Category Archives: 2010

And The Band Plays On (Reflectively)

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Today, I observed our band director and his band, which is a credit class in our school. They meet every day at the last period of the day. The class includes students from all four years and all academic levels as we track at our school.

The O'Hara Band

The O'Hara Band

So as I entered the band room, I saw our band director, Nick Corvino, about to conduct the band playing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. The approximately 75 musicians in the room sounded great. That is not unusual. But what Mr. Corvino was doing was truly innovative.

On a music stand behind him sat his iPhone. He was recording the large band using the voice memo app. After recording the piece, he connected his iPhone to the sound system and played the piece back for the band. Before doing this, he asked each student to take some notes, and constructively critique the performance. He then played the track.

I watched the students intently listening and then when the track ended, some of the students offered their insights on what they heard.  Their observations were specific, constructive, and well worded. The teacher listened, asked some follow up questions, and then had the band review the sections that were pointed out by the students.

I could hear the improvement and sense the learning. To me, this simple exercise brought the students to reflection on their playing as a group. It helped them to listen and hear the other players, and understand their role in the piece in a much more authentic way.  In a way, everyone in the room was a co-director.

Student centered, project based, reflective, collaborative, and creative. Congrats to Nick and his kids for a great class. The arts do matter.

What would this practice look like in other subject areas?

College and Career Readiness?

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These words are used all of the time in the constant discussion of what is wrong with our schools.  Politicians, billionaires, and TV pundits use the phrases “21st Century” and “College and Career Readiness” interchangeably, as if they are synonymous.

Don’t get me wrong, I want our students to be prepared for college, if they choose that path, and the adult world of a career, but is that the chief goal of K through 12 education? Are we simply preparing kids for the next stop on the ladder of life? Or are we preparing them for now, and for actual life.

The expression of “college and career readiness” sounds great in the press. No one can deny that kids should be ready for this. But shouldn’t that readiness be a result of learning rather than the driving force of learning?

I believe that our schools should be caring places where we focus on our students being given the opportunity to learn in a way that best suits them. To open our schools to their connected life. To teach and learn in a way that truly prepares them for life as citizens, parents, neighbors, and coworkers.

How are we preparing kids for their future in this highly connected society by pushing standardized tests as the sum total of their and their teachers’ achievements? By using 19th century models of teaching and testing, can we expect them to be better prepared? If we simply try harder to make a tired old model of learning work, can we really expect better results?

So they blame the teachers. They blame the administrators.  But I have yet to hear someone in a position to do so blame the model of education that we are perpetuating because we believe that it worked for us when we were kids. But isn’t the world different now? And if we really ponder things, for those of us who graduated high school more than a few years ago, was our experience truly good enough for us?

And if you say yes, think about it. What made your education ring true to you? It was likely that caring teacher who saw the possibilities that existed in you. In many cases it was simply that teacher who acknowledged your existence.  And 10, 20, 30, or more years from your high school graduation you will remember them. They inspired you. They helped you and encouraged you to find your passion. How much do we remember about any standardized test we took?

So my question is: is college and career readiness our goal? If so, how do we measure that and who gets to measure it?  Or should we be aiming higher? In an environment where everyone wants us   to try harder, shouldn’t we, in the words of Seth Godin, try different?

Thanks for stopping by.

Ed Allen

Look For The Good

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Here we are in early October. School has started, sports are playing, the show rehearsals are underway, classes are rolling, and everyone in the country is debating education.

So, it may be simple to say, but here goes. Let’s all look for the good.  See the goodness in each other, our fellow teachers and admins, and the kids that are in our care.  Look for the good on those days when each of us may feel that not much has gone right.  And celebrate it.

When school transformation isn’t happening as quickly as we want, let’s look at how far we have come.  When the class we just taught didn’t rock like we thought it would believe that the next one will and the class was likely better than you think.

There is greatness in every school and in every classroom.  And there is endless potential. No matter what the billionaires tell us about our work.

