Why it's great being connected

 October is Connected Educator Month and here's an example that illustrates why I love living and learning in these connected times.

This morning I listened to Vicki Davis' interview with Kevin Honeycutt. I loved it (and highly recommend it), so I sent out this Tweet. Later in the day both Vicki and Kevin replied. It's one thing to learn from your heroes, but when they're in your PLN they actually pay attention to you!

@mpetty39 oh @kevinhoneycutt was so awesome. Moved me.

— Vicki Davis (@coolcatteacher) October 2, 2015

@mpetty39 @coolcatteacher Honored Mike! Thanks for staying in the game!!

— Kevin Honeycutt  (@kevinhoneycutt) October 2, 2015

Being connected goes both ways. We take from and give to each other, making it encouraging and inspiring to all involved.

_________________________

I'm doing a challenge this month to post on one of my blogs every day. It's in preparation for my conference session, The Way of the Google Drive. Be sure to follow me on Twitter or on either blog to keep up with the "thoughts and tools to inspire".

Two Years of Teaching Like an Artist

It was two years ago this week that I wrote my first teaching like an artist post. It was the end of a difficult summer. After I pulled through the worst of some personal struggles, I put some hopeful thoughts into words. I ended up launching into the two best years of my teaching career.

I share the good lessons I learned, explicitly and indirectly, whenever I get a chance to speak to educators or students. I’ll give you the condensed version below, but first I have to spend a few paragraphs on a difficult experience.

The Dark

I don’t say it publicly much, but I had been deeply depressed in 2013. By that time it had been going on four years of depression, with the last two being particularly difficult. I couldn’t see an end to it. 

During the school year the busyness of work allowed me to keep my mind off it, but breaks were brutal. I would usually spend half the days stuck in bed. Immobilized and alone, I’d fight a silent battle in my mind.

Depression robs many of us of life to different degrees. Some lose life in the literal sense. Was I to the point of being suicidal? I realized early on in the conflict that I would not put my family through that experience. I rarely considered it. I wouldn’t say I wanted to die, but I certainly didn’t care to live. 

That was my reality. Month after month, when I had time to think about it, I didn’t care to live. It was terrible, but I know it was necessary. I had to face the emptiness and questions head on.

Some Light

That summer, after a rock-bottom experience I’ll always remember, I started to pick myself up with help from no one but God. Two steps I took made a difference and I’d recommend them to anyone suffering from depression. One is chemical and the other was spiritual.

• I stopped drinking coffee. This seems crazy, but I can’t believe the difference it made. I loved coffee. It was difficult to give up and I still miss it nearly every day. After a few days without it, though, I started feeling better than I had in years. (I have since learned I have to avoid much caffeine in general.)
• I read Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning. I had read the book many times previously. I used to make it a summer routine. Every time through the book something new would jump out at me. That summer I was struck by Manning’s trust that God would do the work that needed to be done, even through people (like me) who messed things up. It was a hope I needed to hear as I looked back at the time I’d lost.

Two years later, I know depression is always there with me to some extent. It’s wired in my brain. I have felt better ever since, though, and my work has been recharged.

The Way of the Artist

In all the darkness of my personal life, I had been paying attention to life’s lessons. I can see now I was zeroing in on a message that needed to be heard. That battle with depression would determine if it would be hidden or come to light. (I pieced together some that progression of lessons here.)

I’m happy to say it did finally come. It showed up first in a post from August 21, 2013: 6 ways to teach like an artist.

I didn’t express it perfectly it in that first attempt, but I thank the people who found a hint of hope in it and cared to tell me. I’ve written about the ideas extensively since then, though, and I honed the message through thought and experience. 

Here’s what I’ve got.

Art is not something we do or make. It’s not like paintings and songs are art, but math equations and science experiments are not. Art is the result of a certain approach to any task. 

In that way, we all can be artists.

Anything we do can be art.

Why would we care to make art? Because it inspires us and can inspire others.

We are fully alive when we enjoy our blessings and fulfill our responsibilities to others. It is a mix of take and give. Stay inspired to inspire others.

So what is this way of the artist? Three steps:

• Dream big.
• Work hard to make the vision real.
• Show it off.

