Boss vs. Leader

I really like this and want Esperanza leadership to always strive to be a leader rather than a boss. 

Get the Job Done

Love this!  Let's get the job done at Esperanza!

Learning from Latinos

The message on "Music and the Spoken Word"  yesterday made me think of how much the Latino culture can teach us such as their focus is more on community than on individuals.  This message complements what I have been reading in the book Con Respeto by Guadalupe Valdés. 

Winners Do Not Always Finish First

Delivered By: Lloyd D. Newell

Winners do not always finish first. This observation seems contradictory—finishing first is what winning means. We are taught from early on that life’s winners are those who come out on top, who make the most money, who score the highest, jump the farthest, and run the fastest. Very often, to those with the so-called "winning attitude,” life is a fierce competition: everyone is a competitor, each person a threat, and in order for one person to win, everyone else must lose. But this is not the only way to see the world. In some situations—in fact, most of the truly meaningful ones—we only truly win if we’ve helped someone else win too. All successful marriages, families, and even communities eventually understand this. Sometimes, young people seem to understand it better than we adults do. Thirteen-year-old Spencer Zimmerman was an accomplished triathlete. But he decided that it wasn’t enough for him to win if he couldn’t help someone else win too. So for one triathlon, he brought along his friend Dayton, who has cerebral palsy. "He should have the opportunity to do and enjoy what everybody else does,” Spencer said. Spencer swam 500 meters, biked 12 miles, and ran over 3 miles with Dayton either tethered behind him or in a stroller in front of him. "I knew that Dayton was five feet from me the whole time,” Spencer said. "It was awesome to know that one of my really good friends could be with me.”1 At a young age, Spencer and Dayton have already discovered some of life’s greatest secrets: Winning comes not just in competing but in caring; victory is more an act of selflessness than an act of supremacy. Strength is found not only in the strong but in a kindhearted approach to life. And winners do not always finish first.

A Healthy Digital Diet

This morning I listened to the BYU Devotional speech given by Patrick Kearon on February 14, 2012.  He gave the following counsel:  "Spending too much of our time with social media, celebrity or entertainment news, games, and the pursuit of online, time-hungry activities constitute a poor digital diet."  He explained that as we consume the opinions and attitudes of the mass media, our viewpoints and values will conform to them—and that most of the time we don’t even realize it is happening. Therefore, he said, we have to be aware that the content we consume from the mass media may contain messages that cause us to “compromise our convictions, and view the world through cynical eyes.”

I feel this counsel is not only important for us as Esperanza educators to remember but we also want to teach our Esperanza scholars to be discerning in order to have a healthy digital diet. 

Technology in the Classroom

This article supports the suggestion of Flavia McKnight, one of our Esperanza founding board members.
Article published Feb 20, 2012School expands use of technology in the classroom

ROCHESTER— When William Allen School teacher Kristen Truax wanted to see how well her second grade students were understanding math questions, she didn't ask them to raise their hands or write questions on a sheet of paper — she asked them to pull out their iPads.

Truax's class was using an app called eClicker Friday afternoon, which allows her to create multiple choice and true or false questions for her students that can then be sent to each student's iPad. Students then answer the question within a certain amount of time, sending their answers back to Truax's device, which puts the data into graphs that clearly show her how well her students understood the question.

These second grade students, like many others at the school, have been working with teachers and staff since the beginning of the school year to increase the technology used in their classroom, as well as use that technology in deeper and more interactive ways than simply playing games and using apps.

The school used Title I grant money to purchase 50 iPads for the school and to install a schoolwide wireless Internet system at the beginning of this school year, enabling the use of more technology in all classrooms.

And while the first half of the school year was spent familiarizing students and teachers with the devices and how they can be used to supplement learning, the school's Assistant Principal Kat Crosby said Friday that in the second half of the year the school's goal is to use them in even more meaningful ways — to help students do research, create projects, and present them to fellow classmates.

"We're looking to take it to the next level," she said. "Before it was all about the device, but now there's been a shift and it's about the endless opportunities for learning the device can provide."

So far, Crosby said, students and teachers alike have responded positively to the increased use of the iPads in their classrooms, adding that teachers have been getting plenty of training and professional development in the devices to be sure they can use them to their fullest potential.

