Post by Kyle Baker, Program Coordinator at the Institute for Excellence & Ethics.

You can follow Kyle’s daily adventures here.

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What a difference a week makes.

Last Wednesday at 4:00 AM, I was on my way to the Kansas City airport, preparing for a day walking through airports and onto planes.

This morning at 4:00 AM, I was cooking breakfast for 50+ homeless men and preparing to walk the infamous Skid Row section of Los Angeles this afternoon.

Last week I was wrapping up my most recent trip to Kansas, where I met with educators on a variety of topics and facilitated three Excellence & Ethics Impact Academies, retreat-style workshops designed to guide participants into reflection on how they can develop into Impact Leaders and equip them with tools and skills needed to do so.  (You can view our workshop materials from these Impact Academies by clicking here.)

This week, I’ve seen countless Impact Leaders in action.  Along with eleven other Carroll College students and alumni, I am in Los Angeles this on a Headlights Service Immersion trip (read more about this trip here).  The objectives of this trip are to join together in order to serve people and communities in need and to learn of their stories and about the challenges they face.

Earlier this week we were able to visit Homeboy Industries, a comprehensive gang intervention program that has transformed entire neighborhoods if not the entire city of Los Angeles (it certainly has transformed the way we think about the creation of opportunities for gang members).  Homeboy Industries abides by two slogans that are referenced consistently:

“Jobs not jails,” and “Nothing stops a bullet like a job.”

It might be easy to cast off such brash statements…until you see Homeboy Industries in action.  On Monday, we visited a silk-screen shop, a bakery, and a café (complete with some of the best organic, sustainably grown food and coffee I’ve had in a very long time) that are run by Homeboy Industries.  Fast Company CoExist recently profiled Homeboy Industries, so you can read more about them by clicking here, but here are the essentials:

In the 1980’s, a Jesuit priest named Fr. Greg Boyle was placed at the Dolores Mission parish in the Boyle Heights region in Los Angeles.  Sharing a name with the neighborhood was pure coincidence, but his placement there was not.  After working in Bolivia, Fr. Greg asked his provincial (supervisor) if he could be placed at the poorest parish they had.  Since this was quite a rare request, the provincial was more than happy to place him in Boyle Heights, a region of LA that in the late 1980’s was entrenched in a full blown gang war.  By accounts we’ve heard this week, there were up to 18 actively warring gangs in the area at that time and there were often 2-3 homicides per week, most of them gang related.

Upon arriving in the neighborhood, Fr. Greg set out to learn about the challenges that the neighborhood was facing and work together with community members, primarily women in the neighborhood, to develop and implement creative solutions.  Homeboy Industries is only one of the many profound examples of how the creative solutions that have been developed have had a significant positive impact on this neighborhood, but for now I will focus on Homeboy in order to illustrate how they’ve moved to address critical issues facing current and former gang members.

Fr. Greg and his team quickly saw that one of the root causes of long-term gang membership was lack of any other valid option for many people in the area, especially if they dropped out of school and/or got involved in gang activity from a young age.  Take a look at the table below to see some of these challenges they identified and how Homeboy Industries works to provide solutions:

As we toured Homeboy Industries, our tour guide Gabriel explained that these solutions were a process, and that they take time.

He told us that several years ago “G” (which is what Fr. Greg is commonly referred to as here) had given him a chance, and that he’d left his old way of life behind and seized the opportunity.  He worked for Homeboy Industries for a period of time, then gota job with the railroad making over $45,000 per year (to put that into perspective, according to the principal of Dolores Mission Catholic School, only about 5% of the households in this area bring in over $20,000 per year).  However, he had a “relapse” (what this consisted of he did not share with us, he only referenced “his addictions”) and lost his job, his family, and his home.  He described coming back to see G:

“G gave me a hug, he told me I had no reason to be ashamed, and that I was exactly who God created me to be.  Then he told me to work on myself for a little bit, and come back when I was ready.  So I came to see him in December, and in January he gave me another opportunity with this job.  Now my personal goals are to keep working on myself so I can get enrolled in school and become a counselor to help other people.”

When we met Fr. Greg on Monday afternoon, he was quick to tell us that they hadn’t “fixed” anything, a message that is shared by many in this area.  However everyone here is  just as quick to point out the reductions in murder and other violent crime, thousands of “Homies” who now have jobs, men (including Gabriel) and women who are taking classes not only in Word, but also parenting and relationship-building.  They are proud and should be of the work they have joined together to put in for their community.

Indeed, as another Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once wrote, we must trust in the “long slow work,” and not get frustrated if “success” by our desired definition and metrics is not initially achieved.  Instead, we must (1) remain focused on the goal we’ve set out to achieve (In the case of Homeboy, end the violence that has plagued the lives of the people in this neighborhood), (2) develop many ideas for diverse and wide-reaching solutions, (3) refine these ideas until they are shaped into implementation-worthy plans, and then (4) communicate the plan to everyone involved and put it into action with fierce determination as well as the unbridled humility required to reflect, regroup, and begin anew when a plan needs further development.

Although Fr. Greg and others working in this area (and in other places) may feel as if they’ve only just begun to work toward a solution, spending this week surrounded by true Impact Leaders has been a great reminder that creative solutions are as much about process as about product, and that even if we haven’t achieved our final goal, there are always opportunities to plan and problems-solve further.

