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#DBC50Summer 50/50: The EduNinja Mindset

/ Alicia Ray / 8 Comments

No clever anecdote tonight. Just want to share the awesome from book 50. And I do mean AWESOME.  This book was the PERFECT book to end #DBC50Summer with; it was totally worth the wait! The 50th book from Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc was released on June 10, 2018 and sparked a Twitter celebration among the Pirate crew! All 50 books were given to one lucky winner – Mike Mohammad! (He’s a super awesome guy and you should go follow him!) The fiftieth book in the DBC dynasty is The EduNinja Mindset by Jennifer Burdis.

Jen Burdis created a masterpiece with The EduNinja Mindset; she really did. This book is inspiring, authentic, and paradigm shifting; it’s exceptional. I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I cracked the cover. I thought it would be a book on exercise and taking care of yourself physically and mentally. It’s so much more, y’all… It’s about goal-setting, perseverance, grit, determination, and doing amazing things despite your fears, setbacks, and insecurities. Each chapter was so powerful that I’m literally going to share chapter-by-chapter my takeaways. This format is a bit different for #DBC50Summer posts, but if I don’t do this – I’ll literally write another book reflecting on what I have gained from this book.

Chapter 1: An EduNinja Overcomes Obstacles

Amazing Quote: “Would we really wish for an easy life when our greatest learning comes through overcoming obstacles?”

Connection/Reflection: Give all students an environment to shine. Jen shares with us her struggles through school with undiagnosed dyslexia. Her story breaks my heart and makes me want to attack my lessons again to be sure all 400(ish) of my students can be successful with any experiences their teachers and I co-create! It’s also important to note that “extracurricular” activities aren’t always “extra”! For some of our students, it’s everything. It’s their reason for staying in school and the only place they feel success. We should be encouraging extracurriculars (like sports, clubs, academic teams, etc) for students who struggle to perform in school, not punishing them by taking it away. Finally, being first feels good. Jen’s grandma and dad helped her understand that “being the first to do something – even something others say is crazy or impossible – should be celebrated.” This seems exceptionally fitting given the fact that this is the final book of #DBC50Summer. I’m not the first to read the first 50 DBC, Inc books, but I am the first that I know of to commit to reading, reflecting, blogging, and implementing at least one thing from each book. And it feels good.

Chapter 2: An EduNinja is Reflective and Protective

Amazing Quote: “Journaling helps you look for patterns in your life and behaviors, strengthen your ideas, and develop new ones so you can learn more about yourself and the world around you.”

Connection/Reflection: Be reflective, every single day. These last few days of #DBC50Summer have created the most growth for me. Through reflecting and blogging every day, I have learned more about myself, my inner voice, than ever before. Now that #DBC50Summer is coming to an end, I intend to do something for me! Jen says it’s ok! In fact, she encourages scheduling time every day for myself! That’s tough to think about with so many demands, but we have to take care of ourselves before we can take care of others. (In case you didn’t realize it, as educators, we spend a lot of time taking care of others. Which means we need to spend a lot of time taking care of ourselves.)

Chapter 3: An EduNinja Sets Goals with Soul

Amazing Quote: “You don’t have to love the work you put into achieving a goal, but you do have to be passionate about your goal is you want to be successful. Goals with soul are the ones giving you purpose, the ones you stay focused on, the ones giving you vision even when things get tough.”

Connection/Reflection: #DBC50Summer was definitely a Goal with Soul! However, I enjoyed every minute of the work I put into achieving this goal. I have been insanely passionate about this journey and am so thrilled to see it through! I mentioned in Allyson Apsey‘s The Path to Serendipity that I struggle with my own insecurities. Jen gives an example of the perfect solution – affirmations. If we say kind things to ourselves enough, we will start to believe them. These affirmations lead to our setting bigger goals for ourselves. Some of my biggest core values are drive and determination. I’ve always been one that will push the envelope. I like to do what’s impossible. It’s fun! (That’s what Walt Disney says, too!) Finally, turn your struggles into strengths! I struggle with overanalyzing every conversation I have and every decision I make. Turning this struggle into a strength, I can say that I am “detail-oriented and focused on making the best decision for all involved.”

