You Aren't Born With Your Passion - Part 2

Last week, I posted the story of how my dream to become the pilot of the space shuttle died at age 12.  I promised to finish the story this week because it does have a happier ending.  I left off with the aimless wandering between 6th grade and junior year, a time in which I considered nearly every profession that existed.

Enter my chemistry teacher.  No, this is not the inspiring story of how she turned me into a chemist.  Life's not a movie; it's more interesting than that.  I was at a school that required teacher approval for the next year's classes from the current year's teacher.  That meant my Algebra II teacher had to approve my signing up for Trigonometry or Calculus or Discrete Math after a five-minute conversation in which we looked at my grades and my interests.  I was taking Honors Chemistry, but I was hesitant about taking Honors Physics because I didn't really know anything about physics (and because the teacher of the regular level course was super-cute - let's be real about high school girls, people).  My chemistry teacher, Mrs. Demby, refused to sign off on the paper if I didn't sign up for honors.  While there was a process for overriding the teacher recommendation, I wasn't a person who bucked the system, so I conceded to Mrs. Demby and signed up for Honors Physics.  I doubt she knew it, but this was one of the most important decisions of my young life based on her advice.

When I got my schedule that summer, the name of the teacher listed was Jim Barbara.  My brother said, "Oh, you'll like him.  He's cool."  You cannot know what high praise that is from my brother.  He didn't like teachers; so if he thought a teacher was cool, that was like having the Queen of England bestow knighthood or something.  He was not wrong.  Mr. Barbara may have been the most interesting teacher I ever had.  Every day, we learned really difficult things, but I didn't realize they were difficult.  Somewhere near the first week of that class, I knew that I wanted to teach physics.  My notes are perfect because I figured I was going to need them.  I still use them, by the way.  Here they are in a folder so tattered from use you can't even hold it with one hand.

To say I fell in love with physics is the understatement of the year.  It was my last class of the day, and I would go home and do my homework in reverse class order so that I could do physics first.  I badgered poor Mr. Barbara to death with a million questions about how things worked.  I would be sitting in church and think how cool it was that I knew how the microphone the preacher was using worked.  

Here's the point I'm trying to make.  Mrs. Demby could have given in to what I wanted.  It would have been easier for her to sign off on my paper than to talk me into something she felt I would enjoy.  I don't know if I would have fallen in love with physics in the easier class (My speculation is that I would have spent more time staring at Mr. Gore).    Others have a similar story of the first time they discovered their passion for art, writing, music, math, etc. simply because a parent, teacher, or friend insisted that they take a class or go to a camp.  You don't know what you are going to love, so stop thinking you have to take only those practical STEM classes or that you don't need science because you are going to be a musician.  What you want now doesn't necessarily reflect what you will love later.  Take evey opportunity given to you to find out what your passion is because you were not born with it.  It may just take that one class.

You Aren't Born With Your Passion - Part 1

If you had asked me at this time in my junior year what I wanted to do with my life, I would not have had an answer.  It wasn't that I had no interests; I had many interests.  I had too many interests and didn't know what I wanted to do with them.  When it came to choosing a career or college major, I felt like God had lost my phone number.  If you are a high school student being told to "follow your passion" but don't know what it is yet, this post and the next one are for you.

Let me back up to elementary school.  If you had asked me in third grade what I wanted to be when I grew up, it would have looked something like this:

Yep, that was my plan.  I was going to have a husband and three kids.  I was also going to pilot the space shuttle.  For those of you that say, "Yeah, everybody wanted to be an astronaut," notice that I didn't say that.  My goals were very specific; I was going to pilot the space shuttle.  I had a plan for this.  In fourth grade, I somehow got my hands on an application to the air force academy.  I had it completely filled out (you have to imagine the fourth grader handwriting to fully appreciate this).  I had people lined up to write me recommendation letters and was getting advice on how to have a congressperson provide me with an appointment.  I carried around pictures of the shuttle next to my pictures of Michael J. Fox and had photos of the moon in my notebooks.  This was going to happen.  Until . . .

Have you ever looked up the requirements for astronauts?  If you do so today, you can be 6'3" regardless of gender, but in the 80's, a female astronaut couldn't be taller than 5'8" tall.  I passed that height in fifth grade and kept growing until I reached 5'11" at the age of fifteen.  I was not going to pilot the space shuttle.  Well-meaning people who were honestly trying to be helpful told me some very stupid things.  Among them, I would be so good that NASA would change the rules for me (seriously?).

