We Have the Best People...

“We have the best football players in the county. We just trust them to practice on their own and show up on Saturday and win games.”

-Never said by University of Clemson Head Coach, Dabo Swinny

“We have the best ball players in the league. All I have to do is just work at my desk, send some e-mails and check the box scores a couple of times a month. After all, my players are professionals.” 

-Never said by Houston Astros Manager, A.J. Hench

“We have the best basketball players in the world. They have played this game all their lives, so they don’t need to improve.  I just expect them to show up at the arena, on time, on game nights.” 

-Never said by Golden State Warriors Head Coach, Steve Kerr

“We have the best teachers in the state. I trust them to know what to teach, when to teach it, and how to teach it. That’s what we hired them to do and I don’t micro-manage.” 

-Often said every day by way too many principals and superintendents.

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/Fundamental5 
• Upcoming Conference Presentations: TASSP Assistant Principal Workshop (Keynote); NASSP National Principals Conference 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Character Education Programs

Due to my background and travels, a lot of educators will ask me about character education / discipline management programs.  Which ones work best, which one to avoid, etc.? 

There are lots of good ones out there.  Personally, I endorse Girls and Boys Town.  Girls and Boys Town is to discipline management what Benjamin Bloom and Madeline Hunter are to instruction.  Everything else is a derivative of the original breakthrough thinking and practice.

That being said, it really doesn’t matter which fundamentally sound program you pick. Success and failure isn’t based on the program. It is based on you. 

If the program your select is implemented with full fidelity by every adult on the campus, it will work.

Every modification (no matter how logical) and every adult who opts out, “My kids behave just fine, I don’t need a program,” increases the both the speed and inevitability of failure.  But it is not program failure, it is implementation failure. And implementation failure is leadership failure.

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/Fundamental5 
• Upcoming Conference Presentations: The Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Curriculum Sources

Recently, I was meeting with a school board to provide some training on the practices of effective school districts. I was pointing out the providing teachers with a common scope of sequence is a leadership responsibility, and to not do so is a failure of leadership.  This board instantly understood the logic of this and one board member asked how her district was doing.  I said that they were on the right track, but they have made a critical misstep that was hampering implementation.  The error, they had four curriculum sources (or platforms). One for each content area. 

The subsequent questions were as follows: 1. How did this happen? 2. Why is this a problem?

First, how did this happened.  It happened because central office missed the critical distinction between theory and practice.  In identifying the what curriculum source to use, each group of content specialist searched for the best solution for their content area.  The four content areas found the four best solutions, for content areas in isolation.

Now, this leads to the second question, why is this problem?  In this district, it is a problem because each content curriculum is accessed and used a different way.   For the teacher that teaches just one content area, this is no problem at all.  But if you are a teacher responsible for multiple content areas (every elementary teacher and a large percentage of the secondary teachers in this district) or a campus administrator responsible for supervising and supporting teachers from multiple content area (every administrator in the district), you are in trouble.

The district had inadvertently created the following problem…  “Teachers we got you a different computer for each class that you teach.  For math, we got you an Apple. For science, we got to a PC. For ELA, we got you a Chromebook.  For social studies, we pulled an old Commodore 64 out of storage.  Now learn to use all of them at an expert level.  Why are you crying instead of thanking us?”

The answer, find a good curriculum source that spans all four content areas.  In this case, good is better than great.  And here is the dirty little truth that curriculum specialists just don’t understand.  It does matter how good the curriculum is, it is the mastery of the teacher that makes the curriculum come alive.  A great actor can read the back of a cereal box and make it riveting.  A great teacher can change the world with a good curriculum. 

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/Fundamental5 
• Upcoming Conference Presentations: The Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook