It’s Never A Five Minute Conversation

In schools, the Principal sets the vision and direction, controls the budget, and often has the strongest ability to empower teachers. Assistant principals have a unique role. In some districts all they do is student attendance and discipline. In some schools RTI and PBIS gets added to the mix. Very often, despite the desire to do otherwise, assistant principals have minimal influence over the awesome that can go on in schools.

As an assistant principal at DC Everest Senior High School, I feel truly blessed. I do deal with student attendance and discipline, RTI and PBIS, teacher and paraprofessional evaluation, liaison to the English, School Counselor, Music, Art, and World Language departments, Co-Teaching Trainer of Trainers, Social Media Manager, and “other duties as assigned.” In addition to these “duties” I also try to get into classrooms and have conversations with teachers.

As with any job, some relationships are collegial with limited but cordial interactions. Some relationships feel strained due to a lack of understanding on both sides. Some relationships forge outside of school duties and can result in long-lasting friendships. Other relationships, though, make it worth continuing to work at the long list of duties and less-deep-than-desired relationships.

One such relationship I have like this is with @MatthewCepress. Over the past three years, we have talked so often and bounced so many crazy ideas off of each other that we now have to schedule time into the day because we realize that “It’s never a five minute conversation.”

I wish I had video of today’s fevered discussion because it captured the essence of our working relationship. Even now, I can only share so much because in addition to Matt sharing a vision for his creative writing classes and student book publication work, I challenged Matt to “walk the walk.”

I’ll go into more detail in a later blog post, but our conversation today encompassed much of what I love about my AP role here at DC Everest Senior High School. When my listening and support allow a teacher to think about their work in a new way or want to make changes that they asked about in the first place, then I feel as if I have made the kinds of connections that allow us to do the real work of schools.

Stay tuned for more details from this conversation. As I tweeted earlier, we were hatching up crazy plans.

Tools Are Just That – Tools

In my last post, I filled in everyone on my inauspicious start in BBQing and cooking. I spend much of the weekend working on the floor in my upstairs bathroom, making mistake after mistake because nobody had showed my how to use some of the tools I needed to use.

I’m fortunate to have some fantastic tradespeople I call friends at out campground. Under their instruction, I have learned to use a small set of tools well while building our deck and three season room and can complete most tasks I need. What was the difference between the bathroom debacle and the deck/room success? Instruction. That got me reflecting about my last post and the way we far too often roll out technology in education.

That shiny Weber Kettle I received as a gift became nearly useless because BBQing experts had not taught me about direct vs. indirect cooking or even small-scale smoking. Somebody gave me a tool, but no instruction came with the tool.

Left to my own devices, I stumbled along, and came to believe that I just wasn’t meant to be good at BBQing because everything came out overdone, undercooked – or worse – a combination of both. Only after I built my first smoker with my own hands and discovered two sites where I could ask questions and learn, did I start succeeding as a cook and BBQer.

The first site – the BBQ-Brethren Q-talk forum – will scare non-techies. It’s a discussion forum site and doesn’t look all that user-friendly, but the people using that site couldn’t be more friendly. These folks walked me through my first pork but quote, asked questions, requested pictures to troubleshoot, and helped me cook a serviceable pulled pork for our family Christmas.

To me, this illustrates what needs to happen when we roll out technology to teachers. Yes, some folks will know what to do and run with it, but others need to ask questions, fail, and receive patient feedback and assistance until they feel comfortable enough top move forward. How often does this happen in a technology rollout? Too often, folks disconnected from the classroom decide on the technology, purchase the technology and then had it to teachers with an implied “Good luck!”

Another site that helped move me forward by leaps and bounds was Meathead Goldwyn’s Amazingribs site, referred to by some as the Rosetta Stone of BBQing. This site interested me for reasons that will surprise my high school chemistry teacher, Mr. Wray. I like the science behind what Meathead does on his site. I hated science in high school, but I can’t get enough of the science of cooking. I especially like when the resident physicist, Dr. Greg Blonder, dispels long-held beliefs about cooking – this one aspect, alone, makes me want to learn more every day.