Chapter 5: An EduNinja Lives on Purpose

Amazing Quote: “What are you training for?”

Connection/Reflection: One of my implementation plans for this book comes from this chapter. I will be creating a personal, professional, and familial mission statement like Jen has done. This will better aid my decision-making and eliminate things that do not agree with my core values included within my mission statements. I love what Todd Whitaker says (as quoted in The EduNinja Mindset), “Don’t tell the world your mission statement. Show the world you’re on a mission.”

Chapter 5: An EduNinja Embraces Imperfection

Amazing Quote: “Our goals aren’t big enough if we reach all of them.”

Connection/Reflection: Jen shares her thinking as she reflects on the painful failure of her performance on the seventh season of American Ninja Warrior. She writes, “Shouldn’t all of our goals be just out of reach?” That’s big stuff! If we can achieve them all, they aren’t really goals, are they? Reaching for goals that are out of reach will sometimes result in failure. And that’s ok. Failure gives us the opportunity to learn. If we succeed at everything we do, we’ve just got a lot of success, but no life lessons learned. I love the quote that I’ve seen around the big box stores on home decor lately, inspired by John Maxwell’s book of a similar name – Sometimes I win, sometimes I learn. Finally, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Vulnerability is valued and asking for help is not failure. Asking for help is a stepping stone to success.

 Chapter 6: An EduNinja Overcomes Fear

Amazing Quote: “When your purpose is stronger than your fear, you won’t give up.”

Connection/Reflection: Jen asks a hard question in this chapter. “What holds you back from setting bigger goals?” I had an insane fear (nearly paralyzing at times) of public speaking. Notice I said “had”. I overcame this fear by presenting… over and over again. I have never presented at a national conference, but it’s on my list of things to do in 2019. That’s one of my “bigger goals” that Jen refers to in her question. I have been a featured workshop presenter at my state’s ISTE affiliate, North Carolina Technology in Education Society, for the past 3 years. Before each session, my skin is clammy, I am a ball of nerves, and my stomach rolls. I can’t sleep for several days before the session because I have nightmares of all that could go wrong. If the nightmares don’t show up, I’m tossing and turning with my brain overanalyzing the imaginative play-by-play of the session. Once I start, I feel much better. However, as soon as I finish, I retreat to a quiet space (usually back to my hotel room) and decompress. Setting bigger goals scares me; the idea of speaking at a national conference terrifies me. However, my purpose is stronger than my fears.

Chapter 7: An EduNinja Fuels with Good Nutrition

Amazing Quote: “Eating healthier has changed my life.”

Connection/Reflection: That quote is so powerful to me because I’ve just spent the last year on a journey to change my lifestyle. After our youngest daughter was born and spent the first 9-10 months of her life crying, I struggled with depression and anxiety. This led to intense weight gain. A year ago I was the heaviest I had ever been, including throughout my pregnancies. My doctor did blood work at my annual physical which showed elevated LDLs (the bad cholesterol) and said I was pre-diabetic. I did not want to have to change my lifestyle involuntarily due to diabetes, so I voluntarily changed my lifestyle to prevent diabetes. (Ironic because our youngest was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes less than 6 weeks ago) I cut out all Mountain Dew (this was monumental), eliminated all sweets, and began eating healthier. At the grocery store, I focused on the outer rim – the foods that are best for you are typically on the outer rim of your grocery store (fruits, veggies, meats, eggs, milk, cheese, etc). It’s been 13 months since that doctor appointment and I am now 40 pounds lighter and healthier than ever. I pay attention to food labels and keep track of what I put into my body. Now that our youngest is diabetic, our entire family is on the same journey with a lifestyle change and we are excited to see the transformation for all of us by keeping healthy foods inside the house to prevent succumbing to the triggers that Jen speaks of in this chapter!

Chapter 8: An EduNinja Moves

Amazing Quote: “Look at your current lessons and ask how you could make them more movement based.”