"If we want students to use technology we have to put the technology into the hands of teachers and teach them how to use it," she said. "They've become more comfortable and they've become excited seeing the impact it's having on student engagement in their classrooms."

That engagement was clear Friday in many William Allen classrooms, where teachers were working on bringing their students' use of technology to that next level.

Truax's students cheered, jumped and danced with joy Friday when they got a question right, trying to hurry the program along to get to the next question.

Truax said that while that day was the class's first experience with eClicker, they use the iPads everyday in some form and that both she and the students love what they bring to the classroom.

"In the beginning, they thought they were just going to be playing games, but they're really enjoying going into the programs and learning to use them," she said. "They're very engaged, wholeheartedly, and very excited."

Truax said the devices have also done a lot for her teaching, not only through apps like eClicker, helping her see very quickly which students need more help with which instruction, but also by making her just as excited as her students.

"I'm learning right along with them," she said.

Just down the hall, in Melissa Marcotte's second grade class, students were using iPads for a writing lesson Friday, utilizing an app called Book Creator to create a digital version of a persuasive writing piece they wrote earlier.

Like, Truax, Marcotte said that branching out from the math and reading games the class did the first half of the year to more of the creative apps has only engaged her students more.

"They love it, it's so motivating for them," she said. "For kids who don't like writing to be able to say, 'here, do it on the iPad," and have them be excited about it really helps."

Second grader Emilei Morin, 7, was working on her persuasive writing piece Friday, in which she explains her reasoning behind wanting two kittens and said she enjoys being able to use the iPads in her classroom.

"It's fun, there's lots of games," she said. "For writing you get to use your finger, not a pencil."

Third grade teacher Kelly McMullen was also using the iPads in her classroom Friday, and was also trying to branch out from using educational games and move toward apps that will help students research and create projects to present. Her students were learning how to use Pages, a word processing application, to do just that.

Students focused on finding pictures online, through safe websites already set up for their use, inserting them into a document, and adding special effects, from borders and shadows in varying colors to reflections of the picture below it on the page.

Third grader Sadie O'Donnell, 9, was working on adding special effects to a picture of an owl Friday, and said researching and creating projects is much more fun when it is done on an iPad.

"We've done games and taken pictures, I like it because it's a touch screen," she said.

In one William Allen fifth grade classroom, taught by Amy Garland, even more students were working on research projects using the iPads.

Benjamin Martin, Curtis Smith and Olivia Cirles, all 10, were working together to research Mercury and create a travel brochure about the planet — all without using a pencil and paper.

And the students said they like it that way.

"It's helpful, there is an app for everything," Martin said, sounding like an iPad commercial.

Cirles agreed.

"It's exciting because they're touch screens, there's no keyboard, it's more fun than even a computer," she said.

Garland said it is obvious when using the iPads for projects and presenting information that the students are more engaged than they would be doing a traditional project.

"The technology and information is literally at their fingertips," she said. "It's much more motivating."

As the school year progress, teachers will be looking for even more ways to use the iPads creatively in their classrooms, with the ultimate goal of better the educational opportunities available at the school, Crosby said.

Vision

"The only limits are, as always, those of vision." - James Broughton

We need to keep the vision of Esperanza always before us to guide our footsteps. 

Success

Dolly Case--the wife of one of our Esperanza board founders, Cody Case--shared this on FB this morning.  It fits beautifully with what I was going to write today. 

Because we are going to have all our Esperanza scholars learn to play chess I felt it was important for me to learn.  Therefore, I bought a $1 chess set and a book written for children and started my chess learning quest and made learning chess a 2012 goal.  Then my husband introduced me to "Chess Titans" on the computer.  It was so humbling to continually have a computer beat me.  I lost so many times I quit counting and wanted to forget it.  Then I finally had a win.  Needless to say, this did not make me a chess champion and I will probably still lose MANY games, but it gave me hope.  Plus, I love the game and the challenge.

