If there is one animal I'm a sucker for, it's a koala. This little guy was born without one back paw. But a dentist stepped outside of his area of expertise to solve the problem. Love it!

Embrace the 'near win' is the core message of Lewis' book. In this short read, Lewis profiles some incredibly successful people, but what I like most about it is that she focused not on just their successes but on what brought them that success: their failures.

Lewis argues that instead of stigmatizing failure, we should look at it differently. Every failure is a step closer to success. Every failure should be celebrated as a 'near win.'

Ultimately, "success" means little if we can't do it again and again, or, in other words, master something.

I love this point from the book -

"At the point of mastery, when there seems nothing left to move beyond, we find a way to move beyond ourselves. Success motivates. Yet the near win — the constant auto-correct of a curved-line path — can propel us in an ongoing quest. We see it whenever we aim, climb, or create with mastery as our aim, when the outcome is determined by what happens at the margins."

Week #26 – March 8-12

Teaching Thought #111 - Could do vs. Should do

Now that I’m also head football coach, I find a lot more on my plate than usual. I love this tip that I found somewhere last summer - It’s vital to prioritize what matters most. To help with this, put at the top of your priorities list the one thing that you can do now that will make everything better. In the long run. That last part is the most important.

Too often I’m not intentional with my time. If I’m not intentional, I’ll waste my prep looking for a book that I want to read for SSR tomorrow instead of grading the essays that I need to get back to the class after my prep! I mean, I have a thousand books in my room. I can find an SSR book in a second. But I will waste time looking for that one book I loaned out to a student three years ago that I have to start reading again and miss my chance to get the essays graded for next period.

That means I now have to do it at home, which then delays a lot of other things I should be doing.

So now, I put a Sticky-Note on my laptop with the number one thing that I have to get done during my prep that will make the rest of my evening (if not the rest of my week) less stressful.

I’d love to hear your tips and tricks for being intentional with your time.

Teaching Thought #112 - Communicate your Vision and your Plan

Yesterday, a few of my students came in grumbling about the new book they are reading, Ken Robinson’s The Element. They don’t like it. It’s boring. It’s so long. There was too much to read. It says the same thing over and over again.

I cut it off as soon as I could. I didn’t just want to play the “This-is-a-college-level-class-so-suck-it-up” card, but I was close.

Instead I tried to communicate my vision and purpose for having them read it. Once I did that, once they knew the why behind the book, things cleared up. I’m not saying they enjoyed it anymore, but they knew I had a vision.

I first drew a “12” on the board. I told them that was our composite score as a high school on the ACT for reading complex information. Then I asked them what they thought the average overall score was for a MN student on the ACT (it’s 21.3). YET, we collectively score ‘12’ on reading complex information.

I looked around the room, then held the book up, and said, “Now you know why.” It dawned on a few students. Then I continued, “Your professors in college don’t care if you like a text or not. They don’t care if you think it’s boring. What you need to realize is that this -” again, I held the book up - “has something to teach you. You have to be open to learning it.”

Then I handed Eleanor, a junior in the class, a copy of my dear old copy of my college literary criticism textbook and had her read a random passage that I found underlined and scribbled with my notes from 1997.

She read it. Then I asked, what do you remember from it?

“Nothing,” she replied.

“Yep. Why?”

“It was a difficult paragraph.”

“Yep. That’s why I had to, “ I said, pointing at the notes I scribbled in the margins, “take notes and re-read it. That is the college way. Most of you aren’t there yet. Most of you spend more time watching Netflix than reading. That ‘12’ composite score shouldn’t surprise anyone. It doesn’t mean you can’t learn. It just means you have to work to learn it.”

And we went to work.

I’m not expert at casting vision, but once I explained what college level reading is really like and shared some strategies on how to take notes to assist in recalling what they have read, things got better. They knew the purpose behind the reading. They might not enjoy it - and I don’t care if they do (it’s a hard truth to accept but most high school students at this age don’t interest me all that much. The person that really interests me is the person they will be in a decade. That’s the person I’m really trying to reach) - what I want them to do is engage with some unfamiliar, and difficult ideas. And that is what college is really all about.

Teaching Thought #113 - Vision 2.0

This one is short and sweet: Vision is so important because it helps define what is a distraction and what is an opportunity.

Today, I am going to strive to make this clear to my College Comp students. Yes, reading The Element may be boring, but I have a handful of students who read it and have their lives changed. They start thinking about what their ‘element’ is and it sets them on a different path. For those that do, college becomes an opportunity. For those who don’t have a clear vision of what they want to do, then college often becomes a distraction of parties and social events.

And if students still think it’s boring and a waste of time, well, at least they have read a college level text, thought about their future lives and their skills and abilities, and learned about a wide array of people who overcame far greater obstacles than what these students will face. And maybe, just maybe, that ‘12’ composite score on reading complex information will creep up just a bit.

Teaching Thought #114 - Vision 3.0

Vision is also a great filter. It shows you who gets to stay and who has to go. If you can’t get buy into the vision, then students (or team members or staff members) are going to struggle. This is what Seth Godin refers to as, “This might not be for you.”

I can live with that now. Since the GPA requirements have been lowered and since the accuplacer isn’t currently used to filter out students for CIHS classes, I get students who want to get college credit but don’t want to work for that credit.

But is this really so different from other classes?

