class Clown or Two words Mud-Kip

Emily - Smart & Athletic, Beautiful

Tyler B. - Artistic, Reserved, Geniune

Jarrad - A Sweetheart, Cool and Kind-Hearted

Ashlyn - Quiet, Very nice, Generous

Chance - Motivated, Comical, Hard-worker

Shelby - Nice hair, very fun, Pretty

Veronica - Artistic, Colorful, caring

Dustin - The Ferg, Loud, Care-free

Kassidy - Strong Minded, Hard-worker, Funny

Carson - Outgoing, social, free-spirit

AhLEEsha - Responsible, giggly, Kind

Jenna - Organized, Good Dancer, Spanish Guru

Kaley - Sweet, Pretty Eyes, Photogenic

Ashlynn - Nicest person, friendly, colorful

Trevor - Determined, studious, Athletic

Alex - Mischievous, fun, DUUUUDE!

Amber - Rural, Outgoing, Country

Tyler S. - Farmer, Strong, Mellow

Nichelle - Unique, Friendly, Quiet

Matthew - Intelligent, dedicated, Rippped!

Shaley - Inspiring, A Cool Cat, Lots of Fun

Graduates, you are all of these adjectives and so much more.  Thank you for an incredible four years, you certainly have a lot going for you.  

Thank you.

What is your student's "Passion?"

What is your student’s “Passion”?  Inside every student is an interest that could develop into a passion that drives them in their post-secondary lives.  At CAM High School we provide student’s many opportunities to explore academic and activity based interests.  A question that needs to be asked is “are they taking advantage of these opportunities, and if not why not?”

How can we get student’s to turn away from their cell phones, TV & computers or is the question how do we reach them through those devices?  How do we teach them to utilize technology beyond entertainment?  Essentially enabling them to harness the power of the devices that range from laptops, to tablets to most students carrying smartphones.

We offer elective courses that introduces students to the world of virtual reality.  Our Project Lead the Way program gears students for a career in engineering.  CAM offers a deep and complete assortment of Math and Science courses.  What these areas all share in common is that they are under enrolled in by the percentage of students eligible to take them, to the actual number of student’s enrolled.

Student’s who are taking or have taken upper level math and science classes breaks down as follows - Seniors: science 63%; math 38%; Juniors: science 28%; math 38%.  Upper level classes included trigonometry, statistics, pre-calc or calculus in math; chemistry, physics and anatomy & physiology in science.  These are important classes for all students looking at two year or four year colleges and junior colleges.  About 20% of the student body is enrolled in a PLTW pre-engineering course.  These courses would be under the umbrella of the acronym “STEM” which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math and are being touted by educators and politicians as important job areas.

We have a strong speech program, strong Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs, hard-working coaches in athletics, excellent Spanish courses, and a top-notch fine arts program.  In all of these areas are students finding a niche and exploring possibilities beyond the next assignment or next practice?  Are they working on things at home just because, not because it’s required?

Passion is important as studies have shown that it takes 10,000 hours of engagement (not just attendance) with something to “master” that skill or content matter.  It’s obvious that school, practice and rehearsal supervised  by a teacher, coach or sponsor will not get them there..they need to find the drive to want to engage their interest on their own.

We can no longer afford to watch our students wait until they graduate to focus on their interests, as a lot of times those change as we mature.  We need to take advantage of the free opportunities offered at CAM High School and help discover what truly motivates them and what their interests are now.

Class of 2000TWEET

Past years I’ve stood before you and told you a little something about each graduate.  This year, the Class of 2000tweet is going to do that for me through their postings on Twitter.
 
Twitter is like the New York Yankees - you either love it or you hate it.

IT is largely a narcissistic, mindless stream of babble that often ignores all rules of English, grammar, spelling and punctuation.

Studies have deemed Twitter more addictive than nicotine, food and all other impulsive human behaviors – does this sound like anyone in your household?

Twitter can be Inspirational, insightful, educational, giving everyone a platform to expose little pieces of themselves for their peers and the world -  thoughts thrown out easily and eagerly by our graduates riding the Twitter highway.

Often our graduate’s tweets were insightful, like -

Devan: Why is it that teachers let girls get way with everything?

