Reflections of an Educator

My Dad Ever since I was a kid, I looked up to my Dad.  A Vietnam War and Marine Corps Veteran, he enlisted in the USMC after graduating from high school.  Fearless and eighteen, he headed to Paris Island for training and ultimately for multiple tours of duty in Vietnam.  Though I don't know many of the details (he rarely speaks about it), I know he was brave and served his nation proudly.  He earned a purple heart, and even as I write about it, I get teary.  I will probably never know why exactly, but a combination of pride and honor comes over me when I think of the moves my Dad needed to make as a young man. My Dad is a driven man.  He is dyslexic, so school was always tough for him.  I am even more in awe that he has been a successful businessman through intelligence, drive, dedication and a work ethic like no one I've ever seen.  He encouraged me and pushed me to always be my best, and when I slacked off, I would imagine my Dad - waist d...

#MassCUE18 continued to be a phenomenal learning opportunity for educators of all backgrounds. Witnessing both first-year educators and experienced educators continuing to grow and learn was fantastic. Keynote addresses challenged us to: Listen to and honor student voice. There is more than meets the eye to what kids are able to do, if we take the time to stop and listen! (via  @thelivbits ) Let's redefine what it means to be a good digital citizen. We must all engage respectfully through social media - kids and adults both. As adults, we must help students be discerning consumers of information and media. (via @rec54 ) Technology has, and will continue to change our world. We must adapt accordingly, and blend academic skills with social-emotional skills, along with digital citizenship. #EdTech should be used to design, explore and create. (via @thomascmurray ) What does this mean for our work with students in our schools? Respect students understanding of technology, and be...

LearnLaunch Accelerator announced their seventh Accelerator Class on April 27, 2017 at their headquarters on Summer Street in Boston. In an effort to stay connected with the world of entrepreneurship, creativity and the world of edtech, I attended as an educator, thinking I would learn about some #edtech tools to assist in my job as #edtech director (for three fabulous school districts on the north shore of Boston: Tri-Town School Union in Middleton, Topsfield and Boxford, MA ). I did discover some great #edtech tools, but so much more resonated with me. What I encountered was amazing. I did, in fact, learn about some pretty incredible #edtech tools: Kaymbu  (https://twitter.com/kaymbuinc) BlocksCAD  (https://twitter.com/BlocksCAD) Choosito  (https://twitter.com/choosito)  Creatr.  (https://twitter.com/iamcreatr) Schoolhack LiFT  (https://twitter.com/SchoolHackNews) Unruly  (https://twitter.com/jumpstartLLC) WealthyLife  (https://twit...

My colleague @CSE5  and I visited our local Barnes and Noble store , with whom we have had a relationship for years as a local book distributor and vendor for our school districts. The purpose of our meeting was to discuss Barnes & Noble's availability to help us purchase items for our innovation labs and makerspaces. Our time together was fantastic, and the Barnes & Noble folks were incredibly enthusiastic and helpful. We met in the Nook Section in the middle of the store, previously a section of books. They offered to show us around their makerspace and game section, and I was shocked when we walked into what was previously the CD and DVD section: it had vanished. I asked the Barnes & Noble folks about it, "What happened?!" I asked further: Was this your choice? Why did you decide to dump CDs and DVDs? Why pushed you to replace a huge square footage area in your store with something completely different than what was previously in the space? In orde...

In honor of #InternationalWomensDay, I took some time to reflect on my first teacher: My Mom. A human being, a leader, a wife, a woman, a mother, a sister, a daughter, a teacher, a role model, a grandmother, a human, and a citizen all unto herself. She was my first teacher: she taught me kindness, empathy for others, pursuing dreams, resiliency, and a love of self. #HerVoiceIsMyVoice: be kind to oneself, be kind to others, give selflessly, have passion, love your family, love yourself, choose to be happy, and be thankful for all that we have been given in this life (because there is so very much). On this #InternationalWomensDay, I encourage you to take a minute to think about the women in your life who have helped mold you into who you are and what you do. My mom encouraged me to find myself as a person and as an educator, and is my biggest cheerleader. I am forever thankful for the love she provides me, day in and day out. It nourishes my soul so I can be person and educator that I a...