The most dangerous thing that several people told this disappointed fifth grader was that God wouldn't have let me want it so much if it wasn't His plan for me.  I had read enough of the Bible at that point to know that was garbage.  As an adult, let me just say that not matter how well meaning you are - This. Is. Heresy.  The advice to follow one's heart is ridiculous when put up next scriptures that tell us the heart is desperately wicked.  The idea that God won't let you want things He doesn't want for you flies in the face of Paul asking to have his thorn in the flesh removed.  Don't say this to children; don't say it to anyone.

So, I was a little aimless for a while.  As I mentioned earlier, I had many interests.  I loved animals, theater, science, music, television, church activities, and books.  I played the piano, the clarinet, and the handbells.  I participated in school plays and babysat and volunteered for the NC Right to Life.  There wasn't a lack of interest; there was a lack of focus.  I was interested in everything (except sports - I never could seem to get psyched about that).  I considered all kinds of careers.  If I had become everything I considered during this time, it would have looked like this:

Yes, I would have been a writing, photograph taking, elementary school teaching, pharmaceutical, veterinarian, physical therapist.  And, oh yeah, I still wanted to have a husband and three kids.  

I was a little lost, not knowing what I wanted to do or what God wanted me to do.  I remained in that wandering state until my senior year, but remember the line from JJ Tolkien's poem, "All That is Gold Does Not Glitter."  He reminds us that "not all those who wander are lost."  

More on this in my next post.

. . . Should Be Required For All Students

I'm usually just standing there, minding my own business, when someone who knows that I'm a teacher decides it is time to give me their opinion on the entire modern American school system.  I'm not sure what kind of power they think I have to make changes nationwide, but they are not shy about giving me their list of complaints.

Then, there are the more subtle people.  They just complain about society in general for a while and then throw in that there should be a required class on - fill in the blank.
- "My child can't sew on a button.  Schools should require Home Ec classes."
- "My child can't make change out of a dollar.  Math classes should be more applicable to real life.  I mean, after all, I don't use algebra."  (Apparently, this parent doesn't know that making change out of a dollar is algebra.)
- "Children today are rude.  Schools should have more character education."
- "Children are obese.  Schools need better nutrition and PE programs."
- "The drug problem is out of control.  What are they learning in Health classes?"
- "All kids should be required to play a team sport.  They'd get so much out of it."  (Okay, we'll let you coach the team of kids that were forced to be there against their will.)
- "It's a shame they don't teach penmanship anymore.  My son only knows how to text."

I could list several hundred more, but you get the idea.  The problem here isn't a small one.  It is a nationwide attitude.  Whatever the social ill, the school system is either the solution or the problem.  After all, if the school system just went back to teaching Home Ec and Handwriting, we could go back to pretending we live in a Norman Rockwell painting.  Maybe you did learn to sew a button in home ec, but I learned it from my mom.  If making change means a lot to you, maybe you should teach your child to do it, but most of society stopped caring after cash registers were invented.  The rude kids come to school rude, and we don't like it either.  The food choices happening in your home are yours, and I promise they aren't getting money for drugs from their teachers.  No one loves their penmanship more than I do, but what would you like the school to stop teaching so that we can keep that in the curriculum?  Or, how many hours would you like to add to the school day so I can add sewing buttons and chopping vegetables and making change (and doing laundry and taxes and checkbooks and every item on everybody's list) to the current curriculum?  Oh, wait, you also told me you wish the school day started later, so I guess that won't work.

Part of the problem is that people want conflicting things.  They want the school to solve all the problems of the world, but they don't trust the school system.  They want the school to fully prepare their children for adult life, but they don't want them to experience consequences along the way.  They want their children to learn everything they learned plus the technology skills required for the 21st-century.  They want to have it all without paying for it; it's just not possible.

It's a kind of chronological snobbery to think the way I learned is the best (or only) way to learn.  Research and MRIs have given us an understanding of the brain that we didn't have before.  Technology has given us tools we didn't have before.  We have a more diverse population with a wider variety of educational needs than we have ever had before.  However, we have the same number of hours in a day we have always had and the same number of days in the year that we have always had.  The number of minutes kids spend at school must be carefully spent because they are limited.  We can't fit in all the things you learned the way you learned them plus all the things that have come about since then.  If there are things that truly matter to you that aren't being addressed by the school system, it may be time to sit down with your child and teach that to them yourself.

