WE Were Nominated For A Bammy

I received an email last night that I was nominated for a Bammy! Award.  The Academy of Education Arts and Sciences International awards educators each year in a variety of categories.  I'll be honest, I really could not believe I was nominated for Middle School Principal of the Year.

Now normally, I would not say much.  I love to hype our school, our staff, and our kids on Social Media.  I have never been one to self-promote myself.  So I was very inclined to just say "Thanks, I'm humbled, and I don't know what else to say."

Then I began to think about why I was nominated, and to be honest, I look at this as "We" have been nominated.  I have been really fortunate to have worked in two districts in which the school boards and my bosses have allowed me to do some "out of the box" things.  Many could argue that Teach Like A PIRATE Day was so far outside of the box, that the box was no longer visible.

I have been fortunate to have worked with two amazing staffs, the previous two years at Utica Jr. High and now at Big Walnut Intermediate.  They bought into many of these ideas, and it was the staff and kids that brought them to life.  Again, we, not me.

I have had parents at both of these schools that have embraced and encourage our new ways of communication.  Three years ago, I never would have imagined embracing YouTube, FaceBook, Twitter, and Instagram.  Now it is common place. I have made many connection with educators around the country thru Twitter in which I got many of these ideas and then tweaked them to fit our school.

Finally, I have to thank my family.  My wife and two daughters "share" me a great deal with my school family.

I am not going to ask anyone to vote for me, because that's just not my style, and to be honest, just having mentioned all of the above people in my life and career, I have already won.  However I do want people to know about this nomination, because it is recognizing much more than just me.  It is really recognizing, two staffs and two communities.

http://www.bammyawards.com/index.php/component/content/article/56-middle-school-program/1227-ryan-mclane

Teach Like A PIRATE Day..The Sequel

Well, today I just dropped the bomb on my staff.  Teach Like A PIRATE Day is happening at Big Walnut Intermediate.  For those of you who followed the journey last year, you know what I am talking about.  For those of you who did not, here's a link that will get you caught up.

http://www.ryanpatrickmclane.blogspot.com/2014/02/thinking-of-doing-teach-like-pirate-day.html

Coincidentally, the date will be May 22, 2014.  The original #tlapexperiment took place at Utica Jr. High on May 22, 2013.

This adventure will be a little different, but hopefully just as exciting.  For starters, I know it is possible to pull off, because I lived it a year ago.  Last year, I had no clue what would happen when we set 250 kids loose in the school.  My new school contains twice as many students and staff members.  The kids are a little younger as well.  Our school contains 500 5th and 6th grade students.  I am predicting there will need to be a little more "guiding" in the halls.

I gave my staff a little more time to prepare (9 weeks) than I did at Utica (I think they had three weeks).  I also gave the staff the guidebook students received last year to help facilitate the creative process in designing their "experiences."

The goals of the day remain the same.

1.  If kids did not have to be there, would you be teaching to an empty room?

2.  Teachers will step up their game and create experiences in which students learn AND have fun doing it.

3.  Kids will get excited about coming to school in May.

I will post updates on this blog as we approach the big day, and I am sure I will need some help from my connections on the internet.  You all helped me last year.  You can follow along on Twitter as well. The hashtag will be #tlapDay2.

Principal For the Day

Today we did something that enhanced the positive culture of our school.  Kids continued to learn and it was another opportunity for some of them to have some fun as well.

About a month ago, a parent from our PTO came in to see me about creating an incentive for our students to bring in Box Tops For Education.  If you are affiliated with an elementary or middle school, you are all too familiar with this program and doing crazy things to promote it. Two years ago I took a pie in the face.  This past fall, I took four.  We were all looking for something different this time around.  So this parent asked, what about making a student Principal for the Day?  Done.  Contest on.

Today was the day that one of our 5th graders was the honorary principal.  She did the morning announcements, decided the temperature was right for outdoor recess, ate lunch at my desk, sat in my chair in all of her classes, did afternoon announcements, and took my place in our weekly Video Newsletter.

There were so many positives that came from this day.  One, I am sure she will remember it forever.  Secondly, it was another positive, fun thing we were doing in our school.  Finally, it cost us nothing.  The highlight for me was when I asked her, "What is one thing you would change about our school?" Her response:  nothing.

Sometimes You Have To Quit

I just got home from the Ohio High School State Wrestling Championships, and realized that a decision I made four years ago paid off for a young man.

I used to be a wrestling coach. I did it for 13 years and those kids are still to this day an important part of my life. As a matter of fact, I attended tonight's event with a former wrestler.

As a coach, it was pretty much a year round commitment.  Wrestling season begins in November and ends in the first week of March, but that is just the season.  The off-season consisted of workouts, training, and traveling all over the eastern U.S. to wrestle the best competition.  I loved doing it, I believe most of my kids did as well, and they benefitted from that commitment.  In 2005 I had the opportunity to coach my first state champion, and it was a feeling like no other.  All of the time and hard work that kid put in paid off.  It was almost as if I was just along for the ride.  I thought this would be the first of many that I would be a part of in my career.

A month later our first daughter was born, and four years after that, our second daughter.  I have a very understanding wife, and when it was just the two of us, she understood and supported the amount of time I put in with my wresters.  Add two children to the mix, and I would not say she was less understanding, but I began regretting the amount of time I was away from them.

I had some very talented wrestlers coming up through our youth program, some that I was very confident in their potential to stand atop the podium at the state tournament.  However I had come to a realization.  I was not going to be able to be as committed to these wrestlers as I was to my previous wrestlers.

