#DBC50Summer

#DBC50Summer 21/50: Escaping the School Leader’s Dunk Tank

/ Alicia Ray / 4 Comments

I have never liked swimming that much. I like for my feet to touch the bottom of any water I’m in, and I want to be able to see my feet through said water. The summer between my 5th and 6th grade years, I went to a summer day camp hosted at a local high school.  They took us to the movies, bowling, the park, and, you guessed it…swimming. In order to be able to swim in the deep end of the pool (with all of my friends), we had to pass a swimming test… in front of everyone. To pass, we had to jump off the diving board (the lower one, but still scary to 10 year old me), then successfully swim the length of the pool… all the way back to the shallow end, and wait for our pass or fail.

Do you have ANY idea how much was riding on that swim? I don’t remember doing anything but treading water before that day. But there was no way I was going to be in the shallow end with the little kids all summer… So I jumped off that diving board (oh em gee), swam the length of the pool (I think you can call the thing I did swimming… somehow I made it from one end to the other – I had watched the Olympics so I knew how the mechanics of it worked), and waited…

Book 21 in the Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc line up is Escaping the School Leader’s Dunk Tank by Rebecca Coda & Rick Jetter.  You’re going to want this one… trust me.

sldunktank

It doesn’t get much more real than this book right here. There is a “dark side” of education – yep… y’all know about it! We just don’t talk about it. Like me, you have likely been thrown in the dunk tank a time or two. I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve never been held under water, but I’ve definitely experienced my turn in the tank. In this book, Rebecca & Rick pull the curtain back on the more political, vengeful, deceitful side of education. They share stories that will rock your world if you’ve never seen anything like it first hand. They encourage us to walk through our educational journey with “pro-active paranoia,” which may be the best advice I’ve ever heard. If you’re out there disrupting education, pushing the boundaries, doing what’s best for kids no matter what (like we ALL should be doing), there will be haters. Those haters will want to see you fail. Period.

So how do you hold your head above water when it seems like you have no control over the situation? How do you not only survive the dunk tank… but thrive in the dunk tank?

For me… three key points have really stuck with me. One is a quote that will earn it’s place on the media center wall.

Another key point is ensuring that I do not become an adversary for someone else – intentionally or unintentionally. If we’re being totally honest here, I am a pretty competitive person. I like to be first, and I like to be the best. I can’t imagine myself being vindictive for any reason, but reading this book makes me even more aware of how my own facial expressions and body language can portray an adversarial vibe to others. Because I like to be first and best, I have to constantly remind myself that others’ success is not my failure. That helps to keep me grounded. It’s easier to manage my competitive nature when I know the “competition” is also in it for the kids.

Finally, the biggest takeaway from this book is the Gathering Allies chapter. Our allies must consist of the “right” people.  These allies must be nice people!  We need to surround ourselves with people that we want to emulate.

My vertical relationships (with my administration and classroom teachers), my horizontal relationships (my fellow digital learning & media innovation facilitators), community relationships (parents, stakeholders, business partners, etc), and personal relationships (my friends that I confide in) are so important to help me steer clear of the dunk tank. If I should find myself back in the dunk tank, I hope that I have done all I can to show these groups of people that I am “worth fighting for”, as Rebecca and Rick put it. With that in mind, the group I want to focus on is my external professional relationships. In today’s world, I call that my Professional Learning Network (#PLN). My PLN impresses me daily with their positivity, kindness, genuine desire to impact students, and their insanely creative ideas! The communities for many of the DBC, Inc books are so strong and I try not to miss a single chat with them! I have also stumbled upon several incredible groups of people that have quickly become a huge part of my inspirational network. I hope that I provide them some inspiration as well, but I feel quite sure that the scales are tipped in this case. Be sure to check out the following groups (there is overlap):

  • #122edchat
  • #waledchat
  • #champforkids
  • #celebratED
  • #TrendthePositive
  • #CelebrateMonday
  • #BeKindEDU
  • #tlap
  • #LeadLAP
  • #JoyfulLeaders

There will always be days that are rough. There will always be corruption (yes, even in education). We will never be able to make everyone happy.  This book gives sound, practical advice for how to manage these adversarial conditions. Rebecca and Rick also give indications of when you’re in a dunk tank and don’t realize it yet, and when you just need to retreat and flee the situation completely, assuring us that this isn’t a failure on our part.

