The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

"Mr. Harville, how does green make you feel?" Those words were spoken in 1992 by a little fourth grade boy named Justin who happened to be in the classroom where I was student teaching. Mr. Harville, the principal of the school, had walked into the classroom to give my cooperating teacher a message and had been greeted by Justin, who excitedly ran up to him. The class had been working on writing color poems that particular day. I had given each of them glasses made from a template of a 3D pair I had kept from a movie theater. I stapled green cellophane onto the frames so when they looked through them, everything they saw would be green. Well, as green as the world could be through cellophane, but they were 9-year-olds, so it worked.  I used the poetry book Hailstones and Halibut Bones to teach the lesson and after reading a couple of my favorite poems, I took them on a walk around the building with their glasses on so they could see, hear, smell, and touch all things green. After returning to the classroom, the students began writing their own GREEN poem. Justin had gotten to the part where he had to write how green made him feel.  Enter Mr. Harville.  Remember, I was student teaching so when Justin got out of his seat and ran up to the principal, I was mortified, but Mr. Harville played along and gave him an answer that escapes me 27 years later. The students produced amazing poems that day and it became a lesson I would use every year I taught (and apparently a year I was a principal as well).

Fast forward to 2018.  I decided it was time to dust off more than the book Hailstones and Halibut Bones.  Yes. I decided to dust off my teaching skills and get back into the classroom and teach that lesson again 2018 style. There were no homemade cellophane glasses to use and no trip around the building and instead of writing the final product in their neatest handwriting, they used their chrome books to type them, complete with colored text. It hit me during the lesson that while some things have changed, some have definitely stayed the same.

1. Students rise to our expectations.  I walked into every classroom with high expectations, just as I did when I was teaching.  The students were expected to think critically, stay on task and produce a poem to be proud of and they did not disappoint. During the mini-lesson, we talked about visualization, descriptive words, and elaborating on our thoughts. They listened to sample poems, talked to their partners about what they heard in the book and got to work on their own masterpiece. As we conferenced about their poems, they would revise and edit, all the while making them better and better.  I loved seeing their faces when they read their final poem and realized how impressive they really were. Educators MUST have high expectations.

2. Boys loved it as much as the girls. We are told as educators that boys hate to write.  I have never agreed with this statement.  I know there is research that says that as well, but again, that was never my experience as a teacher and it wasn't my experience as I headed back into the classroom recently either.  In fact, I found the boys to often be more excited than the girls in some of the classes. It was a boy who jumped up with curiosity and excitement all those years ago when writing his poem about GREEN. It was also a little boy a few weeks ago who shouted out "Cheetos", "Traffic Cones" and "Denver Broncos" when he was trying to think of everything that was orange. Don't tell me boys don't like to write.  I can show you some poems that would prove you wrong. Don't assume boys don't get excited about writing.

3. Enthusiasm for the subject matter is a must.  I was a young, scared, naive, enthusiastic student teacher when I taught that first lesson on poetry so many years ago.  While I'm no longer young, scared or naive, I am still enthusiastic about education. I hope the kids felt it when I walked into their classrooms recently.  I tried to throw out as many, "Excellent" "Love that" and High Fives as I could. If we are enthusiastic about our work, our kids will be enthusiastic about theirs.

So being back in the classroom to teach poetry got me so excited about teaching that I headed back into the classrooms the next week to have the students add their contributions to our school wide Hallway Stories. As I entered the little boy's classroom who wrote the ORANGE poem, he came rushing up to me, much like Justin ran up to Mr. Harville so many years ago. Hopefully his teacher wasn't as mortified as I was that day. I heard him excitedly say, "Mrs. Burr, Mrs. Burr, I finished my orange poem. Can I share it with you?" So much for that research about boys and writing.

Nothing compares to teaching. If you are an administrator and you aren't getting back into the classrooms to teach ask yourself why.  Teach a lesson. Show the kids the passion and enthusiasm that you expect from them and their teachers.  Connect with kids in a different way.  My student teaching experience sparked a love for teaching reading and writing and I found out it's still there.  I hope the little boy who recently wrote about Tigger, Garfield and fall leaves will always remember how excited he got when writing a poem in third grade, because I'll never forget it.                                                                     

Orange is the color of pumpkins.

The color of Halloween, fire, the Denver Broncos, and Tigger.

Orange tastes like pumpkin pie and gingerbread.

Orange looks like a shining light.

Orange feels like a fire inside.

Orange sounds like “Trick or Treat”.

Orange smells like ginger candles.

Orange is the color of a sunset.

The color of Garfield, fall leaves, and traffic cones.

