If We Could Just Keep Our "Friends" From Helping

I was reading an article recently - I won’t name the article or the publication because I’m not going to attack anyone personally. But I will share some of the general outrage I felt.

The article was reporting about some of the success of teachers who have “flipped” their instruction. These teachers had videoed some of their lectures so students could view that lectures on-line, at home. Then the following day, the students were able to spend more time practicing the skills that the lectures addressed. Self-reported benefits included covering more content and more one on one time with students. So far, so good.

Then in an attempt to present a balanced report, the “con” side was presented. Here the summary of the “con,” as shared by several teachers.

“If you teach this way (flipped), you will run out of things to do. We are not prepared to teach that much in a year.”

Really!!! We currently work in an environment where a primary (and legitimate) complaint of teachers is not having enough time to cover the content at the breadth and depth that they deem necessary. So some of our peers offer up the "con" position that if we improve the efficiency of content delivery we will run out of things to do during the school year. Exactly whose side are these people on?

The job of public school advocates would be so much easier if many of our peers would actually think about what they are saying before they open their mouths.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com! http://tinyurl.com/4ydqd4t
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool)
• Confirmed 2012 Presentations: NASB Conference; TASSP Conference (mutiple sessions); Region 10 ESC Fall Leadership Conference (Keynote)

Top LYS Tweets from the Week of March 4, 2012

I was at a conference recently and one of the presentations was “Internet Safety – Protect Your School.” I wish I could tell you more about the specifics of the session, but it was scheduled against an LYS presentation so all I can tell you is that it was lightly attended. But the topic did get me thinking. There is a lot of unsavory stuff floating around out there. Stuff that has no place in schools and should never be heard or viewed by children. Then factor in the down right malicious – viruses, malware, etc. Frankly it is enough to make the prudent educator decide that increased connectivity and access is not worth the risk, both real and perceived. If that is you, I urge to take a deep breath, take a step back and re-examine the situation. The Internet is like every other form of information transmission, just faster and cheaper. Take publications, video, audio, and public displays – all have unsavory elements that have no place in schools and should never be heard or viewed by children. And with those, as adults, we censor, filter and monitor our children to make sure they are engaged, learning and protected. In other words, we use common sense to effectively use the tools of knowledge transmission. All of this to say the following, Internet safety is like crossing a busy street with a child. Be prudent, look both ways, and the younger and less mature the child, the tighter you hold his or her hand.

A number of you in the LYS Nation are now using your own bootleg technology devices to follow Twitter. If you haven’t done so yet, we want you to join us. To let you see what you are missing, here are the Top 10 LYS Tweets from the week of March 4, 2012, as tabulated by the accountants at Price Waterhouse.

1. Education Leadership Truth: What we now ask our teachers and schools to do daily, we did infrequently.

2. The Fundamental 5 has not been topped, yet. Best presentation at NASSP 2012 (By @tdilg)

3. Any accountability system that doesn't recognize that the more at-risk the student, the more difficult the teaching, is fundamentally flawed.

4. When state accountability is flawed, districts should hold all schools accountable to adding value with internal measures. No one does this.

5. A bitter truth quote: Tell your teachers if they want a raise... 1 - Go vote. 2 - Vote for someone who funds schools.

6. When we let candidates that dismantle Public Education to get elected, we have ourselves to blame. Public Education must be our litmus test.

7. First key to campus success - focus on what you can control, not what you can't.

8. Standing Room Only crowd for LYS presentation at NASSP. LYSers from across the country connecting and re-connecting. The LYS Nation rolls on!

9. Watching Chris Everett (Curriculum Director - WISD) lead a principal meeting with the Fundamental 5 embedded. Hits 4 out of 5. Awesome!