So that’s it for now.  We are all facing challenges every day. And there is so much work to do. So this may be simplistic, but for some odd reason it is resonating with me today.

Simply look for the good. And maybe the bad won’t seem as bad. And oh yeah, Go Phillies!

Thanks for stopping by.

Living On The Edge

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This is my first post of the new school year. It is always exciting as an educator to welcome the huge possibilities a new year provides. A new beginning, new classes, new students, new ideas, renewed energy, and boundless hopes awaited us all. We start on the edge of greatness.

This past week, I was lucky enough to attend two fantastic professional development days. On Wednesday, I was part of a new cohort for school leaders in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. It was the kickoff for our Powerful learning Practice (PLP) cohort for school leaders, beginning a sustained, embedded year of professional development that should benefit us, our teachers and our students as we work to transform our schools into places of 21st Century teaching and learning with our Catholic Values as our center and guiding force.

On Thursday, there was a second PLP kickoff for the teacher teams in a separate cohort. There were over 100 teachers and administrators present. Some are in their third year of PLP and some are starting their journey as first year members.

This is my third year in PLP and my third as a 21st Century Fellow in the cohort. It is the third year that our school has had a PLP team. So here we sit on the edge of transformation.

But now the national focus is on billionaires, networks, and politicians, acting as if they have the capacity to tell us all what is wrong with our schools and how to fix it. They push standardization, job readiness, and other very traditional educational ideas as new. NBC had its Education Nation week, and essentially ripped the dedicated people who work in public education and essentially indicted all of us with letting our students and country down.

But notice, if you watched or read any of the coverage, a distinct lack of teachers, building admins, parents, and students. Sure there were a few teachers, and some big names such as Michele Rhee and Arne Duncan espousing accountability and achievement. But it seems to me that what they are looking for is performance on a test, not learning. There is a difference.

We have always been a nation of innovators, a nation of creators. If we become a nation of great test takers at the expense of happy, motivated, creative people, we, as a nation and as a world will be in huge trouble. But our scores will be high.

Is the goal here to beat other countries, or have our students ready for the future into which they are entering? How does a great standardized test score in any subject translate to actual understanding and the ability to critically think, collaborate, communicate and create? I’m just asking. Are we on the edge of the loss of our creative edge?

The other day I was reading Will Richardson’s blog, which is a frequent stop on my Google Reader. Will and Sheryl Nussbaum Beech are the founders and leaders of PLP and I consider myself very fortunate to have worked with and gotten to know them over the past few years.

The post I was reading is titled The Wrong Conversations. Please read this post. It is a perfectly framed post. In it, Will cites a post by Diana Rhoten Called “We Are Not waiting for Superman, We Are Empowering Superheroes.” He cites several sections of the post, and I will cite one of them here:

“We believe the edge is a place in the system where the risk of failure and the opportunity for success are most allowable, and we want to be the people who take the risk to demonstrate the opportunity. We’re not Pollyannaish about the challenges of working on the edge. We know much of what we try will fail; that’s what innovation is about. We also know that it will take time for the work we support to travel from the early adopters to the mainstream, but we don’t see an alternative. Better to demonstrate what could be than to wait for what might be.”

That is where many of us find ourselves, living on the edge.

Will ends his post with this:

“Let NBC and Bill Gates and Oprah have at the “fixing schools” conversation. Let’s keep our energies and our laser like focus on the learning, in whatever form that takes.”

Well said. Let’s make this a great school year, live on the edge, and make it empowering for the kids who count on us more than any politician, pundit, or famous personality ever could.

Leadership Day 2010 – The Time Is Now

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Scott Mcleod has invited bloggers to post thoughts on Educational leadership on Leadership Day 2010, Friday, July 30. OK, I know that it is Sunday, August 1, but I am going to take the lead of Chris Lehmanm who has called for it to be Leadership Weekend.

School leaders need to be willing to transform themselves before they can transform their schools. So many well meaning leaders are often through no fault of their own, ardent supporters of the status quo.