By: Kaide

What's Your Why?

I was recently reminded of the "why" I got into education.  Well, actually I got into education, because back in 1988, nursing and teaching were the only fields anyone talked about for women and I knew I did NOT want to wear scrubs everyday. It might have also been because my sophomore English teacher, Nita Jackson, was always so classy looking. She had the most beautiful wardrobe. Whatever the reason that got me started, I have stayed in a field that has meant so much to me for so many years. So, maybe I should have started with, "I was recently reminded of the "why" I stay in education. Everyone's "why" changes as life experiences happen and after having Allison my "why" definitely evolved. As I visited with kids through the years, I always talked to them the way I would have wanted Allison talked to and when speaking to parents, I spoke to them the way I would have wanted to have been spoken to myself. I BELIEVED I did those things, but until recently I never had it confirmed.  A couple weeks ago, I received the sweetest text message from a mother. A mother who I say hi to when I see her, but have never really known that well.  She reminded me of something I did when her daughter, who's now a sophomore in high school, was a fourth grader at Carver. I had forgotten most of what she was texting about, but as I continued reading the text, it was apparent that her memory was crystal clear.  Her message mentioned that when she and her husband had divorced, her daughter was "so sad" and "needed to be with her friends". She shared with me details of the phone call she and I had those many years ago. It was a heartfelt message, but the words that brought me to tears were, "You didn't do that for ME. You did that for a sad 4th grader watching her parents divorce and she needed friends/support at school". She was right. I made my decision based on what was best for that little 9-year-old girl and her mother had never forgotten it. Parents remember how they were made to feel and how they were treated. 

As a parent of a high school senior,  meaningful acts still matter to me in that capacity also. Allison's assistant basketball coach, Coach Hixson, has coached her since eighth grade, so he knows her well. There have been two occasions through the past 5 years that he has sent messages to me as a parent. The messages were words I needed to hear at those moments and the gesture and the words he spoke meant more than I could even convey to him. Parents remember how they were made to feel and how they were treated. 

We, as educators, often get caught up in all the activities taking place on a daily basis and we take for granted how meaningful our actions are for those involved.  Another story recently shared with me was from a mother of a second grader. Two years ago, he was in kindergarten and he cried every single day when she dropped him off at school. I had to talk to him and coerce him away from her and I never minded once. Why? Because I would have wanted someone to have been kind to my daughter if she had been the little 5-year-old struggling to come into school. His mother let me know how much she appreciated that act. On a side note, her 18-year-old son stopped by a couple months ago.  He also went through Carver as a young boy.  I assumed he was there to pick up his little brother so I asked him if he had stayed to tutor. He said, "No." I asked him what he was doing at Carver and he replied, "I just came by to say hi to you." Kids remember how they were made to feel and how they were treated. 

I'm sure others would question me on why I don't rush the parent away who sits with her young child every morning, until the teacher makes her appearance, reassuring the little one that it's ok to come to class. I'm sure there are some who would never have allowed  a mother, who was raised in another culture, to stay all morning, just to make sure her only child who was attending his first day of school, was ok. Not only did I allow her to wait on him, she and I had some nice conversations where I found out she had taught young children in her native country. She just needed to make sure her little boy was ok. Who was I to challenge how she had been raised and what her culture believed about education. She was hurting no one sitting in a chair in the office. Parents remember how they were made to feel and how they were treated. 

Those who know me, know how much I have come to appreciate Twitter.  I love how it has made a large, educational world seem so small.  As I was checking it recently, I saw a post that said, Be kind to others. Share an act of kindness. Your act might be someone's memory of a lifetime. That goes nicely with what I am trying to say and it made me think about my own personal memories of a lifetime with the educator's I had. My own fourth grade teacher and I are friends on facebook.  I've mentioned her before. She's the one who brought back a piece of tar from Southfork Ranch in Texas. The show Dallas should ring a bell. I still have it and I still have such sweet memories of fourth grade. The Applegate kids always got their teacher's a small gift at Christmas. We didn't have much money so I doubt the gifts were of much value, but Mrs. Turner wrote a thank you note for each one of them that I still have today.  I'm pretty sure I could pick out her handwriting if I had to. It's been almost 40 years and I still have those letters (and that piece of tar).  Her actions, during that long ago school year, have lasted a lifetime.  Kids remember how they were made to feel and how they were treated. 