This approach can transform and recharge any work. As educators, though, we touch the lives of hundreds and maybe thousands of young people. They’re all filled with dreams and possibilities. Even if they’ve forgotten, deep down they want to live, in the truest sense of living.

And what happens when teachers approach their work like artists? Here are a few things I’ve seen:

• Doors of opportunity open.
• Dreams take shape.
• Purpose becomes clear.
• Hope is renewed.

There are students who need to hear these things are possible. Maybe for some it will be the first time in their lives. There are other educators who need to be reminded. 

In this moment, you might be the only person who can do it. 

And when it’s most critical, you might feel like the whole universe is teaching you a different, darker lesson.

I’m hoping to shine in some light and ask you to keep trying.


Photo credits:

• Over the Crooked Roofs (hdr) via photopin (license) 
• "Be Careful Lest the Light in you be Darkness" via photopin (license)

Every Day

photo credit:Golden Cottonwoods via photopin (license)

I've been getting this message loud and clear lately: It's what we do every day that makes the difference.

Today Donald Miller tweeted it this way...

Get up day after day and plow a field. Plant seeds and pray for rain. The desire for instant victory is akin to playing the lottery.

— Donald Miller (@donaldmiller) July 24, 2015

Whether you want to write books, draw comics or master an instrument, the advice is always the same.

Do it every day.

If we can keep it up over time, bit by bit it changes us. We get better.

But the vision changes too. It has to. We're older and wiser by the time we're good enough to finish it.

Unless there's the luck of the lottery, like Miller says, it takes longer than we imaged. Who has the patience to wait and work for it? Who will want to keep working when it doesn't look the same or it no longer seems worth it?

On the other hand, look what we become when we give up. Day by day, step by step, we forget how to dream. We don't learn how to chase an idea to the end and share with people who need to see it.

Instead of dreams, we chase other things. I'm sure we all have our list--the next thing I want to buy, the next place I want to visit. Making lists, letting other people make lists for us, that's what we do every day.

I wonder sometimes if the steady flow of new--the movies, the thousands of gizmos and gadgets in every hobby you could find yourself, the good and bad news stories that dominate our conversations--is really just some distracting filler. Is it keeping us from the new we were meant to become and the new we were meant to create?

What voices will I listen to every day?

Start with the Vision

I came across this quote recently:

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
                                                                              --Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

As far as I remember, I hadn't read it previously, but it sure fits with what I've been feeling lately as I've been training teachers to use technology.

A few weeks ago I posted this picture on Twitter, summing up my three steps to successful teacher tech training. I'd add that steps 1 and 2 should be as brief as possible.

This goes beyond just tech training. It probably applies to anything. Start with the dream or the passion. Begin with the heart. Only then will we be willing to do the real work required to see it through.

Some thoughts from previous posts:

• My intro to the Google for Education session from May 2015
• A reflective exercise for teachers

Dreams Matter

I was reminded this past school year how dreams matter. I love to tell students that because they don't hear it enough. When I say it, they listen and it's like watering a garden. Life starts cropping up.

I try to be realistic when I talk about dreams. They don't all come true exactly like we envisioned they would be. Part of the beauty of it is how that initial dream takes shape over time.

When I was young I wanted to make movies. In my late teens I started wanting to have a band. I dreamed of writing songs and recording. I envisioned doing both on a huge scale, being famous for it.

Instead I ended up as a tech coordinator in a small, rural school district. But all those years of playing around with instruments, songs and videos have paid off. I had a great time this year helping teachers and students in Music and Communications. The Music class was at our lower elementary and Communications was at the high school.

I loved how seriously everyone took their job and no one ever asked me how it would affect their grade.

What I've learned is the dream isn't about me. As a teen, I didn't consider that. Now I see the dream was planted then, but ultimately it was meant to inspire the people I'd meet over two decades later.

When I started working with the elementary students I got an idea for a project about dreams. I asked my daughter, age 16, to write a short chorus about following dreams. She wants to be a songwriter.

After she wrote some lyrics, I fleshed it out and taught it to the students.

They loved it. I had them draw some pictures of their dreams and we made this music video.

Reflective Exercise for Teachers - Remembering the Call

I'd like to share a reflective exercise for educators, but first some background.

