#DBC50Summer

#DBC50Summer 46/50: The Path to Serendipity

/ Alicia Ray / 5 Comments

Finding value in happenstance, an unplanned or fortunate discovery… definitions of serendipity. Choosing to be happy in the face of all that’s happening around you and to you. It’s so easy to say, and oh, so hard to do. Truth is, we all struggle here. When your world feels like it’s falling apart, keeping a smile on your face and contributing to everyone else’s great day is insanely difficult. Misery loves company.

But here’s the real truth. Happiness, joy, positivity… they’re all contagious. Spread that. Tell misery where it can go and allow positive energy to radiate from you.

Want to know a little secret? Actually… two little secrets….

Secret 1: This book is the real reason behind #DBC50Summer. This is where the idea began to form, where the realization that creative alchemy could be the answer to many of my “problems,” where I knew blogging about my reflections, connections, and implementation was the key to my professional growth.

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A DM between Allyson & me on May 16, several days after I read her book for the first time. (Consider yourself tagged, Allyson, ha!)

Secret 2: This blog post was the first one written for #DBC50Summer. I had planned to skim the book, because I practically know it by heart now, and then publish the post I wrote back in late May. I have a slight problem with that though. I deleted the post tonight. I am at a different set of circumstances now. What I wrote then isn’t what I want to share now. So I started from scratch. Well, mostly.

Allyson Apsey told the most inspiring, gut-wrenching, authentic story I had read in the Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc line. She was genuine and vulnerable. (These qualities are why I’m also excited to extend the ideals behind #DBC50Summer past book 50 because book 51 is all about this concept! Stay tuned for that. No clue what it’ll be called – still working on that.)

Allyson became one of my best friends the night I read her book for the first time and I’ve never even spoken to her other than Twitter, much less met her. However, I feel like we’ve had dinner together multiple times, we’ve sat on my couch together sharing our heart, we had a sleepover one night while I reread a few chapters, and even tonight, we hung out in the car while my oldest daughter had softball practice. In reality, I was just reading her book, but The Path to Serendipity is that good.

Here comes your nightly bedtime story that will eventually come full circle and relate to book…

I don’t have a large storage of self-confidence. The stories in my head usually end up with me not being smart enough, eloquent enough, funny enough, pretty enough, likable enough, good enough to match up to anyone. Growing up I always found it easier to get along with guys. I didn’t feel like I was compared to the boys (So what if you can dunk the basketball? I can throw girls 10 feet in the air) like I was with the girls (She looks way cuter in that cheer uniform than I do as she flies through the air… y’all, I always caught her when she came down… well, 99% of the time).

Lately I’ve struggled more so than usual. One dear friend of mine in particular has gotten the short end of the stick lately. I’m constantly comparing myself to this friend thinking there’s no way I’ll ever measure up. They are pretty spectacular; one of those people that everyone wants to be around – insanely “popular” by all middle school clique standards. For me, feeling average, at best, is a good day. Periods of prolonged quietness leads me to believe my friend has finally wised up and realized that I’m not enough. Then the stories start to form in my head and by the time I know what’s going on, I’ve put up defense mechanisms, made some snide comment to protect myself, and feel guilty and apologize. It’s a vicious cycle. Don’t get me wrong, when I get out of my own way, the friendship is definitely a positive one. I just find myself apologizing more than ever lately because my self-confidence seems to have hit a record low. Funny how that happens, isn’t it? Tell me y’all know exactly what I’m talking about, right?

This new set of circumstances compelled me to delete the original post I made about this book. Now I’m taking a closer look at quotes from the book and Glasser’s Choice Theory that Allyson discusses in the book. Apparently my gas tank for belonging is super large and rather empty at the moment. From reading (and rereading) I know I need to provide myself an environment that gives opportunities to refuel this tank.

Relating these behaviors back to Choice Theory, perhaps my aforementioned friend has larger tanks for freedom and fun, which would depersonalize the behavior of silence. Maybe just being aware of the different sized tanks will help? (If that’s the case, consider yourself told, friend. My belonging tank is large, haha!) Allyson’s third and sixth stop tonight got me.

All you need to do is move inch by inch toward the person you want to become; that is enough. You are enough.

~Allyson Apsey

The only person who has control over our behavior is us…I cannot blame my behavior on how someone else is making me feel.

~Allyson Apsey

So yeah… I read that second quote tonight and immediately contacted my friend to apologize for my erratic behavior lately. I have to work to make myself feel better. My friend is not responsible for my actions and there are things I can do to make myself feel better, like listening to music, having my own dance party, organizing (yes, that’s a real coping mechanism for me). I can “peel the onion” as Allyson says to discover what’s really at the heart of my irritation and struggle in self-confidence.