The tremendous shifts that have occurred in our society are often pushed aside as mere distractions to what is believed to be what schools should be. The desire to fight for the status quo is supported by popular opinion, parents, politicians, and teachers. If the test scores are good, if our kids are getting into college, then all is well, right?  Meanwhile the world is changing. And our schools, for the most part, are not.

So what advice would I give? We need to encourage school leaders to connect. Encourage them to subscribe to some blogs, use some Google Docs to collaborate, and start to connect with other teachers and admins on Twitter. And maybe an unconference?  Sounds simple. But imagine if we could get half of our school leaders to do this?

For those of us who have stepped into the connected world of the read/write web, we have seen how we have learned. We have seen how we have changed. We have learned to share, to be transparent, and have enjoyed the process.  It then becomes easy for us to see that we need to transform our schools if it works for us, it has to work for our kids!

The challenge is for all of us who blog and/or tweet to stretch our learning and build connections, we should adopt a school leader and give them a supportive push toward self transformation.  Who knows, it just might work!

Our schools will never become the communities that they can be until the leadership can fully participate and model the willingness to learn in a multitude of ways. And it is Leadership Day (weekend) 2010. The time is now. Choosing the status quo is not an option.

Rejecting Limits

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I just read another great post by Seth Godin. The post is called Accepting Limits. Please read it.

Here is an excerpt from the brief post:

And isn’t it even worse to write off a person or an organization merely because of what they are instead of what they might become?

And yet we do all of the time. We lock kids into academic tracks that determine how far they can grow. We believe that we can’t challenge our students at high levels because they won’t get it.  We see people with disabilities feel badly for them, and decide that they can’t achieve like a “normal” person can.

We, as a society look at schools and blame them and the teachers. Instead of seeing organizations and people that are able and willing to grow, we condemn.

Yes, we accept limits.

But shouldn’t we reject them?  Is it not our responsibility to support a student’s belief that they can make a difference? As someone with a disability, I have been blessed with people who did not see many limits in me. Sure there are some I know who do, but I am grateful to those who have empowered me to try to make a difference.

Every student we meet needs to be empowered. Every student we meet needs to not have limits placed on them by standardized tests or failure to be a good memorizer. We could be limiting great leaders who will make a difference.

One final quote from Godin’s post:

“Just because it’s difficult to grade doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be taught.”

Thanks for stopping by. I welcome your comments.

We Have Some Netbooks! Which Way Should We Go?

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At our school, we have recently received two classrooms full of netbooks. This is exciting news for us as we are planning on going 1 to 1 in the next few years.

We are trying to decide the best way to implement the use of the netbooks. There are essentially two trains of thought:

Option 1:

  • Select three teachers who have demonstrated use of web 2.0 as a learning tool for their students and for themselves.
  • Have these teachers use the netbooks for the life of the netbooks.
  • Have these teachers blog and have their students guest blog about the 1 to 1 experience and have the blog publicly available through our school site.

Perceived benefits:

  • Action research will be obtained.
  • Parents will be able to read about the challenges and successes. Transparency will be high.
  • With three teachers, by the end of the first year, we will have about 450 students who will be ambassadors of goodwill, having had an immersive experience over each year.
  • Once one year of success is underway, planning can begin to scale 1 to1 to the entire school.

Option 2:

  • Select 8 teachers who demonstrate the willingness to enter the 1 to1 idea.
  • Give each teacher 1 quarter to use the netbooks with their class.

Perceived Benefits:

  • Higher equity, getting more teachers involved.
  • More students will get to use the netbooks.

So I ask your opinion. Which option is better, and why?  I have my opinion, but that can wait. Thank you so much for your input!

And as always, thanks for stopping by!

Happy April

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Well it is April. I missed all of March here on this blog!

March was busy, another show to produce, and the daily events that keep me from blogging. (OK, I admit it, the only thing keeping me from blogging is me.)