Connection/Reflection: My second implementation comes from Chapter 8. It hurts my heart. Remember my favorite quote in chapter 3? Well, it applies here. I’m not at all excited about it, but I know that it’s going to be beneficial. I am committing to morning workouts 3-4 days each week. Y’all… I love sleep. It’s honestly my hobby. Sounds insanely lazy, but it’s not meant to be that way. I love dreaming. I love that we have no limits when we dream. I can exist in a whole new reality while I’m sleeping. To me, sleeping is magic. Also – I’m a thread-count snob. I don’t splurge on much – I prefer Sheetz chai tea to Starbucks every day of the week. I eat generic brands and am not embarrassed to say that many of my favorite outfits are thrift store finds. However… I will empty my purse to get 1200 thread-count king-sized sheets for our bed. It’s a big deal. Usually hotels disappoint me because their sheets and bed are not as comfortable. There are only a couple of occasions where I’ve been satisfied with the sheets and beds in a hotel. With that in mind, getting out of said bed is going to be difficult. However, Jen makes perfect sense in her reasoning behind working out in the morning, so I’m going to try it and see how it goes.

Chapter 9: An EduNinja Practices Mindfulness

Amazing Quote: “Paying attention on purpose”

Connection/Reflection: My brain is always on overload. It’s a frightening place to be sometimes. I can have a dozen thoughts floating at any given moment. I have squirrel moments on the regular. I lose track of what I’m saying mid-sentence sometimes because I’m having a whole different conversation with myself in my head, which is 95% of the time completely unrelated to what I’m doing at the moment. I’ve got to work on being fully present in the moment. (In fact, immersion is the most difficult aspect of Teach Like A Pirate for me because of this. It’s rare to have my undivided attention.) Because of this chapter, I will work to pay attention on purpose. I will be more intentional about being fully present, especially at home where there are a million things I need to do.

Chapter 10: An EduNinja Embodies Grit

Amazing Quote: “Don’t stop until you’re proud.”

Connection/Reflection: I wrote so many notes in the margins of this chapter. Grit, to me, is drive. Drive is one of my core values. I loved this chapter. From this I am reminded to always come back to my why, reward efforts and not outcome, and I love the idea of a highlight reel. Our student blog for my school can easily feature a highlight reel of awesome stuff that’s happened each month! Finally, my favorite concept from this chapter is the idea of becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable!

Chapter 11: An EduNinja Leaves A Legacy

Amazing Quote: “We all have these influencers who have left us a legacy. Now it’s our turn to be like them for someone else.”

Connection/Reflection: This chapter encourages me to reflect on the legacy I am leaving as my students spend 3 years with me at the middle school. This is a huge chunk of their lives, a formative time when they are discovering who they are as people. Because they are highly impressionable during this time, I should constantly wonder about the impression I am leaving on them. Believing that every single one of my students can achieve greatness is my biggest reflection for this chapter.

See… I told you that Jen brought it in this book! The EduNinja Mindset is powerful and I highly suggest it to anyone both in and out of education! Honestly, I wouldn’t be against putting it in students hands and seeing what they get out of it! As I said earlier, this book is about so much more than being physically and mentally fit. It’s about being the best version of yourself that you can be! Jennifer Burdis pushes us to strive for greatness! Follow the hashtag #EduNinjaMindset on social media and check out Jen’s incredible websites here and here! Sign up for her newsletter to get fantastic resources! Check out the Watson Unplugged podcast where Jen was a guest! Share how you will incorporate movement in your life and your classroom on the flipgrid here. I am so blessed to have met Andrea Paulakovich through this #DBC50Summer journey and she had an incredible idea earlier in the summer to create a space for global collaboration for all DBC, Inc books!

We’re not done with #DBC50Summer yet as I have two more posts coming tonight, but this concludes the blog posts about each book and I now have created an implementation plan to improve my teaching practice for every single one… the time is 9:25 pm EST and I have successfully completed my #DBC50Summer! As is tradition, after every ten books we stop and recap, so stay tuned for #DBC50Summer Recap 5. There will also be another post with a special announcement later tonight! Happy Fall, y’all!

 

 

 

#DBC50Summer 49/50: The Pepper Effect

/ Alicia Ray / 1 Comment

Once upon a time in the far away land of #edcamprss on March 7, 2015 there was a second year media coordinator who was a huge fan of this book called Teach Like A Pirate. She had delved into the world of Twitter and was super excited to meet some epic twitter friends & #EduHeroes, like Mandy Casto and Derek McCoy. While enjoying a session on the book, I get a tweet from Dave Burgess (you may have heard of him before <insert sarcasm font here>)!