So I made a decision, and it was both selfish and selfless.  I quit.  Selfishly I wanted to spend more time with my family.  Selflessly, the kids I coached deserved to have a coach who would be committed to them the way I no longer would.  My biggest fear, was not being committed and actually becoming a detriment to their dreams of glory.

Tonight I watched one of those kids win a state title.  The coach that replaced me reminded me a great deal of myself in my early years.  He was going to be able to provide those kids with the opportunities that I no longer was willing to provide.  Four years later, I realized quitting probably enabled that kid to win a state championship because I feared I was only going to get in his way.

I had so many people ask me tonight if I regretted quitting because I passed up an opportunity to coach another state champ?  Deep down in my heart, I believe that quitting helped his path in getting there, and I could not have been more proud of that kid tonight.

Thinking of Doing a Teach Like A PIRATE Day?

I frequently get asked about the Teach Like A PIRATE Day we had at Utica Jr. High in May of 2013. Some people are just curious about what it was, while others want to do it at their schools and want more info.  I am more than happy to share and help in any way that I can, because as I have said multiple times before, it was probably the most rewarding experience of my educational career.

Rather than tweet helpful links to my blog and hope that it leads the reader to discover the other posts, I decided to put them all in one blog post.  A home base if you will to give you all that I have about our experience.  Many of these links are to previous blog posts of mine.  Some are posts made by Teach Like A PIRATE author Dave Burgess.

If you ever have any questions, feel free to reach out to me.  The staff and students at Utica were a special group of people, but they are not much different than any other school you would find anywhere in this world. My point being, if we could pull it off, your school can pull it off too. You just have to be slightly crazy enough to try.

Teach Like A PIRATE Day.   The post that started it all.

Under 2 Weeks Away

Under A Week Away And Need Some Help  Help is a tweet away.

Teach Like A PIRATE Day Experiences  A Description of the experiences students had to choose from.

Teach Like A PIRATE Day Eve

Teach Like A PIRATE DAy...Huge Success

Teach Like A PIRATE Day...More Reflections

Teach Like A PIRATE Day...The Aftermath

Teach Like A PIRATE Day Presentation OMLA15


Posts By Dave Burgess

Breaking New Ground: Teach Like A PIRATE Day

Teach Like A PIRATE Day Leads to Treasure!

What Do Trick Shots Have To Do With Education?

Our school produces a video newsletter each week to inform our parents and community about what is going on in our school.  They usually last no more than about three minutes and are a quick, engaging way to let them know "What's going on" at Big Walnut Intermediate School.  You can read more about it here.

http://ryanpatrickmclane.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-video-newsletter.html

At the end of each "episode" I end it with a trick shot.  There are three reasons why I do it.

Reason 1:  It gives the kids and parents another reason to watch.  Sure I hope they are watching to find out what is happening in their child's school, but if they watch it just to see the trick shot at the end, that works too.  As long as they are watching it.

Reason 2:  It gives the kids something to get excited about.  All 500 of our kids have an instant conversation starter with me when they see me in the hallway.  "Mr. McLane, nice shot" or "Mr. McLane, what are you going to do next?" or "Mr. McLane, I know you are using trick photography to make those videos."  Regardless, even the most shy student has a built in conversation starter with the principal (and all of the shots are legit!).

Most of the shots have been recorded in about a minute.  I have not spent more than 4 minutes on any one shot (it was the long snap from the opposite foul line).

What do trick shots have to do with education?  Nothing really.  However when the trick shots lead to community engagement, building relationships with students, and doing a little something to make school FUN, well those all have a great deal to do with education.

My Day With a Chromebook

One day last week I decided to do a little experiment. What would my day be like if I only used a Chromebook? In full disclosure, I am an iPad/iPhone guy.

The Positives
The Chromebook was nice because it is pretty much like a small laptop computer.  I loved the ability to type much better than what I am used to on the iPad, even with a keypad connected to the iPad.  I could get to pretty much everything I needed to on the internet as well.

Our school is a Google Apps For Education school, so I was able to use Google Docs and Presentation to do any word processing that I needed to do.  Had I still been reliant on Microsoft Office, I would have been in a world of hurt, but since I have already made this leap, it was no issue at all. I even tested out Google Hangouts and the video and audio quality were perfectly fine.

The Negatives
When I encountered something I wanted to take a picture or video, I was out of luck.  I'm sure there is a way to do this, but it is not as easy or convenient as shooting with the iPad.  I feel one of the positives of the iPad is the creativity possibilities.  In my opinion, the Chromebook is not on the same level there.

Finally, and depending on where you need to use it, without WiFi, the Chromebook is pretty much a paperweight.  I did have an issue where I lost internet connection for a few minutes, and there was not much I could do with the device.  I could see a student using their iPad on the school bus, but could not see that happening with the Chromebook.

Conclusion
This may shock you, but I loved the Chromebook because its positives were in areas I would normally say are negatives with the iPad.  What I really discovered from my one day experiment is that technology is a tool, and a craftsman needs different tools.  Sometimes you need a hammer and sometimes you need a drill.  That does not make one any better or worse.  I could could see where making Chromebooks available to our students would be a huge benefit.  However I would also want some iPads (or other technology) at their disposal so that they can use the appropriate tool for the appropriate task.

UPDATE:  Part of the reason I posted and shared this was to get some feedback, specifically telling me I was wrong about the WiFi/paperweight comment.  Many people have told me ways that this is not true.  I look forward to exploring those possibilities.