I’m not going to lie; this book scared me a bit. It revealed the side of education that no one wants to talk about. If we don’t talk about it though, we aren’t prepared to deal with it.

It’s a lot like that first swim across the length of the pool after jumping off the diving board in front of my friends at summer camp. However, because I saw the mechanics of how it works, I was able to perform and pass the swimming test. Hopefully with the tactics I have learned from Escaping the School Leader’s Dunk Tank, I will be successful when these situations arise, as well. I, for one, am thankful that Rebecca and Rick took the edgy route and weren’t afraid to expose real truths of challenges in education. I feel more prepared to deal with adversaries in the future.

My implementation for this book is to remain involved in Twitter communities throughout the school year. I generally fail at connecting once school is back in session, although that’s when I need the connection with allies the most! I usually share what the students and teachers are doing, but lack motivation to join chats and become truly connected. This year, I intend to attend and fully participate at least three chats per month. These networks give invaluable information that I can then use to change the discussion at my school, if needed.

There are multiple resources available from Rebecca and Rick! There are posters available here, podcasts (Better Leaders, Better Schools and Transformative Principal), and the Leadership Dunk Tank website here. When you sign up for their newsletter, you will receive a free Dunk Tank Reflection Guide eBook! The hashtag used to discuss these ideas is #sldunktank and both Rebecca and Rick are very active on Twitter! The flipgrid is available here and the password, as always, is DBCSummer. In this flipgrid, share your tribe! Tell others who inspires you; who is part of your external professional allies network? Shoutout to Andrea Paulakovich for this incredible idea! Don’t forget to grab your copy of Escape the School Leader’s Dunk Tank here!

Ready for Book 22? It is none other than Start.Right.Now. by Jimmy Casas, Todd Whitaker, and Jeff Zoul. This will be my first read of this book and I cannot wait to get to it!

#DBC50Summer Book 11-20 Recap

/ Alicia Ray / 3 Comments

Screen Shot 2018-07-07 at 3.54.07 AM

In the first recap, #DBC50Summer Book 1-10 Recap, I was hoping I would reach book 20.  Honestly, I look back on the past three weeks and I have no idea how I ended up actually being able to read the first 20 books released from Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc. The first recap post was made about 5 days post-op from a minor surgery, and I’ve been running all over the state since then. I was fortunate to speak to a few hundred educators throughout the state about NCWiseOwl (a free database of amazing nonfiction resources for North Carolina public school educators), then got to meet 24 more incredible educators from North Carolina at the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching (NCCAT). There we discussed how to reach Generation Z through active and digital learning. We covered topics from augmented and virtual reality to gaming in education to social media to the maker movement to coding and so much more. It was insanely awesome to spend three days with these amazing educators! Finally, I was elected to the North Carolina Technology in Education Society (NCTIES) Board of Directors as the North Region Representative last Spring and we had our first board meeting to plan for the 2019 conference, held in March. Seeing the curtain pulled back just made it more evident how hard that team works to put on a spectacular conference every year and promote digital learning as great pedagogy and not just shiny new tools! It’s an honor to be part of that group!

With all of that going on, I have no clue how I got to book 20! I have had so many direct messages and tweets on Twitter asking how I’m physically able to get these books read so quickly, reflect, and blog about them. My sincere answer is I have no idea. I am so motivated and inspired by the words in these books that I just can’t stop. As soon as I finish one book, I’ve got a million ideas buzzing around my head and have to get my thoughts written down as quickly as possible. As soon as I get the writing done, I’m eager to move on to the next book. As I write this blog, I’m actually staring at Book 21 (which I started today) and would really rather be reading than blogging, ha! The books within the next set of 10 are incredible & I can’t wait to get started on them!  However, before we can look at where we’re going, we need to take a quick review of where we’ve been in Books 11-20!

