Institute For Courageous Leadership

I am fortunate to be a member of a cohort of leaders participating in a two year program, Institute for Courageous Principal Leadership, through Minnesota State University. The focus of this work centers around increasing our capacity to eliminate achievement gaps which are racially predictable, especially so in the state of Minnesota.

Our cohort came together for three days in July to begin this work together. We will be collaborating with leaders from around the state including, Mankato, St. Paul, Minneapolis, and other metro districts. Day one was an opportunity to dialog with our newly established small groups, participate in activities such as concentric circle based sharing as well as hearing from a panel of principals who are past participants of the Institute. I recall feeling that we just jumped in on the deep end when we were asked to discuss (with people we were meeting for the first time) how schools have contributed to the recent police shootings in our state and nation. We participated in Beyond Diversity training on days two and three. I have been part of this training in the past and was grateful for the opportunity to refresh my learning as we focused on the four agreements and six conditions outlined in Singleton's Courageous Conversations About Race.

Moving forward we will come together once a month to continue our conversation and our learning. We'll be examining Strengths Based Leadership, we'll be exploring further how whiteness and white culture impact student achievement, and we'll all be carrying out a research project which will be shared with the cohort during the course of the next two years.

The three days were energizing and thought provoking. No matter how many times I engage in learning and discussion on this topic, I consistently realize how much I don't know... or fail to consider...when making decisions that impact students. And this is an unintentional omission we cannot afford to continue given that we are teaching in a state that leads the pack in terms of racially predictable achievement gaps.

Hands Free Life...9 Habits for Overcoming Distraction, Living Better, and Loving More

My oldest daughter, who is also a teacher, recommended this book (by Rachel M Stafford) to me.  In both my personal and professional lives, I am often overwhelmed by the many distractions that divert my attention from what is really important in life-my relationships-to give & love fully to those who share this journey with me. 

As we begin another school year, one that usually starts out with MANY distractions, I hope that I can stay focused on what really matters and not get too overwhelmed by all the crazy details!

I will end this post with a quote from the book:
"And the only thing people regret is that they didn't live boldly enough, that they didn't invest enough heart, didn't love enough.  Nothing else really counts at all."

Twitter's Impact on Me

Wendy Moritz asked for people to share how Twitter has impacted them.  After typing my response to her, I thought it would be worthy of sharing with my Friedell colleagues as well.  Twitter has been very powerful in my professional career... I encourage you to consider connecting with others through Twitter!

I've been pondering how to summarize how much Twitter has made a difference in my professional career in the past 7 months since I signed up, started following people, and joined in on RPSLead chats.  The funny thing is that I was so hesitant to join Twitter until attending the TIES conference last December.  I tried to stay out of social media and didn't want to engage in the politics and entertainment world I "thought" Twitter was.  I signed up for Twitter in the van ride to TIES and learned more about the professional power of Twitter as it was mentioned over the next few days.  WOW!  I had no idea the professional collaboration taking place on Twitter!  My Twitter feed contains little to no politics/entertainment, but a wealth of amazing things that are making me a better educator and person. A couple weeks ago, I just shared with a new teacher at my building that Twitter has been one of the best professional development opportunities I've been involved in throughout my 12 years of teaching.

Throughout the past two years after transferring back to middle school at Friedell and working with diverse groups of learners with such different learning needs, my philosophy of teaching and vision of where I want to guide students has evolved dramatically.  Working with our instructional coach, Laura Willis, as well as amazing colleagues has challenged me to be better and push further to make a difference and truly transform what learning looks like in my classroom.  I want learning to be relevant, real-life, engaging, student driven, and inspire students to become curious about the world around them.  This is much different than the more traditional educational setting I've seen over my past 12 years of teaching in Rochester Public Schools.  I want students to have growth mindset and believe that they can (and will) do great things as long as they keep trying and learn from experiences.

Collaboration... Twitter has allowed me to connect and collaborate with amazing people with a wealth of experience and knowledge from all over the world that are doing just what my vision involves!  Reading what others share has inspired me to go further, take risks, and build my toolkit with so many ideas to inspire those that step into my classroom for years to come.  It's so easy to connect and learn from others!

RPSlead Chats... In our teaching profession, we often don't get much time to share the great things we are doing in our own little worlds/classrooms.   I participated in several RPSlead chats throughout the past school year (and even moderated one.) Talk about a power hour!  Twitter has allowed me a glimpse into other classrooms and schools right here in Rochester!  I've been inspired and feel pushed by those within our own district!  We have many rock stars!  This has allowed me to feel connected and motivated to continue on my mission of being innovative in order to make a difference to those (students, staff, families) I am fortunate to work with.