Morgan, referring to Alex -  you cant go to college if you don't know what the acronym stands for – (you know) A.I.B. - American Institute of Business

Alex - So I was cutting peppers and after almost 10 minutes of wondering why it was so hard to cut, I realized I used the wrong side of the knife.

There’s the daily updates –

Dakota - 8 man final was today. …final score freemont....81 murry a giant 0 :) lol!

Adam - What's happening? Me typing this. That's what's happening this very moment.

Matt: Sitting in class... having fun; @Giegerich,

Justin: good ole johnny cash to start the day

Ryan: Taking the 3 wheeler on a 6 mile drive:) should be a good day lol

Kelsey: Corey, Seth and Shelby just held me down and tickled me #familylove

In a related tweet Angeline said- When a person is tickled the response is actually a form of panic, as the brain interprets the tickling sensation.

They are deep thinkers:

Morgan – Eventually you’re going to have to face your problems

Biz- Watching angeline’s video through the years.. So sad. Love this class

Lexi: People say hell is endless, they say its our worst nightmare, the face of our darkness

Angeline - The past can hurt. You can either run from it or learn from it.

Kelsey: Laugh when you can, apologize when you should, and let go of what you can’t change. Life’s too short to be anything but happy.

Trenda quoting Dr. Seuss: "Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive, who is youer than you."

Then there’s the Random:

Lexi: Even though I have seen Bring It On a million times I never get sick of it #fave

Stakey - "Riding a scooter around school, now that's a good day."

Justin: ffa float = greatest float ever!!!

Alex - I get upset over the most STUPID things.

Devan: I love when im in the tractor and people pass me and are all pissed off because how slow i am going #itsatractor

At the beginning of the year, most let me follow them on Twitter, but after some detentions were handed out for bad twitter etiquette many dropped me.  So for those who did, and for those who don’t tweet, here’s my take on how they’d might …

Spencer – I’d tweet, but you’d probably not notice.

Sami – I believe the color black is very expressive, not many people see all of it’s different shades.

Tanner – Take me out to the ballgame or Let’s play two!

Borts – What?  I’m on my way to class.

Jaylnn – If I can balance on these shoes, I can balance on anything.

Travis – Twitter?  If I can’t drive it, hunt it, or put saddle on it, I’m not interested in it.

Ian – When I’m not playing sports, I’m starring in rap videos

Emily - If I’m going to make a difference I’m not going to need anything for it.

Tayler – I’ll tweet something after this migraine clears up.

Ethan – Today I AM a graduate of CAM High School

Dan – I’m most comfortable 21 feet from the basket!  Yeah buddy

Michaela – Who has time to tweet?

One can glean insight about people through Twitter, and real tweets or not I hope I’ve provided you some insight about how fond I’ve become of these seniors and how much we’ll all miss them next year.

Rolling out the Blueprint for Iowa

Jason Glass, State Director of Education in Iowa, did not disappoint in creating "One Unshakable Vision - World-class Schools for Iowa" released yesterday, Oct. 3rd 2011. The much-anticipated document, outlined in a concise 16 page PDF file, is destined to face scrutiny and debate from all sides. At least I HOPE we can debate, discuss, contemplate and rebut the ideas presented.

Education is a big political issue, and if you are into the politics and the strategies of today, you know they are divisive and becoming more polarizing. Sound bites and advertisements are now black and white, either you're for us or against us. So when you push things to be black and white and eliminate the gray, there is no room for discussion or thought.

The blueprint will be categorized and characterized by the majority of Iowans without even reading or considering what is on it's pages. Newspaper headlines are reading "Branstad Education plan could be costly, some warn." - Omaha World-Herald. The article talks on the surface about how many teachers they would have to hire to provide time for Mentor and Master Teachers that will work with the rest of the staff. They quote one administrator as saying they'll have to add 10 staff.

Freeing up time for teachers to collaborate and work with other teachers will necessitate additional personal. But it's not as simple as taking all those quarters and halves and adding them together to make up their time. (Mentor teachers will spend 25% of their time and Master 50%) But we want to equate it in simple terms, we want to dismiss or accept without much thought.