Um… no, it’s never too late, Captain! After some technical difficulties, we were able to chat with Dave live during our #tlap session!

(Yep, that’s me in the white shirt standing up)

One of the people in our packed out room was a principal. My friend and mentor, Lucas Gillispie, tweeted his question while I typed it into the chat box in Skype (Dave couldn’t hear us, but thankfully we could hear him.)

Wait a minute… that twitter handle looks awfully familiar! And the name… where have I heard that name?

This was the first time I got to chat with Dave and hear his enthusiasm! I declared then and there that I was #foreverApirate!

Who else was in the room, again?

Who is this guy?

Are you putting it all together? The day that Sean Gaillard, author of book 49 in the Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc line “met” Dave Burgess and first committed to reading Teach Like A Pirate, I was fortunate enough to be in the room typing the questions to Dave so he could answer them. I actually typed the question to Dave from Sean about how to best support teachers who are teaching like pirates as the admin.

Isn’t that insane? Now, here we are, over 3 1/2 years later, and I’m writing a #DBC50Summer blog post on Sean’s book, published by Dave and released on June 4, 2018! I’ve got to tell you… I love that story! THAT is the power of being a connected educator!

So which book is Sean’s? Sean is a self-proclaimed walking encyclopedia of facts about The Beatles and their music. As a nod to Sgt Pepper in Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Sean wrote The Pepper Effect.

This book isn’t just for fans of The Beatles! I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan. Not my style of music. I can appreciate their rise to fame, their willingness to go against the grain of pop music of the era. However, to me, music of the 60s and 70s isn’t that appealing. (Yep, and there goes the followers list back to zero… hahaha)

For the record, I’m a fan of late 90s boy bands and the teen pop and dance-pop music, as well as contemporary R&B and hip hop of the 2000s. I will sing every word to every Usher, Nelly, Destiny’s Child, and any of the teen pop songs at the top of my lungs on any given day.

Even with our vast differences in musical selection, I was still able to gain so much from Sean in the 85 pages of The Pepper Effect! I love how he weaves musical jargon throughout the book and makes these spot-on connections between the Beatles story and educational applications.  His style of writing is both detail-oriented and insanely creative, a cool mash-up of right- and left-brained traits! I especially love his use of Side 1 and Side 2 to tell the Beatles’ story and then shares how we apply it in our schoolhouses in Side 2. He has interludes between chapters and uses the concept of mixed tapes to encourage reflection and action at the end of each chapter. It’s a genius set list, for sure!

There are four main steps that bring together The Pepper Effect (both the book and the ideal). These are:

  • Believe in your vision.
  • Believe in your masterpiece.
  • Believe in your collaborators.
  • Ignore the naysayers.

These are instrumental (See what I did there?) in creating a positive culture of creativity, collaboration, and innovation in our schools. Through stories of The Beatles, Sean encourages us to do things like finding time to balance our personal and professional lives using “White Space” and to shed the status quo. He empowers us to create whimsical (I love that word) moments for our students and teachers. He reminds us that our students have masterpieces within them and it is our moral imperative to help them discover those. He share his heart in that he desires for the schoolhouse to be a place of love where “one teacher’s words can set a life-changing course for a student to take bold, giant steps toward building a dynamic future” and where teachers “encourage each other to pick up [their] instruments and play [their] songs in unrelenting passion…rooted in service and support”! Isn’t that powerful stuff?

This is an exceptional book that I highly recommend to Beatles fan, and non-Beatles fans alike! Sean certainly outdid himself! I would be remiss, however, if I didn’t bring to light one of things Sean is most well-known for creating! His own gift to the world is the #CelebrateMonday movement. (Ahhh, yes; now you’re getting a clear picture of what Sean is about and why I adore him so doggone much.)

The idea behind #CelebrateMonday is that many people dread that first day back at work. But why? His idea is to be excited Mondays because it becomes the positive catalyst for the week! Using the #CelebrateMonday hashtag, share awesome stuff happening in your school. Use that opportunity to celebrate your bandmates. What is going on that makes the day excellent? It’s about finding the positive with intentionality on a day that is normally an excuse to be negative. Find out why educators across the globe #CelebrateMonday by following the hashtag and venture into Sean’s new flipgrid space here! Share your own responses here as well!

