Mrs.Smith'sAngels

I came upon a one-car accident about 20 years ago.  On a very hot July afternoon, an elderly woman had lost control of her car on a remote west Texas highway (about 30 miles from the nearest community).  The vehicle had rolled several times, coming to rest in the bar ditch.  I was the fourth person to come upon the accident.  Three other men had arrived on the scene ahead of me, two of them brothers who were traveling together. 

As I approached the scene, I found the other men attending to the elderly woman.  She was out of her vehicle, seated on the ground.  She was badly shaken, with abrasions around her face and head, and bruising already evident on her arms.  I assumed there were other possible injuries that were not visible. 

The woman was clearly rattled and kept asking for her glasses.  Three of us began searching the path that the rolling car had traveled through the weeds and grass, trying to find her spectacles.  One man stayed with the woman to console her as we waited for an ambulance to arrive.  After several minutes of combing through the weeds, we found her glasses. 

As the woman put her glasses on her bloodstained face, we were all huddled around.  As she regained her visual bearings her eyes went wide.  She could now clearly see our faces.  She gasped, and chocked down a sob, then exclaimed, “Kenny!  Bobby!”  Then and only then did the two brothers, both in their forties, look closely at her face.  They, in unison, cried out, “Mrs. Smith!”

Mrs. Smith had been the Sunday School teacher for Kenny and Bobby when they were children, some 30 years earlier, in a town that was about 100 miles from the scene of the accident.  Kenny and Bobby had had no contact with Mrs. Smith since they had graduated from high school and moved on in life. 

Tears of joy and amazement began to flow (among all five of us) as the awareness of the situation began to sink in:  Mrs. Smith’s investment in the spiritual development of two young brothers some 30 years earlier had come full circle in the two “angels” being on the scene at her time of direst need.

Reminds me of the song by Alabama, “Angels Among Us.”

Reminds me, too, of all the angels that have littered my life-path.  Some have been most obvious.  Most, I am sure, unbeknownst to me.  Sure hope I've done right by them all...

TooMuch?

Through my years of being in the business of causing learning to happen, I have all too often encountered learners (young and old) who seemed to want a “bargain” in their educational experience.  It seemed/seems as though some learners I have served (from elementary age all the way up through graduate school versions, and even employees) have taken the position of “OK, I’m here for this learning experience, but don’t give me too much ‘learning’ for my time/trouble/effort/money/attention.”

Interesting.  In no other endeavor that I can think of do we offer our time/trouble/effort/money/attention and declare, either overtly or covertly, that we object to being given too much for our investment.  In all other transactions it seems we want as much for our investment as the provider can/will deliver.

It’s kind of a weird dynamic because it’s impossible to learn too much.  In fact, if history means anything, not learning enough usually results in far more pain, misery, waste, and mistakes than does learning too much.

It’s OK to learn too much.  
Permission granted. 
Be my guest.   
In fact, I'll join you.

GreatTeams

One of the interesting things I learned when pretending to be an athletic coach is the recursive and reciprocal effect of “getting better” when one is part of a really good team.  It seems that the better the team plays, the better the individual players get.  And, the better the individual players get, the better the team gets.  In magical instances, that cycle repeats.  Not surprisingly, success and awards freely flow toward both the team and the individual players.

With that thought in mind, here are some of the great teams I get to play on:

>Guthrie Common School District

>Guthrie Virtual School

>The University of Texas at Austin

>Wayland Baptist University

>The Texas High Performance School Consortium

>Texas Association of School Administrators

>Texas Association of Secondary School Principals

>South Plains Collaborative Schools Network

>Texas Computer Educators Association

Each of those great teams of educators are deeply committed to making powerful learning happen for students.  The focus of that collective work is both on public school students and on developing educators.

Each, in their own way, strives daily to make World Class Learning happen for students every day, for every child.

How blessed I am to get to “play” on those great teams.

TransformingSchool(2.0)

The South Plains Collaborative School Network (SPCSN) is a group of schools in the Lubbock, Texas, area which have banded together to collectively pursue school improvement and engage in transformative practice.  To that end, Lubbock Cooper ISD (LCISD) invited the SPCSN School Transformation Pod to visit the campus of Laura Bush Middle School (LBMS) last Friday.  About 12-15 school districts sent administrators to this event to learn about the strategies being deployed at LBMS in the interest of creating a world class learning environment for its students.

LBMS principal Edna Parr and assistant principal Kyle Hendrix provided an overview of the deployments and underlying philosophies driving that work.  They and several other LCISD folks then led classroom “power walks” on the campus, to provide us an on-the-ground view of their efforts.

Some powerful learning, takeaways, and notices for me:

• Instructional improvement at LBMS is centered on The Fundamental 5 (Cain & Laird, 2012): 1) Frame the lesson, 2) Work in the power zone, 3) Frequent small group purposeful talk, 4) Recognize and reinforce, and 5) Write critically.
• A deep commitment to “intentional practice” is embedded into LBMS daily processes.
• Persistent attention to the quality of relationships between and among ALL stakeholders is a top priority.
• Deep learning and critical thinking are more highly valued than a pathological pursuit of superficial content coverage.
• Formative assessments of learning are a constant focus, through the small group purposeful talks, the daily writing synthesis of learning, the “exit tickets” on which students summarize learning, effective use of inquiry, etc.
• A marrow-deep commitment to continuous improvement seems to pervade the culture of both LCISD and LBMS.

Wouldn't it be nice if every child could attend a school like LBMS, in which student-centeredness and an intense focus on quality learning are relentlessly and intentionally pursued?  Schools like that just feel right.    

The sharing and cross-pollination of transformative undertakings like the school visit described above are part of a bigger movement afoot in Texas, driven largely by the Texas Association of School Administrators School Transformation Network. 

Good stuff!  Very good stuff!  Thanks for the invite, Dr. Macy Satterwhite.  Thanks for the hospitality, Ms. Parr and Mr. Hendrix.