I recently I had to create a video to highlight the best things in our district. When I finished the final edit I was surprised by the weight and excitement of what I felt. We as educators have an amazing job. The chance to open the door of opportunity for thousands of young people throughout a career is an honor and also a frightening responsibility.

In fact, I think it's so important that I can't believe we came to it by accident. 

I have thought of this a lot over the past school year as I work with caring teachers. I won't attribute it to chance. I believe we are called to teach. There's a moment for each of us when God reached down, tapped our shoulder and said, "Hey, I need your help with something."

But then other times I think I'm dead wrong. Maybe some of us got in on a fluke.

I don't think it's just me, but over the past 21 years of teaching I've been everywhere from thankful for the call to concluding I misunderstood it completely. I have felt out of place, misguided and hopelessly unqualified. I have also been amazed at the sense of being where I am supposed to be. I've been grateful previous experiences in my life seemed to prepare me so well for unexpected opportunities in my work. I admire the design of it all.

It's like the commitment of marriage. Who could really understand what we agree to when we make those vows? Who could know what challenges lie ahead? It's a crazy combination of shortsightedness, poor understanding of love and unrealistic hopes that bring us to it. But  were we to get seriously rational about it, who would ever take the step?

So to decide to teach is to move forward with dreams that won't be fulfilled into situations for which we will not be prepared. That's just the way it goes. Reality is too vast to ask for more certainty.

And then beyond that there are countless things in the education system that will distract us from whatever it was that got us there. Those also will feel designed at times--designed to crush any deeper sense of purpose. Pressfield calls it Resistance and even if you don't personify it, anyone in the system has felt it.

So to deal with all that, I like to go back in my mind to the first time I really submitted to the call. I like to ask other teachers about their call. We have to go back there and remember what it was that excited us enough to do the work. Misguided as those initial visions may have been, I believe the core of them are important.

Too often the system encourages us to fit our dreams into the machine. "Teach that and teach it this way and if there's any time left you can care about those things that brought you to this point." But what if the trick is to go the other way around? What if we can fit those few things the system says are important into the dream that we once believed? Listen to the best teachers talk about their work and you'll hear hints that it's possible.

Here are a few questions for a reflective exercise on this thought. I encourage you to answer them in a journal and return to them regularly.

1. When did you first know you wanted to be a teacher? Describe that moment of decision, what led to it and what you felt.
2. What are three to five keywords that sum up the motivation or what you were thinking at that moment?
3. Consider a scale from one to ten, where one is "throw the vision out" and ten is "that vision was perfect from the start". Given your experience as a teacher now, how would you rate that initial vision that got you started?
4. Unless your answer to #3 was 10, what changes to that original vision would you suggest to your younger self?
5. What are some teaching experiences you've had over the years that were close to that vision you originally had for yourself as a great teacher?

Hang on to those moments. Spend time with the people who help you move closer. Ignore the voices that would keep you from it. 

Like Never Before

"I am not a teacher, but an awakener." - Robert Frost

I have an introduction I give before introducing Google Apps to students. Before I get to the various apps themselves or how to sign in, I point out the power of digital tools. I want to wake the students and their teacher up to the why before talking about the how.

I noticed a spark in the room when I first did this. I had the students' attention at a deeper level. We knew something different was happening in the room. I’ve honed my message over the last year and a half and now when I’m done with my 15 minute intro, I see signs of life more clearly. They ask questions related to their dreams. They start thinking about doing things they care about.

This ed-tech stuff is far bigger than time saving tips or ways to increase test scores.

Last week I spoke to a fifth grade class. The next day I got a note from three of them who wanted to make a comic book about a novel they just finished. The teacher (a hard worker who has been slow to integrate tech tools) said the talk changed her outlook toward technology.

Teaching them the how of the Google tools is going to be a lot easier from here out.

So here’s the short outline of what I say in the first few slides. This is it, but it makes a big difference.

1) Tools help us do more. Consider a task like digging a hole by hand, using a shovel and using a backhoe. The best tools make an amazing difference.

2) The computers on our desks, in our bags or in our pockets are the most powerful tools known to man for many things.

3) What do digital tools help us do more of? There are many things, but for school:

• Connect like never before.
• Create like never before.
• Learn like never before.

4) Many people use technology to play like never before. Some use it to do something big. Which will you choose?