Extended Tweet

I read the stream coming through my twitter every day. That's the core of my professional development. I read so many good articles, blog posts, comments. It's non-stop. But I'm a non-contributer. I tweet once every two months, and they're rarely full of substance. I have this blog to reflect and share and I rarely post.

My day usually starts at 5am. I wake up that early to do work that I don't want to do in the evenings. My daughter is 15 months old. My second daughter will be delivered this Monday (it's a scheduled c-section, that's why I know the exact date). I do work at 5am because I don't want to take any waking time away from my daughter or from my wife. So I work, drink coffee, get ready. I usually leave around 7-ish. I work on campus from then until about 4 or 4:30, depending on the day. So I'm home by 4:45 and I play with my daughter until we've fed her, bathed her, and put her to bed at 7:30. If I can keep my eyes open I hang out with my wife, play some wordswithfriends (she's been beating me so much lately!!), and drink a glass or two of wine. Then I fall asleep with The West Wing playing in the background.

So when do you people tweet and post blogs??? Where do you find the time? I just cannot take any more time from my family than I already do. I want to (tweet and post blogs, not take more time from my family) but I love them too freaking much! I have so much to contribute to this conversation, so many IDEAS to share, but for right now the only ears they fall on are my wife's. And a buddy every now and then.

From the moment I step on campus until the moment I leave I give all I've got. Rarely does a day pass where I get home and my feet aren't tired. I feel like I need the ice whirlpool more than I did after football practice in college. And when I walk in the door I give all I've got to my daughter, and will somehow find some more to give when daughter two gets here. And when that's done I've got no' mo'. I'm spent.

So forgive me for not contributing more right now. I will, somehow. I promise. I just don't know when.

Parental Assessment

I've been a parent for all of fourteen months now, so I think it's fair to say that my thoughts on the following are, at the most, expert level.

When it's all said and done I don't think it will be fair to assess my work as a parent until my children are at least eighteen years old. Probably much older, considering that much of what I do today is still reflective of lessons my parents taught me many years ago. Speaking of my parents, they split when I was in seventh grade. Much of what I do today is probably reflective of what I was taught before their split. However, much of what I remember learning came after their split, and came from my mom. If someone was to assess her job as a parent they would look at me, my sister (2 years older), and my brother (4 years younger) as the empirical evidence justifying their "grade". Personally I'd give her an A (no way that grade is biased), because in all honesty the three of us are decent, ethical, happy individuals. We don't break the law. We help others when we can. We aren't saving the world (at least not yet), but we're productive, positive contributing citizens. That's certainly a job well done on her part.

But could that job have been assessed twenty years ago, when I was fifteen? And if not, why is the job of teachers and administrators and educators assessed and scrutinized solely on the past year? And not even the past year...the past eight or nine (out of ten) months of instruction? Because it makes perfect sense that standardized exams should take place in April and May, not at the latest possible time. "Hey future lawyers...law school is three years long, but let's administer the LSAT after 2.75 years. That last quarter of a year isn't all that important." I digress.

Education has gotten an awfully bad rap in recent times, especially the past few years. The topic of teacher assessment, a job that as much as any has an infinite amount of outside forces applying pressure and restraints... ("Hey there kiddo, what do you say? Your mom's boyfriend came home last night drunk and you had to provoke him so he didn't hit her? And you slept on a paper thin mattress in a room with your two little brothers and your cousin? And you didn't eat breakfast? I can't imagine that there's much on your mind, so just write down this learning objective and be sure to buy into the fact that solving systems of equations is going to be imperative for you to learn.")...is where we immediately turn our focus. And we focus on the immediate. Forget the fact that tomorrow morning, on the day before our school-year starts, I'm doing an activity with our staff where we finish the following sentence on a note-card, "I got into education because...," and that my sentence will conclude with, "...my fifth grade teacher was incredible, enthusiastic, and fun. And as a ten year-old I can remember watching him, being entertained and inspired by him, and thinking, 'Man it sure would be cool to have a job where I'm THAT happy!'" Because that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that it was twenty-five years ago and Mr. Stewart still has that effect on me. The teachers in the room with me tomorrow will still be, for the most part, "graded" by what they do between Tuesday and late April, when our standardized tests are administered. But what really matters will never be tested, will never be assessed, until twenty-so years from now when someone asks them who inspired them to be who they are. Why is that?