In my new role as Director of Educational Technology, I now work in Central Office. To borrow a line from the wonderful Dr. Tony Sinanis , I am working to #redefinetherole! My position is newly created, and so I have the opportunity to be present in classrooms and schools, and truly be part of the fabric of learning and teaching that makes our schools come alive. Luckily for me, my office is in a school, and so as I have meetings, I can hear the laughter of seven year olds in the hallway - and those voices remind me that our mission is, truly, about supporting the learning and teaching of our students and staff. As a central office administrator, I have felt removed from school and from students, and so I have made a concerted effort to be present in schools, even if it is being in the school library doing administrative tasks. I strive to be part of the fabric of our six schools, and slowly but surely, I am getting "hellos" as staff members recognize me. As I work to #re...

Integrating Technology and Problem-Solving in School: Our Obligation as Leaders This July, I embark on a new role and new position, shifting from six years as a middle school building leader to a central office position dedicated to educational technology in the elementary setting. The opportunity is an incredible one, as I anticipate building vision, building consensus, leveraging technology and infusing critical thinking and problem solving across disciplines and classrooms - using high and low tech.   Massachusetts is poised to be a national and international leader in technology integration, thanks to our economy based in technology and higher education. We have access to leaders and resources, and we should be preparing our future workers and thought leaders to tap into this rich resource. As public educators and building leaders, we must take on this responsibility. Building level leaders must prepare our current students to be future leaders and workers - not just ...

Today was a great day at work. I had the opportunity to work with a fellow educator, one of the most intelligent and thoughtful educators with whom I have ever worked. Through some supportive pressure and encouragement, he finally agreed to let me introduce Twitter as an educational tool. It was a risk to do so, and he trusted me enough to take a leap. Before my wonderful colleague @DelEdTech and I jumped in to the nuts and bolts of Twitter, we paused – and talked about the why . Why bother to connect? Why bother to share our edu-thoughts through social media? We found ourselves getting increasingly excited with our colleague, discussing the why behind being a connected educator. As educators, we are so excited to continue learning, share our learning, reflect on our learning and discover new resources, it is important to stop to pause and think about the WHY behind being a connected educator. What made today such a wonderful day at work is that I was reminded that we are all lifelong ...

When I arrived at my school two years ago, I inherited an outdated and incomplete ed eval system, which included a negative culture and many assumptions around what the ed eval process could be, is and is not. As Massachusetts rolled out an updated and revised system over the past few years, I worked to form relationships with teachers and not just tell them, but show them, that the ed eval process can be a productive and effective tool – not something to be feared or to dread. Over the course of the last two years, I have worked to form relationships with teachers; I have worked to make a required process as positive and productive use of time as possible. Since this is something that needs to get done as per Massachusetts state law, why not make the best of it and use the time and tools to improve student learning and teacher instruction? This is, after all, a teacher's educator evaluation - so I find it imperative to engage educators in their evaluation process to ensure owners...

Although I know it, I'm reminded: words matter. Especially when you are the leader of a building, words count, and words matter. How you use words, which words you use, how you share them, when you share them - it all matters. Recently, I have made an effort to provide feedback to teachers after I have been in their classroom, even if it has only been for a few minutes. Some feedback I was getting from teachers included questions such as: Why didn't you give me any feedback? Was my lesson ok? Did I do something wrong? Was I on target?  We are educators, and good or bad, we are usually rule followers, hard workers, and want to do our jobs well. I found that exiting a classroom without using any words, without providing any language was leaving staff without any understanding about how things were going. I decided to turn to Voxer. Once I leave a classroom, it takes me literally 30 to 60 seconds to record my thoughts, which are fresh in my mind. Sure, students walk by me and ...