This experience reminds me of a couple of things.  First, success helps breed success.  We want to give our Esperanza scholars opportunities to feel success.  Second, it is important to have a growth mindset as Carol Dweck would suggest.  We want to encourage this mindset at Esperanza for both our scholars and our staff so we know that it takes effort to achieve our goals and not give up just because we don't achieve early on in the game. 

Showing Up For Practice

"Everybody wants to be on a championship team, but does everyone want to come to practice? That is the key question."--great counsel from Joachim Posada.

As we strive to make Esperanza a championship team it is critical that we all show up for practice. 

Known as Children

This can be true for teachers as well as parents.  Therefore, it behooves all of us to be kind and gentle with each other at Esperanza. 

Times Have Changed

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."   Abraham Lincoln

This is a favorite quote of mine.  I believe it also applies to the education of our children--all our children. 

Excellence In All You Do

This morning I listened to the BYU Devotional speech that Thomas Fletcher gave this month.  He quoted the following from a speech "Preparation for Tomorrow" given by Bishop Victor L. Brown on October 2, 1982:

At whatever level our children complete their formal schooling, they should have learned how important excellence is in all they do. There is always room at the top in any enterprise, and it is always crowded at the bottom. It doesn’t matter what the field of endeavor—plumber, doctor, teacher, lawyer, farmer, carpenter, whatever—if our children learn early in their lives that they should do their very best, they will be eminently better prepared for the responsibilities of life.

We should teach our children the importance of schooling as a help in discovering how to think and to learn. They need to know, and we need to be reminded, that schooling is merely the formal part of education. Education should never stop, but should be a continuing activity throughout life.

I really like this quote and feel it is something we want to teach our Esperanza scholars through our example of what we do and say.  This may require:

Jung Typology Test

I have been using the book Write Like This by Kelly Gallagher to work on improving my own writing even though it was written to improve the writing of students.  One exercise suggested is to take the "Jung Typology Test" found at
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp and then use a T-chart noting with what you agree and with you disagree. 

Not only was this a great exercise for writing but I feel it would be great if all our Esperanza staff took this free test and shared the results with everyone else.  It would be a great reminder of each other's assets as well as a reminder that we aren't all using the same "awareness wheel." 

Pledge of Allegiance

We will want our Esperanza scholars to say the Pledge of Allegiance every day in either English or Spanish.  Yet, they also need to be taught what the words mean.  I didn't really even think about them until I student taught and our student teacher supervisor encouraged us to do lessons on the U.S. symbols.  This should definitely be part of our Civics Education at Esperanza. 

Interview Questions

In an article by George Bradt who is the author of The Leader's Playbook notes that there are only three interview questions. 

The only three true job interview questions are:
1. Can you do the job?
2. Will you love the job?
3. Can we tolerate working with you?

As we start interviewing for various Esperanza positions it would be wise to keep these in mind. 

Look on the Heart

"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to y...ou when you have forgotten the words." ~Bernard Meltzer
 
When others frustrate or disappoint us at Esperanza whether it is educators, scholars, parents, or board members it would be wise to remember to look on the heart.

Becoming Stronger

Translation:  That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  This is a saying that Ross Jones, the former Headmaster at Realms of Inquiry, used all the time.  It's a great reminder to use all our frustrations, setbacks, obstacles, etc. to make us stronger as Esperanza people and as a school. 

Whisper

Love this!  It fits beautifully with Brian Mendler's work along with Dr. Glasser that we are using to help shape our Esperanza behavior plan. 

The Miracle of Forgiveness

I listened this morning to the BYU devotional speech, "The Miracle of Forgiveness," that Michael Dunn gave on January 31, 2o12.  That speech and a short story I read about Mother Theresa making a mistake when putting a bandage on an injured man made me think of an attitude we want to have at Esperanza. 

All of us involved with Esperanza are ordinary people trying to do an extraordinary thing.  There is no doubt that we will make mistakes for which we need to seek forgiveness from others.  Therefore, it would behoove us to be quick to forgive. 

Spanish Spelling Bee

I feel it would be great if Esperanza sponsored an annual Spanish Spelling Bee possibly in conjunction with our El Día de Los Niños celebration.  It could be patterned after the New Mexico oral Spanish Spelling Bee and/or the written Central Valley Dual Language Consortium Spelling Bee.

