This middle school student had a good idea that just kept getting better. A Pittsburgh-area teen had a hypothesis for his science fair project: The school district might save some money by reducing its use of printer ink…by changing the font used to create the handouts teachers distribute in class.

His thorough research and well-documented findings led to an expansion of that novel idea and…to headline news at CNN.com: Teen to Government: Change your typeface, save millions.

To get straight to the point:  I am not an avid or successful Twitter user.  The mere thought of saying something that matters in 140 characters makes me want to hide under my desk.

But recently I have become increasingly aware of the potential for Twitter to support my work.  I often find myself deep in discussions of how to make a policy shift work, when to introduce a certain idea to a group of educators, who to engage as stakeholders in a project, or what  aspect of an initiative to tackle first.  These are all important – in fact, they are the nuts and bolts of my job.  And they are complicated, often layered in details, and sometimes take weeks to unpack. Continue reading “To Tweet or Not to Tweet: That Shouldn’t Be a Question”

The internet is replete with blogs that list tips for every possible need.  

“Top 10 ways to clean (___everything you ever owned or wanted to own___).”
“Fifty ways to make your (__any relationship you can think of____) happy. ”
“Suggestions for being a better (___whatever____).”

I find much of this advice to be incredibly useful, while other offerings are pretty silly. I recently wanted to learn how to paint a couch (Don’t ask!) and found a variety of how-to-pointers. One blog caught my attention: — Tip 1: Make sure you want the couch, before painting. Tip 2:  Make sure others in the house want the couch. Tip 3:  Rule out that someone loves the sofa and might be touchy about changing the color, particularly if it is new.  This advice seemed ridiculously obvious, particularly since I am the only person in my household with any interest in furniture. After some searching, I found some lists that offered very practical suggestions about painting chairs and couches. Continue reading “Thirteen Tips”

About twice each year we coordinate with a local school to have artwork by their students turn our office walls into our very own art gallery. This month we hung a new batch of work and invited the students and their parents to come by for an art show so we could thank them for letting us brighten our office with their projects.

The current artwork is from Hoover Elementary School in Iowa City. Art teacher, Cerina Wade, had the 6th graders at Hoover do a project based on artist Faith Ringgold’s Quilt Stories. Ringgold began making story quilts as a way to have her voice heard and in the hopes that her stories would be published as books. Wade liked having her students create their own quilt stories because they involve a number of creative processes. The students first write a very short story with the understanding that they will need to draw a picture depicting the story too. Once the story is written and drawn it is pieced together with a variety of patterned and colorful paper cut to emulate quilting blocks. The final step is to piece the whole work together.

It has been such a treat to read all of these stories accompanied by the drawings of what the story looked like in the young authors’ minds as we walk down our colorful gallery hallway.

You can view this video to see and hear Ringgold discuss the creative process with her most famous quilt story, Tar Beach, which was published as a book.

I just read a recent Hartford Courant article about an op-ed piece written by middle school English teacher, Elizabeth Natale, of West Hartford Connecticut.  Elizabeth stated in her article that she was considering quitting her job because of government education reforms that are “stripping the joy out of teaching and doing nothing to help the children.” [i][1]  A week after publishing Elisabeth’s editorial, The Courant discovered her comments had gone viral and were receiving supportive responses from teachers all over the country. The Courant quoted education author, Jonathan Kozol, “There’s no question that Elizabeth Natale has captured the mood among classroom teachers who are caught in the straitjacket of the Common Core and the entire regimen that evaluates teachers on the basis of their students’ scores on virtually meaningless standardized exams.” [2] Continue reading “Worry about Working Conditions”

The last of the ponds where I live froze over this week.  The bitter cold weather has made it a struggle for the geese to find food, and the few remaining flocks of geese can be seen overhead, heading for warmer regions. The sight of the birds streaming across the sky, in V-formation reminds me of the often quoted parable, “The Wisdom of Geese”.  The way the geese fly in a pattern to conserve energy and use the uplift from the birds in the front of the V suggests lessons to be learned by people who work together in teams.  The “wisdom” to be gained from the flight patterns of geese is that teams who share a common goal and a sense of community will arrive at their intended destination more efficiently, because (like the geese) they accept help of another, and simultaneously offer benefit to their peers. As a goose falls out of the V-formation, it suddenly feels drag and resistance and quickly moves back into formation to take advantage of the aerodynamic properties of the V-pattern. What are the big lessons here?  If you have as much sense as a goose, you will stay in formation with those headed where the team wants to go. And, just like geese, a well-functioning team will stand by each other when the going gets tough. Continue reading “Geese in the Winter Sky”

The Iowa City Community Schools (ICCSD) decided to hold school on the Martin Luther King, Jr., federal holiday this year.  The Coalition for Racial Justice strongly opposed this decision and asked the school board to honor the MLK Holiday and cancel school on Monday, January 20.  The school board decided not to cancel school in 2014; instead, they passed a resolution that ICCSD should not hold school on the holiday in 2015 and beyond. The board also appointed liaisons to the Coalition for Racial Justice and the Center for Worker Justice to improve communication and community representation in future decisions.  Continue reading “Honoring MLK in Iowa City and Beyond”

One of the greatest privileges in my professional life has been the opportunity to learn the discipline of professional learning in education from highly respected researchers who advanced not just the field of professional development (PD) but the broader sphere of educational reform. Beverly Showers, a widely published and internationally recognized researcher, shaped my growth as an educator and supported the design of a comprehensive state-wide system of professional development in Iowa.  Our work together resulted in dissemination of multiple state publications and the delivery of workshops across the state on how to implement and sustain the Iowa Professional Development Model (IPDM).  Bev concluded from her own research and her knowledge of PD literature that teachers can “acquire new knowledge and skill and use it in their instructional practice when provided with adequate opportunities to learn”[1]. Continue reading “Peer Coaching”

This week I will ask my kids to tell me what they are thankful for.  I will most likely get the usual responses – my dog, my video games, my doll, my Transformers.  And when I ask them to reflect a little more I’ll get some answers I like better – my house, my family, my coat, healthy food.  This year I decided that I will put a little thought into it before I sit down at the table.  And as I did, I couldn’t stop thinking about how grateful I am for the compassion and empathy I have seen inside my children’s school this month. Continue reading “To Everyone in Our Schools: Thank You for Your Compassion and Empathy”