A Fat Plate of Bacon

Hi everyone! Up to this point, staff and parent blogs have been informational but this new foray into blogging begins with #IMMOOC and an excitement to share  thoughts and responses to growing and supporting innovative practice across Fairfield-Suisun Unified and in all schools for all children and teachers!

Decision Time!

I run every single day and the running times serves so many purposes. Time to reflect, zone out, de-stress...Tonight on my run I finally came to a decision about a potential opportunity in another District. SO many former colleagues, friends, and school leaders  asked me to apply to be superintendent of schools of my former District. I contemplated it for the last month and had privately told a few that I had planned to apply. Ultimately, I decided it was the wrong decision. I'm not ready and am not the right person for the job right now. Fairfield-Suisun is my new home and the opportunity for growth and change here is powerful and exciting. FSUSD represents a chance to really learn what it means to be an innovative leader.

#IMMOOC
Several of us with FSUSD have joined hundreds of educators for the Innovator's Mindset Massive Online Open Course, or IMMOOC that started earlier this week. The foundation for the course is based on the work of George Couros and his book The Innovators Mindset. It has been an exhilarating first week of the course. One thing is clear--as school leaders, so often we are failing our students because we are failing our teachers. We demand so much of our teachers but we offer little in the way of regular and meaningful professional development, collaboration time, and resources. One quote from the book stuck with me. George writes:

"Many teachers are bored with the profession because they know there is a lot more to learning than what schools offer today. These teachers want to be innovative, but, instead of connecting and learning from others around the world, let alone with colleagues in their own schools, they spend time in staff meetings that often seem irrelevant to the heart of teacher. They are constantly told that if they want to be innovative, they are going to have to find time to do it."

Even if a teacher is comfortable with the status quo, a strong vision of change and growth isn't encouraged by the current model of development, compliance, and demand to teach the "common cores" (as some call it). 

If you know me, you know I LOVE BACON, especially crispy bacon! I dread staff development and staff meetings because for so long the model has been anything BUT a heaping pile of crispy bacon. After my first staff meeting this year, I walked to my car thinking gosh, that was about as boring and dull as it gets. The meeting had important "information" but I thought at the time that I wasn't going to inspire a snail or turtle to move, let alone teaching professionals. So I pledged to make every staff meeting a plate of bacon. I think I've done better, with a couple of meetings being the best pile of crispy bacon you've ever seen (I even had a couple of teachers cook a ton of bacon dishes). Some of the other meetings were more like a half plate of leftover turkey bacon. Nevertheless, I know my staff deserves more, every time. Our students deserve more. 

George writes, "If students leave school less curious than when they started, we have failed them." I say the same thing about my teachers and to my District. If teachers or administrators leave training and meetings less curious, we are failing them (and our kids). There is so much more that goes into creative a culture of innovation, but for me, it starts with a huge plate of crispy bacon. EAT UP!