Student Choice

John Wooden posted the following note on the Bruin's bulletin board on the values of the choices we make:

There is a choice you have to make, 

In everything you do.

So keep in mind that in the end, 

The choice you make makes you. 

The world of today's adolescent is wrought with choices, some good and some not so good. Definitely more choices than most of us grew up with.  But, with these choices comes the consequences of the path chosen. 

One of the most valuble skills we can provide for our students is the ability to see the effects of choice. 

How to measure the causal relationships of choices made. And, how to create a balance between choices made for safisfaction today and choices made in preparation for tomorrow. 

One of the most troubling trends I have noticed in recent years is the lack of understanding of the ramifications of what is done today and how it will effect the future.  Whether students have simply grown up in a society that values immediate gratification or if they have simply lost hope in a sense of the future, high school students today have great difficulty in dealing with any issue that requires them to see beyond today and most definitely if they must see beyond tomorrow. 

Students need to develop the steps necessary to set goals, develop plans, create paths for success, recognize obstacles, adapt to change and actualize success.     

The "I want it now", attitude of the 80's and 90's will not suffice in a world where the only constant is change.  Students need now, more than ever a sense of future and the path necessary to get there.  No longer can the path be culminated in an end but must be toward development of skills for change.  No longer can the students of today depend on a career path that may not be there a decade from now. Technology has changed the game and continues to do so with each new device, program or operating system.  

The choices students make today will serve them only if they understand that the greatest ability is in the ability to see ahead of the curve and look to a future where change is the norm and the skillsets for success are the ability to think critically, communicate effectively and work collaboratively.  

        

Our Iceberg is Melting - Collaboration

Our Iceberg Is Melting 

by John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber

Our Iceberg Is Melting is a simple fable about doing well in an ever-changing world. Based on the award-winning work of Harvard's John Kotter, it is a story that has been used to help thousands of people and organizations.

The fable is about a penguin colony in Antarctica. A group of beautiful emperor penguins live as they have for many years. Then, one curious bird discovers a potentially devastating problem threatening their home, and pretty much no one listens to him.

The characters in the story, Fred, Alice, Louis, Buddy, the Professor, and NoNo, are like people we recognize — even ourselves. Their tale is one of resistance to change and heroic action, seemingly intractable obstacles and the most clever tactics for dealing with those obstacles. It's a story that is occurring in different forms all around us today — but the penguins handle the very real challenges a great deal better than most of us.

Our Iceberg Is Melting is based on pioneering work that shows how the 8 Steps produce needed change in any sort of group. It's a story that can be enjoyed by anyone while at the same time providing invaluable guidance for a world that just keeps moving faster and faster.

(from the website http://www.kotterinternational.com/kotterprinciples/our-iceberg-is-melting )

Although written as a children's tale, the story provides great insight into the difficulties with collaboration as a means of attianing group success.  The group of penguins come to symbolize the universal members of most work groups.  The take charge member, the do all the work member, the organizer, the naysayer, the do gooder, the newbie and the volunteer who does nothing.  

The Penguins   

Fred – younger, open to all new ideas, overly curious, very observant, anxious to please, level headed, thinker, creative, still wide eyed, willing to volunteer for anything 

Alice –  practical, tough, need to prove she belongs, reputation for being tough, gets things done, focused on the goal at hand, knows the colony, doesn't back down, smart but not arrogant

Louis - Head Penguin in Charge – very patient, wise from experience, overly conservative, calm, respected by most, experiential intelligent;

NoNo – negative, closed to new ideas, favorite comment "we have never done that"

The Professor – scholarly intelligence, data based, fascinated by the problem not the solution, question, not really social

Buddy - everybody loves him, no ambition, trusted and liked, not an intellectual, always present but unproductive

Kotter does an excellent job of understandning the value and importance of change, while also outlining the difficulties that change brings about.  As the penguins seek a solution to their problem and inevitible change that must take place Kotter provides a road map of Eight Steps for Leading Change:

Create Urgency 

Form Powerful Coalitions

Create a Vision for Change

Communicate the Vision

Remove Obstacles to Empower Broad-based Actions

Generate Short-Term Wins

Build on Changes and Gain Momentum

Weave the Changes into the Culture 

Our Iceberg is a Melting is amust read for anyone in education who wishes to bring about positive changes within the curriculum, culture and community of the school.  Kotter provides great insight into the role of change in the healthy environment of any community based upon collaboration.     

Don't Be A Zax

The Zax
by Dr. Suess

One day, making tracks
In the prairie of Prax,
Came a North-Going Zax
And a South-Going Zax.
And it happened that both of them came to a place
Where they bumped. There they stood.
Foot to foot. Face to face.
“Look here, now!” the North-Going Zax said, “I say!
You are blocking my path. You are right in my way.
I’m a North-Going Zax and I always go north.
Get out of my way, now, and let me go forth!”
“Who’s in whose way?” snapped the South-Going Zax.
“I always go south, making south-going tracks.
So you’re in MY way! And I ask you to move
And let me go south in my south-going groove.”

Then the North-Going Zax puffed his chest up with pride.
“I never,” he said, “take a step to one side.
And I’ll prove to you that I won’t change my ways
If I have to keep standing here fifty-nine days!”

“And I’ll prove to YOU,” yelled the South-Going Zax,
“That I can stand here in the prairie of Prax
For fifty-nine years! For I live by a rule
That I learned as a boy back in South-Going School.
Never budge! That’s my rule. Never budge in the least!
Not an inch to the west! Not an inch to the east!
I’ll stay here, not budging! I can and I will
If it makes you and me and the whole world stand still!”

Well…
Of course the world didn’t stand still. The world grew.
In a couple of years, the new highway came through
And they built it right over those two stubborn Zax
And left them there, standing un-budged in their tracks.

I know far too many teachers who have their curriculum planned before they even meet their students for the new academic year.  They have the yellow handout for Monday and the green handout for Tuesday.  They give this quiz for this section and that Fall 2006.  Never changing from year to year semeser to semester, class to class and student to student. 

If we as educators remember that the learning process is about the students entrusted to our care, how can   the path of learning be determined without knowing the characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of the those students.  While the basic framework can be outlined, it is impossible to know what is the best way to make the learning real for those students. Students cannot be expected to value learning that that is not authentic and valuable to them. Therefore, we as educators cannot take on the process of educating students, the way the Zax approach moving through their world.

Embrace change, not for the sake of change, but for the chance to connect to the new students who will share your educational domain each new semester. Change should not only invigorate the students you teach but you as an educator as well.

Don' t be a Zax!!!