Here’s where it comes full circle…

Keeping all of this in mind, realizing that I am 33 years old and I struggle with this, don’t I realize my middle school students and all of their pubescent hormonal teen brains are dealing with this times 100?!?! When they lash out at school, it’s not against me. They are showing that they need something. They need a tank filled – whether it’s belonging, fun, power, survival, or freedom. I need to create that environment for them.

One of our students who is already notorious for trouble (less than a month into school) saw me in the hall this morning and gave me the biggest hug. He is looking for a balance between belonging, freedom, and power. I am doing all I can to provide that for him. Rather than accusatory remarks, I ask questions. I give him extra trust and relay that I expect him to live up to that trust. I speak to him like he’s an equal. He respects that and responds to it positively.

My implementation plan for this book is a bit sneaky… hopefully those I work with will just skip right over this blog post (if they’re even reading them, HA – hey friends). I plan to use Glasser’s Choice Theory and the idea of depersonalizing behavior and choosing to be joyful in each day and weave it into digital learning professional development. How in the world can that be done, you ask? Well… I need content to share when showcasing a tool like PearDeck or EdPuzzle. Why not find a video or require a response while watching in EdPuzzle, or read a short article and respond on PearDeck? Boom – digital tool shared and Glasser’s Choice Theory continually popping up this year. Shhh… don’t tell them my diabolical plan! (Insert evil laugh here.)

I can’t begin to tell you how incredible this book is. It’s not just an educational book, it’s an everybody book. If you’re an adult, with life experience, you will relate to this book. (Pssst… that means you.) So go get yourself a copy. In fact, I’d go ahead and get one for a friend, partner, spouse, coworker, whomever so you’ve got a reading buddy. You’ll need to talk this one out.

I didn’t have a reading buddy. Instead, I tweeted. Like crazy. I read this one in one sitting and tweeted the entire time I read. Here’s a few of the highlights. (Oh, and spoiler… acronym alert! Naturally – it was published by Dave and Shelley Burgess, right?)

I also love this tweet from my #EduHero, Cristina Dajero! By the way, you should go follow her, right now.

Allyson is totally getting big hugs when I finally get to meet her!

So here’s your checklist of sorts for the night, friends.

  1. Go buy The Path to Serendipity.
  2. Go follow Allyson Apsey on Twitter.
  3. Put a column in TweetDeck for #Path2Serendipity
  4. Visit Allyson’s website here and sign up for her newsletter. More great stuff coming from her soon! You can also see her podcasts and interviews here.
  5. Subscribe to her YouTube channel and definitely check out her Book Talk on each stop! (These air live around 7:00 pm on Sunday evenings – watch her tweets for updates and notifications when she goes live)
  6. Finally, you must go read my friend Andrea Paulakovich‘s (creator of global collaborative space on flipgrid for every DBC, Inc book) #DBC50Summer post on The Path to Serendipity. It is beautiful!
  7. Did you do number 1 yet? Go… now.

Once you’ve read, cried (if you’ve not, you may have more in common with the Grinch than you first thought…just saying), and reflected, join us over in the flipgrid space (Andrea lets me co-pilot, oh em gee! She’s super-awesome!) and share your thoughts there.

Allyson, I cannot end this post without saying thank you. Thank you for exposing your heart, sharing your very personal story, and pulling me into every word you wrote. I appreciate you and am so thankful for your friendship! You rock, sweet lady! I’d work for you any day of the week!

Y’all… we’re getting so close. It’s like I can hear a mash-up of the Theme from Rocky and It’s the Final Countdown (which also aired in a Rocky movie) playing in the background. Book 47 is coming up and I’m so pumped to finally read it! This one was released just one day after the seeds of #DBC50Summer were planted, so I’ve waited to read it until now. I am so, so, so very excited to finally dig into Jay Billy‘s Lead with Culture – the first of the Lead Like A Pirate Guide Books! I’m guessing that with the level of incredible from Shelley Burgess and Beth Houf in their book, the guides have got to be amazing!

#DBC50Summer 45/50: Let Them Speak!

/ Alicia Ray / 1 Comment

At the end of (almost) every year, I had my students complete a survey. I still have the student surveys from my first year that share what they liked most and what they wanted to see changed. These were so powerful to me because my fifth graders had more insight than I ever imagined. In the following years, my fifth graders would write letters to the upcoming fifth graders. If students allowed me to, I would read their letters and was always blown away by the advice they would give my future students. The things that I had hoped they would walk away with, they usually did. And then some. When I transitioned to the media center, I asked my 3rd-5th grade students in a survey (and my K-2 students in open conversation) about their time in the media center. Using these results, I would begin planning for the next year.