I was so excited to attend Sean’s book release party this summer! While there, he signed my book and I got a selfie! (As a bonus, I also got to meet the amazing @mospillman!)

Sean is truly that amazing and that kind. He exudes positivity and is genuinely the nicest guy. I just can’t say enough great things about him, and his book is incredible, too! Connect with Sean on twitter at @smgaillard! Be sure to #CelebrateMonday each and every Monday; it’s not hard to find something positive if we’ll just look! That’s what I plan to do this year! I commit to finding something positive about staff members, students, or my school every Monday for the remainder of the year and tweeting it to the hashtag. As we have a growing population of parents, teachers, and students on Twitter, it is important to build culture in digital spaces as well as physical spaces. This can only help foster a trusting relationship between all stakeholders. As Sean points out, this leads to creativity, collaboration, and innovation!

You can follow Sean’s blog here. He recently appeared on DisruptED tv which you can see below.

There are several other podcasts on which he has appeared including #LeadUpTeach, Leader of Learning, and Reimagine Schools. He was interviewed at the Transformative Leadership Summit as well. He’s just started a new podcast called The Principal Liner Notes; follow it here. Keep watching for great things coming from Sean! With his kindness and servant heart for leadership, he is going to continue to do amazing things! He was currently chosen as Principal of the Year for his district and his school was selected as School of the Year! The biggest thing I can share about Sean is that every time I speak with him, I am inspired and uplifted. I appreciate Sean’s friendship and I adore his book! As per usual, the flipgrid is available for your reflections. Huge shoutout to Andrea Paulakovich who created this amazing space for global collaboration during the #DBC50Summer and beyond! She has a heart for connecting and educating, so be sure to follow her, and her own #DBC50Summer journey!

*One other random connection between Sean and I (these blow my mind) is that this girl, Jessie DeLapp, who had the first ever signed copy of The Pepper Effect (<– order your copy)… she babysat my oldest daughter before she ever started teaching. Crazy, right?!

Friends….

Do you know time it is? Can you believe we’ve reached this moment? The next blog will be for Book 50 in the #DBC50Summer! I am so excited to reach this goal, but I can’t get ahead of myself – can’t “count my chickens before they hatch,” as they say. According to my initial goal of reading the first 50 books published (#DBC50) as written in #DBC50Summer Explained, the deadline was by the last day of summer. Do you know today is? The last day of summer! Officially… summer ends at 9:54 pm EST. I still get to enjoy one more book, connect and reflect, and create an implementation plan for book 50. What a celebration it was on Twitter when #DBC50 came out! I’m going to morph from a PIRATE into a ninja to read book 50 – The EduNinja Mindset by Jennifer Burdis! Join me later on today (after a bit of rest and some family time) for the blog post for book 50!

Jen’s book will not be the final blog for #DBC50Summer. In keeping with tradition, I will create a #DBC50Summer Recap for 41-50 and plan to also do one final fun post with a super important announcement – stay tuned!

#DBC50Summer 48/50: Sparks in the Dark Part Two?!

/ Alicia Ray / 1 Comment

Wait a minute, what? This is supposed to be book 49! What is going on here?

I’ll tell you what’s going on. I stinking read the rest of Sparks in the Dark this evening and I am so pumped up by Todd Nesloney and Travis Crowder! (Travis apparently is another hometown hero – had no idea he lived in NC until the end of the book; did I miss that somewhere? Home field advantage – I’ve got to come see you, Travis!)

I thoroughly enjoyed the first 7 chapters of this book and it was mostly about reading and integrating that into every content area and why reading is so important to our students. Well, then I read the last 6 chapters and I’ll be darned if I wasn’t inspired by their words on writing and now I’ve got to reflect and write an implementation plan for that.

Yes, you heard that right… This book is so doggone good that I’ve got to write two posts, reflecting and connecting to the text, then create another implementation plan – just based on (as Travis and Todd say) “illuminating the writing lives” in my students! Well-done, fellas; well-done!

