Saying Thank You

picture: southbayschool.org

Below is my Rosh Hashanah ( New Year's ) Message that I sent out to my faculty.

I just wanted to take a moment and say Thank You!

Thank you for your support
Thank you for your help
Thank you for your understanding and patience
Thank you for all your hard work and dedication

The list can go on but I think you get the idea.

This often is a thankless job and I at times are just as guilty as the next person in not showing my appreciation and HaKarat Hatov (recognizing the good) in all that you do.

In the spirit of being open and transparent, I would like to share with you some of my SMART goals for the coming year some personal and some professional.

I hope to be a better friend and keep connected to friends in other communities

I want to set aside at least 30 min to an hour day for my own learning ( small and manageable)

I want to listen better to your ideas

I want to say thank you to each and every one of you at least once a week

I want to spend more quality time with my family

May we be Zocheh ( merit) a year of health and happiness and may this be a year of prosperity and peace

Wishing you all a Ketiva V'Chatima Tova
Akevy

MY VERSION OF NO OFFICE DAY

Picture from: connectedprincipals.com

This week administrators from across the world picked one day to set aside as No Office Day. Truth be told I have a partial no office day every day. Besides my administrative duties I teach fifth grade for about 2-2.5 hours every day. However today I made a special effort to be out of my office more and go into some other classes.

My day started off with my eating breakfast with our 7/8 boys. Then I went to second grade who were working in groups. I sat down (on the floor) with one of the groups and joined there discussion. Then I sat with another student and started learning with him.

After that I went to teach my Fifth grade and today we did a jigsaw activity on certain Pesukim (verses) in the Chumash (the Bible).
My next stop was lunch and recess and duty (that I do regularly and Thursday just happens to be my day)

After that I decided to eat lunch with the 7/8 girls and had a very nice discussion with them and asked them for feedback for how their year was going so far.
Then I cheated a bit and during my lunch time I did some office work.
In the afternoon I was in the third grade when they played a game based on the Hebrew months and helped the fourth graders work on something about Rosh Hashanah (The Jewish New Year).
Finally before I taught my JH class on digital citizenship I had the chance to play kickball with the sixth grade at recess I was all time pitcher.

Yes it was great to spend more time in the classroom and less time in front of my computer. It was great to see all the learning and engaged students that I know happens every day but actual had a chance to see it and enjoy it for myself. However my biggest take away was how important the simple things and those non class moments are like talking at lunch or playing ball with your students.

Deep Roots a Key for the Future

I have blogged a lot lately about Technology, 21st Century skills and Religion. How does it all fit together. How do we find that necessary balance. For those of you that have read my posts you know that someone who I respect and admire is Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. Rabbi Sacks is one who on has achieved this balance between the modern world and religion.
Here are excerpts of a "Though of the Day" from June 2000 called "Dancing with the Past":
"Religious Jews are among the most enthusiastic users of the Internet for educational purposes; and in Israel, a country of only five million, Jews have created the largest high-tech industry outside the United States.
And yet, when it comes to the Torah, we still write the exactly as our ancestors have done by hand on parchment using a quill.
There is a view I hear often in the media almost every day....forget virtues like honour, fidelity,civility;above all,forget religion.They're old...For heaven sake aren't we living in the 21st Century.

It's a view that couldn't be more wrong. It is when the winds blow hardest that you need the deepest roots. When you are entering uncharted territory. it's when you need a compass to give you a sense of direction. What gives us the strength to cope with change are things that don't change....

I knew beyond a flicker of a doubt that those who carry with them the heritage of the past are those who can face the future without fear."

It is clear that as we move forward and face our changing society head on we can only do so if we take our heritage and religion with us.

One Child at a Time

There is always a lot of talk about school reform. It is a very important topic but at times I think we look at it using a very wide angle lens and we tend to see all the problems. When looking at it through that type of lens type of lens it can seem overwhelming and perhaps our reaction is why bother trying. We are not going to change the system and what can I do?

