The Age of Creativity is Upon us

Over the years the shape of the American workforce has adapted to the changes and needs of society in order to flourish. It starts with the Agricultural Age, moving to the Industrial Age, and most recently the Information Age. The people who made up most of the workers were known as the middle class.

It is now believed that we are currently entering  a new era referred to by some as the Creative Age. This new age of worker focuses on using creativity, visual arts and music to ensure job security. These new types of workers would be utilized for their creative ways of thinking by coming up with "outside the box" ideas. These ideas would solve problems or innovate brand new ideas into society. 

As an educator this posses a bit of a problem. The American public classroom really hasn't change much over that last 100 year. Yes, there have been upgrades in technology and of course improved best practices in instruction but the format really hasn't changed. Teach, assess the students have gained knowledge and move on (of course sprinkle some RtI in there).

Before you throw your tomatoes, I also fully understand that governments have led us to an assessment heavy education world where creativity easily takes a back seat to assessment. We, as teachers and administrators must recognize this new creative trend in reality and help are students be prepared for jobs that haven't even been created yet!  

My urge is not for you to completely change your teaching habits, forget the tests and buy a 100lbs of Legos (that would be awesome though). It is to supplement your students just a little bit with this thought in mind. Any educator who loves their job, does it for one reason. The MONEY$$$!! Juuuust kidding...

We do it because we love kids. We want students to achieve far more than they thought they would. We are the ones who believe in them even if no one else does. So, let's give them give them an even better future. One that NONE of us know details about but we know is coming, fast, and it's going to be awesome. 

Here are a few links of resources that can help you supplement your students future one new idea at a time:

Ted Ed  

Stem Ed coalition 

Creative Education Foundation  

Education Innovation      

Ed Tech 

EduMatch   

Ed Tech Magazine 
He's The Weird Teacher

Stress Management

It is interesting to see how people manage stress. When someone is in a stressed out, you can see them in their purest form. There is typically no show or cover up, just pure emotion.

In the last week or so I've been able to experience people (students, teachers and other humans) in this raw state.

I've seen people cry, yell, go silent, laugh, deflect. (It's really been a world wind week) this really got me thinking... "How do I act when I'm stressed?"    Better yet.. "How am I perceived?" I'm sure if you asked my students they could give you a detailed description. There would probably be some physical example and some reminiscing. They know me well. 

Furthermore, I was led to ask myself how does me being stressed out negatively impact students? I think I may ask them tomorrow!! Unfortunately, stress is inevitable or Buuuuut, maybe if we can keep our students and our classroom environments in mind, we can manage our stress in a way that doesn't effect education. 

Those situations also helped me realize that people really do think about their own reactions to stress. (Maybe it's just me)

Don't Get Distracted with Yourself

It is far too easy for educators to focus out the numerous responsibilities we have. Collect data to analyze student grown, improve standardized test scores, improve reading levels, grade papers, prepare for the next few days of class. etc. Not that these things don't matter (because they do) but I feel that as educators we have to constantly remind ourselves that our positive influence can be the best thing a student can ever take away from us. Not that fact that they learned out to play in 6/8 or discovered what a homonym is or experienced sublimation for the first time.  Yes, those things are important but I am talking about things students can learn from us, that we affect the rest of their lives.  When you make a student feel great about themselves and great about their personal success. 

Currently, in my 6th year of teacher, I am about half we through graduate school to attain an administration degree. My current band program is going through an extensive amount of growth (woo hoo!) and I often find myself in a sort of inner dilemma about what kind of teacher I want to be, where I want my program to be going, how do I want to develop as an educator, etc. In regards to the development of my band program, do I want to push harder, do I want to push so hard that I push less musically motivated students away? Do I include everyone a condone a bit of mediocrity?  This was all I could think about and it turned me into a bit of a "bipolar teacher" (for lack of better words). 

During the beginning of this school year while this was happening internally, I suffered a great lost due to the untimely death of one of my students. This was the first thing to put a strong halt to that personal argument. It made me realize that in that time I was figuring myself out, I was neglecting students. I went through a period where I blamed myself for not connecting with the student enough. I blamed others for not caring about the students enough. And the blame game continued in my head. After I have had time to reflect, the blame game is something that needs to not happen. This tragic event has made me realize that I have to always keep the students best interest in the forefront of my mind. I have to remember that its my social interaction with each student that can help them be successful for the rest of their lives.  After much reflection, I have realized that I want to keep these 3 ideas in mind while I am teaching at all times:

1. Improve school culture one smile or laugh at a time
2. When you constructively criticize remind students that its because you care
3. Remain positive even when your personal life does not want you to be

These 3 personal social teaching standards of mine will help me stay student centered as I get bogged down with all of the "other stuff" teachers inevitably have to deal with. I encourage everyone either borrow mine or make your own personal standards to help you stay student centered. 

"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge"   

                                                                                    -Albert Einstein

The Communities Role in a Unified Mission

The community around a school makes up a large part of the influence our students experience. As school leaders, the community often seems more treacherous than helpful.  However, this volatile powerhouse could be used to benefit your school greatly if used wisely. The following are some ideas to help incorporate your community to share in your school's vision for educational success...

