Every morning my first period class almost has a routine. They are a different group of kids than a typical classroom. It’s a class of  17 and only 2 are girls, 15 are 8th graders. The guys in the class are mostly football players. They are students who usually get in trouble in class, not because cruel, but mostly because they can’t sit still. I had majority of students in 6th grade. When I saw the class roster I literally pushed crtl A then delete on my lesson plans. I knew better than plan lessons that didn’t relate to them and weren’t mostly hands on.

This morning routine we have. I walk them to my room because my room is on the 6th grade hall. While we wait for them we stand there and they always tell me who got in trouble or what happened to one of them the day before. While standing there I make sure they are in dress code, usually 1/2 have to tuck in their shirts and pull up their pants. Once I make sure they are dressed we walk to my room. While waiting on announcements they get out the lotion I bought them and put on knees and elbows that look ashy. Always one needs a band aid for a major scrape from football practice the day before. Unfortunately during this waiting I usually loose control of them. One the other day was “stealing swag” and putting it in a ziploc. A shoe once was thrown away. Bean bags get leaped on. When announcements and class starts they are back to students. They usually work hard but also joke around with each other while doing so.

So why do I tell you this? It’s not to show you why I’m exhausted by 8:30. Or why my stomach usually hurts from laughing. I tell you this to remind you that they are just kids. Even at 13 and almost 6 feet tall (I’m barely over 5′ so I’m the little one in the class), they are just kids. They need help getting dressed. Someone to get them a bandage, lotion, paper, etc. They need to be taken care of. They need a time to pretend. If they want to pretend all the white tiles in the hall are acid, OK, let them leap from square to square. They have adult bodies and voices but they aren’t adults. They need adults to guide them. To care for them. To laugh with them. Discuss good manners with them. They are the only class I’ve ever had that I shut the door when class starts, we’ve talked about we do it because it’s a safe place stupid questions can be asked.

I never imagined that class would be the highlight of my day, but they are even more than that. Every day they remind me why I went into teaching. They have no idea how much they add to my life. I’ve had some emotional things to deal with lately and they bring me the laughter I need for the day. I’d probably never admit that to them, haha, we can’t encourage bigger egos. And they’d make fun of me for being a sissy.

Please take the time this week and look at your students, especially middle and high school, and remember that they are more than students. They are children. There is a reason they can’t live alone yet. Someone has to take care of their needs. Not every student has someone to do that, so be that person. Remember why you are a teacher, not to teach test, but to teach children. And that’s exactly what they are, no matter how tall, they are children.

Today is Leadership Day. Thanks to Scott McLeod for starting this years ago. Every year I look forward to reading posts from today. I usually don’t write a post bc I don’t always feel like a leader, but leadership, especially Digital Leadership, has been on my mind lately, I figured I’d write about others that influence me.

No matter what, there are people in our life we ‘follow.’ Those people we look at as leaders. Leaders I really look up to seem to have the same qualities. So since I always think of Leadership Day as a throw back because I can remember reading posts years ago, I’m going retro and making one of my lists.

Top 5 Qualities People I Look Up To Have In Common (AKA How To Be an Awesome Ditgital Leader)

5. They focus on learning not products.
I love hearing about the newest technologies as much as the next person. But blogs that focus on mostly products lose something with me. Blogs and people who draw me in are those who focus on the roots of education. Good pedagogy, big thinking, and believing in their students. Those are the difference makers. They may not get as many blog views as others talking about products, but those make lasting impressions as technology changes.

4. They share what not with whom.
I know, I know, my last blog post was on this, but it’s so important. People who share what they are learning at conferences or through conversations are really making such an impact on me. Much more than those just posting who they hung out with or talked to on Voxer. What’s the use of learning if not sharing. I’m noticing that I’m picking up a whole new PLN now this has become a focus of mine. I’m searching out for people posting their learning and have met some pretty amazing people. Leaders share their learning.

3. They question instead of tell.
Some of the blog posts that have really stuck with me this year have been more of questioning and searching for answers than telling me what I need to be doing. It’s like in the classroom, we want to ask questions to get our students to start asking their own. This has been great launching pad for some of my thoughts this year.

2. Reach out beyond their niche.
I’ve always made a big point of not just following people like me. Follow people who have different beliefs, cultures, and most importantly other professions. Don’t just follow them, make them part of your PLN. I learn and connect so much from people from outside education. They truly push my thinking. I also get to show them what awesome things that are going on in education. Don’t write someone off because they are in marketing or IT, they will influence you more than you will ever know. They could’ve written me off as ‘just a teacher’ but invited me into their world and I’ve learned so much.

1. They admit when they make mistakes and have solutions.
I have enjoyed a lot of posts this year where people have admitted failure and then offered solutions or talked about what they did to fix it. It takes so much strength to admit you were wrong, but it takes more strength to reflect on that failure and do something positive with it. I don’t know about you, but I love having someone making the mistakes before me so I don’t have to.