I just stress to students that IF they want to get a rigorous college level writing and reading experience, this class is a great opportunity for them. If they want to try to get college credit but still work like it’s a high school class, well, “This might not be for you.” At least it might not be for you right now. But that can change. If you buy in and want to do the work.

How do you use vision to create buy-in? I’d love to hear.

Teaching Thought #115 - Opportunity

S’more doesn’t let me embed pictures in my posts here, so this one will be at the top of the newsletter. It’s a quote from Henry Ford: “Opportunity is missed by most people because it’s dressed in overall and looks like work.” That is the message I’m going to have for my College Compers today as we tackle Ch. 4 of The Element. Vision is all about putting in the work.

Knowing that students enjoy my classes. That's as good as it gets.

My good friend, and hall of fame high school football coach, Jeff Mumm, is featured on this podcast. If you're interested in football and great teaching strategies and how to build a program and how to create a culture that is second to none, this podcast episode is for you.

I love that he takes something most of us - well, when we were kids anyway - love to destroy (or, at least pop) and transforms it into art. Innovation at its finest.

Twitter is the best PD I've ever had. I learn more in half an hour on Twitter than I did in my first decade of school sponsored PD.

The Sticky-Note book report.

I know, I know, I know. I've written about this often before, but just hear me out.

This is a perfect assignment for asynchronous learning. Sure, I have college in the high school students, but I've had just as much success with this assignment with my remedial reading 9th grade class. In fact, several years ago, our former principal was doing a walk through eval when my 9th graders were wrapping up their book reports.

He pulled me aside later and said, "You know, every one of those remedial readers couldn't wait to tell me about their books." That's the power of giving students choice over what they want to read and then giving them guidelines on how to annotate and engage with the books and then getting out of their way!

Email me if you want to know more about this assignment!

Above is a former remarkable student's color coordinator guide to her Sticky-Notes. She happened to have read Sarah Lewis' The Rise, which - fortuitously - is our book of the week!

The personal connections the students make to the texts are one of my favorite things about this assignment. No prefabricated worksheets can come close to this!

Look at all that thinking!

Again, look at all that thinking and engaging with their texts!

A shout out has to go to Stacey Leake - our media specialist - who has never turned down one of my book requests! Our students are truly blessed in the variety of texts our media center offers.

We have an upcoming class called "Hot Topics," which is all about exploring controversial issues and discussing them. I'm a bit worried about this, though.

It's so easy to let our biases and beliefs blind us. What ever happened to thinking from other other side? What about asking questions to actually get information rather than just further our point? How about actually using a counter claim with logic and reasoning?

I think the first order of business in that class is learning how to actually ask a good question and then listen to the answer instead of just trying to talk over another person (just watch an interview on CNN or Fox News). The Question Formulation Technique in the article is very intriguing.

If I teach that class, I'm making this article is going to be mandatory reading on the very first day.

I need to print this and tape it to my desk as a constant reminder.

I am married to the most amazing person in the world, Kristie. It was love at first sight. At least for me. And it still is.

We have four wonderful children, Casey, Koko, Kenzie, and Cash. And now we have been blessed with five grandchildren!

I also happen to have the greatest job in the world: teaching English to high school students.

I am in my 23rd year of teaching at Lincoln High School. I graduated from Lafayette High School in Red Lake Falls in 1992. I decided to enter the field of education because of two amazing teachers, Mr. Mueller, my fourth and sixth grade elementary school teacher and assistant baseball coach, and Mrs. Christianson, my 9th grade English teacher.

I attended Northland Community College, and had my life changed by the amazing Dr. Diane Drake. Then I transferred to Bemidji State University in 1995. There I had amazing professors who further inspired me to teach English (Dr. Helen Bonner, Dr. Mark Christensen, Susan Hauser, and Gerry Schnabel). I graduated with my BS in English Education in 1997.

I student taught with the wonderful Lisa Semanko and then began teaching full-time at LHS in 1998.

I took a year's leave of absence in 2001-02 to return to BSU for my MA in English. There I had the privilege to teach and work closely with my greatest mentor, Dr. Mark Christensen. I earned my MA in English in 2006 and was honored with "Thesis of the Year" for my creative non-fiction, braided, multi-genre memoir, "Meeting Myrtle: A Biography."

In 2013, thanks to my dear friend and mentor, Dr. Jodi Holen, I was offered an adjunct teaching position fall semester at the University of North Dakota. Tuesday nights I teach Intro to Education: Teaching and Learning 250 from 5-8. Those three hours fly by in about ten minutes.

Then in 2016 I was blessed to win a WEM award (thanks to a nomination from a former student (and now an elementary school teacher), Ciera Mooney).

In 2017 I became part of the #pineconepd podcast club along with Brian Loe, Jeff Mumm, Kelsey Johnson, Kelly Weets, Josh Watne, Tevia Strand, Megan Vigen, Mariah Hruby, Laura Brickson, Loren Leake, Katie Hahn, Melora Burgee, and new members all the time. This has been one of the best forms of PD I've ever been a part of. They make me a better teacher every time we meet. Please think about joining us in the summer at the Pine Cone Pub from 6:30 - until we've solved all the world's problems. For that evening anyway.

Thanks to the inspiration of Shane Zutz (our former principal) I devised this as a way to distribute my Teaching Thoughts and add more content to, hopefully, help out and inspire others.

Email: kurt.reynolds@myprowler.org
Website: http://teacherscribe.blogspot.com
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