Just a Story? There's No Such Thing

This weekend, the movie The Shack, based on the book of the same name was released and opened third at the box office.  I believe this book to be heretical and don't expect any more from the movie and have shared a few posts on my social media regarding it.  There are enough of those, so that's not what this post is about.  This post addresses the most common response I have received with regard to these posts.

"It's just a story."
"Come on, it's just a story.  It's not scripture."
"It's just a story.  Lighten up."
"It's not supposed to be the Bible.  It's just a story."

Here's the thing; I'm not sure there is any such thing a just a story.

Stories have a powerful effect on us.  It's why people write them.  Before there was even writing, there was storytelling.  It's why we teach literature to students and read books to children.  It's why there are book quotes in my twitter feed.  It's why I was upset when Atticus Finch let me down in the sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird.  It's why a teenager quotes Harry Potter to me almost daily.  It's why I think about The West Wing when I consider what might be happening inside the white house.  The stories we read become part of our collective consciousness.  They become part of us and our shared beliefs.  They affect our thinking in ways we aren't even conscious of.

I'm not a fan of censorship, so I'm not advocating boycotts or book burnings.  I am, however, a big fan of self-censorship.  I believe we must take care in our own lives about the stories we choose.  This is especially true when a story is about God.  I don't know much about William Young; he may be a perfectly lovely man.  The only thing I know about him for sure is that he is fallen and has, therefore, a fallen imagination.  Do I want his imagination to become part of my theology?  Do I want a woman named Papa to bleed into my thoughts about the Creator?  Even if the effect on my thinking remains small, we aren't talking about a small effect on my thoughts about dogs or space aliens.  We are talking about the way I think about God.  THIS. IS. IMPORTANT.  This isn't something for me to lighten up about.

We live in a world of books, movies, music, and art of various kinds.  There is no way to consume it all, so we make choices.  It is our responsibility as teachers to help our students make wise choices, and we cannot do that if we are modeling passive consumption.  We must use wisdom for ourselves as well.  I'm not suggesting that we insulate ourselves into a bubble that only include art that agrees with our worldview.  The world is a more complex and interesting place than that.  I am suggesting that we don't judge a work of art casually because it is JUST a work of art.  Francis Schaeffer's great work Art and the Bible gives four criteria for judging a work of art faithfully.  Only one of those four is the worldview of the artist and the message the work communicates, but it is one of the four.  Those responding, "It's just a story" are leaving it off the list entirely.

NCTIES 2017 Notes

I'd like to say that the reason I haven't blogged yet this week is because I was saving the post for these NCTIES notes.  I can't say that, though, because it would be a lie.  I've been overwhelmed with the end of the quarter because I'm very behind in grading, my final yearbook deadline on Monday, and community service day.  It does, however, work out well.  I'll be blogging from every workshop in this post.  I'll update at the end end of each session. For the uninitiated, NCTIES stands for North Carolina Technology in Education Society, and they have a yearly convention in which teachers and administrators come and learn from each other about how to implement technology while delivering content to students.

Keynote Speaker - Courageous Edventures - Jennie Magiera
Notes:
- The purpose of school is to prepare kids for tomorrow.
- 65% of today's students will be employed in jobs that don't exist yet.
- We have to take risks in order to lead change.
- Teaching kids that they cannot fail or they will fail at life is dangerous.  It creates fear of failure, which leads to taking no risks, ultimately resulting in no learning.
- We are providing far too much support because we are afraid kids won't succeed.  That's still not them succeeding; it is us succeeding for them.
- FAIL - First Attempt In Learning - That makes failure the beginning and not the end.
- SAIL - Subsequent Attempts In Learning
- Failure's going to happen, and that's okay.  That's when we are able to take some adventures.
- "I can't" comes from fear and disbelief.
- Find a crew, people to go on the adventure with you.
- Five tips for Edventuring
   1.  Relax and have fun
   2.  Make sure your curriculum is future ready.
   3.  Teach kids, not topics.
   4.  Don't wait to take a risk.

Tools:
- Google Expeditions

Takeaways:
- Technology should enhance our humanity, not detract from it.
- Find out if Google Expeditions has to be a literal place.  Can it be to the inside of an atom or cell?