Today in Massachusetts, it is Patriots Day - the remembrance of the Battle of Lexington - known as the turning point of the American Revolution.  Many hearty Yankee souls out there hoof it at 4am to participate in the re-enactment of the Battle of Lexington, while thousands of others hoof it 26.2 miles.  Me, I went for for a 6 mile run, made dinner, and am thinking about finishing the school year strong.  Here are a few ways that I plan to do so, and perhaps you can as well: Get into the classroom : Make it a priority.  It is easy to get bogged down in state testing, meetings, and more meetings.  Let's be honest: the center of learning and teaching is occurring the classroom - so go see what's happening and ensure you are the instructional leader you were hired to be. Talk to students : In my opinion, the #1 place for this to happen is lunch.  Sit down, say hello, and get a pulse on the building.  Here's how it will go: 6th graders will be a bit s...

You never know when the opportunity to make a difference will present itself. Yesterday, while I was prepping for the school day, a student popped into the office at 6:30 to ask if she could chew gum during our state assessment exam, which was being held later in the day. I answered her question and then asked her, "How are you feeling about it?"  She replied, "… kind of nervous, honestly."  We took a few minutes and chatted about the fact that the day's test was just a snapshot in time, a way to help the adults know how much she has grown, for her to know how much she has grown, and that it is just one moment on the timeline of her educational career. It doesn't mean that she's a good or bad person, and that this is an opportunity to have fun and and and to be excited to tell a story (it was the composition exam). A little nervous is an ok thing, I told her - it might even help her - to try to use her feelings to help her. It was just a quick conversati...

Recently, I had the opportunity to teach all the six graders in my school. We needed to roll out Google Apps for Education, and I was able to match up my schedule with the student schedule with the computer lab schedule – a feat in itself, for sure! What a great two days I had spending time with middle school. I got to see students through another lens, and be reminded of how exciting and nerve-racking it can be to facilitate learning. It was a wonderful day for several reasons, but especially because I got to spend a lot of facetime with students, focused on teaching and learning. A close second, however, was a reminder of all of the pressures, stressors, excitements and decisions that educators have to make every day. Did I remember to restate the objective, every day and every period? Was I sure that I was accommodating for each student in the class needed something a little different? Was a meeting students needs who needed to get the scaffolding? Was I holding the students back we...

Instead of a giant list entitled, "All The Things That Steve Should Do To Improve in 2015," I followed the lead of my wonderful PLN, and chose one word on which to focus: Trust. My 2015 is going to be the year of trust: I will trust myself. I will trust my instinct. (And back it up with facts.) I will trust colleagues to do what's best for our students. I will trust that others have the best of intentions. I will trust that doing what's right for students may not always be easy. Clyde Beatty taming a lion with four legs. To kick it off, I have decided that I will trust that our new core values have importance in our school, that modeling reflective behavior is important, and that it is important as a community (one of our core values) to take the time to reflect on 2014, look ahead to 2015, and select one word to direct our attention for 2015. The lesson that I created for our students is entitled "The Lion Tamer and One Word."  C...

For the past month or so, my school has engaged as a community and giving thanks and building a culture of gratitude. It all began ultimately with us preparing for Veterans Day, and it was so successful that we continued by building chain-link some kindness, writing additional thank you cards to people in our lives what impacted us, deep gratitude by creating five fingered turkeys of gratitude and hung them publicly in our common area, and today we continued building a culture gratitude amongst the staff. Inspired again by the awesome #BFC530 chat, facilitated this morning buddy amazing @jvincentsen, I got to work this morning and created a high-five with directions that required the recipient of the high-five to read the gratitude that was provided to them and then spread the gratitude by giving a high-five to another staff member. When I got to work this morning I wrote to notes to staff members, and cross my fingers. I had no idea if it would work. Knowing how I felt after the ...