The problem was that I wasn’t asking soon enough and often enough. I know that now. Immediately after reading this book for the first time, I asked my middle school students to take a survey called “Talk to Me” (if you aren’t sure why this is ironic, stick around after #DBC50Summer is over… the irony is definitely there) For the first time ever, I am sharing some of the results of this survey.

The book that inspired the survey to ask the “hard questions” is Let Them Speak! by Rebecca Coda and Rick Jetter (the amazing folks who brought us Escaping the School Leader’s Dunk Tank)! I’ll wait while you go get your own copy real quick. You’re going to want it.

All checked out? Ready to move on?

I asked students to share the good, bad, and ugly about their middle school experience. My only stipulation was that they did not use this as a platform to destroy another teacher, to talk negatively about personality conflicts, etc. I made it amply clear that this is not permission to bash another teacher to me. I don’t like when teachers talk about one another, especially not in front of students, so I didn’t want this to become a sounding board for teacher “dissing”. What I got was raw, open, amazingly honest responses from my students that I value more than ever before.

Below are some of the answers I received from my students.

What would you want to talk about in media this year that we didn’t talk about? *I will use these to create next year’s lessons*

  • Definitely memes. We need more of those, they didn’t get their time to shine.
  • I would like you to talk about bullying and its consequences whether it be digital or not
  • Developing/creating suspense within a story.
  • Bullying/discrimination or about other cultures and learn about them
  • Something about all of the struggles that the world faced this year, I think we should talk about it and not ignore it.

What do you want changed about your media space?

  • I like the Media Centers look but more Art and Vibrant colors on the wall could be really cool
  • I don’t think we need any change in our environment currently we have a very comfortable and creative learning environment.
  • I’d like for it to be a little more “free”/”open” to us more than just once a month. Going once a month is fine, but I think that there should be more opportunities to use resources in the media center than just once a month.
  • I would like more space to read at

Is there anything you want to share about anything related to media?

  • I love Mrs. Ray, she’s super energetic and loves us and what she does.
  • I just love that class. It makes me happy when we get to go
  • One thing i like about this class is that the teacher is enthusiastic and happy about teaching with a good attitude.
  • I don’t think we should have to have to check out a fiction and nonfiction book because what if someone wanted two fiction or nonfiction books.
  • You can be a little to enthusiastic just tone it down a notch or 40 (sorry Mrs.Ray)
  • Maybe not think so much about what you think we might like if that makes sense.

What would you like to see changed at your school?

  • I’d like to see the students actually having a voice in what goes on
  • More one on one times with teachers.
  • I would like for the people to start treating homophobic terms like racist terms.
  • Students can have more say in decisions
  • To have a cheer team
  • i would like to see more kids becoming a group and being friends , kids coming together against bullying

 

Here are tweets of the information as I extrapolated the data last year.
These answers were literally copied and pasted. So now what? What do we do with this?
We listen. We try to get better. We ask our students if we got better. We don’t wait until the end of the year to ask again. We ask early and we ask often.
This year it is my goal to be better, more diligent and purposeful about asking the tough questions. I will be on their turf. What I love about our media center is that it is their space. Our media center is their turf. I am able to have honest conversations in this space. They share things with me that they may not share elsewhere. That is a privilege and a huge responsibility. They are entrusting me with the information to make their experience better. I hope I live up to that expectation for them.
This book is a game-changer. You can feel Rebecca and Rick’s passion for student voice poured into every word they say. Their Let Them Speak! project is so powerful and hearing the words from the students gets me every time. If we just ask students, they will likely answer. If you haven’t developed a relationship with them that is strong enough to promote and accept their truth, have them complete an anonymous survey.
Want to know what it looks like when you ask students their opinions and they know you’re going to take it seriously?

Our students are incredible perceptive. They know things and have a depth of knowledge we’ve not even tapped into that has nothing to do with the DOK that we’re accustomed to considering. Ask them. Just ask them. See what happens.

I cannot possibly share how important it is to read this book. My students are my number ONE priority. Aren’t they yours? Ask them their opinions. Talk with them. Get on their turf. Build the relationships that allows these authentic conversations about controversial, difficult topics. You won’t be disappointed. Here are some of my favorite quotes from Let Them Speak!

“Humans should come before numbers.”

“If we take the time to value adult voice and adult stories, we must take the time to mine for student voice and student stories. Not only is it fair, but it is what is right!”

“Be brave enough to ask, open enough to listen, and wise enough to act when student voice is activated.”

