From the Trenches...

What Do Teachers Make?

2009-06-08T13:20:28-04:00

I have a wonderful friend named Wayne Logue. Most of you have seen his work, actually! He is not only the artist behind all of our posters, he is a large chunk of the brains behind Education Illustrated. Anyway...a while back, Wayne showed me a video of a poet named Taylor Mali (not just any poet, Taylor is a "slam" poet with an ingenious sense of humor). Many of his poems are about teachers and other components of education. At the end of the video, I had goose bumps on my arms and was ready to stand up and shout to the masses. I ran across the video again recently and decided I just had to share it with you.

Disclaimer: There are a few "naughty" words and one rude hand gesture in the video. For those of you who are sensitive to this, I assure you the message will overcome any offense you may have gathered!

If you are involved in education in any fashion, you will likely have the same reaction as I. If you don't....we need to talk.

I can't wait until I am in the situation described! I could have not said it better. Thank you Taylor Mali. Read more about Taylor's inspirational story at www.TaylorMali.com. He sells several products and has a free email newsletter that may interest some of you as well.

Did you enjoy this? I look forward to your comments. I have many clips like this to share if you are interested! Let me know...

Regards,

~Duke Kelly

P.S. We have started an Affiliate Program at Education Illustrated! If you have a blog or other website, you can sign up for free. Once you are an affiliate, you will have access to special links and graphics to include on your site. When visitors click on the links or graphics to come to our site, you get up to 20% for each purchase they make! Just publicize your own site and get a check each month. Nothing is easier. You can sign up right now by clicking the graphic below or visiting: http://www.idevaffiliate.com/31303/index.php

How to Recover from the Educator Energy Drain...

2009-05-28T13:32:20-04:00

Coaching For Energy

Are you exhausted at the end of the day? Does teaching or training drain you physically and mentally beyond belief? Does your family need to give you "space" at the end of a day of teaching or training? Chances are…your energy level is extremely low after a long day of instruction. Maybe an Educator Energy Coach is the perfect answer to your ills.

An Educator Energy coach is a enhanced version of a "consultant" or a specialized edition of a more traditional type of coach. Instead of focusing on what should be done in the room to change the way you do things to enhance a learner's experience, an Educator Energy Coach provides tips to enhance your own experience as an educator. Start with caring for the needs of the educator and results will quickly follow. A medical analogy: This is treating the source of the symptoms (often educator energy level) instead of, or before, treating the symptoms (learning outcomes). The good news is that you can find an energy coach within your current circle of colleagues.

The concept: The more energy an educator has, the better the experience for everyone involved in the learning process.

Does this make intuitive sense? Even if an educator can get loads of tips from a staff development and use them successfully for a couple weeks (that's typically quite a usually generous assumption), they fizzle out and lose effectiveness. I believe, from experience and observation, that this is partly because the strategies offered are often so focused on what students need that the teacher's style, skill set, and comfort zone are left in the dust. Many teachers end up "faking it" with new techniques until they just don't fit anymore. (People also tend to pretend they are “gung-ho” in relationships until the honeymoon period wears off.) This can be so exhausting that a literal collapse occurs when the last set of feet pitter-patter out of the room.

It is time for staff development work to be focused on providing teachers the skills to more effectively manage themselves and, therefore, be able to function at their peak in the learning environment. Teachers are doing everyone a disservice when they try to push through the energy drain that so often occurs. This is when people begin to drone on, babble, get a shorter fuse, and become slightly terse. Discipline problems often arise at this point as well. This obviously has a direct effect on the students. Keep in mind that this can occur with the most well planned and thought out reading strategy, math manipulative, or science demonstration. That is because the strategies generally don’t take the teacher’s humanity into account.

An Educator Energy Coach, even an informal coaching relationship with a colleague, can help you identify triggers and solutions for such dreaded times. This is the education version of Oprah and Dr. Phil and all the "take care of your spirit" routine. It works, though, if you think of your family. Have you heard, "If Mamma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy"? The same is true for teachers and students.

Keep reading for more info...

What is “Energy” in an Educational Sense?

Keep in mind that I am not talking about the ethereal “energy” that your neighborhood psychic tout is visible to them. I am talking about the actual energy you can feel quite literally. You can, and your coach can even more easily, feel it in your posture, facial expression, and rate of your breathing. Imagine walking into two restaurants with identical menus and similar ambiance. It is quite normal for one to feel like it has more energy depending on the bustle of the servers, type of music in the background, and the clank of pans in the kitchen. Have you walked into a party at the home of a friend with all of the typical group in attendance. Sometimes, the party is instantly fun and sometimes it only takes a moment to plan what type of pizza you will order when you return home early.

In a public setting, it is easy to feel the difference. In a classroom, it is often easier for an outside person to identify.

How to Find a Great Energy Coach

(Besides Hiring Me! duke@edapple.com or www.edapple.com)

Start with people closest to you. Ask fellow educators that you trust and respect. Ask them to spend a portion of time merely observing a session. At the conclusion, arrange a time to get some solutions. The coach should look for "draining events" in the room: A series of energy killing questions, a bum numbing length of sitting that is causing behavior problems, or, perhaps, an opportunity to tell a joke, play a song or tell a story. Simple changes can help you rejuvenate DURING your instruction time. Many of these energy boosting tips immediately take the pressure off your responsibilities and let you take a breath. They should not focus on what students could do differently. This is about helping you and you are the only thing over which you, in theory, have control.