By my assessment using Creative Solutions Rubric, I’d give Homeboy Industries three thumbs up.

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The Excellence & Ethics Tools mentioned in this post, the Creative Solutions System and the Creative Solutions Rubric, are available in:

Unit 6.1 of the Power2Achieve Foundations Curriculum.

Excellence & Ethics Professional Development Toolkit 6.1.

Impact Academy workshops for educators, students, and community leaders.

For more information, email Kyle Baker at kbaker@excellenceandethics.org

You can follow Kyle’s daily adventures here.

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After nearly a month of traveling to different regions of the country to work with educators and students, last night I flew into Helena, Montana for a few days on the ground.  This morning when I woke up, I drove to Whitehall, a small southwestern Montana town of just over 1,000 residents.  As I pulled into town, I used my iPhone to access Google Maps so that I could find directions to St. Teresa’s Catholic Church.

I parked my car between two neatly painted white lines in the parish parking lot, and walked into the church just as a funeral Mass began in celebration of the life of Betty Hogan, whom I had never met.

So why was I at the funeral of someone I’d never met, in a town I’d never been…and what does all of this have to do with a “Web of Impact”?

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From 2001 until graduating in 2006, I attended Carroll College in Helena, Montana, where I played on the football team.  My time as a student-athlete (a term that has come under fire recently, but which I take very seriously) at Carroll was filled with many wonderful and challenging experiences, and marked by great development as a student, an athlete, and a person; it was one of the truly formative periods of my life.

While there, my offensive line coach was a man known to many as “Hogie.”  Hogie is the kind of person who epitomizes the term “duties as otherwise assigned.”  In addition to serving as a football coach, he also oversees the strength and conditioning program, is the master of the equipment room, and the king of one-liners.  Most people I’ve met over the years who have been associated in any way with football in Montana have a “Hogie-story,” and somewhere tucked away in a box I even have a binder full of “Hogie-isms” I collected during 5 years of film-study sessions.

After a person tells you their favorite Hogie-story, they’re quite likely to comment just as quickly on what a good, hard working, and caring man Hogie is.  No matter how early I would arrive for our winter conditioning workouts (which usually began prior to 6:00am), Hogie’s car would already be in the parking lot.  The door to his office was constantly open, inviting conversations on everything from game plans to relationships to what was for lunch that day in the dining hall.  On Saturday afternoons after a game, as everyone poured out of the locker room to celebrate a victory with their families, Hogie could be found washing the game uniforms because he believed that champions should never have grass stains on their uniforms.  This is a man who takes his jobs very seriously, because he knows their purpose, even if sometimes that purpose goes unnoticed by others.

The man many know as Hogie is Coach Jim Hogan, son of Betty Hogan, who passed away last week after a long battle with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

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Funerals have always been a strange thing to me, perhaps because as a child I didn’t have many experiences of dealing with the death of friends and loved ones.  I do remember attending the funeral of a friend’s father (Gary McKenna, my youth football coach, who first taught me to love the game of football, about the hard work required to play it well, and about the relationships that could be developed through teamwork and competition).  I remember being overwhelmed by the sadness that permeated the building, and I remember hoping that people wouldn’t be so sad when I died.

Of course this sadness is natural; we grieve for the loss of those we love and can no longer spend time with, we wonder if we should have called or written more, and we are confronted by the truth of our own mortality…but many times, as was the case today in Whitehall, joy is also present.  Joy for a life well lived, and for love well shared.

Today as I sat in St. Teresa’s and listened to readings and reflections on life and death, I realized that I wasn’t just there to support my mentor and friend as well as his grieving family, but that I was also there to share my gratitude for the profound impact that Betty Hogan had on my life.

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I don’t imagine that when Betty was 12 or 22 or 72, she ever imagined that her thoughts, her words, and her actions would someday affect a kid she would never even meet in any significant way, but they did.  Through the impact she had on the life of her son Jim…the values she instilled in him, the life-lessons she guided him through, and even the way she tended to his basic human needs for food, water, shelter, and affection as a child…she had a powerful and lasting impact on my own life, because her son Jim has made a significant impact on me, and has helped me become the man I am today: Far from perfect, but trying every day to learn to be a good person, to work hard, to not take things so seriously that I miss the chance to share a smile or a laugh, to be fiercely loyal, to be genuine, and to love the people around me.  In the 11 years we’ve known each other, Coach Hogan has done so many things to help and support me I’ve lost count, and I am certain there have been many more that I’ll never learn of.

His thoughts, words, and actions…the life of Jim Hogan, has had a profound, formative, and lasting impact on me.

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The most fascinating thing about this is that the influence of so many others who have had an impact on his life makes up part of an expansive Web of Impact.  You and I are part of this web too, just as is the person in the factory that built my car, the person who carried my iPhone from the delivery truck to the store, the person who designed Google Maps so I wouldn’t get lost (well, at least not as often), the person who painted the lines in the lot where I parked, and the usher who greeted me with a smile and a “good-morning” as I walked into St Teresa’s.   Just like I don’t imagine that Betty Hogan ever thought,“I bet if I teach my son Jim to work hard and be a good person, he will teach the same things to a football player he coaches someday,” I don’t know that the people who performed the jobs I just described thought about how their actions would affect me today…the impact they would have on me….but what if they did?