So here are a couple of thoughts:

I know that I keep saying it, but high school theatre is an excellent learning event.  The rehearsals, the assembling of the final show, the construction of the set, the imagining,  the technical aspects, the collaboration, challenges, and successes all work to create learning and joy. Giving the kids ownership of a huge project, guiding them on their way, is rewarding for the teachers involved as well as the students.

I am currently reading Seth Godin’s Linchpin. There is so much to consider from the book.  But one quote for this short post. Early in the book Godin says this:

“There are no longer any good jobs where someone will tell you precisely what to do.”

What does that say about the way we currently teach and assess?

Have a great April. Thanks for stopping by.

My EduCon 2.2 Reflections

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On Friday, January 29, eight of us left our school in suburban Philadelphia and made our way to the Science Leadership Academy. It was a short 20 minute ride. We had our entire PLP Year 2 team along with the chair of our science department. So the adventure began

Two of us had attended last year, but we did not arrive on Friday. When we all arrived, we checked in at the entrance of Science Leadership Academy. (SLA) We were greeted by very welcoming students and equally welcoming parent volunteers who checked us in. It was a very organized smooth check in.

This student created poster was in the hall, welcoming post-it note commects

This student created poster was in the hall, welcoming post-it note commects

A student tour guide approached and told us that he would be our tour guide. He was an outstanding guide. More on the tour later.

The Friday night panel at the Franklin Institute was an impressive display of connected learning. The title of the panel was “What IS Smart.” A great question that should be asked in every school. The panel was outstanding. The back channel on twitter was also outstanding.

With iPhones and other smart phones aglow, the #educon tag was all over twitter as questions were sent to Chris Lehman, the Principal of SLA, who sat in the front with his iPhone. And those not asking questions were commenting on the proceedings adding value to the whole experience.

On Saturday and Sunday, we had opening discussions and then the conversations began. Instead of passive presentations, EduCon, like SLA embraces dialogue on the topic at hand. Facilitators would kick things off and then the discussion would ensue. This format helps to make EduCon the most effective conference there is.

I attended 6 sessions over the weekend. They were all great. Some of the conversations I attended included: Subversive PD, Introduction to Inquiry, User-Generated Education: An Authentic Student-Centric Model of Education, and Metacognition. All of the sessions were tremendous learning experiences, but two really stand out.

Chris Lehman’s “Leadership 2.0 started out with an overcrowded class room. Packed to the walls. As a high school admin, the topic Leadership 2.0appealed to me and the session was well worth the time. Chris, as always brought his passion for leadership and schools as caring communities to the session. I think that we all left with renewed energy to transform our schools.

Developing Learning SpacesThe other was David Jakes “On the Development of Learning Spaces.” David brought his expertise and friendly nature to the session. He started by distributing a paper handout and willingly took the groans for using actual paper. But I still have it! The session focused on converting existing school environments into ones conducive to community and learning. It has made me really think of our classrooms, my classroom, my office and other spaces around the building.

All of the session information and archives can be found here.

While I know this is a long post, I have saved the best for last.

The student guided tour was a tremendous learning experience for our team. Coming from a traditional school, we saw a very different

SLA student guide teaching our group

SLA student guide teaching our group

way of doing things at SLA. Our guide, Jeff, was outstanding, answering our questions and even taking us into an empty room to explain how the school schedule works, and how the assessment process works. And we were an attentive group!

All of the SLA teachers we met were welcoming and willing to answer all of our questions, and we had many.

My take aways:

  • When we entered a class, at first glance, it was difficult to determine where the “front” of the room was. This is truly a learner centered place.
  • The students we met were happy to answer questions. They all seemed to really love being SLA students. And while they had varying views on some of the questions asked, they exhibited a strong sense of ownership. If we heard the word “we” once, when referring to their school, we heard it a hundred times.
  • One comment from one of our team stands out. They said on the tour that they felt no tension in the building. Very cool.
  • Every student we encountered greeted us with a smile and was happy to talk with us.

After the tour, we all had a late lunch and discussed our day. All were impressed beyond words with what they saw. The inquiry driven, project based approach seems the direction that many of us would like to go.