SketchNoting:  Tapping Into Visual Thinking and Learning
Notes:
- Expressing ideas in a meaningful way doesn't have to be beautiful.  It is a process of synthesizing information they are taking in.
- It only matters that it means something to the note taker.
- It should be done with the students' personal preference.  If they will do better with paper and pencil than iPad, they should have that option.

- Start with the main idea and build around it.
- It's helpful to have "containers" for each thought.  This could be boxes, scrolls, hearts, thought bubbles, etc.  It needs to make sense to the note taker.
- There should be some kind of organization, but it only matters that it is organized in a way that the notetaker (read as "not the teacher or parent") understands.  The differences could be shape of container, color of notes, code for information type,

- Sketchnotes may become Infographics, but they are not the same thing.
- Sketchnotes must be personally meaningful, but it doesn't matter if anyone else understands it.  If you plan to have others get anything out of it, should be condensed into an Infographic.
- Using icons or images (a star or exclamation point next to an important point, a stick figure to represent a speaker, a question mark to indicate a need for further research) may also make the information more meaningful to the notetaker.
- Color choices can be used for meaning, steps, categories, or just attractiveness.
- Asking them to explain it to me will create extra processing and deeper learning.
- The research was done by having a group take notes on a TED talk on either a computer or a paper group.  Factual information was assessed at about the same level, but conceptual relationships were higher for those who took notes on paper and doodled.  The laptop group wrote more stuff down, but they didn't understand the connections as well.

Tools:
- ProCreate
- Penultimate
- SktchBook Ink
- Paper by Fiftythree
- Forge

Takeaways:
- Encourage students to figure out what works for them.  Don't insist it look like the way you would do it.
- If they look back at it later and it doesn't make sense, it isn't helpful.

3D Animation - Student Showcase
Jaime Hartley's Set Design Class - creating animation for the set of Peter Pan because we don't have the facilities to allow students to fly.  Students also applied it to other disciplines with animations of blood cells, DNA, even a colorful sweater.

Easy as 1, 2, 3D - Using 3D Printing
- Can build a 3D printer at Discovery place in Charlotte.
- Empowers students to create, the highest level of Bloom's taxonomy.
(I left this one ten minutes in.  It was far more foundational than I was expecting it to be.)

Digital Citizenship - Students Impacting the World Through Passion Driven Multimedia Projects
(Came in 10 minutes late because I was at the 3D Printing one)

Notes:
- Open choice can paralyze students.  A way to break the paralysis is to do a "heartbreak map."  Think of something you love, and then figure out what breaks your heart within that thing.  That's the thing you want to change and make better.
- Generate a million ideas before choosing.  The initial idea might be crazy (Teach senior citizens to skydive), but it could lead to a doable idea (Teach senior citizens how to use a computer to connect with their grandchild who lives far away).
- Students should start with a proposal pitch.
- Use Twitter or other social media to promote what you are doing, ask questions, crowdsource the solution to a problem, and get feedback.
- Students can lead a Twitter chat for real-time feedback.
- Art Application:  Find a client who needs artwork or graphic design for something they are doing.  They can hire your student.  It gives a reality check if the student has done something the client doesn't like.
- Get your project out into the community.  If it stays within your school, it doesn't have the impact it could.  Make a video or blog to get it out into the world.  Then promote it via social media.  The students also use better skills (video editing, lighting, etc.) if they know they will be public.

Tools:
- Angela Myers
- Kevin Brookhauser
- Next Vista for Learning - a contest for students to make a PSA for a non-profit.  The winning video wins prize money for the non-profit.

Takeaways:
- Don't just have the student choose a topic that interests them.  Have them figure out how that thing could be better.  The resulting project is more meaningful if they are trying to take something they already love and make it better.
- Student-led professional development - Students teach tools, skills, technology, etc. to the teachers on a PD day.  It gives teachers an idea of tools students can use and teaches students how difficult it can be to teach a room full of people.
- "In 2017, your digital footprint IS your resume."

Using Escape EDU in the Classroom
Notes:
- Breakout boxes are available, but it can easily be done with different types of locks.
- The example had code breaking/problem solving but not content.
- Have students create them for the other classes.
- There are pre-made ones if you want to get your feet wet.
- It should be just hard enough to be meaningful and challenging but not so hard that they can't get the box open.
- Try not to help them too much.  There are hint cards.  You could have a penalty for using them so the kids will have to be strategic about whether or not to use them.
- Riddles helps keep kids going.
- Invisible ink pens are on Amazon, but if you use a yellow highlighter on a dark surface, it does the same thing.