And what if I did? What if I thought more about what kind of impact I was making…what if we all did?  What increase in sense of purpose would we have?  In our sense of self-worth?  In our understanding of community?  In the joy with which we experience both the profound and the seemingly mundane?  What if we thought more intentionally about the impact we wanted to make with our lives, and what if we reflected deeply on this more regularly?  Because you see, our thoughts, our words, our actions…they really do matter, and they matter in incredibly more vast and complex ways than we can ever imagine or comprehend.  And one of the great gifts of this life is that we get to choose the kind of impact we make, because we get to choose how we think about the world and about the people around us, we get to choose what we say and how we say it, and we get to choose how and when we act. (And as Spiderman always wisely reminds us, this great gift of power comes with great responsibility).

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A few weeks ago, I got to speak with nearly 400 high school and middle school students about “Impact” at the Southwest Kansas Student Leadership Conference, hosted at Garden City Community College. (My participation in this event was made possible through a generous conference sponsorship from United Wireless of Kansas).  Throughout the conference, students reflected on their own unique skills, talents, and interests, and on how those could be put to use in order to make a positive impact on peoples’ lives, in their schools, in their families, in their workplaces, and in their communities, both now and in their future.

Next month, more students and educators will have the opportunity to contemplate this idea of being a part of a Web of Impact; to reflect on what they want their own impact to be and to learn to develop personal competencies that will help them make a positive with their life.

Through the Kansas PCEP Project, a federally funded initiative that for the last four years has worked to create a sustainable character development movement in high schools across the state of Kansas, students, educators, school board members, and community members have been invited to participate in three Excellence & Ethics Impact Academies which will take place around the state. These Excellence & Ethics Impact Academies provide participants with a unique opportunity to reflect deeply at their own experiences, to identify their goals, and to consider how their unique skills, interests, and opportunities can be built upon in order to make a positive and lasting impact with their lives.

And these opportunities are important, not only for our schools, and our communities…but for our collective future…because what we think, what we say, and what we do matters.

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Whether we realize it or not, each of us makes an impact on the people we interact with and on the world around us…and if we all spent a little more time being still with that information; thinking about all the people who have made an impact on us, and considering what kind of impact we will choose to make with our own lives, our individual lives are likely to be lived with more depth and richness, and perhaps our collective impact will begin to solve some of the more global problems we’re confronted with today as a society.

Just like Mrs. Hogan may never have known the significant impact her life had on me, we may not ever directly see tangible evidence  that every thought we think, every word we utter, or every action we take will have…but one thing that we do know is that the Web of Impact is real…and we are all part of it.

Posted by Kyle Baker, Program Coordinator for the Institute for Excellence & Ethics.

You can follow his daily adventures here.

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An essential step in goal achievement is the identification of your desired destination…what you’re aiming for…where you’re heading.

Regardless of who I work with, from students in elementary schools to competitive athletes, from people learning basic job skills to organizational leaders at the top of their fields, from teachers to college seniors, true identification of a desired destination (aka a goal) can prove to be an incredibly challenging task.  I’m not talking about things like “get good grades” or “exercise more”…but those specific, measurable goals that we want to achieve as individuals, teams, and organizations because they really mean something to us.

It can be scary.  Sometimes it can feel selfish.  It demands honesty, humility, and vulnerability.  It requires accepting the fact that it will take hard work to achieve…and that even with hard work, you still may not get there.  At some point, the question of “Why exactly do I want to do this again?” will come up, and sometimes you may not be able to find an answer.

I know this not only from a research perspective, but because I experience these challenges myself…we all do.

Goal achievement doesn’t just happen.  It’s a process.

Progress through process.

So….What are you progressing toward today?

“Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.”

-Khalil Gibran

What follows is a narrative from Jason of some changes he made during the 2010-2011 school year. I appreciate Jason’s transparency in sharing and his willingness to look at making changes that would improve the culture in his classroom.

Throughout the first 7 1/2 years of my teaching career I had utilized a very traditional form of behavioral management.  Call it what you want, “School Zone”, “Red, Yellow, Green”, etc., it was simply a way to point out when a student did something that was undesirable or something that broke the rules set-up in the beginning of the school year.  As I prepared my system every fall, the thought returned each time that this system is not working.  It was really only effective in making the students fearful about going on the “School Zone Board”.  Students complied with the rules of the classroom simply to stay off of school zone.  I noticed that it inhibited the natural behaviors of the students.  Even as I saw this each year, I always came back to this system because it was what worked.  Or so I thought.

I was fortunate enough to have a parent conference this year where I was challenged to consider something, anything different that might put the focus more on positive student behaviors. The very next day we started our Bucket System.  The students were recognized for doing something great a.k.a. for filling a bucket.  While they did something nice for someone else, they were also filling their buckets and feeling good about it.  Behaviors like:
1.  Listening to the teacher.
2.  Treating others with respect.
3.  Following directions.
The list goes on and on.  These were behaviors that students were “punished” for not completing in the past, but were now actively trying to get recognized for.  I had students that were picking up the belongings of others, or helping people get packed up. You could hear students complimenting others about something that they did or said.  The noticeable difference was the smiles on the faces of the students.  It was working.