In terms of adding staff I was able to look at our staff of 20 teachers and discovered I could get by with adding one full time teacher in English to accomplish the blueprint's goals. That's not considering we were contemplating adding a 1/2 time English teacher next year.

I challenge all Iowans to resist the temptation to put things in simple, politically charged, packets and sound bites but to instead work through to a solution. Whether in the end it's 90% of what's in the blueprint or 10%, let's find answers and not sound bites. Let's talk to each other, not at each other or down to each other. Arguing is good if you have a viable alternative or direction to fight for, not an interest-pushed agenda.

I would suggest having county-wide implementation teams of Superintendents, Principals, Board Members and Legislators working on feasibility, not in terms of is it possible? But more like MAKE it possible. Maybe even reach out to nearby districts to share resources in and out of the county.

My fear is that we never get the chance to work on this at the building level. There are "town-hall" meetings scheduled, which were held last spring and did a lot to craft the blueprint. I believe we're past that format and need to move to groups that directly are affected by the legislation to demonstrate what could work and find alternatives to what needs re-worked.

I challenge everyone to read, think and above all act. Whether it's attending a meeting, writing a legislator, working in your building to see what could work and taking the ideas and applying them in ways you can right now.

In that way the spirit of the document could gain traction even before hitting the state house floor.

Iowa "Did You Know?" - a must see

Courageous Leadership

"Courageous Leadership" was the theme to this year's School Administrators of Iowa (SAI) conference held August 3 & 4. The thoughts swirling in my head on the ride home Thursday had me scrap two days of writing about teaching digital natives how to navigate their own continent. It is clear the theme, also echoed at the Iowa Education Summit just over a week ago, is exactly the call to arms EVERY administrator and educator in this state needs to heed.

Dr. Jason Glass, the Director of the Iowa Department of Education (IDE), stated two things we all could agree on - We could do a better job of educating our students; and we wanted to have the best possible educational system (one that ranks ahead of other states and countries). His third point of agreement was we needed to develop better assessments to measure our educational success. Talk about courageous leadership especially saying that after Governor Terry Branstad had just referenced low-order tests that countries in the world have been out performing us on over the past years.

We have to take the lead in agreeing on Dr. Glass's first two points and formulating everything we do RIGHT NOW with them in mind. Then we address the third as we have to find, work, scratch, claw, beg, borrow and steal (well, maybe not steal) the resources, time and energy to develop those assessments. Assessments that don't exist, nor are being developed. We have to act now, and not send trainers to be trained, forming committees or visiting schools. We need to make "Type II" errors that could result it a messy result, but one that is made due to action, not inaction.

September the IDE will be releasing a list of priorities that will most certainly push districts to lead courageously in finding ways to accomplish these priorities. It will take both working with the IDE and constructively questioning ourselves and not become defensive, only seeing the hot-button broad categorizations (like 'merit pay') and comprehend exactly what is being asked of us. Dr. Glass admitted the the IDE has been an impediment to real change and has been working to get out of school's way, constructive self-reflection.

We will also have to push back where push back is due. My courageous act will be stop short of cooperating if funding trends continue the way they have the last few years. Don't give me an example of a state that is doing things a particular way (Massachusetts) and not address the issue that their funding level per student is significantly higher than Iowa's.

As Dr. Douglas Reeves pointed out, we (public education) are a revenue source for the State of Iowa, not an expenditure. Every student we graduate adds revenue to the state and those who drop out cost 2.1 billion for EACH class (per year). Thankfully CAM High School rarely has a drop out, but we can work harder to prepare our students for the high paying job demand that exists in our state, and not lower expectations. It takes courageous leadership from the parents and faculty to set high expectations and then work hard to help students achieve and meet those expectations.

Changing how we teach in the classroom, and utilizing the technology to bring higher order activities in an engaging format, is the direction any instructional initiative needs to be moving towards. The Iowa Core five characteristics of effective instruction should be a springboard for all schools should use to measure their classroom practices. They WILL be a primary discussion point this year at CAM High School, and not just one of those things that will go away as soon as "Implementation" of the core moves forward.