As a child (I couldn’t have been more than 9 or 10) I sat at my old Windows computer (which required DOS prompts) and wrote chapters about realistic fiction. They were typically a knock-off of adventures in The Babysitter’s Club series by Ann Martin.

I kept a diary that I wrote in every night from the time I was in 1st or 2nd grade and distinctly remember writing a heartfelt post about the day my mom and dad officially split up and my dad walked out the door, when I was in 5th grade.

In 4th grade (Mrs. Byrd’s class), I wrote a lengthy answer to an essay question about changes in transportation in North Carolina on a social studies test. It is the first time I recall writing and enjoying writing at school. She was so impressed with the answer that it became an exemplar, which blew me away.

In 7th grade, we were required to write in a journal each week. Fridays were days for writing and we chose from 101 writing prompts and just wrote whatever we desired. Mine started out focused on the boy I had a [not-so-] secret crush on at the time. (I was 12, give me a break!) They evolved into more thought-provoking pieces of current events, as well as imaginative writing.

From there, school killed my love of writing. It became a chore.

When my ex-fiance and I broke off our engagement, I picked up writing again. I shared my “deepest, darkest secrets” in my journal (because calling it a diary felt so juvenile). I wrote my feelings, my apprehension about this new future, completely separated from the future I had imagined for years. When I met my husband for the first time, I wrote about him the night I got home. I wrote about the feeling that “this might be the one.” (Yes, I knew from the moment I met him, as did he… we were engaged in 6 weeks, married within the year, and through good, bad, and sometimes incredibly ugly we’re celebrating 12 years in December.)

Then social media kicked in. I found facebook (oddly enough) to be an outlet. It wasn’t as “deep-dark secret” as my journal had been, but it was a place to chronicle my life’s events. I would share my love for my job, day-to-day events, and yes, even what I ate at night (especially if it was Outback Steakhouse, one of my very favorites). I wrote about heartbreaks and shared with my family and closest friends – when we miscarried babies in not one… not two… but three different pregnancies, when I lost my Nanny (one of my biggest cheerleaders), and when my husband lost his job months after our youngest daughter was born.

Now… it’s blogging. This is my space. (See what I did there… y’all remember that? Whew – blast from the past!) It’s where I share my thoughts. Don Murray was so right when he says (as quoted in Sparks in the Dark), “You write to discover what you want to say.”

So my implementation plan is completely different from anything I’ve done to this point. I’m telling y’all… this book has grabbed my soul! It’s stirred something deep down. It’s awoken a passion that I didn’t realize I had; something completely different from what the math teacher in me would have ever admitted to having a passion for. Writing. It’s not about writing to a prompt. It’s not about answering the question of the day, or answering an essay question on a test. Like reading, it’s about choice. Choosing what you want to write about. It’s about getting your thoughts on paper (or screen, pick your poison). It’s about reflection. My best reflections have come through writing. Not verbal conversation with others. But through my own quiet time, after my family is asleep… when I sit in the middle section of our sectional wrapped up in a blanket with my heavily-stickered MacBook Pro in my lap. When I write. That’s when I discover what I want to say. Sometimes there are (what feels like) a bazillion typos. You may notice them. I do, too. I will eventually edit. But right now, it’s all so raw. I just want to get it out.

This implementation plan isn’t for me. It’s not even really for my students. It’s for you.

I challenge you to write. I challenge you to share your writing with others. Maybe it’s a journal (I don’t recommend sharing your deepest-darkest secrets with just anyone though… just sayin’). Maybe it’s a Google Doc. Maybe it’s a writing notebook. Maybe… just maybe it’s a blog. Whatever it is, write. Write to figure out what you believe. Figure out your passions. Figure out who you are. I’m 33 years old, and I am just discovering who Alicia Ray really is. Sometimes, she scares the crap out of me. Sometimes, I feel like she’s not enough. Sometimes, I love her. But she’s always me. And the best way to share her, this voice inside my head, is through writing. So, to you… go right now… Write. I’d love it if you’d give me a peek into your head. Please tag me when you share your post (if that’s the route you take)!

Go. Write. Now.

*Also, pick up a copy of Sparks in the Dark by Travis Crowder and Todd Nesloney. It will truly illuminate your own spark!