When Allison was at Sonshine Preschool she left a hairbow. Yes a hairbow.  Little did I know then  that she would "leave" several items in places through the years.  I'm sure it was from Gymboree so I, of course, had to return to get it. Teresa Jennings, or Miss Teresa back then, worked there at the time and she was the first person I saw when I went to get it.  She wasn't Allison's teacher, but she went and dug through a tub of lost and found for me anyway to find it. I'm sure she thought I was a crazy parent for caring that much about a hair bow, but she didn't make me feel that way.   Parents remember how they were made to feel and how they were treated. 

I'm sure every educator has similar stories and every parent does as well. It's the little day to day decisions and actions that we take for granted or don't even realize we are doing that make a difference.  I can't think of another profession where you can build those kind of relationships with kids and parents.  We DO make a difference.  Would the kids I mentioned have had different feelings about school if I had changed how I treated them? Would their parents have changed how they dealt with educators? Would  I have the kind things to say about Allison's coach if he hadn't shown me that he cared about her? Did the high school student go out of his way to stop by and say hi to any other former principal? I'm not friends with all of my former teachers, but I am with several and it's because they created memories of a lifetime for me. So ask yourself, if you are conciously thinking about how you answer kids and how you treat them and their parents as well.  They remember. I remember. While, Mrs. Jackson's classiness as a teacher (and her red high heels) might have been a part of the "why" I got into education, the kids and the families are why I stay. So take a minute to think about the "why" you got into education, or more importantly, the "why" you stay in education. 

From Carver to Carverville

City Sidewalks, Busy Sidewalks, Dressed in Holiday Style...That has always been one of my favorite Christmas songs.  As I was walking down the halls of Carver Elementary recently, I started humming that tune and singing those words to myself. My inspiration? Carver was transforming into a city right before my eyes. A city known to all 611 students and staff as Carverville.

The Beginning
Carverville was established in 2014. Something that year sparked a memory of mine from back in the 70's when I was a little girl going to elementary school in Sparta, Mo. I remember participating in something called Spartaville.  My only real memory was a visit from the local florist, Susie Johns, as she showed me and my classmates how to make paper flowers that had green, floral tape for a stem. For some reason, I never forgot that tape. My classmates and I would "sell" those paper flowers during Spartaville.  Unfortunately, for my husband Robert, that visit from Susie didn't transform into my desire to plant flowers in my adulthood, but it did leave a lasting impression on me. An impression so meaningful, it would help me in creating a special tradition at Carver Elementary years down the road. I kept a pink flower from that day in my jewelry box until just a few years ago when I realized it was missing.  I had held onto it for 30 years at least. Robert would tell you I would blame him for losing it, but I might have to take the blame for that one. Back to Carverville. The vision was to transform our third and fourth grade classrooms into businesses.  A city, if you will. All of our kids would go from shop to shop choosing what they wanted to buy.  We would have a bakery, flower shop, photography studio, bookstore, etc.  I had hopes it would grow into something big and it absolutely has. It's become one of the best things we do all year.

Community Involvement/PTO
There are many behind the scenes activities that take place in order to prepare for Carverville. Just like the local florist coming to speak to my class all those years ago, I knew I wanted to invite community members into the school to talk about what their businesses entailed.  Lauri Lyerla, Neosho Chamber Director, and Ashley Siler, events coordinator, come each year to have a ribbon cutting for our Carverville shops. Oh how the kids love those huge scissors. Garry Fausett, from Fausett Greenhouse comes to speak to Mrs. Williams' class about working in a greenhouse and Adrianna Henry, from Family Market, speaks to Mrs. Buckner's boys and girls about what it takes to work in a bakery. We now have 10 businesses: The Book Boutique, 29 Photography, Carverville Perk, Buckners's Bakery, Carverville Bank and Trust, Santa's Gift Wrapping Shop, Elf Market, Carverville Floral Shoppe, The ZEAL Emporium, and ZEAL Time Theater. Each business creates a commercial on Animoto to showcase the products they will be selling, their prices and store hours. I wonder how we advertised back in the 70's. I'm thinking a piece of poster board from Sparta Dry Goods. All students visit Carverville Bank and Trust the day before Carverville to get their money.  Did I say money? Well, it's a paper "debit card" with 20 dollars to spend.. They are all given a sucker as they leave, just like real life, right? The 550 students are allowed to use "paper" money because our amazing PTO funds all of Carverville.  That's right. They buy the flowers from Fausett Greenhouses, the homemade cookies from Family Market, the ornaments in the ornament shop, the items in the ZEAL Emporium, etc.  They make this experience happen for our kids and we are so grateful.