Know your Community

Go out and shake some hands. Meet people. Know business owner’s by name. It is important to be visible and known in a positive light within in the community.  It is better make your own first impression rather than depend on the words of others. Also, you never know who can help your school prosper.

Learn the history. Make an effort to go learn about how your city or town came to be.  Learning about the history of an area can help you make a better educated decision about the vision for the future of your school. Furthermore, by going out and talking to those lifelong townspeople they feel respected that you care. These people likely stayed for a reason and usually have an unparalleled pride in their community and its history.

Educate your Community

Share your vision for educational success. Many times proactive education can help you avoid those unwanted conversations spawned by the misinformed public. By establishing public goals for educational success you answer the question of “Why?” before it is even asked.

Know a local reporter. Be in contact with a reporter from your local newspaper so you can easily share and celebrate the current happenings at your school.

Start a monthly digital newsletter or blog. This is just another way to share positive event going on in your school and to get your voice out to the public. Get on Twitter or Facebook and share the successes of your school. Do whatever you can to keep them informed.

Form a community based school improvement group. This group can be used as a think tank that involves community members, parents, administrators, teachers and possibly even students.  This group can focus on understanding your vision and exploring new ideas for either technology integration or community involvement and can used the wealth of wide spread knowledge to help inform the different members.

Utilize your Community

Buy locally. Eat out at local restaurants on a regular basis.  This sounds like a meaningless tasked but it is noticed when you do make that effort to help better the community outside the school.  Also, do your best to share the wealth. If you buy pizza for your staff during conferences, use one establishment the first time and a different one the second.  Have your student council arrange with the store owners on the main street that they can paint the windows of the town stores to celebrate Homecoming.

Celebrate your Community

Have student groups perform at business openings.  There are multiple types of groups that can perform and represent your school to help celebrate their community. Encourage your performing arts (band, choir, orchestra and theater) and athletes (dance and cheer) to go out celebrate their community by performing at a community event. This, in turn, also helps their respective programs gain support.  Participate in Parades. Have student groups advocate for their cause why they also celebrate their community. This kind of town pride goes hand-in-hand with school pride and if you can get a whole town to support your movement of bettering students life through education and enrichment, the powers are endless.

Mobilize your Community

After the initial connections have been made with the community, ask for help.  Establish your school vision in the community and most people who can and want to help, don’t know how to help.  Form a wish list and encourage programs to form their own wish lists.  Create and encourage your programs to utilize donorschoose.org and other crowdfunding websites. Promote these sites through social media. People cannot help unless they are informed on how to help.

As an educational leader, you are the figurehead of the institution you represent. It is important that the public's perception of you be a constant consideration. This is part of the great responsibility that is educational administration. That being said, instead of sitting back and waiting for people to develop an opinion about you through hearsay, go out there and make a positive connection right away. Show your support for your community and it will come back to benefit your students in a great way. Help your community help positively impact its students by sharing your schools vision for educational prosperity and letting it reverberate through your community.

Tom Rucker

Twitter: @tomrucker

Thoughts on Interviews

 The very first day with did a brief opening activity being asked to "tell us a little about yourself" as if we were in an interview for an admin job.  I, for one, have always enjoyed interviews. Yes, I get nervous but I'm a very social person who also happens to be a perform. I love meeting new people and interviews are almost like a game to me. I am a bit of a social chameleon where I can usually adapt to most social situations with out much trouble while still being genuine and authentic. However, when we did this activity the first day I noticed that my teaching interview skills have been so ingrained through repetition I didn't focus on leadership.  While I was talking, I was thinking, "why am I talking about this so much?", "This would be great for a teaching interview but your not interviewing for that!"  That actually made me nervous while it was going on because my best interview skills happen very naturally and I don't have to think about it. That is probably the reason I enjoy it some much, because good things tend to happen when I speak passionately about my job. After the activity our professor addressed just that. He said he would probably cut the interview short and hire me as band director but for the admin side of things, my priorities were a little off.

Today we did another interview prep activity answering the following questions:

1. Tell us something about yourself that most people don't know.
2. Tell us about the most important person in your professional career
3. Tell us about a life changing event

We had to speak for 2 minutes on each of these items without stopping. It really wasn't that hard for me. Through these answers, each group member was easily able to speak passionately without much hesitation at all. These events, people and qualities made us who we are today and that's what we are "selling" in our interviews.  We want to show the interviewers who we are and how we can make their school better than it already is and and do a better job than the others interviewing. 

We followed-up this activity with a strength bombardment where your group members told you compliments for 2 minutes straight.  This essentially reaffirms a persons opinions on their own strengths. What this did was help focus what I should be talking about in my interview. Sometimes you dont have to talk about it but emphasize these strengths.