They should try to “feel” the room, read your expressions, and identify what is happening during and just prior to a dip in energy. Keep in mind that I am not talking about the ethereal “energy” that your neighborhood psychic tout is visible to them. I am talking about the actual energy you can feel quite literally. You can, and your coach can even more easily, feel it in your posture, facial expression, and rate of your breathing. Imagine walking into two restaurants with identical menus and similar ambiance. It is quite normal for one to feel like it has more energy depending on the bustle of the servers, type of music in the background, and the clank of pans in the kitchen. In a public setting, it is easy to feel the difference. In a classroom, it is often easier for an outside person to identify.

Sometimes it is especially effective to solicit a coach that teaches different content that you. That way, they are not obsessed with the content...just looking out for you and your well being. As a result, they are making the biggest leaps toward helping students.

Beyond your circle of colleagues, look at nearby schools, outside consultants (like me!), or internet services that provide tips for increased energy. How do you know when you have a great coach?

Goals of Any Great Educator Energy Coach:

1) To Make Themselves Unemployed: The goal is to provide techniques that can be used after the coach leaves! If they make you dependent on them, they are not doing their job properly. You might contact them again from time to time to reevaluate yourself and get additional tips, but each interaction should stand on its own with regard to its usefulness. They are not the expert on your situation and they should not act as they are. They are present at your request to help make your life easier!

2) Add Energy to the Learning Environment: Teachers and Trainers are exhausted at the end of the day. An effective coach should dampen that effect and it WILL be translated to the learning environment. Every technique should make you feel better, more lively, more refreshed or more "raring to go!"

3) Be Practical...ALWAYS: Every action suggested, every minute of support given, and every technique offered MUST be easy to implement. This is true as it relates to available resources, personal strengths, comfort zone, and classroom situation. If it takes massive amounts of effort to implement a technique, the point of this type of coach has been lost! It starts with you or you would not have been specifically chosen to be in your situation. You are there for a reason. Add to your arsenal.

4) Focus on the Situation at Hand: Coaching educators is not about the wishes of a department or administration. A great coach will keep details private and help build on YOUR strengths, not try to shove you into a mold set by someone outside of your daily world. Each strategy or technique offered should directly relate to a situation observed, no speculation. "Here is what you said, here is what they did, your reaction was deflated, the mood of the room changed, and here is an idea to prevent it next time."

Bottom Line

Find SOME way to raise your energy level throughout the day. Play happy music (i.e. “Brown Eyed Girl,” not, "There's a Tear in my Beer"), have some humor ready to read, get people moving, take the focus off you and have learners DO something and take a breath yourself in the process, have some stimulating questions (may or may not be content related) to ask and encourage responses. When teaching in the classroom, I leave the room at least once per week and have an activity or even simply a lecture outside of the routine classroom. When facilitating trainings with adults, I play music, add humor, add movement and novelty, and so much more. I do all this for my own sanity and it benefits my learners instantly.

How Cheating Hurt My Stomach

2009-05-21T13:11:54-04:00

How Cheating Hurt My Stomach

~Duke Kelly Education Illustrated LLC

So there I was...teaching high school geometry and loving every minute of it (well...loving most minutes). One sunny day I was administering a test. Behold! I saw a young lady cheating by balancing what she thought was an invisible sheet of notes on her lap. Then the moment came. We made that uncomfortable seemingly endless lock of the eyes. She knew that I knew. I did not want to embarrass her in any way. After all, she might be cheating because I failed her in some way...right? I did not want to call her out in front of her peers and did not want to make her feel alone. I wanted each of our interactions to help her grow as a person. (These are general rules of mine. Are they unreasonable? These principles certainly warrant a separate article. Coming soon...) With my "don't make students feel terrible" rules tying my hands, I had a sudden flash of genius! Here is how I chose to handle the situation and address all of my concerns...

I went to the chalkboard and drew a large piece of notebook paper. I began to write a "letter" on the imaginary paper. Here it is (click to enlarge or read text below photo):

"Dear Students who know that I know you are cheating,

I know that you know that I know. You have until the start of seminar (a study period following that class) to come discuss your options. If you neglect to do so, your paper will be returned to you tomorrow with a score of "0" and no further discussion.

Love, Mr. Kelly"

That note encouraged her to do the right thing, made her feel less terrible (the letter was to a plurality of students) and did not identify her personally. I was thinking..."SCORE!" Little did I know that nothing remotely interesting, in comparison, had happened yet.

After class, she came to me with a quite typical story with details such as, "It was just on that one problem," etc...She obviously felt extremely embarrassed and diminished. We arranged for her to take some portions of the test again and she agreed. Isn't that a nice ending? Wait...

Behind her was standing a que of five other students with similar stories! One exception was a student who came up and just said, "Hello." I responded with a similar greeting and we continued to stare. He broke the silence and said, "To be clear, I am not here with them, but is there anything you need me for?" Classic, just classic. My stomach muscles were clenching more than I could bare while attempting to stifle my truly "gut busting" laughter. I, of course, immediately ran to the teacher's lounge to provide some relief to my abdominals and share the technique and story.

On the way back to my classroom, ANOTHER student stopped me in the hallway to confess! After lunch, ANOTHER student stopped me and said with a mix of almost eager excitement and anxiety, "Mr. Kelly, I KNOW it is after the deadline, but is it too late to tell you I was cheating?"

Now, this takes the cake. I will be telling this story for years. Ironically, I only noticed a single student cheating. Some students explained (and I believe them) that they only briefly, and inadvertently, glanced at another paper while concentrating on their own test. That has happened to ME before as well, by the way. You don't even realize you are doing it!

That is how cheating made my stomach hurt...a case of severe laughter.

Have you used or invented any creative solutions for cheating? Please share by providing your comments below!

Regards,

~Duke Kelly