A new addition
I don't forget much.  In fact, Glynda Condict always teased me that my mind was like a steal trap.  I had another memory from 25 years ago pop up recently.  A post office.  Yes. A post office.  In the early years of my teaching career at  Logan-Rogersville, teachers at one of the elementaries had mailboxes outside their classrooms and the kids wrote letters that were delivered throughout the day.  With Carverville being a city, I decided we needed a post office.  After hearing my idea, one of our Carver artists, Connie Studdard, got to work on a mailbox that looks just like one at any post office around the country.  The teachers all put mailboxes outside their classrooms and each of our hallways now have street names which are, of course, named after our Houses. We have Zaplon Court, Empyreal Drive, Ajani Avenue, and Lumiere Lane.  Every room also has an address, so kids not only write letters but are expected to address envelopes correctly as well. Everyone is writing, writing, writing. It's exciting to see the kids as they drop their letters in the mailbox. I love passing them in the hallway and hearing, "Mrs. Burr, I wrote you a letter" or "Mrs. Burr, did you get my letter".  Brothers are writing letters to sisters, students are writing letters to former teachers, and the list goes on and on.

Reflection
Carverville is an experience we are creating for our kids they will never forget.  For some, it might be the only time they can buy a flower for their mom, or an ornament for their sibling, or take a brand new book home for themselves. As I walked around and watched the students shopping, I just enjoyed listening to the conversations between the kids. Many were discussing what they were planning on buying, while others were showing what they had in their bags.They had to spend their  money wisely and really think about what they wanted to buy. I challenge everyone to create those experiences for kids. My daughter, Allison, and her friends in high school that I see on a regualar basis, have begun asking me why we didn't do these "cool" things when they were at Carver and I have no good answer.  Why didn't we?  I challenge you to think outside the box, or in my case, think back to your own wonderful memories, and put a new twist on them. I have started putting #creatingexperiences on my twitter pictures when I post on Twitter because we are doing just that...creating experiences.  See...we had a little bit of Ron Clark and Hope King in us before we even knew their names. It's so important to create those experiences for kids and for us as educators as well. I know the kids will be talking about Carverville for years. One day, they'll smile thinking about the day they wore their house shirts and shopped with their Lumiere friends and bought cookies in Buckner's Bakery. Maybe some will remember the ZEAL Emporium where they bought Empyreal everything: blue balloons, blue bracelets, blue pom poms, and blue cups.  Perhaps their favorite memory will be going to the Carverville Perk for some hot chocolate and sitting at the pub tables discussing their purchases or where they wanted to shop next.  As Carverville came to an end, and I walked past Zaplon Court into Ajani Avenue admiring the awnings above the paper doors the teachers had decorated, and I watched the students smiling as they carried poinsettias in their arms that would be given to their mothers, as soon as they got in the car or off the bus, I smiled at the thought of where it all began; in a classroom in Sparta, Missouri, with a pink paper flower, green floral tape and a memory that never left a little nine-year-old girl. A Christmas song played over the sound system in our cafeteria as another Carverville ended, but the only song I could hear was the one I was humming to myself; City Sidewalks, Busy Sidewalks, Dressed in Holiday Style.
  

Pirates of the CARRverbbean

"Well, this is a morning I'll ALWAYS remember." Those words were spoken by a first grader at Carver Elementary after he walked into our building this week to see it transformed into all things pirates. As the students entered the building they were greeted by the teachers and staff who were decked out in costumes. Everyone looked amazing. We even had our very own Jack Sparrow (Mr. Phillips), complete with eyeliner.  No one could miss the 25 foot ship that was strategically placed right inside the front doors. Before our kids could get over the shock of why a ship would even be in the cafeteria, though, they walked into the gym, where they saw yet another huge ship on the stage.  This one was slightly different, however.  It had the slide we use to "slide certify" our kids smack dab in the middle of it with a pirate standing inside the ship.  Yes, this day was going to be unlike any other day at Carver.

After everyone was gathered in the gym, I greeted them with their instructions for the day.They were told they had been captured by a crew of swashbuckling pirates that wanted to take their treasures hostage. and that they had 6 hours to escape. They would be solving clues all day and they would hopefully be finding lots of treasures. They were dismissed to their classrooms, but the usual walk down the hallways was anything but usual. The kindergarten kids were in an ocean of blue.  The hall was decorated from ceiling to floor with blue paper.  Fish, waves and treasure chests were what they kids walked past.  The first and second grade hall was full of seaweed, a blow up pirate ship and treasure maps. The third and fourth graders were greeted with sea turtles on the ceiling, and if anyone needed to go into the FEMA shelter, they would first have to be "plank certified" by walking over a plank into their wing. Genius fourth grade.

