Life can go from this...

to this...

in one day. So keep a bend in your knees and be ready.

Love the ones you’re with, and let them know that you do.

Deep deep gratitude for our fearless teachers and school leaders.

Organize

If you don't vote you lose your complaining rights.

Giving Voice

ColorOfChange.org exists to strengthen Black America's political voice. Our goal is to empower our members—Black Americans and our allies—to make government more responsive to the concerns of Black Americans and to bring about positive political and social change for everyone.

Democracy

CBS news reports that 215,000 people attended the Restore Sanity/and or Fear Rally. I wonder how many of them, like my daughter who was there, don't have landlines, and are never included in polls. How many other sane/and or fearful people does this represent?
Be counted by VOTING.

VOTE! Our Kids' future depends on electing people who are committed to free, high quality public education for ALL Kids.

“The fact that the impact has not been proven doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.” Lisbeth B. Schorr, Center for the Study of Social Policy

Turn your righteous anger into vision.

Embracing Change
When we are confronted with change and choose to embrace it, we often discover that it means letting go of an identity that no longer serves us.

Navigating the Rough Waters

There are enough books on leadership to fill a classroom floor to ceiling, wall to wall. Theories, tools, instruments to measure and evaluate teaching and learning, frameworks we can implement. There’s the latest research depicting the part of the brain that lights up when we’re learning, when we’re being creative and even while taking tests that evaluate our diversity intelligence. The list goes on. There are as many theories as there are books and experts.

But the one thing that is frequently omitted from the mix is compassion. And compassion is one thing we must practice – purposefully and intentionally – particularly when we're pressed against the wall of stress.

For seasoned and emerging leaders, compassion is the one constant that we can count on to help navigate the rough waters of urban school leadership. Compassion helps us remember what it feels like to walk in someone else's shoes, if they're lucky enough to own a decent pair.

Anything but Touchy Feely

I was recently introduced at a workshop to a group of emerging and seasoned School Leaders with whom I was about to spend the day. The director said very gracious things in his introduction. Then suddenly, in that one moment, all the preparation I did, all the advance planning with the director, and with participants through individual emails – in that one moment, it was all nearly sabotaged with two words. “And now, it is my great pleasure to introduce Linda, who has taken time from her work with KIPP to work with us. We’ll be doing touchy feely work today, so get ready.”

“Oh no!!! Not the dreaded “touchy feely.”

People will often hear me say that I’m guided by knowing that I’m never confused about who my primary stakeholders are. Here was another opportunity to practice that as I made my way to the front of the room. I turned to face the 30+ participants and knew I had to redirect the images reflected in their faces: Please tell us we’re not going to be holding hands, singing Kumba Ya, and passing the talking drum around the circle of trust.

“Thank you for inviting me. It’s so wonderful to see you face to face after communicating through email, and I’m so glad to be here with you today. There’s nothing I would rather do than work with you because you are committed to urban education and changing the outcomes and opportunities for our Kids. It’s the hardest work there is and it demands so much of you. (Beat, beat – a quick look toward the floor then back at them. With feet firmly planted and a teaching heart and intention):

“And thank you for the lovely introduction. With all due respect, however, there is one thing I want to make very clear: There is nothing touchy feeling about the art of communicating, interacting with and leading people. The work of human dynamics is very rigorous. We will be engaging in that rigorous work today. It takes stamina, complete attention and engagement, and now I ask you to commit to that.”

I could feel the mind of the room shift, and a collective exhale of relief as well as anticipation. And then we began.

##########

Manage people?

In a conversation with Carol Tomlinson as part of the KIPP/NLU Distinguished Educators series, she said: "Teacher as a leader first, a leader of people and a manager of details, almost inevitably works better than trying to manage people. People don’t much like being managed." What an inspired concept for all leaders. The full audio of this conversation can be heard at http://www.kipp.org/00/audio/

Making Change

To make positive change, focus on what you want to see happen, rather than on what you don't want to happen. The brain needs an image so it knows what to do.

The power of story.

Staying the Course

Leading an urban school for historically underserved kids is the hardest work with the highest consequences. And it's lonely work. School Leaders set and live the vision and values that guide our teachers every day to make it possible for all of our kids to have equal opportunities.Educators deserve and need expert witnesses to their lives who can help them stay the course at their highest level.

Kindness
Social scientists build case for 'survival of the kindest'
ScienceDaily (Dec. 9, 2009) Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are challenging long-held beliefs that human beings are wired to be selfish. In a wide range of studies, social scientists ...

Put poetically, here is one of my favorite poets and poems.