“Our students listen when we speak and something they might overhear us saying can have a lasting impact on them. Our words can hurt their feelings.”

“It’s never too late to activate student voice at any stage of a process in order to improve anything that we do.”

I hope that it is evident that this post has a more somber feel than many of my other #DBC50Summer posts. I also hope that it is obvious why this particular post cuts out a lot of my typical sarcasm. This is important. It’s too important to cheapen with sarcasm. Our students need to be heard. Are you willing to listen?

I could go on and on about this book. I’m just going to say again that you need to buy it. Now. If you are a classroom teacher, administrator, superintendent, you should buy it. You should read it. Then you should start asking questions. On their turf. This is their education. Let’s hear them out. Well-done, Rebecca and Rick. Very, very well done.

Oh, and the implementation plan. Keep asking the questions. I will be asking the 6 questions from the book used in the Let Them Speak! project.

  • What don’t we, as educators, understand about you, the students at this school?
  • What is something that you wish we could do better?
  • What have we failed to recognize about you or your experiences as a student at our school?
  • Is there anything that upsets you about our school that we should fix, rethink, eliminate, or no longer ignore?
  • What do you value the most about your learning experiences at our school?
  • How do you feel the night before coming to school on a new day, after a weekend, or after a holiday or summer vacation?

For more, follow the hashtag #LetStudentsSpeak and connect with Rebecca and Rick on Twitter at @rebeccacoda and @rickjetter, respectively. I highly recommend checking out the Where Are The Pirates? section of the new Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc website! This is an incredible place to find where each author is (including Rick and Rebecca) on social media and the web. Check out the Let Them Speak! website here! You can also access the flipgrid here and share about a time that you listened to your students and changed something in your practice. Thank you, Andrea Paulakovich, for allowing me to be a co-pilot in this wonderful idea of yours for a global collaboration space for all things DBC, Inc! Have you bought your copy of the book yet? You should. Here’s the link again! Go. Buy!

Only 5 books left in #DBC50Summer! This is so hard to believe and I’m really sad to see it end! (Thankfully, DBC, Inc isn’t done releasing books! I’ve got more coming – just have to figure out a new name for this journey!) Also… do you remember that secret I alluded to in the Summer Recap 4? It’s coming up in the next post. Book 46 is The Path to Serendipity by Allyson Apsey. Can’t wait to share my secret, and this book, with you next!

#DBC50Summer 44/50: The Secret Solution

/ Alicia Ray / 1 Comment

Book 44 is unlike any other book published by Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc. This book teaches through a parable, a simple story used to share a lesson. In The Secret Solution, we join Roger Rookie on his first years as principal in a school with underperforming test results. We get a look at the inner-workings of a school, with a cast of characters that looks suspiciously like any school you’d visit. The authors, Todd Whitaker, Sam Miller, and Ryan Donlan, did an outstanding job making this story come to life by sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly of a school and allowing us to have a peak into the mind of the young principal who is finding his way in a fresh position of leadership.

In the epilogue, the authors liken this to watching an episode of The Office. It was so funny to read that because I kept thinking the whole time I was reading that the entire book should be a series like The Office where we get to see all the different personalities and their thoughts (usually beside a window in a conference room or in zoomed in camera shots of smirks on their faces).

Every character in this book related to someone I’ve worked with; I could put a face to the name. From Judy Slacker who puts a price of everything she does outside of the 7:45-3:30 workday to Karl Chameleon who bounces from group to group to the leaders of the teacher cliques like Mildred Morose and Sandy Starr. Each character is an exaggeration (and sometimes a spot-on representation) of educators across our field.

Even though this book appears to be marketed to principals, in particular, new principals or principals of struggling schools, the truths within the parable are applicable to any leadership position. As noted in other DBC, Inc books, leadership can range from being a principal, central office staff, or even a classroom teacher. If you are a classroom teacher, you are leading a group (or multiple groups) of students.

One of my biggest takeaways of this book is balance. This may not have been intended, but I kept feeling that balance is the key to being an effective leader. In the book, Roger Rookie’s pendulum swings from absent & unwilling to make the hard decisions, to a positive pollyanna who strives to only praise positivity and neglects to address negative actions, to a drill sergeant who rules with an iron fist. None of these will work because none of them strikes a balance in leadership. Leaders should be present and positive, while addressing behaviors that impede student learning and lead to negative culture.

I imagine it’s insanely tough to be an administrator, both at the school and district level.  Knowing that it is a statistical impossibility to make everyone happy, while still maintaining (or bless their hearts, building) a positive school culture and instilling a drive for positive scores and growth for accountability. There is a delicate balance that must be preserved in this role. The graphic in the book perfectly showcases how a leader should work to increase climate as they are increasing the accountability expectations.