It was a memorable 8 hours for everyone.  Throughout the day, every single student searched for clues to find treasures such as skull rings, eyepatches, gold coin necklaces and pirate tattoos.  The final clue lead the entire student body into the gym where they were given their HOUSE shirts after shouting, "Bring us our Treasure" to the teachers.  It was priceless.  The teachers had been given their shirts a couple weeks ago and several students had commented that they wished they had them as well. It was their lucky day. One of the best parts, though, was when we "slide certified" 43 kids right before school was out.  We have been doing this for weeks, but the kids on this particular day slid down the slide, which was in the middle of our ship, as smoke swirled around them from a fog machine and a "pirate" watched from inside the ship.  I'm thinking that will be an experience they will never forget.

If you're thinking it was all fun and games, though, you can think again.  Here are just a few highlights of what went on in our classrooms that day. First grade teachers incorporated an app called Flipgrid with Chatterpix (app smashing) where Mr. Phillps and I recorded ourselves giving them clues to math problems that they had to solve throughout the day.  Mrs. Smith conducted BreakOut EDU with her students. They had to solve clues and work together in groups, using higher order thinking skills to find the answers which opened the locks. I can confirm that they did indeed Break Out. The -ar sound was taught in phonics as students worked on identifying words that should be spelled with -ar.  Mrs. Baldwin taught estimation by completing a STEM project with boats. Miss Gilion used Plickers to assess comprehension of an article about making maps.  Pirate stories were written by many.  In fact here is one of the success stories from the day. We have a third grader who came to us last year who had a lot of anger issues.  He had to be restrained several times and he didn't like writing, so he spent a lot of time in Mr. Phillips' office. This year, with third grade being writing intensive, he has struggled with the writing assignments he has been given. He couldn't write about vacations, because he hadn't ever been on one.  But after our Pirates of the CARRverbbean Day, he was able to write a personal narrative about the experienceas he had that day. So much learning, yet so much fun.

I share the same philosophy Wade King, curriculum director and teacher for the Ron Clark Academy, has.  He believes it's our job as educators to provide kids with positive experiences that they can connect content to. We know kids will retain more information when they have experiences instead of just being given information.  That's exactly what our Carver crew did at Pirates of the CARRverbbean. Hadley Williams told her mom, our middle school principal, that we just had fun that day.  So when her teacher asked her about it, she had a strange look on her face.  Her teacher said, "Hadley, did we write a story.  She said, 'Yes. " Mrs. Barratt said, "Do you remember the math problems we worked on that day." She said, "Yes." Her teacher then said, "Then why did you tell your mom all we did was fun stuff?" Hadley said, "It didn't seem like work." Mrs. Barratt and I looked at each other and smiled, happy smiles.  I said, "That's exactly what we wanted." Mission accomplished.

Classroom tranformations are beginning to happen in our building, and this one was our first building transformation. The kids were still talking about it at the end of the week.  Many of them wore their rings and necklaces past Monday. I can't believe I've been doing this education gig for 25 years and haven't been doing transformations before now. If you aren't doing them, ask yourself why not.  If you think it's costly, you are wrong.  Cardboard, paint, table cloths, and butcher paper were what most of our props were made with. Ask yourself if you are finding yourself doing the same activities and worksheets year after year? Why? We all can do better. Are you stepping out of your comfort zone and trying new strategies with kids? Just try it. You'll see how fun it is. We've done a lot of new ideas at Carver this year and we have plans for many, many more. We are still meeting the standards, it's just a lot more fun this year.  As we plan what we will do next, I know without a doubt, I will happily continue to hear statements such as, "Well, this is a morning I'll ALWAYS remember."

Ding, Ding, Ding...Round 5

Ding, Ding, Ding...Round 5. No, I'm not talking about boxing. After living with Robert Burr for the past 20 years, he would say the only sports I should be talking about would be football, girls basketball and golf. Actually, he would say I didn't need to be talking about any sports at all and he's right, so I'll stick to education.  When I say Round 5, I'm referring to the NEE evaluation cycle Mr. Phillps and I are completing this month.  We are in our fifth round. We have jumped into high gear. On an average, the system likes to see 6 or 7 cycles completed in a year, and that's typically what we try to do. This year is different, though. Together, we have completed 129 observations so far. We have been in every teacher's classroom almost weekly and, for us, it's been eye opening. We were having a conversation about our teachers just a few weeks ago. He said, "Everyone is just....". I finished his sentence for him by saying, "Better". We know the teaching is better, because we see it firsthand A LOT. Being in classrooms so often has allowed us to see more, hear more and know more. A presenter years ago, told us all in attendance to be visible, to be in the classrooms, to save your paperwork until after school.  That is often easier said than done, but this year we have made it a priority to be in classrooms observing weekly and we are succeeding.  As I left a classroom the other day, I reflected on how evaluations have changed since I became a principal.