Again, what if we used this approach when rolling out technology to teachers? To me, the science of BBQing meat – and cooking in general – is the “hook” that Dave Burgess talks about in Teach Like A Pirate. How can we use a pirate hook to roll out technology to teachers? Instead of just another thing they have to learn, how do we make it something they want to learn about and improve their skill set? In the case of Meathead Goldwyn above, meathead knew if he could bust myths that made BBQing seem difficult, he could get more people interested. HIs website can prove challenging to navigate at times, so you may want to check out his book: Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling.

So, what hook should we use to roll out technology? For me, it is about helping teachers buy back time. When I first learned Google Apps, I discovered the wonderful Doctopus add-on and now I could help teachers free up hours from their weekly workload while still allowing them to provide feedback on student writing. Once teachers had that time, they always came back, wanting to free up more time. I think the “hook” answer lies somewhere in that type of thinking.

A tool is just a tool without training. My Weber Kettle, alone, did not make me a better cook. Technology, alone, did not make me a better teacher. We need to make sure we help people learn what they need to know in order to use those tools well.

Reflection: For this reflection, I want to have a question for both weekend chefs and educators.

• Weekend chefs, what’s one new BBQ or cooking skill you could share with someone new to barbecue and grilling?
• Educators, what pirate “hook” could you use to make technology more relevant for reluctant staff members and create that need for them to learn?

 

Cooking With Fire

I have spent that last two-plus weeks thinking about education, my role in it, and BBQ. Eduheroes Jessica Cabeen, Jessica Johnson, and Sarah Johnson wrote a book called Balance Like A Pirate, and while I do not yet have a copy, the sentiment of finding balance between my professional and personal life occupied much of my thinking.

In February, my oldest daughter and her fiancee brought my first grandchild, Logan Aaron, into the world, and from that day on I have not been the same.

Contrast that with earlier in my career where as a teacher I spent hours at school grading and prepping for the next activity or unit. In short, balance did not even register on the radar.

In addition to Logan’s arrival, I have spent the past year living apart from my family during the week and cramming family into Friday night through Sunday afternoon. My job as an Assistant Principal at D.C. Everest Senior High School is the best I have ever had and fulfills me professionally. But I go to work and then head to my in-laws to eat dinner and sleep before starting the cycle again. Definitely no balance.

All of these factors played a role in my decision to unplug and find balance for during two weeks of vacation. I turned on my away message in outlook and disabled notifications. In an emergency, someone would call, not text or email.

During this time off, a something wonderful happened – I connected again with my passion for BBQ. I’ll explain in later posts why I love BBQ (much of it has nothing to do with eating), but this re-discovery also caused me to reflect on my work as an educational leader.

My heroes Joe Sanfelippo, George Couros, Adam Welcome, Peter Dewitt, Shelley Burgess, Dave Burgess, Beth Houf, Todd Whitaker, Tara M. Martin, and so many others had surely reflected about their thinking before taking a risk and putting those ideas in blogs, or vlogs, or other venues. As I cooked one dish after another on my smoker or grill, I saw connections to teaching, education, and leading.

So – long story short(ish) – I decided to take a risk and do something crazy. Instead of keeping these thoughts to myself, I decided to create a YouTube channel and put together videos of dishes I BBQ and blend in my reflections on connections to my work in education. My close friends will finally get some of the secrets to my recipes (not all), and fellow educators can also see why their work is mostly messy but matters so much. If I do this right, everyone can watch the videos and come away hungry. Hungry for BBQ and hungry for doing the important work in education. And maybe we’ll have a little fun and learn how to find balance together.

While we wait a few weeks for my next BBQ cook, I may hop on the Interwebs and post here providing a little backdrop to this unlikely combination of BBQ and Education. You’ll see the first smoker this non-tradesperson ever built and hear about some terrible food that started out as a good idea.

Until then…We’re not cooking with gas here – we’re cooking with fire.