Reflection... Many people on Twitter share research or different perspectives that allows me to challenge my thinking, practices, and how I will change my actions to benefit students.  This practice is something I also want my students to engage in, so it's a powerful personal experience I will be able to share.

Innovating... One author, Angela Maiers shares, "When you are not sharing your brilliant ideas, you are doing a disservice to others." It's not bragging but rather sharing things that may help others. I've begun to share amazing things that are happening in my classroom and school.  Although they may seem small and not profound to me (I always want everything to be amazing!), they may spark something and inspire someone else to make it their own and do something great in turn impacting even more learners!   I'm not on Twitter all the time, but within a short 30 minutes a day, I'm saving at least 5-20+ ideas that have sparked something in me whether it be education research, best practices, relevant ideas, or something that may transpire into an amazing learning experience for my students.  Our world is filled with amazing things to learn and explore; it's our job as educators to help students learn how to navigate it and spark the curiosity that will inspire them to be life long learners.

It's so hard to summarize, but these are a few of the benefits I've personal experienced with Twitter.  I encourage others to jump on in and join Twitter.  Join an RPSlead chat or come see me, and I'll help you get started!

Follow me or check out ideas I've shared... @KellyStroeing

Erin and I attended the Minnesota Humanities Center Summer Educator's Institute: Transforming Education Through Absent Narratives at the end of June. While it was incredibly long days and loaded with tons of information, we did enjoy ourselves and came away with lots of new ideas. Here are some things we would like to share:

Humanities Center Core Values:
Build and strengthen relationships
Recognize the power of story and the danger of absence
Learn from and with multiple voices
Amplify community solutions for change

Sunday: We opened with a getting-to-know-you-type activity that allowed us to examine our seen and unseen selves and talked about the impact that these factors can have  in the classroom and in our lives in general.

Monday: While on the Bdote field trip we visited Mounds Park, Fort Snelling and Pilot Knob and discussed the untold stories (absent narratives) of what we think of as Minnesota history. After dinner that evening we played some Dakota games which you can find at the link below.

Tuesday: We discussed culture and how it can influence the way you behave. With culture we talked about cultural arrogance, humility and dexterity. We also discussed the idea of truth vs. truths. To conclude the long morning we finished talking about privilege structures that currently exist. In the afternoon we looked at Story and the idea of getting to know someone through their stories. What would happen if we told a story from the middle first or the end? Or dinner this evening we met with some fabulous students from the Equity Alliance MN Youth Executive Board for a Chinese Hot Pot meal and we discussed their work.

Wednesday: We spent the morning talking about Master/Settler Narrative, also be known as the Dominant culture. We all have some experience with being invisible. Culture becomes visible in the face of diversity. Having a "knowledge bomb" drop on you makes you realize you didn't know something but someone else did. (Feel free to use this with students :)) In the afternoon we met with a panel of authors from A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota, and Blues Vision: African American Writing from Minnesota. Both books are wonderful short story and essay collections and if you would like to borrow one please let us know.

Thursday: We learned about resources to take back to help with planning lessons to include the absent narratives we have learned about. We also spent much of the day working on an action plan to bring back to our districts and sites which we presented in the evening.

Friday: We spent in a story circle activity called "The Gift." The leader, Rose McGee, has many story circle activities in her book Story Circle Stories which you are more than welcome to borrow from us. 

Here are resources and links that we gained from the institute:

MN Humanities Center

MNHUM.org

On Twitter @humanities (#MHCEdIn)

Follow them on Pinterest

Humanities Center resources

http://www.mnhum.org/resources

Highlights:

Booted field trip http://bdotememorymap.org/

Native American games http://www.minnesotahumanities.org/Content.aspx?PageID=130

TED Talks

The Danger of a Single Story https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story

Everyday Leadership  

 https://www.ted.com/talks/drew_dudley_everyday_leadership

Looking for something to do this summer?  Visit the Reframing Minnesota Exhibit (runs through 9/16/16) http://www.allmyrelationsarts.com/exhibits/current-exhibit/ at All My Relations Art Gallery http://www.allmyrelationsarts.com/ 

Links to MN History Resources 

http://www.minnesotahistory.net/

Phillips Indian Educators

http://pieducators.com/best-practices-indigenous-pedagogy

The Search Institute

Study: Five Factors that Impact Student Motivation

http://www.search-institute.org/blog/five-factors-impact-student-motivation

Making Sense of Math

I recently read and was part of an ASCD Webinar for the book Making Sense of Math by Cathy Seeley.

 The main emphasis of the book was how to help ALL students become mathematical thinkers and problem solvers.