Sixteen years ago, principals were expected to script all of their evaluations.  Alma Stipp showed me how she folded her paper in half and wrote word for word what every teacher had to say.  Her handwriting was so beautiful, too. Mine. Not so much. She was the best, so I did exactly as I was taught.  During those years you stayed for the entire lesson.  If it took an hour, you scripted for an hour.  You also only went 3 times into classrooms all year, unless teachers were tenured, and then you only went one time. It wasn't a true picture of what went on day to day. That seems absurd now. Those were the days we used the Madaline Hunter system. There were aspects of if I loved though, and still expect to see.  Guided practice and independent practice are a must, along with modeling.  Lots and lots of modeling. Madaline had great points, but like everything else, change was inevitable.  I remember our superintendent at the time, Dr. Mark Mitchell, had me speak to his night class students who were working on their administrative degrees. Three of his students were  Melissa Massy,  Lance Massey, and Jim Cummins. I remember Jim asking about evaluations. He asked if I  preferred to stay an hour and only go once or twice a year or if I would prefere to go several times for shorter amounts of time.  Without thinking about it, I immediately answered, "stay for an hour."  I remember him saying, "I would think you would learn more if you went in more often."  I thought he was crazy and look now.  He's a superintendent and hundreds of school districts in Missouri have adopted the NEE. He's a wise man, that Dr. Cummins.   

I honestly don't know how principals can speak about procedures, classroom management, the kids, the curriculum, etc., if they are not in the classrooms watching teaching unfold on a regular basis. I know so much more by being in there. I know Mrs. Miller is using youtube videos to help teach 3-digt subtraction. I know Mrs. Watkins is using the ReadWorks Article-A-Day to teach reading skills. I know Mrs. Allen is setting the stage to engage every week by dressing up on Mondays. I know Mrs. Branscum had her students complete a science experiment with goggles and lab shirts. I know what Moby Max  has to offer because I sit beside students as they work in stations. I know I have heard Turn and Talk and Slant (and know what it means) from every teacher teaching the First 20 days. The list goes on and on and on. I know Mrs. Cook is using sensory tubs in speech.  I know Mrs. Farkas is using Plickers to assess in math. I know Mrs. Buckner likes the audio portion of Storyworks and Mrs. Smith does not. See. I really could go on and on. I know the kids better as well.  I see who might excel and who might struggle.  I know who is quiet and who is outgoing.  The best part, though, is that they see us more in their classrooms.  I don't remember seeing Mr. Dye, my principal in elementary, except in the hallway.  That's just how it was as a principal in the 70's. I prefer being more visible in 2017 and I believe the kids do too. 

As I look back now  on those early years of my principalship,  I don't remember what I spent my time doing each and every day.  Observing is a must on our plate almost EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. It's simply one of our priorities. Everyone is used to it. Well almost everyone.  Mrs. Mittag still wants to run the other way when she sees us coming with our ipad. I always felt like I knew what was happening in the classrooms, but I know so much more now and that is a great feeling.  When I talk to colleagues or parents, I can speak with confidence when asked if I know what our teachers are doing. So ask yourself what are your priorities at work?  Is everyone aware of what those are? Do you make time for what is important? Are you as knowledgeable as you should be? My answers this school year are different than what they would have been in the past.  I love knowing more about the day to day teaching going on at Carver. So this week, we'll be back in the classrooms seeing more teaching and becoming more knowledgeable about every aspect of the teaching process and if you listen closely you might just hear a bell ringing. DING, DING, DING...Round 5.

Wake Up Wednesday

GOOOOOD MORNING, KIDS!!!! That's how 9 of Carver's finest greeted the kids on Buses 24 and 48 last Wednesday morning starting at 6:45 a.m. That's right. We all got up extra early to surprise the kids on those buses.  What were we thinking you might be asking.  Well...let me explain.