#DBC50Summer started as Creative Alchemy, a term Dave Burgess uses within Teach Like A Pirate to describe that A-HA moment when you have multiple problems that need addressing and solve them using a creative…

Wait a minute, I have to tell you what just happened, literally JUST happened, before I can go any further. So I was looking up some kind of definition for Creative Alchemy preferring to use Dave’s definition rather than some jumbled up mess of my own. Upon searching for Creative Alchemy Dave Burgess, I was led to a blog written by the Captain himself in March 2012, which dates it before Teach Like A Pirate was published & the advent of Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc. In fact, the email address is from the days of “Outrageous Teaching.” Anyhow… I was reading this blog and in it, Dave says,

“I am always trying to convince teachers that the best books to read about teaching are rarely in the education section.  I always have 3 or 4 books on my nightstand, a book in my car, one in my school bag, and several more on my phone. I consider it one of the most important parts of my job to constantly expose myself to the high quality thinking of other people. It challenges me, it keeps me current, and it provides me the raw resources that I need for creative alchemy.” ~Dave Burgess, Creative Alchemy, March 2012

Let’s take a moment to appreciate the irony of that entire quote… “the best books to read about teaching are rarely in the education section”… well, they are NOW thanks to DBC! How incredible to read this knowing that 6 years and a few months later, they would have released their 50th book, many of which have become insanely successful communities of educators supporting, challenging, and growing one another across the nation (and the world).

“always have…books on my nightstand…my car…school bag…more on my phone”… and now, according to #KidsDeserveIt episode 100 their inbox is flooded every week with manuscripts. Sounds to me like they’re reading books EVERYWHERE now!

Finally, the last section speaks to me at such a deep level in light of the #DBC50Summer… “constantly expose myself to the high quality thinking of other people. It challenges me, it keeps me current, and it provides me the raw resources that I need for creative alchemy.”  The amount of truth in these two sentences cannot be overstated.  Reading these 20 books, even if I stopped right now (which I’m most definitely not going to do), I have grown more as a professional, and as a person, than ever before.  Here I am, twelve years into my career, and I am FINALLY starting to shape my educational philosophy.  I am finally starting to figure out who I am as an educator, and these past ten books have really pushed me to reflect on what I believe about learning and education as a whole.

I’m honestly in a bit of shock that Dave wrote that paragraph in his blog (and a similar one in Teach Like A Pirate) over 6 years ago, and it’s just sitting out there, like it was waiting to inspire someone like me all over again. Just… wow.

Moving along, creative alchemy is what brought me here. I wanted to begin blogging more consistently, growing my PLN on Twitter, and I had all these Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc books sitting on my bookshelf and had only read a handful of them due to time constraints.  It all clicked as I sat staring at the shelves that #DBC50Summer was the solution to each of my problems. I am so excited to be nearing the halfway point, but there’s so much awesome still to come!  Let’s review Books 11-20.

11 – Your School Rocks by Ryan McLane and Eric Lowe – This book challenges us to tell our school’s story through social media.  Taking us on the journey of two principals sharing their school’s story, we see the relevance behind meeting the public where they are… and in this day and time, that’s social media platforms.

12 – How Much Water Do We Have? by Pete Nunweiler and his wife, Kris – This obscure book in the DBC lineup really isn’t an education book at all.  However, the connections with education are certainly evident in the principles of conquering challenge and thriving during change.

13 – Play Like A Pirate by Quinn Rollins – This is the book that really made me start thinking about what kind of educator I am.  What are my passions? (Thankfully I finally discovered them here) Quinn brings his passions into the classroom and uses comics, toys, and games to make learning fun again!

14 – 140 Twitter Tips for Educators by Brad Currie, Billy Krakower, and Scott Rocco – I’ve recommended this book to so many educators in the past two weeks! This is the perfect book for any educator who is unsure about how Twitter can benefit them and their students!  Check it out, for sure!

15 – The Classroom Chef by John Stevens and Matt Vaudrey – This book was like digging back into Teach Like A Pirate again!  The creative ideas for making math (and any subject really) engaging and exciting for students, as well as the idea that we should be preparing lessons rather than lesson planning, stick out to me from this book!

16 – Launch by John Spencer and AJ Juliani – A powerful book detailing an incredible design thinking process using the acronym LAUNCH.  The process is written in kid-friendly language, and includes the vital piece of launching the product to the intended audience.  Loved this one!

17 – Kids Deserve It by Adam Welcome and Todd Nesloney – Educators should strive to be our best every. single. day. We must not let up on growing ourselves and pushing those around us, because Kids Deserve It.