After a few months of using our Bucket System, it was time to challenge the students further.  They noticed the difference this made on a group, but how could it impact an individual?

After experiencing an IEE workshop during Superintendent’s Day, I acquired various strategies and techniques for investing time rather than wasting it, as well as the concept of action steps and making mini-goals in order to go from one’s current location to their desired goal.

I introduced goal setting to my students on May 19th of this school year.  We began with a whole-class goal of just trying to keep the classroom clean.  We discussed that success will not come to us; we have to go to it.  One student, Mia, stated, “In order to have success, you have to be your best”.  It was a strong statement, but our desired location for our class was to have a clean classroom throughout the day.  We realized that trying to do that from a current location of having an untidy classroom was going to be tough.  We knew we wanted a clean and organized classroom, but we didn’t know what that looked like or how to get there.  We created smaller action steps, or mini-goals that we could accomplish that would permit us to reach our goals on a more regular basis.  What the students did not realize is that the action steps that they stated as being a path to their success were in fact the very things that were preventing them from having that clean classroom in the past.  Things such as: picking up papers, keeping your desk tidy, etc.  Now that they knew what they COULD do to keep the classroom clean, the students experienced success right from the beginning.

After a few days of working as a group, we decided to write individual goals.  The students brainstormed areas that they would like to improve on.  This was not academic, it was personal.  Students set goals to pace themselves while working, stay focused on their reading, and listening to the teacher.  In order to reach that goal, students needed to create smaller action steps that were help them experience success; again, action steps that were preventers for them in the past now became drivers.  One student wrote that in order to listen to the teacher and follow the directions they could have their eyes on the speaker, make sure their bodies are always facing the person talking, and not get involved in side conversations.  All three of these things were preventing them from being able to listen attentively.  Now students were attacking these action steps each day with enthusiasm because they finally had the understanding that they could do it.

To help students monitor their behavior and success, we incorporated the Attitude and Effort Rubric presented by IEE.  Each student received a pinch card with the rubric, as well as a copy of their goal.  Twice a day, once at the end of the morning and once at the end of the day, students recorded how they thought they performed.  I would go around and then record based on my observations.  During this process, conversations and reflections were made about how a student was able to get a three today, how that felt, or what prevented them from achieving a three.  We discussed how a three every day would be great, but that it wasn’t expected that students were perfect all moments of the day.  Some days are better than others, and the important piece would be recognizing what the drivers and preventers were on those days.

The change has been tremendous.  When asked what her feelings are when she achieves her goal, Annie said, “I feel good because I went to my goal for that day and I was a better writer.  I used to miss a lot of punctuations in my writing because I was always rushing.  Now I think of my goal and I always remember”.  Annie went on to comment on changing to our Bucket System by saying, “It is better now because you are doing something good.  Before the change you didn’t get appreciated for doing good things.”  When asked what she thought about the change from School Zone to the Bucket System, Ana replied with, “The buckets actually change your behavior because you focus on your goals and focus on getting better.  Before the change I just focused on not getting in trouble”.

I know that this year has been a different year for both the students and me.  Focusing on the positives rather than the negatives has helped me to be a better teacher, but also a better person outside of school as it has transferred to all areas of my life.  I know that when I sit down in the fall of the 2011-2012 school year and plan out my behavioral plan for the new students, I will not be asking whether or not it is going to work, I know that it will.  I will be asking myself just how much these students will be able to achieve.

Some Reflections on Jason’s Story

One of the things I enjoyed most about Jason’s sharing is his taking the time to do a “self-study” (one of the Four Keys we talk about at IEE) and his realization that he could improve the culture for learning in his classroom by making some changes. I also love the fact that this is a powerful example of a teacher being a life-long learner. As a school administrator for 27 years it was always a goal that we hoped our students and staff would pursue and I am always excited when I see educators modeling that for students.

I was also very pleased to see that Jason took some of the practical tools that we discussed during our professional development day in March and began to look at ways to use them in his classroom. His use of the Culture of Excellence & Ethics Attitude & Effort Rubric and our Culture of Excellence & Ethics Goal Map Tool played a key role in some of the positive improvements he made in his classroom. The actual examples of students rating their attitude and effort twice each day and setting specific goals that they could pursue helped them to grow as students. In a time when there is such a focus on topics like AYP (Annual Yearly Progress), RTI (Response to Intervention) and APPR (Annual Professional Performance Review) we believe that the Culture of Excellence & Ethics Tools we have developed are practical tools that can help educators as they look to address each of these topics.

A final comment is that Jason is just one example of how the educators at Allen Creek consistently look to improve their practices to build the culture where “Students Can Be Their Best Selves and Do Their Best Work”. Their example of being life-long learners is an excellent one for their students to see. They have truly developed a Professional Ethical Learning Community (PELC) that helps them to continually improve as a staff.  I believe that the PELC they have created is one of the key reasons they were recently recognized as a NY State School of Character.

Posted by Kyle Baker, Program Coordinator at the Institute for Excellence & Ethics.