I heard a teacher at the Ron Clark Academy mention a book called KIDS DESERVE IT as I was in a session hosted by Kim Bearden (co-founder of RCA). The teacher was saying that the author encouraged principals to make positive phone calls home and Kim mentioned that she and the author, Todd Nesloney, were friends.  I made a mental note of the book but hadn't done anything about reading it, until a week ago. I was already making positive phone calls home, but I thought I might get another great idea, so I downloaded it on my Kindle app. I read the section on positive phone calls home, smiled to myself,  and kept reading. I came across a section that talked about riding the bus with kids.  I read it with pride knowing I had already done that last year when I participated in Shadow a Student. I had ended my day shadowing the third grader, Tanner, home on the school bus.  As I kept reading though, I realized Todd Nesloney and Adam Welcome weren't talking about riding the bus home. They were talking about riding the bus to school. He was encouraging his readers (me) to pick the kids up...in the morning...the very early morning.   I thought about it for a minute and decided I was going to do it.  I mean, seriously, I had ridden the bus myself as a child and had to be at the bus stop early, so why not.  I could do this. I immediately sent an email to the Carver team with the subject line Crazy Idea.  I thought maybe 1 or 2 of them would want to ride with me, but I was pleasantly surprised when 8 of my colleagues quickly replied to me and were willing to make the early morning trip as well. I called our transportation director who was totally on board and excited too.  We were all set.

As my alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. and I left the house in the dark, I told my husband I didn't know how people left this early to go to work every single day.  I admire them all. My mom did it for more than 40 years, but I was never a morning person.  That trait goes to my little brother.  He was so annoying as we would get ready for school all those years ago and I'm betting his wife would say he still is. We all arrived at 6:10 a.m., trying to act like we were wide awake.  I had asked them to bring pom poms, megaphones, etc., to greet the kids so we were fully prepared to brighten their morning.  We divided up, and after singing Happy Birthday to one of our second grade teachers, and going Facebook Live to let everyone know what we were doing, we loaded our buses.  We were so excited (or sleepy) we forgot to take a group picture of all of us "early birds".

It took Bus 48 approximately 15 minutes to get to our first stop. The kids didn't know what to think as they walked up the steps onto the bus and heard all of us shout GOOOOD MORNING!  There was shock on many faces or no expresson at all.  Once the kids realized what was happening, though, we got many smiles and hugs.  One little boy said, "This is fantastic". We even welcomed the middle school, junior high and high school kids.  They were definitely not as impressed as our elementary kids, or at least, they didn't want to act like they were. After several stops, the entire bus of kids (minus the junior high and high school) began shouting GOOOOD MORNING with us as student after student loaded.   The feeling on the bus was one of energy and fun.  The kids were loving it. We sung a verse of The Wheels On The Bus, and of course, we took this opportunity to recite all of the House Chants.  The kids wanted to know if we were going to do this every day and if we were going to be on the bus to take them home that afternoon.

At the end of the day, I thnk the kids would tell you we made their day, when in reality they made ours. The next day, as I was walking down the hall and passed a class of students,  I heard one of the kids telling her friend, "Hey, she rode my bus yesterday". I knew right then and there, it made a difference.  When I pass a Bus 48 kid in the hall now, we look at each other a little differently.  There is a new connection that wasn't there before. Just like the connection Tanner and I made after I shadowed him last year.  I also had other teachers and staff asking if we were going again, because they wanted to go.  I can honestly say, I didn't think I would be getting up again at 5:30 a.m. to meet the buses at the Neosho School District's bus barn, but I'm ready and willing to make another trip. A big shout out to the Carver team who led the way on our first WAKE UP WEDNESDAY.  Tiffany Rea, Kacie Barratt, Ashley Gilion, Michelle Allen, Renee Cummins, Shawndel Rainwater, Trina Leaf and Hannah Farkas did a great job and they truly Made A Difference on Buses 24 and 48. Ask yourselves what you are going to do this week to make a difference or will it just be status quo. Will you make the effort or will you even give it another thought? Will you make someone's day by a simple act of kindness?  I know this Wednesday there will definitely be another group of kids who will be surprised when those doors open and they climb up the stairs and are greeted with GOOOOOD MORNING, KIDS!

To Be (Positive) or Not to be (Positive)...That is the Question

"If you can come to work and be positive every single day, then I'm going to try and do better." Those words were spoken to me 20 years ago when I was teaching first grade at Granby Elementary by a lady I had only known for a couple of months.  We didn't teach the same grade level, or even teach in the same building, but we had enough interactions throughout the day that I had apparently left an impression of positivity on her. I've thought of her and that comment often throughout the past 20 years and it popped into my head again this month as we began a new endeavor at Carver Elementary School.