18 – The Writing on the Classroom Wall by Steve Wyborney – This is another lesser known (at least it was to me, but maybe I’ve been under a rock) DBC book.  I was unaware that it was DBC until I began my #DBC50Summer research.  Steve has a unique way with words and speaks metaphorically.  His quotes throughout the book are thought-provoking and he really makes you question what you think about teaching and learning. This book stretched me, and I know it will do the same for you!  I highly recommend grabbing this one!

19 – 50 Things to Go Further with Google Classroom by Alice Keeler and Dr. Libbi Miller – This book is an amazing guidebook to how to create a student-centered classroom using a digital tool, Google Classroom.  The tips and tricks within this book are amazing, as if we’d expect any less from this dynamic duo! Definitely look into this book if you want to utilize Google Classroom to its fullest extent!

20 – Instant Relevance by Denis Sheeran – This super short book packs a lot of punch in its only 102 pages.  A quick read that leaves you with lots to ponder. Denis is hilarious and you’ll laugh from start to finish, learning how to make learning relevant to your students through making connections with them.

So there you have it!  The second #DBC50Summer Book Recap, and a little tangent brought to you by a super old blog post from the Captain that I wasn’t expecting to impact me like it did.  Speaking of the Captain, he created two videos upon the release of these books (one for books 11-15 and one for books 16-20) that you can check out here.

Books 11-15

Books 16-20

Are you ready to reach the halfway point and beyond?  The next ten books are stellar (according to their Twitter fame & Amazon reviews)!!!  Many of them have been on my MUST READ list for a while and I’m so excited to finally get to crack the spine on them!  One of the most influential books of my career is also coming up in this set of ten!  Any guesses as to which that might be?  Oooooh I can’t wait!  Book 21 blog is coming soon!  Stay Tuned for the reveal of the next ten books in the order they were released!

*Interested in joining in on the #DBC50Summer fun? Don’t feel as though you have to read them all and you don’t even have to read in order! Choose a few that you’ve been wanting to dive into! Share your reflections with the world; maybe it’s #BookSnaps, maybe it’s #Sketchnotes, maybe it’s #blogging or #vlogging… the idea is basically just to share your learning from DBC books in any format, so others can learn with you! Here’s the thing though… we can all read these books. That’s fabulous, really! But what are you going to DO with the information you gain from reading it? How will it impact your teaching practice and/or your students? That’s the biggest piece of #DBC50Summer for me… creating the ONE (or two, or three) thing I want to implement in the 2018-2019 school year. You can see the updated spreadsheet with titles/authors, Flipgrid links, blog post links, and implementation plans here! If you aren’t sure where to start, check out each blog post above and click on the Flipgrid information! You can start there! (Shoutout to Andrea Paulakovich – genius extraordinaire!) Just tag #DBC50Summer in your tweets and join in on the fun!  Several are hopping on board & I’d love to have you join in, too! Reach out to me on Twitter if you have any questions! I’d love to connect with you! Thanks for sticking with me!

Alicia Ray

@iluveducating

#DBC50Summer 20/50: Instant Relevance

/ Alicia Ray / 4 Comments

If I had a dime for every time I heard “When am I ever going to use this?”… well, I’d have more money than I have right now. The sad truth is that there are some lessons students are required to sit through and when asked that question, I won’t lie to them. They will likely never use it unless they go into a specified career field. I’ve never used it in day-to-day life. While this is the case for some pieces of our curriculum, there are far more concepts they will use regularly. It is our job as teachers to make those lessons relevant for students, so they aren’t even asking that question. It should be clear when they will use it in real life! And that’s what book 20 in the Dave Burgess Consulting line up is all about.  Instant Relevance by Denis Sheeran is an incredibly small book with an incredibly powerful message. Stop right now and grab your own copy! It’s worth it!

instantrelevance

Throughout this book, Denis shows us example after example of how to take every day experiences and integrate them immediately into your lessons. He speaks to how you must have a relationship built with students, so you will know which experiences will connect to your students. If you talk about the Super Bowl commercials to a room of students who don’t enjoy football, the lesson loses effectiveness. It is important to know your audience, and in this case, that is your students. Know them! Discover their interests, their passions. This will enable you to find connections and make learning relevant to them.