All in all, these activities have helped me refocus my interviewing strategies.  The goal is to stand out from a crowd.  Not as the best art teacher or the best literacy teacher or the best coach but as the best leader. Someone who people would listen to and believe in. I need to show examples from my life not on how passionate I am about music but how my leadership skills have help lead many to attain goals they would not have without me. I need to show them how eager and confident I am in these skills. I have been able to refocus my passion and ultimately refocus my message of who I am and how I will help you succeed when you hire me.

 

Students and Social Communication Online and Off

Today we talked a lot on technology and how it is affecting student communication. I have gone through a long internal debate between the negatives and positives. On one hand I feel that with the large amount of new and different communication mediums, it can dilute ones ability to have good face to face contact. On the other, it opens up so many different communication opportunities that well help grow their socially skills greatly. 

At first I really thought that with all the opportunities to communicate, students would lean towards non verbal most of the time if they had a choice. From what I see during school and even in my after school interaction with students they are usually texting, snap chatting, Facebook chatting or the like. Being a young teacher, I find myself doing the same. I use just as many social media sites and communication methods as my students. However, I think of myself in a different category because I did not grow up through high school with all of this social media. I didn't text when I was that young and Facebook came out my freshman year in college. The plethora of different methods and the accessibility is just so great now that students cant avoided it if they want to. I have 5th grade students talking to me about how many Instagram followers they have. (Their stories are quite hilarious I may add). I also had a strong feeling that students would utilize that confidence they gain through non verbal, electronic communication and would say things they wouldn't have the gull to say face-to-face. This would likely get them into trouble where they wouldn't have said anything if they were in a face-to-face conversation or confrontation. They is somewhat reaffirmed by the amount of cyber bulling that is out there. I have helped students get through numerous bouts of bullying that has all stemmed from online banter or posts.

After I have internally deliberated and done my best to apply the current social media scene to my own adolescence I have found that my views have changed. Awkward people have always been around. People who have difficulty with face-to-face communication were around back then and I don't really see an increase. That being said I don't think there will ever be a way of communicating as authentic as the face-to-face method. I always feel interviews should be in person if possible because I feel that you can get a completely different read on someone in person (for better or for worse..) As amazing as Skype and Facetime are, there's something to be said about having someone in the room with you.

All that being said, I feel I have changed my view on students and social media conversations. However, I do feel that cyber saftey education should be at the forefront of education. The amount of freedom students have on the web is almost unfathomable and the students know more about it and learn much quicker than 98% of teachers. I know that since I have been teaching I have made it my goal to stay up on social media trends so I can do my best to help ensure student saftey and be knowledgable and current with the students. This hasnt really been a problem because it is only my 5th year teacher and my life revolves somewhat around social media. I wonder if that will change... Will it get difficult for me to stay up with the times?

5 Pillars of Educational Leadership - Which One Do I Stand On?

I feel that of the five practices for effective school leadership, my strength would be creating a climate hospitable to education. I truly feel that this is a foundation that can help foster growth within the other four practices. I feel that this is my strength because I very good adaptive social skills.  I make social relationships a priority within my human interaction because I feel that people are more productive when they feel good about what themselves and what they are doing. Although people mostly see me as just a jovial personality, I possess the social skills that help people put their guard down to join a unified cause. At Genoa-Kingston I have done this through my individual hallway interaction with students as well as when I run the pep rallies. I encourage students to step out of their comfort zone and unify in school pride. This may come because I act so crazy that they can't possibly look weirder than I do. However, I feel that the big thing that comes through is being genuine. I feel like my genuineness shows for my dedication to my school and my goals. I definitely feel that I can do this to establish a common goal and an effective learning environment.

As I reflect on the other four practice i really wanted to analyze what order i would put them in representing my strengths and weaknesses as leader. Creating a climate was a no brainer for the top spot but second place wasn't so clear. I really did my best to apply this to my current situation as a program leader. I feel that I have focused on shaping and expressing the vision of what the band program should be I just never really thought about it as such. I also do think that I do my best to cultivate leaders. I have to privilege of having all 4 levels of students in one big class. This leaves room for plenty of student leaders whether they by student directors (drum majors), section leaders, advocates for the programs, equipment managers and many more things. I have realized the leadership skills I have learned through music that I can apply to every aspect of my life and I want to give those experiences to my students. Improving instruction was a tricky one for me. I really haven't had much of an opportunity to do that in my 5 years of working. This one is unfortunately shifting quickly towards to bottom of my list. I know i do self reflect on my own instruction and modify it when i see the need for improvements. To be honest i should reflect solely on my instruction more. I do pride myself in constant self reflection on both large and small scales however most of that really does deal directly with instruction. It deals more with the program as a whole, curriculum and goals for final products. Last but not least, Managing people, data and processes. This one is split. I do manage people through my music student community as well as my parent booster community and through both of those I look at the effectiveness of the processes and make adjustments accordingly. As for data, my only data small scale money management and Numbers of students with the program. This is only a small fraction of the data that has to be looked at when one is an educational leader. We talked a lot about in our curriculum course and I definitely got a better picture of what a large role data actually plays.