My faith and religion is something that is very important to me and as many of you know offers me a source of inspiration. When the issue of education reform came up I found inspiration in something that I read this week by Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.
He tells the story about David who is a pediatrician and David had a favorite story. The story is actually taken from Loren Eiseley, a famous anthropologist.
The story is as follows:
"An old man was walking along the beach when he saw a young man throwing starfish that got stranded by the tide back into the sea one by one. He went up to him and asked why he was doing this. The young man answered that otherwise the starfish would die. The old man said, but the beach goes on for miles and there are thousands of them, you will not be able to save them all. How can your effort make a difference? The young man looked at the starfish in is hand and threw it to safety in the waves.To this one he said it makes a difference."( Loren Eiseley, The Star Thrower, New York: Times Books 1978)

Rabbi Sacks adds; "We do it one day at a time, one person at a time, one act at a time. A single life, said the sages, is like a universe. Save a life and you save a world. Change a life you begin to change the world."

Therefore I think we need to take a narrow lens when looking at school reform. Perhaps we can't the change everything and perhaps the system is just too big but if we can change one child or one class then we begin to change the world.

Therefore as it says in the Ethics of our fathers: It is not our responsibility to to finish the work ( it is too great) but you are not able to exempt your self from doing anything.

Let us focus on what we can do within our classrooms and our schools and with that change we can begin to change the world.

What is Your Non Negotiable List

I am reading “Leaders of Learners”. A great book and I highly recommend it. In the book the book the authors discuss that school administrators while needing to be flexible also have to have what they call a “Non Negotiable List”, things that they will not be flexible on. It got me thinking what would be on my
Here is what I would have on my list:
* Putting the needs of the Students
*Improving and ensuring Student learning and growth must be a priority
*To value and care for all students with the understanding that all students can learn but perhaps not in the same way

What would be on your Non Negotiable List?
Please add your thoughts here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TGf1dLEqbVL4o6I97qtd3Msem93jqajIN8PyV8qgsOg/edit?hl=en_US

Building a more positive relationship between Teachers and Administrators

Here is a SlideShare from my recent RSCON3 presentation.

Leading by example_building_a_more_positive_r

View more presentations from akevy.

Besides all the things alluded to in the slides there is one other important component. That is that both teachers and administrators need to have a common goal. I believe that goal needs to be Student Learning and Growth. I would hope that for all of us in education we would want to and be willing to do almost anything to help our students learn and grow.

I also want to thank all the organizers of RSCON3. I learned so much as a participant and I honored to be asked to present together with others who I admire and are truly leaders in bringing about education reform.

One Year Later

Today my blog is one year old. Happy Birthday!
I did a Google search the other day as to why we celebrate birthdays. The answered ranged from thanking G-D and celebrating life to reflecting on the past year. One post I saw actually said we shouldn't celebrate birthdays since we are getting older and closer to death. Way too morbid for me.

Anyway what would you do for a blogs birthday. I thought perhaps the most appropriate thing to do would be to reflect, give thanks, and offer goals for the next year.

So as I reflect I have come a long way. I have developed an amazing PLN through Twitter and I use both Twitter and my PLN to make me a better educator. I am a member of Connected Principal and will be one of the the Presenters at the RSCON3 conference this weekend.

I have also started to blog with edublog and my blog is called Beyond the Classroom Walls.

I want to thank my amazing PLN and I can't name all of you but you have all helped me grow and you are more than just a PLN but you are friends.

However I also realize I have so much to learn and a teacher, administrator, leader, father and husband.

I encourage you to spend a few minutes on Twitter searching the hashtags of #edchat, #cpchat, #rscon3 to get a glimpse of the great educators out there and the progressive and amazing things they are doing.

Learning is a never ending process and we all need to be striving to learn more but as I learned a year ago you need to take risks. If you would have asked me 13 months ago would be on Twitter and blogging the answer would have been an emphatic NO.

Now as I and many others are preparing for the new school year I need to think in what areas do I want to grow as an educational leader. Is it with engaging my students more with technology, or maybe incorporating more 21st Century Skills. The list can go on. One thing I know is that I will need to take some risks.So my hope is that in a year when I celebrate two years of blogging I can reflect and share with you the areas in which I have grown.

Looking forward another year of growing and learning ( and risk taking) together.