Some of my biggest take aways were:
1) Teachers need to foster curiosity in their classroom.  If we do, then students will be intrinsically motivated and their learning will improve. If students aren't curious about the information you are teaching, they are not going to remember it.  Made me start thinking how I can make my lessons more student driven in the "How" of math and build off what they come up with.

2) Teachers need to slow down and give their students time and space to think, wonder, create and grow.  Often times, we teachers jump in too soon and don't let our students struggle enough with the topic/concept. (I know I do!)  We do this in an effort to help them, but really may be taking away that "ah ha" moment from them.

3)  Math is Supposed to make Sense!  Sounds resonable and is most math teachers goal.  However, when we give them tips and tricks to remember information, it doesn't always make sense to them and therefore is confusing.If it doesn't make sense, they won't remember it after they leave the classroom.  If it doesn't make sense, students should question it and we should give them time to make sense of it.  My struggle with this that darn curriculum guide that is always in the back of my mind. :(

I also loved this slide that Cathy shared in the Webinar:

In this class, mistakes are
Expected
Inspected
Respected


Mistakes are a critcal part of learning and making sense of what we are teaching/doing in mathematics.  I am going to make this into a sign I hang in my class and hang it in the front of the classroom.

So, my goal this year is to give my students time to struggle, so that they can make sense of the math we are learning, not just memorize what they should do to solve math problems,

Reading up on GT Students

Many educators are frantically scouring the isles of Target, Walmart, or even shop on Amazon for the best school supplies to stock up their classrooms. While many educators spent their summer shopping for school supplies, beefing pedagogies, or just beefing up, I've had the privilege to have taught summer academy to our students to prevent summer slide. However you spend your summer, the start of the school year can't get here soon enough.

I've spent countless hours reading up on GT materials from understanding students' social and emotional needs, over-excitability, and fostering learning in underachieving students. Throughout the readings, I have come across the idea of students whose cognitive abilities are asynchronous with their social abilities. Often times in our classrooms, precocious students are expected to act their cognitive strengths while their behavior trumps their abilities. When educators head back into the classroom, please be cognizant to our GT learners who are brilliant in their own ways who don't act their age. Even though they are "smart enough" to hold a deep conversation with an adult, remember that our GT students are still kids. 

With that in mind, we as educators need to listen, read their body language because some of them may feel frustrated. Educators may think the student is misbehaving, yet they are curious or passionate about the topic. This leads to my next point over-excitability. This fall, the presidential election will take place. What ever political background you hold, please be mindful to our GT learners. A trait GT students possess is a heightened awareness with the problems locally/globally. We have two major political parties and depending on the issues, GT students will either express their thoughts and feelings outward or keep it in. We must find strategies to help our GT students deal with their emotions. We can't stifle their interests, but we need to teach students to respectfully disagree with one another.

For more information, please visit the following sites:

www.davidsongifted.org

www.edutopia.com

www.sengifted.org

www.hoagiesgifted.org

Reading up on GT Students

Education in Me

After the viewing and reading about the DNC convention, I’ve been able to reflect on my own vision of education in America. Education should not be a controversial topic, but it is. To me, one of the best lines from the DNC was the line that was uttered, the “Chelsea Test”. If the school is not good enough for Chelsea, it’s not good enough for all children. The key words here is FOR ALL CHILDREN. Often times, the best education is only available to the elite types of people-people with the money and influence. As an educator, I am concerned that our education system is fractured. It’s not a perfect system, but we need to work together to fix the issues that our children face everyday.

I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to figure out what can I do to change and challenge the school system in a positive way. The answer is always evolving, but I’ve managed to stay true to what I’ve been taught and learned through this endeavor. I am a firm believer that one must “do good” to serve a purpose and that rewards come in many different aspects. In my ten years in education, I’ve managed to reflect on my education, and I’ve changed as a classroom leader.

Being a child advocate has its impact of who I am today. Education is always changing-evolving to meet the needs of learners. Schooling in the past had ALWAYS been about the teacher-my parent’s generation. Our educational system today is not my parent’s education system. We must transition from teacher-centered to student-centered. To master this, one must give up the comfort and status quo of education. Have students take charge in their learning by offering choice with guidance. Be pragmatic, authentic, and most importantly, listen to your surroundings (students, staff, parents, and the community). Continue to grow as learners and that teaching is never ending.

My final thought: the education system spends millions of dollars on trying to get students to be proficient. It is imperative that we continue to spend money to support our learners who need extra support, but on one thing that our people and lawmakers fail to understand is that our gifted population is starving. Starving  to be educated. The fallacy we have about our gifted learners is that they are able to learn on their own and that they don’t need the support. My response to this is an excruciating, NO! Gifted learners need to be educated like all other learners. We must not fail this population of learners because they deserve the right to an education.