Inspire, Lead, & Live with Brio

One of the best lessons I’ve learned in my career is that when you offer students advice, it is likely they won’t identify with the “when you are older” scenarios because the scope of that thinking just isn’t in their cognitive wheelhouse yet. It makes sense, because I certainly recall thinking about how awesome it would be to turn 16, 18, 21, and even 30 for the various privileges that come with those ages, but I never gave much thought to the responsibilities that accompany those privileges.

That being said, now that I have passed all of those age markers, it occurred to me that the older I get, the more I appreciate some of things the adults in my life shared with me during my youth. They make sense and matter more now when maybe I didn’t care or understand then. Lately, two such moments keep coming to mind, and, not coincidentally, they were shared by two of the educators who are responsible for my existence in the profession today.

The first of these was in Drawing and Painting III of my junior year. My teacher, Mr. Foster, began sharing about the Italian word, and the concept of, Brio which translates to mean “mettle, fire, or life.” The English definition also brings up “vigor or vivacity,” and one can even find it to mean “full of life.” The concept applies to visual art and, likely, whatever historical connection we were focused on at the time, but it was the passion (mettle, fire) and way in which Mr. Foster shared about brio that resonated with me…

…My senior year of high school, we were commissioning a piece of music for a local composer, and our choir director, Mr. Carpenter, posed a question to the A Capella choir one morning to kick off rehearsal. He simply stated, “How do you celebrate life?” and sat there waiting in silence. You can imagine the conversation unfolding with a group of teenage musicians, who were actually accustomed to these existential questions by this point in the year, and what was most striking was not just the way he initially posed the question, but how he then affirmed what was said with joy, excitement, and intensity that led you to believe whatever you said was the most important and profound thing known to mankind. It also strikes me because, for whatever reason, Mr. Carpenter always called me by my first and last name together which I will never forget because it was in this conversation that he said (after my response), “Joe Sellenheim, you should become a music teacher!”

The significance of these memories for me now is that I realize the educators who facilitated those discussions personified the content they were sharing about. They knew how to live and show their students (others) what it meant to “celebrate life,” and they practiced their craft with brio and gusto (another “Foster-ism!”). They always sought out the positive, made people believe things could and should be done with excellence, and showed how any endeavor we take on is bigger than the product itself – be it musical, artistic, or otherwise.

Those experiences, now 16-17 years ago, began shaping me into the leader and person I am now. Entering the second half of my first year in a principalship, I strive more than ever to live each day with vigor, perseverance, fiery passion, and as a celebration of life. I take advantage of every opportunity to glean the positive, seek out greatness, and attack problems with an optimistic, solutions-driven mindset. Most times this comes naturally, sometimes is needs to be a conscious choice, but I know that as I think, speak, and act with brio, it becomes contagious. My hope is that in the interactions I have with the students, staff, and families I am entrusted to lead and learn with cultivates the amazing things we want for our school and lives of the kids who attend it.

I close with these words, written by Osho in “Creativity: Unleashing the Forces within”

Be the celebrators, celebrate! Already there is too much—the flowers have bloomed, the birds are singing, the sun is there in the sky—celebrate it! You are breathing and you are alive and you have consciousness, celebrate it!

May this discussion and mindset never fade…ask others how they celebrate their life, their work, and the relationships they build each day.

Every moment matters.

Vivo con brio!

 

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The Letter of the Day

Creativity and excitement about learning are so innate in children, so how or why is it that we, as educators (present company included), can do or say things – usually inadvertently – to stifle it?

Thanks to my two year old daughter, I have had Sesame Street’s “Letter of the Day” song stuck in my head for weeks. If you aren’t familiar, click here (Warning: It’s really catchy!).  For the record, when we hear the song in my house, the letter of the day is always “M” because we only watch one episode over and over again. The girl is 2 and she likes what she likes. (I’m sure parents can relate)

At the risk of sounding like an overly proud parent, I must preface this blog post that my daughter recognizes all of the letters of the alphabet, knows their sounds, reads them when she sees them, and is a very clever witty little girl. Because of this, she can and has  made a joke of the aforementioned “Letter of the Day” song. How?  Sometimes when my wife or I sing the song to get her to choose a letter and when we get to the part where it comes time to say that letter, she looks at us with a frighteningly deviant smile and yells “CRANBERRY” (which is then followed by hysterical laughter).

Why have I shared this? As I use my winter break to regenerate for the next part of the school year, I began thinking about that awesome learning innocence in children, my own included, and their willingness to take risks, experiment, or answer a question without fear of ridicule or rejection. In their minds, the possibilities of what an answer can be or what something can do is limitless. There is no worry about logic or reason, they just want to share what is on their mind, ask a question, or make (what they believe is) a really funny joke/play on words.

Unfortunately, as we grow older, the social acceptability of these healthy risk taking behaviors seems to diminish; however, the innocent love of learning and creative thinking should remain strong, and, as educators, it is important to do what we can to keep it that way by remember a few ideas. They are this:

Learning is collaborative. We learn from others. Though the “copy cat world” is discouraged, a variation on something someone says or does turns out to be revolutionary (beg, borrow, steal, right?). The wheel has really never been reinvented (still round), but the right tire treads make a difference on a snowy road.