Poems

I have been reading the book The Leader in Me by Stephen R. Covey. In one of the chapters he shared how a teacher build an incredible lesson around the poem "I Dream a World" by Langston Hughes.

I Dream A World

I dream a world where man
No other man will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom's way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free,
Where wretchedness will hang its head
And joy, like a pearl,
Attends the needs of all mankind-
Of such I dream, my world!

Langston Hughes

The Merits of Failure

Only when all of us at Esperanza are willing to fail will we find our greatest successes.

'Failure week' at top girls' school to build resilience

By Judith BurnsEducation reporter, BBC News

Headmistress Heather Hanbury said "Failure Week" should teach high performing pupils not to shun risk

 

A top girls' school is planning a "failure week" to teach pupils to embrace risk, build resilience and learn from their mistakes.

The emphasis will be on the value of having a go, rather than playing it safe and perhaps achieving less.
Pupils at Wimbledon High School will be asked how they feel when they fail.
The headmistress, Heather Hanbury, said she wanted to show "it is completely acceptable and completely normal not to succeed at times in life."
Ms Hanbury's pupils achieve some of the highest exam scores - but from Monday they will be invited to focus on failure.
There will be workshops, assemblies, and activities for the girls, with parents and tutors joining in with tales of their own failures.
There will be YouTube clips of famous and successful people who have failed along the way and moved on.
The emphasis will be discussions on the merits of failure and on the negative side of trying too hard not to fail.
'Courage in the classroom'
Ms Hanbury told BBC News that she had placed a great emphasis on developing resilience and robustness among the girls since she arrived at the school four years ago.
"The girls need to learn how to fail well - and how to get over it and cope with it," she said.
"Fear of failing can be really crippling and stop the girls doing things they really want to do.
"The pupils are hugely successful but can sometimes overreact to failure even though it can sometimes be enormously beneficial to them.
"We want them to be brave - to have courage in the classroom," she added.
Wimbledon High is an independent school, part of the Girls' Day School Trust.
GDST chief executive, Helen Fraser, said: "Resilience is so important in working life these days.
"Wimbledon High School is showing how making mistakes is not necessarily a bad thing, that it is fine to try - and fail - and then pick yourself up and try again - or as Samuel Beckett said, 'fail better'."

Rough Times

All of us will have days (and possibly weeks and/or months!) but if we are a "family" at Esperanza we can make it. 

What Is Fair?

This reminds me of the book Animal School.  Both these pictures and the book are a reminder that we want to focus on the strengths of both our Esperanza educators and scholars.

Real Self-Esteem

I have been reading a fascinating book--50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School--by Charles J. Sykes.  Rule #2 says:  The real world won't care as much as your school does about your self-esteem.  It'll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.

I remember having a discussion with Norm Hassett, a colleague at Realms of Inquiry, about this topic.  He felt that the best way for students to get self-esteem was to do quality work.  The longer I live the more convinced I am that he was right. 

Sykes states that the research of Christina Hoff Sommers and Sally Satel note in their book One Nation Under Therapy, "High school dropout, shoplifters, burglars, car thieves, and even murderers are just as likely to have high self-esteem as Rhodes Scholars or winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor." 

Therefore, our focus on Dr. Glasser's quality school will be more beneficial to our Esperanza scholars than a focus on building self-esteem activities.

Civility Project

This morning I listened to the impressive BYU Forum speech given by Mark DeMoss on January 24, 2012.  Struck by how civil Lanny Davis, one-time White House Counsel under Bill Clinton, was on television, DeMoss sent Davis a letter telling him how much he appreciated his tone. The two proposed three simple pledge points in the Civility Project: “One, I will be civil in my discourse and behavior; two, I will be respectful of others, whether or not I agree with them; and three, I will stand against incivility where and when I see it.”

I feel that what Davis and DeMoss proposed in their Civility Project would be something we want to teach our Esperanza educators, scholars, and families. 

The Enemy Is Us

Pogo strip by Walt Kelly on Earth Day, 1971

This has been a favorite quote of mine since I first heard it years ago.  We need to make sure that we at Esperanza not get in our own way. 