You can follow his daily adventures here.

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Last week, I was sitting in one of my favorite Syracuse haunts, Recess Coffee House, when a group of four nestled into the plush chairs across the room.  It quickly became apparent that the group was comprised of three freshman college students and a “mentor.”   By the content of their conversation (so maybe sometimes I can actually hear through my earbuds…so?) and the body language of the students, it appeared that they were assigned to meet with this mentor through some type of academic support program (in other words, they didn’t seem too thrilled to be there).

After some brief small-talk, the mentor quickly moved to what must have been the topic for the day’s discussion by posing the following question to the group:

“So, where do you see yourself heading after you graduate from college?”

Needless to say, he didn’t gather much of a response from such a bold prompt.

As I sat there responding to emails and checking calendar dates, I had to laugh.  Only minutes before I had been with Matt Davidson discussing a similar question: “What will our work at IEE look like in 2012?”

In everything from grandiose life ambitions to more typical daily decisions, it can often feel as if we’re constantly seeking clarity of direction and purpose.  This certainly is true for me; I’ve often joked that I stick to water, coffee, and espresso because a decision like what kind of Gatorade to purchase can cause my knees to buckle…(anyone who’s ever made a road trip with me can attest that the process isn’t pretty).

But developing our sense of passion, purpose, and mission is much more important than deciding on a drink flavor.  In fact, an emerging collection of cross-disciplinary research is teaching us that having a clear sense of what drives you as an individual and/or organization is essential for health, happiness, productivity, and social change. (See the January/February issue of the always excellent Harvard Business Review for an insightful analysis of current research in this area).

Recently I was blessed with the opportunity to lead a retreat for college students where we focused on a line that St. Ignatius of Loyola, a prolific thinker and writer, often included at the bottom of the letters he would pen to his friends and colleagues around the world:

“Go forth, and set the world on fire.”

The question that stems from this line is a big one:  “How do I do that?”

The answer waits for us in reflection on what helps us light the unique fire within each of us, or as Howard Thurman put it, “what makes us come fully alive.”  This reflection includes thinking about our dreams, openly and honestly identifying what can help us achieve them as well as what may prevent us from doing so, and learning to articulate who we are and who we want to become.

Following the retreat (you can view the slides that were used during the retreat here) I received feedback from students indicating that for many of them the retreat represented the first time they’ve reflected deeply upon these themes.

Perhaps just as interesting (and deeply moving) were the emails I received from those that were on the retreat in supporting roles along different points in their journey:  A person preparing to retire later in the month from a job that by his own accord had “defined his identity” for several decades; a person who shared that he was “at the theoretical midpoint of life this year” and beginning to reflect upon “what my epitaph will say (which is the sentence carved in stone),” and a person just beginning her career who summarized the experience by saying “the issue of where is my life headed is a BIG anxiety button for this generation of so many options and possibilities.”

These are big questions whose answers are constantly evolving, but even though they can be scary and complex, working to discover our passion, purpose, and mission through exercises such as the Blueprint for Life, the Character SWOT Analysis (both featured in Power2Achieve Unit 8.1), and writing (then living) “Your Sentence,” (presented in Daniel Pink’s bestseller Drive and featured in Power2Achieve Unit 5.1) is essential, as is creating opportunities for our students and members of our organizations to do so. (As you’ll see in the retreat slides, these served as the pillar exercises for our retreat…and the sentences the participants came up with filled me with a great sense of hope for our future.)

So “Go forth, and set the world on fire”…but before you set out to do so, be sure to spend some time thinking about what lights your own fire.

Northern Heights High School (Allen, KS), Clifton-Clyde Senior High School (Clyde, KS), and Weskan High School (Weskan Township, KS) have received the highest honor the state of Kansas bestows on K-12 schools, the Governor’s Award, which recognizes the top performing schools in the state.

In order to receive this award, high schools must:

• Achieve the Kansas “Standard of Excellence” in both reading and mathematics.
• Made AYP (Annual Yearly Progress) in reading, math, and graduation rate.
• Be among the top 5 percent of schools in reading and mathematics on state assessments.

These three schools all currently utilize the Power2Achieve Foundations classroom curriculum through the their participation in the Kansas PCEP grant project (coordinated by Sue Kidd).

In addition to utilizing Power2Achieve Foundations, each of these schools has also received multiple Culture of Excellence & Ethics Toolkit professional development workshops for the school’s entire faculty/staff, has used the Culture of Excellence & Ethics Assessment (CEEA) to assess the culture and climate of their school, and have learned to use that data to guide improvement strategies through IEE’s Using CEEA Data for School Improvement professional development workshop.

These services were also provided through the Kansas PCEP project and the Toolkit workshops were delivered by IEE’s outstanding team of trainers in Kansas:  Kansas PCEP coach DeAnne Heersche and Excellence & Ethics Certified Trainers Jara Wilson, Audrey Neuschafer, Noalee McDonald-Augustine, Susan Johnson, and Mary Ghetto.

Silver Lake Junior/Senior High School (Silver Lake, KS), another Governor’s Award winner, utilizes the CEEA survey (also made possible by the Kansas PCEP project).