For me, as a non-administrator, I realize that as I raise the expectations in the media center, I need to work harder to create a positive culture that makes my students and teachers want to reach those higher expectations. People will work for those they fear, but they will not love them. People will work for those they love, but they won’t respect them. The goal is that sweet spot, where leaders are loved and respected.

Another takeaway from this book is that establishing these relationships of love and respect takes time. Roger Rookie wasn’t able to come in and change anything without building relationships. Building a strong relationship takes time; it takes communication, honesty, and mutual appreciation. Only then can change begin to take shape. My first year at my current school was, by far, the worst year I’d had in education. The culture of the school was just short of toxic in many ways. There were cliques formed between teachers, administration was new (either to the school or new to the role), and students were not aware of the expectations. Coming to a middle school from an elementary school was insanely difficult. My mentor kept telling me that it was going to take time, that I needed to play the long game. He would remind me that in just a couple years I would never want to leave that place. I would often laugh in his face when he’d say that. He would grin and bear it, saying, “you’ll see… you’ll see.”

I started working at that school in 2016. This is the beginning of the third school year and it would take quite an offer to get me to leave these people now. I love and respect my principal. She is phenomenal and truly has student interest in mind with every decision she makes. She rarely says “no” to my insane ideas, so when she does, I truly step back and reflect on where the lack of student interest can be found. When I dive deep, I can usually see the deficit. She holds me accountable for my insane ideas after saying yes. I am the world’s worst to have a “great idea” then not see it through. (This is part of the reason that #DBC50Summer is so important to me to not only finish, but to finish by my deadline of the last day of summer.) Making these implementation plans is my way of making myself accountable for my learning. When we are successful, she celebrates with us!

The teachers are phenomenal. They work hard every single day to encourage students to be their best. They bring their “A-game” and expect others to do so as well. As their instructional coach and media coordinator, my calendar fills up so fast that one of their complaints is that they can’t get time to work with me. The fact that we went from several not even knowing my name, much less my role at the school to filling up my calendar for the first nine weeks of school before students even arrive on campus is telling of the change in culture. Every person is responsible for culture. Every person has grown tremendously in this regard. During a summer training, my principal looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “They don’t need me anymore.” She was referring to the fact that the teams were co-planning independently of her asking the questions and the PBL units coming out of these PLCs were incredible. I believe that the tears were from both a place of pride and the knowledge that she is close to taking us as far as she can take us as our leader. I am proud to work at my school, and eager to see what this year brings! We made growth for the first time since 2012 this year, and we will shatter that growth at the record we’re already going. I’m excited to see what happens.

My implementation for this book is very different from the others. I already know which titles are coming in the final 6 books. Divulging my secret that I mentioned in the DBC Summer Recap 4 is coming soon. Therefore, I will partner this book with another that is coming to create an implementation for both. It seems like a scapegoat or something LaVon Babble (another character in this book) would say, but I promise it will make sense when you see the plan.

I would highly recommend this book to beginning principals or principals that are new to a school. It’s a realistic view of how leadership is established and allows us to learn from Roger Rookie’s failures (and boy, does he ever fail). The Secret Solution is a great book for anyone in a leadership role, and really the truths within the book can be applied at all levels. All you’d have to do is substitute principal for teacher and the teachers for students, or principal for director and teachers for principals, etc to receive the same lessons as principals. Hustle on to Amazon and buy your copy of The Secret Solution!

Follow along with the conversation at #SecretSolution on Twitter. You can also catch up with their authors on their websites. Ryan Donlan’s website can be found here and Todd Whitaker here. Sam Miller can be found on Twitter here. As always, the flipgrid is available here. This one sounds like fun, so check it out! Andrea Paulakovich was the originator of this amazing space for global collaboration and reflection for every DBC, Inc book and I am fortunate enough to be able to co-pilot this space!

I am super pumped about book 45 for many reasons. One is that we already know this author duo and I LOVE them from their first book together, Escaping the School Leader’s Dunk Tank! Yep! Rick Jetter and Rebecca Coda are back and they’re discussing one of my most favorite educational topics: student voice! Buckle up, grab some popcorn, and get your copy of Let Them Speak! I read this book shortly after the initial release at the end of April and whew – it’s a great one! In fact, it’s the first DBC, Inc book that I pre-ordered! I’m excited to share book 45 with you very soon!

*PS – Summer officially ends September 22, 2018 at 9:54 pm EST… do the math. These blogs will be coming fast if I want to meet my deadline. And I do.*