Cipher in the Snow

I love the story "Cipher in the Snow."  It is a reminder that we need to do whatever it takes so that not one of our Esperanza scholars feels like he/she doesn't matter. 

Cipher in the Snow

It started with tragedy on a biting cold February morning. I was driving behind the Milford Corners bus as I did most snowy mornings on my way to school. It veered and stopped short at the hotel, which it had no business doing, and I was annoyed as I had come to an unexpected stop. A boy lurched out of the bus, reeled, stumbled, and collapsed on the snow bank at the curb. The bus driver and I reached him at the same moment. His thin, hollow face was white even against the snow.

“He’s dead,” the driver whispered.

It didn’t register for a minute. I glanced quickly at the scared young faces staring down at us from the school bus. “A doctor! Quick! I’ll phone
from the hotel “
“No use. I tell you he’s dead.” The driver looked down at the boy’s still form. “He never even said he felt bad,” he muttered, “just tapped me on the shoulder and said, real quiet, ‘I’m sorry. I have to get off at the hotel.’ That’s all. Polite and apologizing like.”

At school, the giggling, shuffling morning noise quieted as the news went down the halls. I passed a huddle of girls. “Who was it? Who dropped dead on the way to school?” I heard one of them half whisper.

“Don’t know his name; some kid from Milford Corners,” was the reply.

It was like that in the faculty room and the principal’s office. “I’d appreciate your going out to tell the parents, “ the principal told me. “They don’t have a phone and, anyway, somebody from school should go there in person. I’ll cover your classes.”

“Why me?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it be better if you did it?”

“I don’t know the boy,” the principal admitted levelly. “And in last year’s sophomore personalities column I note that you were listed as his favorite teacher.”

I drove through the snow and cold down the bad canyon road to the Evans place and thought about the boy, Cliff Evans. His favorite teacher! I thought. He hasn’t spoken two words to me in two years! I could see him in my mind’s eye all right, sitting back there in the last seat in my afternoon Literature class. He came in the room by himself and left by himself. “Cliff Evans, “ I muttered to myself, “a boy who never talked. “ I thought a minute; “a boy who never smiled. I never saw him smile once.”

The big ranch kitchen was clean and warm. I blurted out my news somehow. Mrs. Evans reached blindly toward a chair. “He never said anything about hem’ ailing.”

His stepfather snorted. “He ain’t said nothin’ about anything since I moved in here. “

Mrs. Evans pushed a pan to the back of the stove and began to untie her apron. “Now hold on,” her husband snapped. “I got to have breakfast before I go to town. Nothin’ we can do now anyway. If Cliff hadn’t been so dumb, he’d have told us he didn’t feel good.”

After school I sat in the office and stared blankly at the records spread out before me. I was to close the file and write the obituary for the school paper. The almost bare sheets mocked the effort. Cliff Evans, white, never legally adopted by stepfather, five young half-brothers and sisters. These meager strands of information and the list of D grades were all the records had to offer.

Cliff Evans had silently come in the school door in the mornings and gone out the school door in the evenings, and that was all. He had never belonged to a club. He had never played on a team. He had never held an office. As far as I could tell, he had never done one happy, noisy kid thing. He had never been anybody at all.

How do you go about making a boy into a zero? The grade-school records showed me. The first and second grade teachers’ annotations read “sweet, shy child;” “timid but eager.” Then the third grade note had opened the attack. Some teacher had written in a good firm, hand: “Cliff won’t talk. Uncooperative. Slow learner.” The other academic sheet had followed with “dull, “ “slow-witted;” “low IQ. “ They became correct. The boy’s IQ score in the ninth grade was listed at 83. But his IQ in the third grade had been
196. The score didn’t go under 100 until seventh grade. Even shy, timid, sweet children have resilience. It takes time to break them.

I stomped to the typewriter and wrote a savage report pointing out what education had done to Cliff Evans. I slapped a copy on the principal’s desk and another in the sad, dog-eared file. I banged the typewriter and slammed the file and crashed the door shut, but I didn’t feel much better. A little boy kept walking after me, a little boy with a peaked, pale face; a skinny body in faded jeans; and big eyes that had looked and searched for a long time and then had become veiled.