The eternal question is, when you see a school as right as SLA, can it be replicated?  There were about 500 motivated progressive thinking teachers there. Enough to start 100 new schools. Enough to transform hundreds of existing schools. But can it be done?

I humbly say yes. Not replicated in the sense of copied, but replicated in the sense of taking the core ideas and shaping them to fit each community. If we have spent 100 years shaping the industrial model to fit communities, can’t we now shape progressive ideas, that are by no means new, that can now flourish in an embedded, technology rich, (but not tech focused) environment and make it work? Why not?

Thanks to Chris Lehman, the faculty, parents and students of SLA for EduCon. It was a tremendous learning experience, one that has provoked much thinking and reflection. It was also great to meet in person, so many people that I have only met online. It is powerful how well we know each other before we meet. I am looking forward to EduCon 2.3 to learn more, and meet more of those in my ever expanding PLN.

Our school team has not stopped discussing our EduCon experience. We have been discussing it on our school ning site and soon will get together for a face to face reflective dinner.

Thanks for taking the  time to read this very long post. Comment if you would like!

O’Hara Sings For Stargardt’s

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It has been a while since I posted here. Not for a lack of ideas or thoughts, simply because I have been reading so much and not writing. But I am going to try to balance the 2 for the rest of the year.

So the next post or 2 will be to catch up on some events and thoughts.

At the end of our school’s production of Les Miserables School Edition, the members of the cast announced backstage that they were going to have an event called “O’Hara Sings for Stargardt’s.” This is a disease of which I am a proud owner.  This was an overwhelming gift. The students told me that I would not be directing this one. They were going to produce the entire thing themselves.

So the date was set for Sunday evening, January 24, 2010 at 7 PM in our school theatre, St. John Vianney Hall. I had no idea what to expect, but I knew the talent of our kids and the generosity of their hearts would make the event tremendous.

All I knew was that rehearsals were happening somewhere, and stage crew was meeting with the performers to plan and design all of the technical aspects of the show, now called a cabaret.

When we arrived, I saw many of our teachers, friends, family, students and grads. I couldn’t believe the turnout. The students had done all of the publicity, networking on facebook and putting posters

The poster for event, designed by students

The poster for event, designed by students

everywhere.  My wife and I were escorted to the front row. The 2 of us are not used to sitting in the audience, we are always in the production booth in the back. So this was strange.

Before the show, we spoke with many people. Then the house lights went down, and the nine seniors took the stage. Dan, Camille, Jackie, Katie, Mike, Molly, Nicole, Pete, and Steph

The Cabaret student Performers

The Cabaret student Performers

played the music and sang the songs.  They performed a collection of Broadway, pop, and rock. An incredible performance. Each got to showcase their stunning voices and they sang as a powerful ensemble on several pieces. The collaboration was evident. These kids selected the songs, worked out who would sing what, and perfected the performance all on their own.

The stage crew did an incredible job coordinating the lighting and sound. Matt, Andrew, Ryan, Kaitlyn and the rest of the crew pulled all of this off without me knowing a thing.

At the end of the show, they called me to the stage and we ended with a rousing version of “Because the Night” with a blend of Bruce Springsteen and Patty Smith. (It was the kids’ choice).

For me, it was an overwhelming experience. I was proud of these students and humbled by them as well. I couldn’t believe the caring event that I had just witnessed. And I was so proud of their performance as their teacher.

This is an example of what our students are really like. They are kind, they care, and they are generous. Surer they had fun, and they love to perform, but this was far above all of that.  I cannot thank all of the students involved enough. While the seniors were performing, our dancers served as ushers, and other members of our theatre program helped with refreshments and recording video of the event. They all simply rocked!

Thanks to all who attended, particularly my family and my fellow teachers. And as always, thanks to my wife Denise for her unending support.

Thanks also to my fellow admins for their support of the event and granting permission for the students to use our theatre.

Proceeds from the cabaret will be given to the American Macular Degeneration Foundation.