The recognition of these four school’s as Governor’s Award winners continues to confirm the positive impact a comprehensive implementation of Power2Achieve Foundations, Culture of Excellence & Ethics Toolkits, and the Culture of Excellence & Ethics Assessment produces in schools.

You can read more about the Kansas Governor’s Award on the Kansas State Department of Education’s website here.

Congratulations to Northern Heights High School, Clifton-Clyde Senior High School, Weskan High School, and Silver Lake Junior/High School!

Last week, I facilitated an Excellence & Ethics Toolkit Workshop on “Utilizing Effective Goal Achievement Strategies” for the faculty, staff, and administration at Russell Middle School in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Russell Middle School has a passionate faculty & staff committed to giving their students the best educational experience possible (this is reflected in Russell’s distinction as a Colorado Trailblazer School to Watch and a Colorado State School of Character).  Given this fact, the school leadership team had little doubt that the faculty and staff would quickly and powerfully integrate tools such as the Goal Achievement Process, the Goal Map, and the Attitude-Effort-Improvement Rubric (AEI Rubric) following Wednesday’s Toolkit professional development workshop, however they decided that they wanted to implement a school-wide, Tier-1 intervention as well.

The school leadership team identified the objectives of the intervention they wanted to plan by choosing to adopt the Excellence & Ethics competencies addressed in the Toolkit as the stated goals for their students:

• Benchmark current state (baseline starting point) and establish desired state (end goal).
• Balance tactical (short-term) and strategic (long-term) goals.
• Apply strategies to overcome obstacles to goals achievement.
• Develop the attitude and effort needed to revise and continuously improve.

The leadership team then decided to incorporate another goal as well: To increase the frequency and quality of planner use by students.  This objective strengthened the intervention strategy by authentically aligning it with the school’s ongoing PBIS initiative while also encouraging students to make better use of a powerful tool that they already had access to.

Prior to this intervention, planner use was encouraged and reinforced by many teachers, but the only coordinated school-wide use of the planner was as a hall pass, and as one teacher told us, “ Those planners are an awfully expensive bathroom pass.”

After identifying the goals for the intervention, the school leadership team and I worked to envision what steps the students would need to take in order to achieve them.

The leadership team determined that they would work to achieve the goals they identified by having the students:

1.  Set 1 academic and 1 citizenship (using the Russell ROCKS citizenship rubric as the guide) every month.

2.  Record their goals on the month overview page in their student planners.

3.  Chart their current Attitude and Effort in relation to the academic and citizenship goal they identified using the Attitude-Effort-Improvement Rubric (better known as the AEI Rubric).

4.  Revisit their goals and AEI chart at least once during the month in order to have a MMR (Measure, Monitor, Revise if necessary) point.

Of course, identifying the things we want students to do doesn’t solve the seemingly endless logistical challenges that curb well-intentioned initiatives and interventions every day in schools across the country.

What’s the #1 way to stop such a derailment from occurring?  By practicing the same long lost art we encourage our students to:  Thinking before acting.

And so we set out to think about the systematic process that would be required to have 700 students set goals, monitor progress, and evaluate their attitude and effort over time.

The leadership team made several decisions (that students would use the form pictured below and that those forms would go in each student’s portfolio, etc.), but they also decided to leave several decisions up the 6 PLCs that the faculty & staff are grouped together in.

This move empowered the individual teams to take ownership of the intervention by making their own decisions about who would get the forms into the portfolios, when (and by whom) mid-month check-ins would take place, what dates at the beginning of each month students would set new goals, how the need for Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions would be identified, and what other kinds of intervention reinforcement would occur.

Something important to note here:  The initial decisions made by the school leadership team happened BEFORE the Toolkit workshop ever began.  That’s right, before the teachers ever poured their first cup of coffee or checked their email on the morning of their second semester professional development day, the school leadership team had already put in work to identify goals, set up the intervention framework, and define the decisions that each PLC would need to make.

During the afternoon of the Toolkit workshop, each PLC met for 45 minutes to make their own plan for implementing the intervention.  At the conclusion of these PLC meetings, the entire faculty and staff came together to share their ideas, ask their peers questions that came up in their discussions, and use their collective expertise to solve problems that may have otherwise prevented the intervention from being successful.

So what was the result?  On Friday, January 6^th, I watched as 700 students–every single student in the building–learned about effective goal setting and the importance of attitude and effort in relation to improvement toward their desired goal (a process that will be conducted during the first week of every month for the rest of the school year).

The intervention the Russell faculty, staff, and administration has put into action is a powerful example of how different initiatives and frameworks within a school (PLCs, RTI, PBIS, Character Education, 21^st Century Skills, etc.) can come together to empower students to not only set their own goals, but to achieve them.

Watching the students identify their goals and think about their attitude and effort was exciting for me as one of the designers of the Tools they are using and as a person who believes that it’s possible to unleash nearly limitless potential in every individual student, but my guess is that my initial excitement will pale in comparison to the excitement we will all share when we begin to see the progress students make and the goals they are able to achieve in the course of the coming months.

*Named change to protect confidentiality.