Learning is messy/loud. When I taught general music, some of the very best learning activities for my students came from stations (workshop). I would have students creating patterns on tone bars, composing on keyboard instruments, reviewing fundamentals with percussion auxiliary, and learning theory through music games. There were days when a cacophony of sound would echo down the hallway and it was by most accounts, anything but musical. Students experimented, tried new things, succeeded and failed, revised ideas, got frustrated, asked endless questions, and when it came time for summative assessment at the end of the unit, they demonstrated the knowledge and skills and I had hoped they would acquire.

Great learning is organized chaos (and fun). With learning stations or any project based/group task, there is weeks of preparation training students on how to work in groups. There are hours spent designing supports that ensure students are able to manipulate resources so when they are in those stations, they can focus on the content and not just the tasks. The classroom environment itself will be respectful and conducive to learning, but despite all this, there will STILL be times when it will seem crazy because of the excitement about learning.

It’s tempting to tell kids to be careful, to tell them to be quiet down when they get loud (learning noise!), or to be nervous about them failing. Get over that. Often times, what a teacher thinks is a disaster (because it feels like chaos) is the best day for students because they were able to let loose and engage in an authentic learning process that was FUN.

Learning requires good feedback. This is key. I will say it again: This is key. How we set up the activity, outline criteria, and respond to our students when they have questions and working sets the tone for learning. Asking questions that require an explanation of thinking and help students arrive at an answer (even if it is wrong) without explicitly giving it away is important.

A student can’t just hear, “that’s good,” or “try agin, ” because those phrases don’t have context or meaning. Feedback has to be meaningful and specific so that it guides students through the learning process. Explain what is good and why it is good or why a student needs to try again. One of my favorite questions that I see on many math classroom walls/anchor charts is: Does your answer make sense? If a student is multiplying whole numbers and the product is smaller than the multiplicand and/or multiplier, clearly some re-thinking needs to occur. We learn through constant feedback. If something goes well, we continue on. If something goes poorly, we learn more through solving problems and trying new things.

So let me ask…

What are your “Letter of the Day” moments with your kids (students or children)?

What will you do next time when someone answers “CRANBERRY” and gives that overly complex answer (that might look like attention seeking in a classroom, but shows a lot of thought behind what is said).

What will you do to make sure you continue that natural flame for learning and spark creativity? Are you doing all you can, in action and words, to encourage and not stifle?

 

Dance far away.
Now clap your hands.
To the letter of the day. Clap, clap.
What’s the letter? Clap, clap.
What’s the letter? Clap, clap, clap, clap.
What’s the letter? (4X)
The letter of the day is…

 

 

Oh, take me back to the start…

As administrators, we all started somewhere.

While I searched (endlessly!) for my first administrative position, I discussed what it would take to make that leap from band teacher to administrator with my superintendent. He understood my frustration with the fruitless efforts of applying and interviewing and told me something truly great. He said, “When you make that leap, and it will happen, remember that when things are tough, or you wonder why you decided to make this career choice, how you felt when they offered you the job.”

And I do! I remember driving in my car the day after the final round of interviews thinking I had struck out again because it was taking so long for them to call (it was 9:00AM). My phone rang (oh brother, hear we go again)! I answered and I heard the words “we’d like you to be our next Director of Student Services.” Though I remained conscious for the rest of the conversation, I only being told I could take time discuss it with my family. After hanging up, I fumbled to dial my wife (1 touch speed dial) and vividly remember being overcome with tears of joy as my wife said to me, “You did it, [Joe], you did it!” (She used her pet name for me).

This moment, though, comes well before what we face in out job every day: Reality.

• It comes before the reality that if you don’t like something, you can’t just fix it in a day because you don’t just have a classroom. Change now requires a lather of shared vision, patience, relationship building, data collection, and carefully crafted professional development. (Rinse and repeat…rinse and repeat…has it changed yet?)

• It comes before the reality that you have to document and organize dozens of observational artifacts and complete a written narrative at 9:00PM in bed before you can do what you love (and in my opinion matters) the most: the coaching conversation with the teacher who is on the cusp of going from good to great. (aMAZing!)

• It comes before the reality that you will receive phone calls from an upset parent wondering why you haven’t done anything stop their child’s classmate from tormenting them every day for the past two weeks. Keep in mind, you knew nothing about this until right now (Have they informed to the teacher yet?…No.).

• It comes before the reality that you want to bang your head against the wall because no matter what you do or say to students about bus behavior (PBIS is legit!), students can’t still seem to sit and stay in their seat, talk quietly, keep hands to themselves, and eat the food when they get OFF the bus. (It sounds simple to me!)

Sure, the reality of school leadership can be harsh, but what was described above is just a day in the life of someone with a job they love. I maintain a  good sense of humor, I am a bit of an eternal optimist, and, maybe, just maybe, I am a bit of a glutton for punishment.

It is a privilege to lead teachers and impact students each day, and their successes are  motivating and inspiring. That being said, after a super tough day when success. motivation, and inspiration may be scarce, I push my own reset button and remember how I felt when I was offered this job. It helps me visualize that greater success with staff, bigger smiles from students, and deeper appreciation from families will surely come.

Coldplay: The Scientist

Nobody said it was easy,
No one ever said it would be this hard.

Oh, take me back to the start.