During this morning's #BFC530 chat, we talked about overcoming our fears and continuing to grow as an educator. What really resonated for me was this idea of encouraging ourselves, our students, and our staff to take risks in order to overcome our fears and continue to grow. I love that term: risk-taking . Maybe it's because growing up, I never really saw myself as a big risk taker. When I think of risk-taking, I think of risky physical acts, like jumping from tops of buildings attached to bungee cords like in The Amazing Race.  Although you won't ever catch me jumping out of an airplane, as an adult I like to think that I am a healthy risk-taker. Maybe it's this dichotomy of what I envision as a risk-taker (sky diving) versus what healthy risk-taking really is (trying something new). Members of my PLN challenged me this morning during the #BFC530 chat, to truly think and reflect upon my own risk-taking.  It made me wonder: am I truly taking risks, or do I jus...

Yesterday I did a brief walk-through of a teacher's classroom. It was a short slice of a class, only about 5 to 10 minutes. The students were engaged, good questions posed, and the teacher did a great job of stressing the essential questions of the class. As I left the classroom I thought to myself, "That was a good class," and continued on with the rest of my day.   I closed out my day a few hours later, and when I came in to school this morning, the teacher popped into my office and said "I just wanted to connect with you about your observation yesterday."  I was so glad that the teacher wanted to connect with me, debrief, and reflect about the lesson that I observed – this is a lead learner's dream!  I was surprised, however – because I had only popped in quickly to the teacher's classroom, but the teacher was looking for some feedback and wanted to discuss some thoughts. I underestimated how important it is to have the conversation - even a quick one...

One of the PLNs of which I am a part, BFC530, has been exploring the ins and outs of blogging in the education world. Although I've been blogging for a while now (about six years or so), The BFC530 morning Twitter chat and voxer group has really been pushing my thinking and inspired me to start blogging more regularly.  Thanks to some PLN members' ideas, I've started using technology to be able to fit it into my day. I have found that my morning and evening commute has been transformed from NPR and rocking out to some music to listening to colleagues from around the world discuss professional education topics and push my thinking, making me a better educator.  I have replaced the radio with educators' thoughts, ideas, questions, and blogs that are being read to me over my car speakers (that last part is for you, Massachusetts State Police - don't worry, I'm not texting and driving or reading and driving). So why do I blog? Someone in the PLN suggested that one b...

On Friday, I had an awesome opportunity to reconnect with a group of students as teacher.  A wonderful teacher was absent on Friday, and asked me to roll out GAFE to her E block class of students.  (Once I found computer lab space...) I jumped on that opportunity immediately!  What a great opportunity. I try to be as present as possible in classrooms, working to be a present, active member of the amazing learning community at Manchester-Essex Middle School.  When I walked into Mrs. W 's classroom, I got a hearty "Hello, Mr. G.!"  This was a great welcome in and of itself.  I announced to students, "OK guys, I'm going to teach your class today," students said, "wait - you are going to teach us?!"  It was an interesting dichotomy - I like to think of myself as lead learner and as an educator at heart - I list "educator" on my taxes, I tell people I am an educator when I meet them, but students were confused: the principal  was going to b...

WOW - I just participated in a super-charged #satchat about maker spaces.  Folks came to the table with varying readiness levels about what a maker space is, can be, should be, could be.  After 90 minutes of engaging in conversation, expanding my own background knowledge and hearing about different models of maker spaces, I've created a conglomerate definition of maker space characteristics.  Maker spaces: Are both physical space and a philosophy; Are embedded into classrooms, clubs, in school and out of school; Provide authentic problems; Can contain materials of any size, shape and dimension; Encourage Innovation; Build constructivist learning and thinking; Are interest-based; Are collaborative; Are fun! Help students discover passions; Focus on creation; Encourage risk-taking, being wrong and failing; Develop problem-solvers; Promote collaboration. There was a lot of talk about having a Maker Team to guide vision and philosophy in one's school (than...