Working with peers has historically been very difficult for *Sam.  He has Autism, more specifically Asperger Syndrome, and finds it challenging to connect with other students and work in groups.  This year we started by developing the foundation for group work experiences with the use of the P2A Collaboration Continuum and the P2A Constructive Criticism tools for the entire class.  By having clearly defined expectations of what group work will look like and sound like for all students, we have noticed improved productivity and overall quality of work for all.  Additionally, the level of participation in groups and the acceptance of constructive criticism have far exceeded any of our expectations for Sam, in particular.

I sat one-on-one with Sam to discuss why things seemed so different this year compared to years past.  He was able to easily explain that having knowledge of the guidelines for his role and the roles of other members of the group makes it very easy to work together successfully.  He expressed that he knows that he can’t be the dependent member of the group waiting for the others to do the work.  Furthermore, when working in groups he can’t go off and work independently, although he prefers independent work.  In addition, Sam explained that in the past he didn’t like it when students disagreed with him on strategies to approach the group assignments.  He felt like group members weren’t letting him give adequate input to the final product.  Because each group work activity begins with a group brainstorm, Sam now feels that students hear his ideas and he is able to hear the ideas that others bring to the table too.

In using the P2A Constructive Criticism tool throughout the first trimester we have also noticed improved delivery and acceptance of criticism for Sam.  During author’s chair each week we allow students the opportunity to share their writing with an added option to accept constructive criticism regarding their piece at the end of the session.  At the beginning of the year the adults in the room would hold their breath when Sam raised his hand to offer  criticism as it was usually very direct, and many times rude.  Having the language clearly spelled out on how to successfully deliver constructive criticism we have noticed students welcoming the suggestions Sam has to offer.  In addition, Sam is working on successful strategies to communicate effective constructive criticism that will be used in school and the work place.

• Here’s how this tool added value to reaching and teaching this student:
  • The P2A Collaboration Continuum and the P2A Constructive Criticism tools provided a clear set of expectations/rules for group work and providing feedback to peers.
• Here are a few ways that you could adapt or adopt it to meet your students struggling with similar (or other related) challenges:
  • Show students what ineffective group work looks like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vCrnYQbP4g
  • Have students create scenarios in which they illustrate effective group work situations based on the P2A Collaboration Continuum.
  • Create a rubric in which students can evaluate their role in group work situations or after providing constructive criticism to peers.
  • Use the P2A Collaboration Continuum poster and/or P2A Constructive Criticism poster to provide students concrete feedback about their work during the group work time.

This lack of acknowledgement (and resulting action) doesn’t typically stem from a desire of organizational leaders to see their employees suffer and their profits reduced, but rather from increased pressure they themselves feel to do more with less.

However given the facts, leaders that don’t dedicate time, space, and resources to developing opportunities for members of their organization to reflect and renew aren’t just acting in ignorance, they’re acting irresponsibly.  In a climate in which organizations have been driven to expect fewer people to do more with reduced resources, rates of burnout, depression, and talent-turnover will likely continue to skyrocket unless opportunities for reflection and renewal are intentionally woven into the life of the organization.

We must realize that ‘mindfulness’ is an essential skill that doesn’t just exist, but rather must be thoughtfully cultivated at both the individual and organizational level in order to build performance capacity.

This week I am in Lawrence, Kansas, working with trainers from educational resource centers around the state to certify them as Excellence & Ethics Trainers (enabling them to deliver trainings on Power2Achieve Foundations, Excellence & Ethics Toolkits, and the Culture of Excellence & Ethics Assessment to schools, organizations, and individuals across the state of Kansas).  I’ve worked with this awesome group of people before, so I know that because of their dedication to their professional craft and their families, their plates are exceptionally full, but their passion for building a culture of excellence & ethics had brought them together to deepen their understanding of our approach in order to enhance their future work.

Given a finite amount of time to facilitate a significant amount of learning and planning, I felt (self-inflicted) pressure to jam a lot of work into a small amount of time, but rather than accepting that  the only option was to use every moment to force more information onto those I was training, I decided to bet that the renewal that would occur through a guided reflection activity would not only make our time together more enjoyable, but also more productive both in the short and long term.

After beginning the second day of our certification workshop with some assorted housekeeping items, I announced that before continuing any further with the formal training, we’d be doing some morning reflection.

We began our morning reflection with the 5 steps outlined below:

On the top half of their chart paper, each person spent a few minutes with the Excellence & Ethics Blueprint for Life Tool, listing thoughts from each of the areas identified by the orange boxes.

We then spent a few moments reflecting on the Excellence & Ethics Character SWOT Analysis Tool, and then on the bottom half of the chart paper each person identified strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that would impact their ability to reach the goals they had identified above.

When each person had finished their Character SWOT Analysis, we taped the pieces of chart paper in a row on the wall.  We stood together for a few moments in front of our unique goals and desires, the strengths and opportunities we each wanted to build upon, and the weaknesses and threats we wanted to work on, and then we spent a minute in silence reflecting on how we could support & challenge ourselves and others so that we might do our best work and become our best selves.

If the hard-yet-enjoyable work that occurred during the rest of our day together can be used as an indicator, it would appear that the science that illustrates the benefits of reflection and renewal are right on point.

The earliest tradition of Thanksgiving was based on belief in the importance of giving thanks for the bountiful harvest. The tradition was thus born of values such as wisdom, gratitude, and humility. Those values took shape in the form of a feast centering on food, faith, and friendship.  In time the tradition of Thanksgiving served to remind and reinforce those animating values behind the ritual.