Tools:
- Breakoutedu.com

Takeaways:
- Make sure to tie content to it.  This would be easy with math-based activities.

Creating a Culture of Making
Notes:
- A culture is a shared set of values.
- We've been makers since man picked up the first tool.
- If you don't have administrative support, you're not going to get very far.
- Raid the storeroom at your school.  There's a lot of stuff that is not being used.
- Once making starts to happen, donations will come in.
- If you establish a community of makers, older kids will love to help younger kids.
- Contact a local university to see if they will loan or donate materials (snap circuit kits, etc.)
- Different stations will give kids options of what they would like to make.
- There are summer workshops at the Educations Studio at Discovery Place
- Minecraft is making.
- Have a maker class in which you use:  Arduinao, Mindstorm, Scratch games, MakeyMakey projects, marshmallow cannons, and Rube Goldberg machines.
- Try analog coding first before showing them computer coding.  Students must communicate with a student in only three code words.  Then, they understand how the computer only understands a few commands.
- Where you can, get other teachers on board.  Move making out into the curriculum.

Takeaways:
- Makerspace culture doesn't happen by accident.  It happens when you are very focused.
- If you don't have a budget, don't think you can't do it.  You'll just have to do it in little bits and pieces.
- Don't get deflated if you don't accomplish all your goals in the first year.  You are planting seeds and will reach a critical point where it takes off.  Establish a foundation, and watch it grow.

Trashy Tech to the Rescue
Notes:
- The engineering design process (like Design Thinking) guides building and STEM.
- Vernier apps let you use iPads to film or measure in slow motion with tracers.  It will allow you to graph and analyze data.
- Free fall lab could be analyzed.
- Give a goal and design constraints.  Provide materials.  Avoid being any more controlling than that.
- Start simple.  It will take longer than you think.

The 5th C - Connecting Content to The Four C's
Notes:
- Discovery Education Spotlight on Strategies
- Use Advanced Search
- There are a lot of animations, activities, assignments, and 3D photos.  There are more 3D photos to come.

Takeaways:
- Check on Discovery Education for non-location based VR
- Ask Zane if he's seen a plant growing through a maze.
- Tell Hannah about VR tours of National Parks.

Personalize Learning Through Student Agency
Disclaimer:  I am not a fan of the concept of personalized learning and believe it only feeds entitlement.  I attended this workshop to see if there were elements of it that I could apply to differentiated instruction, which I do believe in.

Notes:
- Content and pedagogy should lead technology, not the other way around.
- Top 3 words - Individualized, Differentiated, Choice
- We must students how to make the best decisions within the range of choice.
- Student agency is allowing students to lead their own learning.  It is not arguing with the teacher about a grade.
- Students must understand their learning differences in order to make decisions.  It's not learning styles or preferences.  It's about how their brain is working individually.  It requires a lot of metacognition.
- Told a lot of stories about different learners, but not a lot of practical information.

Tools:
- mentimeter www.menti.com - Kind of like poll everywhere.
- Your Learner Sketch at facesoflearning.net

Takeaways:
- Take how their brain works differently into account.

Session on Google Chrome Extension Cancelled

Fake News and Search Strategies
Disclaimer:  I didn't come to this one for the topic as much as for the speaker.  Richard Byrne is the creator of Free Tech for Teachers as well as PracticalEdTech.com
Notes:
- Searching is a thought process.
- Students often google with a confirmation bias in mind.
- Often they will use super-broad search terms without an understanding of what they are really looking for.
- Google is great at navigational and transactional searches.  It is not great at informational searches, so get your students away from commercial search engines for informational searches.
- Think of other descriptions for your words (movie vs. cinema, British spellings of words, etc.)
- Pre-search checklist at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iN1Pp-brvVOu6z8I2Rg1pag3oeUVWjnPW5ZxginA0ag/edit to help students narrow down their search before they start.
- Search by file type to narrow your search.
- Search by domain to get a different perspective.
- Use Google Scholar for scholar reviewed articles that aren't ranked by popularity.
- It's easy to miss things you aren't looking for.

Tools:
- Practicaledtech.com

Takeaways:
- Planning ahead will allow for better searching.

The Possibilities Are Endless
Disclaimer:  I ended up at this one because the session I wanted to go to on designing content with Chromebooks was full.  This is another one on personalized learning.