Matt Carver, the SAI Legal Analyst put the call out to all administrators to keep their legislators informed about the programs that are vital to schools. Recent cuts to the Area Education Agencies (AEA) and the administrator mentor program illustrate how the desire to trim budgets often cut vital programs that are just a few drops in the bucket in state spending. For the second straight year millions cut from AEAs mean their services, that are very vital to all schools to meet state mandates, are reduced and students are the ones that suffer. Mentoring is a universally agreed best practice model to improving administrative effectiveness (something the Governor said is a must that we have better Principals in schools), yet it's funding was cut and sent like trimmings to the state house scrap floor. Oh, and it's still a mandate that we take the time to participate in the program AND we will continue it as we know it's value. It's time as courageous leaders to stand up and to counter the venomous and ill-informed political viewpoints held by to many of our elected officials.

We need to stand up and fight for students by championing innovation, higher order instructional practices, fair and meaningful assessments, and most importantly each other. If we do that, then we will see achievement levels rise, and not because of any piece of legislative action or political rhetoric.

It will happen through the courageous leadership of our educators.

Which way? Reflections on #i11i and choosing a path to follow

The 2nd annual Iowa 1to1 Institute was held last Wednesday, and while those of us who roam the world of twitter know it by it's "hashtag" #i11i we are the minority of who understand this concept. I challenge that we are the minority in education who share the true passion and true belief that we can change education by fearlessly choosing a path to venture forward upon.

It's not that the vast majority of educators are void of passion, or passionless. They are searching, questioning, doubting or taking baby steps forward. They want answers and promises, guarantees and a safety net. They want a formula, concrete reason or a flow chart to show the path to educational prosperity for their students and to show their patrons.

Guess what? Those things do not exist, not at this time and not in this disruptive place. So at #illi many educators went from session to session with the look of bewilderment, the look of astonishment from the enormity of trying to organize all of this vast ocean of possibilities. They are looking for a clear path, but what they encountered was a sign post much like the one located in the middle of the compound on TVs hit series M*A*S*H.



Erase the cities on each board and replace them with things such as 24/7 access, Collaboration, Skype, Digital Footprint, Google, Interest driven Learning, PLNs, eCurriculum, Twitter, MOODLE, Web2.0, iPads, APS, mobile device tools and on and on.

It is easy to become stuck, staring at the signs wondering which path to take. I've seen this in the eyes of my Web2.0 students, when given the freedom to take any path, they often choose taking no path at all. I've seen it in the eyes of my staff as I've proclaimed, "Try anything! Be bold! Don't be afraid to fail!" Too, too often they're left standing in disbelief at the options presented before them, the enormity of the possibilities. The opposite occurs as the freedom can have a paralyzing effect. We are safe where we are standing.

My students sat on a panel representing a class of seniors that have had computers since they were sophomores. (Video) (PanelHighlights) In preparation we talked about our audience - my estimates put the new, first year or considering 1 to 1 at 60-70%. Conversations and observations about #i11i tell me I vastly underestimated that figure and it was more like 80-90%. Coming to #i11i is safe, it's getting information, reporting back, gathering data. They are paralyzed studying the options, trying to chart the guaranteed path.

CAM High School is lucky that we have chosen paths, are traveling on some and tried others. Administrators and teachers from districts still riding the fence, still searching for the exact, right path have an edge to their comments. A frustration stemming from a gut feeling they're missing out, the train has pulled out of the station without them and they're watching it fade into the distance.

The good news for those still waiting is the technology is evolving and changing. There will be new starting points, new paths, new ways to make new paths. Paths are being wore down, being traveled by more and more educators as they support systemic change or have found a way to capture the best of new technology. Concepts such as Personal Learning Networks (PLNs); eCurriculum through a free, state-wide repository; Connecting classrooms and authentic project based curriculum are some of the emerging paths district's like ours are exploring.

More good news is that there is a growing group of passionate educators that are a click, email or phone call away. All eager to share, collaborate, create or advise on which path to start down.

Whether traveling a long ways towards "Boston" or a short trip to "Seoul" it's important educators use their passion as fuel to move from the #i11i signpost and continue on their journey of educational transformation.