As I was scanning Twitter recently,  I saw that a principal I follow had posted a picture of herself and a student. Her tweet mentioned something about it being her 127th positive phone call for the year. My first thought was, "Wow. That's a lot of phone calls."  My second thought was, "I'm going to start that." I immediately sent our Carver team the specifics for the plan.  The teachers and staff simply had to type in a spreadsheet the name of a student and something positive they had done to call home about.  It took off slowly at first.  I was calling 2 or 3 a day.  I called the students into my office, called their mom or dad, told them I was making a positive phone call, read what the teachers had to say, and hung up. I got a little smarter each phone call I made though.  I started putting parents on speaker phone so the kids could hear how excited they were.  Well..the excitement part came after the parents got over the shock of hearing me say their child was in the principal's office.

It was all very simple, until a purchase I ordered a few months ago arrived...A SLIDE. That's right. A slide. It's nothing fancy. It's not enclosed. It doesn't twist or turn in the middle. It's just a blue, nine foot indoor/outdoor slide.  I knew I wanted one after our recent visit to Atlanta in May. You may have heard me talk about it a time or two. I just wasn't sure what I was going to do with it. I thought, thought, and then thought some more.  Then it hit me. We needed to recreate the same atmosphere for our kids that Kacie, Michelle and I experienced at RCA. So, the kids who receive positive phone calls home don't just go down the slide. No. They go down the slide, get an "I've Been Slide Certified" sticker, go sign a Slide Certified chalkboard, all the while listening to the cheers of other students while loud music is blaring. It's an electric atmosphere.

My friend's comment 20 years ago about being positive and the slide certified experience had me pondering the power of being positive. It seems so simple.  It should be so easy.  A smile. A kind word. An encouraging gesture. It's really not that hard is it?  We continue working on building a positive culture at Carver. It's pretty amazing, but it's not perfect...YET.  There are many team members at Carver Elementary who smile at everyone they meet throughout the day.  I'm not naming names (Shawndel Rainwater & Heather Overton), but rest assured there are several. Those individuals just make everyone's day brighter by their positive personalities. This year at Carver, the kids and adults are greeted with smiles and music (and a dancing Mrs. Leaf) every morning. Our team takes turns greeting everyone at the door every single day. When I hear that music, I can't help but start dancing myself. I believe it puts everybody in a better mood. Who doesn't love watching Mrs. Leaf dancing outside every morning? I know I do and the kids are slowly beginning to dance into the building as well. I've noticed there sure are a lot more smiles when they get out of their cars in the mornings than there used to be. I hope to eventually see everyone dancing into the building...teachers, staff, and the kids. I know I plan to continue, even if I don't have much rhythm.

Being positive doesn't take much effort.  I have worked with individuals in my 25 years who, because of various reasons such as jealousy or arrogance, bring negativity to work every day.  They can't see the positive in anything. Everything they say comes across as negative. They try to get others on their side, and unfortunately there are usually a few who follow, but it never works in the long run because I truly believe people want to work with colleagues who are positive. Genuinely positive. Not just those who give it lip service. It's easy for some to become negative when you feel colleagues have let you down, no one is listening to you, others get acknowledged when you feel it should be you, or no one values your opinion.  I know. We've all been there. But we have to keep focused on what we are doing and be a positive influence to those around us.  It really does make a difference and to those who truly matter, it's noticed.

Being positive matters. Obviously, that comment 20 years ago meant something to me.  I've never forgotten it and I hope our kids never forget being called into my office for a positive reason instead of a negative one.  I wish everyone could see their faces when I tell them they are in my office for a positive phone call home.  They light up! Even better, I wish everyone could hear the parents' reactions when I read them the comments the teachers have to say. One mom said, "You just made my week." I personally love hearing all the, "I'm proud of you bud," "Aw...Sis...great job," and "I love yous". I would love to hear the conversations when the kids get home and talk about getting Slide Certified. Being positive is powerful.

As I think back to high school English class and symbolism, I find myself thinking about the slide. It's more than a long piece of plastic. It's a symbol of being positive or being different. Ron Clark says, "Why take the stairs, when you can slide." We don't have stairs at Carver, but you get the point. I believe we are going to continue seeing changes in our culture at Carver.  One teacher overheard a conversation between 4 boys who were called to the office to help carry some bags. One of the students said, "Maybe we're being called to the office for a positive phone call." It's making a difference.  I'm up to 80 phone calls already and it's only September.  What a change this slide has made! Being excited about coming to the office, instead of being fearful. Maybe every boss needs to consider a positive phone call or perhaps even a slide. Think of the possibilities. While there are many questions I could ask about the power of being positive and the changes it can make in all settings, this time I'm only going to ask one. Are you positive? If the answer is no, then I guess reflection is necessary. If the answer is yes, perhaps you will have a conversation one day with a colleague who says, "If you can come to work and be positive every single day, then I'm going to try and do better."