And the tradition has certainly evolved, right? I mean wouldn’t the Pilgrims be surprised at how football and parades and Black Friday have become part and parcel of the Thanksgiving tradition?  That’s not a commentary on the lost purity of Thanksgiving. The tradition was initiated by a unique group of human beings to serve their unique needs; it continues to evolve and change and manifest in countless different ways depending on geography, race, religion, and family norms.

Traditions and rituals, our cultural norms, are neither bad or good in and of themselves; but they do shape and reinforce a set of values—either by accident or by design. So it’s important to continuously reflect on what we do and why we do it “our way.”

For my family, Thanksgiving means a big family gathering (I mean big, too!). It’s about kids playing together, it’s about telling (and retelling) old stories and bad jokes; it’s about sitting around a fire (a “bomb” fire as one niece described it) and talking and laughing and reconnecting.  Some years back we had started a tradition of going around and having each person say what they were thankful for (not sure who or how it started, but seems like something I may have been crazy and goofy enough to propose). It was pretty cool. It was at times touching and other times tedious (think big group, young kids, and the “my family” response showing up a few times). But I truly believe that we all felt that we had tapped into some deeper part of Thanksgiving. We deepened the tradition, we tapped into some of the deeper values behind the day.

In my opinion, there’s something about Thanksgiving that is very simple: we eat and we relax.  I don’t think we should (or could) infringe upon that core piece of Thanksgiving for our family. But, there’s also something deeper, something that begs for reflection on the important things in life. But, unless you have a routine that makes space and provides a format it simply doesn’t happen (or may end up taking the form of Uncle Al getting drunk and telling everybody what’s important—at the top of his lungs from the front lawn). (Note: I do not have an Uncle Al; Al is not a pseudonym for a real uncle either; just an example, I swear).

Well, like lots of traditions, at some point our “what we’re thankful for” tradition fell off. Not sure why. No official proclamation. We just probably forgot, missed it one year, and then never reestablished it. But I think we lost a little something.  So it got me to thinking about some new ideas for going after the deeper part of Thanksgiving.  So, for what it’s worth, here’s one to consider adapting or adopting.

IEE’s Culture of Excellence & Ethics Belief Box is a tool we have used to create a process by which individuals have a chance to stand up on the box and share their beliefs,
ideas, and inspirations.  I thought it would be a good tool to adapt for a new Thanksgiving ritual. We’ve used this with individuals from all age levels and in many different settings.

Here’s one version of how to use this tool:

1. A set of questions is generated that are meant to be thought provoking and to probe for guiding philosophy and beliefs.
2. Each person has the chance to “stand on the box”—in some contexts, that just means it’s their turn (no standing at all). In other instances, people have literally created a box, or a spot for each person to stand before the group to receive questions and share their response.
3. Each person has the right to pass on any question that is too personal, too difficult, or to which they simply don’t have a response.

Other little process hints:  figure out how many you will have people you have, and how much total time you have. Then appoint a time-keeper to make sure each person is given equal time. (Better to go for something doable the first time and have them wanting to do a second round, then push your luck and cause mayhem and revolt—but maybe I’m projecting based on my family!).

Here are some sample questions drawn from our version of the Belief Box activity:

• Explain what you believe is more important, fitting in or standing out.
• What’s the best advice anybody has ever given you?
• What advice would you offer somebody your age to help them make the most of their life?
• What is the secret to finding happiness?
• What’s one sure way to be unhappy?
• What things in life are more important than money?
• If you only had 30 days tolive, how would you spend your time?
• What does it mean to “live a life of purpose”?
• What is something you feel you absolutely must accomplish before you die?

You can have each person answer them all in a rapid-fire style. Or, you can have the group pick and choose which questions to ask. There are really an unlimited number of questions and processes to follow.

What are the advantages of the Belief Box activity? First, it’s intentional. You’re doing this with a specific intent.  If you’re lucky your group may accidentally fall on something like this, but if you think it’s important you want to ensure that it happens by design, not hope it happens by chance. Second, it’s consistent. This helps to ensure that it goes well and as you hoped (note how these questions pull for deep thinking but give a person plenty of safety and choice about what to share and how to share it). It’s structured and simple enough to do in almost any time block you have. Finally, it taps into the deeper values behind the tradition of Thanksgiving providing a simple but powerful way to connect (and reconnect) to one another and to reconnect to our shared beliefs, experiences, and values.

As you reflect on your own Thanksgiving traditions and rituals what are the defining aspects of the experience for your family?  What makes it unique to your family? What traditions have you lost or forgotten or ruined (that happens too!)?  What if you’re tired of the same old conversations, the same old routines, the same predictable patterns; what if you don’t like what it’s become, if you want something deeper or just something different?   Don’t worry. You made them. You can change them. Changing your traditions is as easy as intentionally shaping some new norms, new ways of doing things.

What if you’re not ready for something as “nutty” as the Belief Box? No worries. Maybe just find one place in your day where you can more intentionally shape how you will be together to better reflect your deepest hopes and intentions for the wonderful tradition that is,  Thanksgiving.