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

Naomi Shihab Nye, Words Under the Words

Carefully Taught

Carefully Taught, from the 1950s musical South Pacific, has been playing in my head a lot recently as I track the news in Arizona, Texas and in the Middle East, as well as consider my own history. One of my sheroes, Melissa Harris-Lacewell places the song in context to the reactionary times we are experiencing. http://www.thenation.com/article/youve-got-be-carefully-taught

Conversations with Distinguished Educators:
I've had the great privilege of engaging in conversations with Dr. Carol Tomlinson, Dr. Rick Stiggins, Dr. Jon Saphier, Kim Marshall and Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings. You can listen to the complete audio of each 55 minute interview at http://www.kipp.org/00/audio/

I want to express gratitude to Drs. Dick Streedain and Dick Best, co-directors of the KIPP/ NLU(National Louis University) Masters in Educational Leadership Program, for their vision for these conversations.

Community Organizing and School Leadership

Opening, establishing and running an urban school is as much about community organizing as it is educational leadership. We have to engage families and teach them how to be activists on our children's behalf. This is especially necessary given the mood of the country and the strong community organization and activism on the right. More on community organizing in the next post.

Coaching Champions

Teams that make it to the Final Four have one thing in common all season: Coaches train their players to focus on "The Next Game," not on getting to the championship game. During each game they focus on each play, not on winning the game. One play and one game at a time. Even with 7 seconds on the clock, that's how they get there. Moment to moment, play after play, game by game. That's what champions do. That's what we need to do with our Kids: Win every moment and the championship takes care of itself.

Stay engaged in and present to the process, and the outcome will take care of itself.

How to Keep Good Teachers
I recently had a rich conversation with Jon Saphier, author, educator and founder of Research for Better Teaching (RBT), as part of the Distinguished Educators series sponsored by the KIPP/NLU Masters in Educational Leadership program. I asked Jon how we can significantly diminish a 37% teacher turnover in our KIPP schools. The points he made that spoke clearly to me are that teachers need to know:

• Their professional development will be supported
• Their creativity will be nourished
• What is expected of them
• They will never be humiliated

The entire audio is posted at http://www.kipp.org/00/audio/. You will also find previous interviews with Gloria Ladson-Billings and Kim Marshall there.

Each interview is 55 minutes and takes a few minutes to load.

Shutter

Be still.
Look around you.
Expand your gaze.
Extend your panorama.
Embrace the image.
Freeze the frame, lock in this moment, memorize these faces, feel these hearts and minds radiate beneath your skin.
This moment
fleeting
ephemeral
elusive.
A brief catch in your breath
this time of your life.
Savor the feeling and hold this instant in your palm
gently
while it flutters
beating back against your tightening grip
threatening to escape.
Hold onto it while it tugs at you to release it into the breeze
soon a swirling wind
kicking up behind you
as you turn to take flight.

For Fisher Fellows closing dinner: Dallas, 2/15/2010
Linda Belans

Some Common Causes of Burnout
· The need for better organizational skills
· The need to learn how to delegate
· Communication issues and breakdowns
· The absence of the joy factor (performance management issues)
· Too much on the plate
· The lack of clear role definition
· The absence of supervision
· The absence of enjoying the company of your peers
· Lack of positive feedback (too much corrective feedback)
· Unclear or overly ambitious expectations (ie never feeling like you are meeting the goals)
· Lack of recognition for accomplishments
· No down time to recharge
· Overly harsh punishment for failure
· Supervising teachers whom you discover don’t really believe that all our kids can really learn: as Dr. Haberman calls it – the Pedagogy of Poverty. Then finding yourself in the position of having to fire the teacher and worry about finding a replacement.
· Not having performance management training/skills
· Being afraid to speak your truth.

Here is the link to listen to the interview I did with Kim Marshall as part of the Distinguished Educators Series sponsored by the KIPP/NLU Masters in Educational Leadership program. It runs 55 minutes and may take a few minutes to load.
http://www.kipp.org/00/audio

Last night I had a great conversation with Kim Marshall as part of the KIPP/NLU Distinguished Educators Series. You will be able to listen to it on the KIPP website next week. Watch here for the posting date and url.

We all know Kim Marshall from his Marshall Memo that arrives like clockwork each week in many of our inboxes. It’s like the UTNE reader for educators: a summary of what’s hot and useful in education culled from 44 publications. Kim has a keen eye for education news and research we can use based on a lifetime in the field of urban education.

He was a teacher, central office administrator, and principal in the Boston Public Schools for 32 years. It was during Boston's desegregation crisis in the mid-1970's, that he delved into new research on effective urban schools. He now advises and coaches teachers for New Leaders for New Schools and teaches courses and workshops on instructional leadership. Kim has written numerous articles and several books on teaching and school leadership including Rethinking Teacher Evaluation and Supervision.

He is married and has two children, both of whom are high-school teachers. We are grateful for Kim Marshall’s generosity of time and experience with KIPP and National Louis University.