These are just five. I could probably come up with ten but no one wants to read all of that. But those who have really made an impact on me over last year hit all five of these. I hope one day I will have a majority of these qualities. Thanks to those who have given me something to strive for!

Summer for a lot of educators is time to attend professional development and conferences. As summer is wrapping up (for me it’s over, I went back to school last week) are you reflecting on what you are learning? What are you sharing from the conferences you have attended?

I worry that a lot of times as connected educators and/or presenters we focus on what we present and forget to take the time to learn. I’ve seen more “had a blast presenting/working with so-and-so” twitter/facebook/instagram posts than I have “—- made me think” or “My reflection of —-” this summer. When that’s the majority of posts I see from conferences I start wondering what I’ve missed out on. The beauty of being a connected educator during conference season is seeing what others are learning and hearing their views. That’s how I got connected on twitter almost 6 years ago. I joined twitter in Sept but didn’t get hooked until EduCon when seeing people post their opinions and reflections as well as notes from sessions. It was huge for me to follow an entire conference, 1,000 miles away. I’m not seeing that as much as I used to. Now I see conference hashtags and know who’s hanging out with who or who’s presenting, not what’s being presented. I miss it. A lot.

Thursday was my second day of school. I was exhausted and just kind of wanting to see what others were learning or thinking. I needed motivation. I looked on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook looking for this. Only posts I saw were about who people were having GHOs with or presenting with or working on projects with, but nothing on what they learned or even what they taught others beyond a title. What are we teaching each other when doing this?

I’m guilty of this just as much as everyone else. I’m reflecting here on my summer postings as well. I’ve posted about having a GHO and not talked about the learning or conversation that was had. That’s not using the medium wisely. I have been wrong. How can I speak to others in my district or online about the power of being a connected educator if we aren’t using this medium to share what we are learning from each other? Hard to say “look at the power of the medium” when not practicing what I preach.

I apologize for being that person. Who would’ve thought the chick who beats herself up on her blog has become egotistical on twitter? I am making a promise now to not tweet who my friends are but what they are teaching me. I am also challenging you to share what is important. Share quotes from one another, share what others have taught you that has changed your thinking, tell us the main points of your presentations. I’m looking forward as this school year is beginning again to learn from each of you. I look forward some of you challenging my thinking and my teaching.

I hope my honesty doesn’t upset y’all, I love y’all. I just want to change my behavior and would like some of you to help me along with it. Call me out when I go back to that.

2 yrs ago today I had a 1 on 1 convo with this guy, the Administrator of NASA, and he looked me in the eye and said, I want you as a connected educator to do what you can to promote the importance of STEM in education. Challenge Accepted! I’m doing what I can. I hope I’m making an impact.
http://timehop.com/c/fup:10151073558007390:638667389:1907121:1e2a6

Innovation. I remember the first time I heard that word, I was at Epcot at WDW back in middle school. They had this building and inside were “innovations” for the future. I remember nerding out at all the technology. (That’s the best part of vacation with your family, you can be your geeky self and not have to try to be cool.) I remember my mom explaining to me that innovation meant to take what someone has already invented and make it better. That stuck with me. Mostly because the stuff was so state of the art cool!

In education innovation is a word I have been hearing a lot when discussing STEM and makers. I love it. I love the idea of students looking at our world and want to improve what they see. That’s exactly what school should be, preparing kids for now, teaching them how world changing these critical thinking skills for a changing world are.

So where do we start? I was talking to a friend the other day. He’s not an educator but an amazing thinker. He works for one of the largest companies in my state and was telling me about a contest they had. The CEO asked people to submit ideas for innovative ideas that the company would be using by 2020. We laughed at how it became a suggestion box and crazy ideas people had. We then started talking about design thinking and where to start when thinking innovatively. I confessed to him my idea for a big project for my class, the one I mentioned last post (Nope still not ready to reveal yet.) and he took the ideas I had and push me to think deeper. Ideas already in my head got bigger and better. The project in my mind was completely transforming as we talked.

Our conversation kept coming back to “what is the problem?” I was reminded how when you are just trying to make things better, it’s not really innovative because you get stuck on what’s already there. But when you start asking the question “what’s the problem?” you start looking at and thinking about things differently. You start trying to solve the problem instead of adding to what we already have.

Now as I’m looking to this school year, which starts Wednesday, I’m reflecting on what I did last year. But instead of saying “that didn’t work, I’ll add this to it or I’ll just do this instead” I’m looking at “what was the problem students had ___?” and start thinking about how to solve the problem. I hope as I go through the school year and lessons aren’t working I’ll do the same. Those of you in admin roles, I hope when something isn’t living up to expectations in your school, go backwards, what’s the problem and what’s the best route to solve it.

Also, teachers in classrooms, take the time to have students think of ideas to solve problems. Teach them best practices for questioning to find the “problem.” Have these discussions with them, get the thinking process going. It’s not only important for us to think innovatively, but to teach students to be innovators.