10. It's official! The Fundamental 5 sold out at the NASSP Conference bookstore. 4th conference sell out in a row. Get your copy now at http://tinyurl.com/4ydqd4t

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com! http://tinyurl.com/4ydqd4t
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool)
• Confirmed 2012 Presentations: NASB Conference; TASSP Conference (mutiple sessions); Region 10 ESC Fall Leadership Conference (Keynote)

Blog and E-mail: A Review of Functions

Some of you have seen a version of this post before, but since I wrote it, we have added cover 150 new members to the LYS Nation. Therefore, I thought a refresher might be in order. The following is my attempt to explain the features that are embedded in the blog site and the e-mail updates.

Note: This section relates to the blog site (not the e-mail updates).

• On the left side of the page, E-Mail Updates: If you enter your e-mail address in the subscribe box, you will get a daily e-mail update of all the postings within the last 24 hours, after you respond to the confirmation e-mail (a spam preventative).
• On the left side of the page, under the E-Mail Updates area: UpTweet – If you like a post, click UpTweet and it takes you to your twitter account so you can post a link on your timeline.
• On the left side of the page, under the UpTweet area: Lead Your School Resources and Tools - Links to the Lead Your School campus support site; the PowerWalks site; the Amazon.com page for “The Fundamental Five: The Formula for Quality Instruction”; and the Amazon.com page for “Jump Start Your School”.
• On the left side of the page, under the Lead Your School Resources and Tools area: Twitter Updates – A running list of the last ten posts to the LYS Nation Twitter account.
• On the left side of the page, under the Twitter Updates area: Current School News - Click on any of the four key words and the most current news stories that relate to that key word will be displayed.
• On the left side of the page, under the Current School News area: Popular Posts – Shows the three most viewed blog posts from the last thirty days.
• On the left side of the page, under the Popular Post area: RSS Subscriptions
• On the left side of the page, under RSS Feeds: RSS Followers
• At the bottom of the blog page, under the last post of the week: Blog Archives - Click on a week, and all the posts from that week will be displayed.

Note: This section relates to the actual posts (on the blog site).

• If you click on a post title, it will pull up a comment box at the end of the post. Just type in your comment and click the "post comment" button.
• At the bottom of each post, click "comment" and you can leave a comment or read comments others have left. However, the majority of the comments, I post under the heading, "A Reader Writes."
• At the bottom of each post, click the envelope if you want to e-mail that post to another person.
• At the bottom of each post, if you click a "Label" word, it will pull up all the other posts that have the same label words.
• At the bottom of the post, there are reaction boxes. You get to rate the post.

Note: This section relates to the E-mail updates.

• If you click on "Lead Your School", it will take you to the blog site.
• If you click on a post title, it will take you to the post and there will be a comment box at the bottom of the screen. Just type in your comment and click the "post comment" button.

Note: This section relates to Reader Comments.

This is how all comments are handled:

• Your comments, opinions and question are welcomed and encouraged. Keep them coming.
• All comments opinions and questions are reviewed by me.
• Comments, opinions and questions, where it is asked that the information not be shared, receive a private response from me.
• One liners and comments that do not require a response are just posted as a comment. Do note that the LYS Nation does not send in many one-liners.
• Comments, opinions and questions of merit are posted as, “A Reader Writes…” They are posted in a first come, first serve fashion. So sometimes it takes a while to get to yours.
• I don’t know if it is proper blog etiquette or not, but I spell and grammar check comments before I post them.
• Comments are handled with a modified FERPA procedure. I will and do mask the identities of some writers, their schools and their districts. I do this to protect the writer and who or what they are writing about.

Post format.

• Text in italics is the comment of the reader.
• Your turn… This is your invitation to weigh in and join the conversation.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com! http://tinyurl.com/4ydqd4t
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Plans (Fundamental 5 Lesson Plan Tool); PW Lite (Basic PowerWalks Tool); PW Pro (Mid-level PowerWalks Tool)
• Confirmed 2012 Presentations: NASB Conference; TASSP Conference (multiple sessions); Region 10 ESC Fall Leadership Conference (Keynote)