Notes:
- Presenters showed a Volkswagon video where people walked up stairs that were piano keys that made sounds, making 66% more people take the stairs.
- They asked people for takeaways.  The people in this room are clearly already in the "personalized learning" camp, so all of their answers were about the benefits of personalized learning.
- We were all given a blog post that compared a person's experience in a spin class with the classroom environment.  It encouraged a lot of student choice in the classroom experience, everything from where the student sits to how fast they learn.  (Here's where we run into my issue with this concept.  The writer thinks that because most things in life are customized, school should be too.  I believe the proliferation of customization is one of the worst things about modern culture and, therefore, want to fight against that in my classroom. I won't even order personalized yearbooks.)
- We were then instructed to have a group statement for three different interpretations of this text.  (By the way, I notice that this workshop is NOT personalized.)
-

Takeaways:
- Even though I disagree with this concept, there's got to be something I can take away from this that is positive.  That's going to be about the use of data for goal setting.  I would like for my kids to look at where they are once a week and set an intermediate goal that would eventually lead to their long term goals.

Your Digital Footprint
Notes:
- Be aware of the pictures you post of your own child because you are developing their digital footprint.
- Parents google their kids teachers.  You should have your twitter account and website on your business card.  You should be easily distinguishable from other people with your name.  Even if it is just an About.me page, you should be google-able.
- The school website is not the best source for information on the school.
- Laura was very right about the arrogance of this speaker.
- You can have your resume ready by 9AM tomorrow, but you can't change your google search in the same amount of time.  It takes time.
- If you follow someone, it indicates that you approve of them.
- You are a teacher 24/7 in the public eye.  Don't try to separate school and life.
- It's polite to ask kids for permission before posting pictures of them, just like you get consent from their parents.
- It's not inauthentic to change your behavior based on context.  A lot of what you would share with other adults shouldn't be shared with students or online.


Takeaways:
- If you follow someone, it indicates that you approve of them.
- If your worst ten minutes were online, would you have a job?


Fabulous Tech Finds That Make The Life of a Teacher Easier
Notes:
- Their Presentation:   https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/12dTapTq5Lfsq2WetlM7Ov-jVcgKh89Ws-YEd5bYEi0I/edit#slide=id.g181510314a_4_642
- You can color-code your folders in google drive. (Does Isaiah Whelpley know this?)
- This one is pretty much all a list of tools with little context.

Tools:
- www.menti.com - Like PollEverywhere
- Chrome Extensions - quick access tools - There's a web store
- Google Keep - note taking - Like Evernote
- See the presentation.  She had 129 slides.

Takeaways:
- Ask Dana - This lady said her school went to Chromebooks and that students cannot plug their Chromebooks into a projector for doing presentations.

Engaging Exit Tickets and Checks for Understanding
Notes:
- Formative assessments matter because you might make decisions on the fly based on the results.
- You can set padlet to grid or free-form.  Try starting with grid and then having kids sort information by switching to free form.
- Socrative - If you use it as an exit ticket as a routine, keep the room number posted.  Then, it should only take about 30s.
- Quizizz - Like Kahoot but better for the teacher and for use as a study tool.
- Classkick - Students can answer in writing, drawing, or even verbally using a microphone.  Students can also cross collaborate by "raising their hand" in the upper corner of the screen.
- Quizlet Live -
- Answer Garden -

Tools:
- https://sites.google.com/imesdapps.org/empowertheclassroom/engaged-exit-tickets-and-checks-for-understandings

Awards, awards, lots of awards, and some more awards

Final Keynote Speaker - Characteristics of Innovative Leaders - George Couros 
- IT has the hardest job because no one calls and says, "Hey, the internet worked all day.  Thanks."
- Grades to not always equate to success.
- "The world only cares about what you can do with what you know, and it doesn't care how you learned it."
- Literacy is something that continuously develops.
- We sometimes teach kids to be subversive to learn.  If your kids can teach you to get around the filter, there is something wrong.
- Relationships are the most important aspect of education.
- What is the experience your kids go home and tell their parents at the end of the day?
- If you think a picture is worth a thousand words, what do you think a video is worth?
- If you surround yourself with passionate and intelligent people, that will increase in yourself.
- "To teach is to learn twice."
- How do you innovate within your constraints?
- I don't just want them to learn math. I want them to be able to do something with the math they have learned.
- Always err on the side of positive.
- Failure is part of learning, but resiliency is the part we should celebrate.
- If grades don't tell the story of a child, you've got to provide something as an alternative.