My daughter is fourteen months old. By most accounts she's great. She smiles a ton. A friend recently commented, "I can't believe how advanced Ellie is." I didn't know what to compare her to. He said he was amazed that when she got to a step I told her, "Step down Ellie," and she did. What else was I gonna tell her? If she becomes a compulsive shoplifter in her teen years am I still a good dad for what I've gotten her to do recently? I sure don't think so (and my thoughts are expert). So let's cut teachers some slack. Let's develop a model that somehow assesses school systems on how they prepare students for the world. Let's create a longitudinal study for every school district based on statistics of citizenship, philanthropic contribution, volunteer hours served, mitzvahs completed, etc. Let's factor in the litany of other factors, such as SES status, obstacles overcome, opportunities for growth realized. Let's stop using as the bar for a successful parent the accomplishments of a toddler, or a teenager, and instead look at the adult citizen participating in a democratic society. Only then will we know how we're doing as educators.

Let's progress.

Why solveforwhy?

Hi there. I'm Alex. I'll be blogging here.

Let's see...the particulars are that I'm 35, a very happily married husband and father of one and one on the way. I've been a full time teacher since 2004, teaching high school algebra, geometry, algebra 2, remediation classes, and leadership classes. After six and a half years at the same school I moved on to my current assignment, Lead Teacher and Math Teacher at ACE Charter High School. We are just a few days away from finishing our inaugural year and already my position is evolving. I'll drop 1/3 of my teaching assignment next year and pick up administrative duties. The plan is to be our full time AP in year three.

Solveforwhy was created because I was reading Chris Lehman and Dan Meyer and knew that I needed to get these thoughts and ideas out of my head and into the existing discussion. Sure solveforwhy is a play on words with math but it definitely describes how I've always been. As a college football player I found myself observing the way that the program was operated and wondering what could be done to allow it, or rather cause it, to run more efficiently and effectively. I was very interested in leadership and made a point to ask myself what I would do if I was in that position, be it head coach, teacher, principal, dad, etc. So understanding the 'why' of what was happening, of what decisions were being made, of the way people were conducting themselves, was constantly (and still is) at the forefront of my observations.

I want to be a school leader. Some places call it that. Other places call it principal. Whatever the title, I do want to be that guy. And, at least right now, I feel that I want to do it for the right reasons. I want to foster an environment that gives kids a voice. I want to lead an organization that forces neither teaching nor learning on anyone. I want to inspire and lead teachers to become the best versions of themselves, which will hopefully lead them to inspire and lead students to do the same. Outside of being a dad and a husband I'm more passionate about this than I have ever been about anything.

But I don't see it happening enough, and that's something else I want to do. Like Chris, I want to show others that it can and must be done. I want to help figure out why it's not happening everywhere and help find solutions that we can all implement. I want to be part of the struggle. It is, in my opinion, not only a worthy struggle but also an enormously challenging one. And for some reason I've always been drawn to those.

That all sounds a bit save-the-world-ish, and honestly that's not me. I'm more of a "be the change you wish to see" kind of guy. I think that blogging is going to help me do that. For as long as I can remember I've reflected and wondered and contemplated. It's been that conversation in my head, and with others, that has slowly shaped me into the educator I am today. But I'm recognizing that to take it a step further I need to put those reflections and wonders and contemplations out there for others to read, talk about, comment on, criticize, even classify as absurd. Someone other than my wife.

So with the end of the school year just around the corner and a list of about 6-7 topics I'm ready to start typing about I kick off solveforwhy. Welcome, I hope you enjoy, and I hope I can learn.