I could guess how many times he’d been chosen last to play sides in a game; how many whispered child conversations had excluded him; how many times he hadn’t been asked. I could see and hear the faces and voices that said over and over, “You’re a nothing, Cliff Evans.”

A child is a believing creature. Cliff undoubtedly believed them. Suddenly it seemed clear to me: When finally there was nothing left at all for Cliff Evans, he collapsed on a snow bank and went away. The doctor might list “heart failure” as the cause of death, but that wouldn’t change my mind.

We couldn’t find ten students in the school who had known Cliff well enough to attend the funeral as his friends. So the student body officers and a committee from the junior class went as a group to the church, being politely sad. I attended the services with them, and sat through it with a lump of cold lead in my chest and a big resolve growing through me.

I’ve never forgotten Cliff Evans nor that resolve. He has been my challenge year after year, class after class. I look up and down the rows carefully each September at the unfamiliar faces. I look for veiled eyes or bodies scrounged into a seat in an alien world. “Look, kids, “ I say silently, “I may not do anything else for you this year, but not one of you is going to come out of here a nobody. I’ll work or fight to the bitter end doing battle with society and the school board, but I won’t have one of you coming out of here thinking himself into a zero.”

Most of the time—not always, but most of the time—I’ve succeeded.
—Jean E. Mizer

"Decision of Character"

“All difficulties which might and would cross our way must be surmounted. Though the soul be tried, the heart faint, and the hands hang down, we must not retrace our steps; there must be decision of character.”  Joseph Smith

What does it mean to have “decision of character” when facing difficulties?

I really liked this quote.  It would be great if all of us associated with Esperanza--educators, scholars, Board members, etc. learned to make decisions of character. 

Comic Books

This supports Stephen Krashen who also feels comic books have a place in getting students to read. 

Comic creator Josh Elder founded the educational nonprofit organization Reading With Pictures to promote the use of comics in the classroom. Today at Book Box Daily, he explains to us exactly why that’s such a good idea.
I was only four years old when comics changed my life forever. My mother (now a school librarian) was reading to me just like she did every night before putting me to bed. Usually that meant a chapter book or some classic kid lit, but that night, for reasons lost to antiquity, I got to choose the reading material. Like any red-blooded American male my age, I chose a comic book. Issue number four of Marvel’s The Transformers, to be precise.
Everything was going great. Right up until halfway through the issue, when Mom finally succumbed to the sore throat she’d been fighting all week. This was completely unacceptable. Optimus Prime was in a lot of danger, and I had to make sure he was going to be OK. So I did the only thing I could do: I used the comic to teach myself how to read so that I could finish the comic.
The comic’s blend of words and pictures functioned as a kind of narrative scaffolding as I worked my way toward literacy. I was able to follow the story through the images alone, and they provided the visual context necessary to reverse-engineer all the words that I didn’t already know. Armed with the right tools and the proper motivation, the whole process took less than two weeks.
Mom was immediately retired as my bedtime reading assistant—with full pension and benefits, of course—while I went on to read everything I could get my hands on: comics, magazines, books…everything. Comics not only taught me how to read, they taught me to love reading. More importantly, the scaffolding process provided by comics continued throughout my academic career, allowing me to continually engage with material far beyond my grade level.
I read at the college level while in elementary school. In middle school, I became a college student after taking the SAT and scoring high enough to gain admission to my local community college. I went on to attend Northwestern University on a National Merit Scholarship and upon graduation I embarked on a successful career as a writer across various media, including magazines, newspapers, video games, novels and, of course, comics.
Long story short: Hooked on comics worked for me. When used properly, comics can do a better job than traditional methods of teaching almost any material. Comics are more engaging, more efficient, and just plain more effective. I founded Reading With Pictures in order to share this insight with educators everywhere.
It’s a bold thesis, I know, but one that my organization is prepared to support by facilitating academic research, training educators in best practices, and designing graphic textbooks that correlate with core standards.
At Reading With Pictures, we’re getting comics into schools and getting schools into comics.
Visit the Reading With Pictures Web site to learn more and find out how you can get involved in the cause.