True to DBC form, “Instant” has two meanings here. It does, in fact, take the dictionary definition and apply it to education. It is also an acronym (I know, right? Impressive).  The Captain sure does love his acronyms… both in his own book and the books he publishes apparently! I’d love to know how long it took to make the connection between Denis’s ideas and the acronym INSTANT. Not sure how to make learning relevant? Just follow the acronym!

I: Infusing who you are in what you do

N: Natural flow – follow the question

S: Sudden changes to your surroundings

T: Television and pop culture

A: Awareness of your surroundings

N: National events and crazes

T: Two or more content areas

Not only is this book informative and conversational, it’s also hilarious. I totally want to meet Denis Sheeran. He made me laugh more times than I can count with his sarcasm throughout the book! I appreciate a good dose of sarcasm, that’s for sure! Denis is a math educator and many of his stories from this book relate to math lessons. However, this is not a math book! He has many other examples of relevance across content areas.

It’s not about using his examples, it’s about using his example! He wasn’t afraid to look outside education for educational content.

There are multiple quotes that popped out to me, but I’ll only share a few here.

  • “…as teachers we need to infuse our lives into our work…don’t leave these things at the door when you walk into your classroom; bring them with you. By doing so, you’ll be bringing in the unexpected possibilities and connections your students need.”
  • “Sharing stories in class opens the door, even floodgates, for our students to learn about us and become comfortable talking about their own life experiences…When you tap into your students’ lives, your class immediately becomes relevant.”
  • “Too often we place the lesson plan’s importance over the value of our students’ experience…guide our students to understanding – not for them into compliance.”
  • “There is no better way to describe the teacher-student relationship…than the words: “Meet me at my best. Then we can go together.”
  • “Instead of sidelining the topics captivating my students’ attention in favor of ones they struggle to stay awake through, I prefer to use them to instruct and connect.”

Do you notice a connection? These quotes were taken from throughout the book. The connection here is the connection. That is my implementation. I work hard to make connections with each of my students. I strive to be “that teacher” for them. I want to always notice the students who need a little extra love that day and know the stories of those around me. I want them to know my stories as well. Without making an authentic connection, it is difficult to make learning real for them. Therefore, my implementation will be to continue to connect with my students. I will continue to know them by name (focusing on learning my 6th graders’ names faster), saying hello every morning, and making the media center a safe haven for every student in the school. It is only by forming these relationships that I can meet them at their best, share the topics that are interesting to them, infuse our lives into the learning, and guide them through understanding their curriculum. Not only will I do this for my students, but also for the teachers in my building. I look forward to learning their stories, so I can make learning relevant for them as well.

Like I said, this little book is so powerful! Like Shakespeare says in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, “though she be but little, she is fierce.” Instant Relevance is a FIERCE book! One that I recommend you get now! Go ahead… I’ll wait.

The Flipgrid is available here with the password DBCSummer. Think of a lesson that was relevant for your students. Tell about that lesson; what did you do and how did your students respond? The idea for a global book study through flipgrid comes from my sweet friend, and incredible educator, Andrea Paulakovich. Go follow her on Twitter & follow her #DBC50Summer journey on her blog here. Be bold – be the first person to post your thoughts! Others will follow!

Check out Denis’s website here! His blog posts are just as awesome as his book! You’ll see his humor clearly! Multiple podcasts can be found along the side of his website. Be sure to check out the Instant Relevance podcast here! You can also follow the community on Twitter using the hashtag #MakeItReal. Join the chat using the same hashtag on Wednesday nights at 9:30 EST. Denis also has another book out called Hacking Mathematics. Check it out as well!

This is so hard to believe… we’ve finished Book 20! That means it’s time for another #DBC50Summer Recap! Watch for that post in the next day or two. In the meanwhile, check out Summer Recap 1 for information on the first ten books, and my #DBC50Summer interlude about discovering my #EDUpassions.

*Also, Denis? If you’re reading this… let your students know that I went back and removed one space after every paragraph. That’s a LOT of wasted paper, right? Although, this likely won’t be printed. At least, I hope not. But still…on principle, I went with the one space rule. (It may have hurt a little, but it’s just the sacrifice we must make for students.)