Excuse Me

Excuse me.

As I think about these two words, different meanings come to mind. "Excuse me," as in I'm sorry, I almost ran into you or I did bump into you accidently. Or is it "Excuse me," I'm about to run you over if you don't get out of my way? Not quite the same and of course it depends on the tone of voice used to say it, either politely or impatiently might give it different meanings to the receiver. There is also "Excuse me?" with the inflections that determine the message here. Maybe I didn't hear you and asked that or maybe I did hear you and disagree with you and am expressing it with that phrase.

However, for some reason, the thought that came to mind (and I've been reading, so beware) was not a way this particular phrase is generally used or is even grammatically correct. I see another use as one of "Excuse me (I'm making one)." Granted, the parenthesis certainly give it a different meaning that may not be quite right, but it's one that made me think about a chapter I just read in the book A Traveler's Guide, by Andy Andrews. In chapter 1, Andrews writes about taking responsibility and the phrase, "The buck stops here." There is no place for excuses when we take responsibility for our situation. We are here now and if things are to improve or change, we have to be responsible for the actions that make that happen.

So, excuse me if this doesn't make sense. On second thought, No Excuse; me.

Reflection and self-honesty

From A New Day: 365 Meditations for Personal and Spiritual Growth: “Rigorous self-honesty is essential to recovery and spiritual growth” (p. 288). I would say something similar is true for districts attempting to grow. Rigorous self-honesty is essential for growing, whether from fair to good, good to great, or great to excellent. Without such straightforward reflection, we can get caught up in rationalizing actions instead of digging deeper for the true motives for the actions.

This has to be a continuous process (going back to doing the little things consistently) if we are to improve.

October 19 - barely

I finally made it to my hotel in Manchester, CT at 11:40 ET. While the day was quite long - the 2:00 flight from Philadelphia to Hartford was cancelled, as was the next one and the one after. And when I went to get a car to make the 3.5 hour drive, there were none available. That meant either flying to Boston and driving for a couple hours or waiting until morning with the airport hotel booked solid. Weather can do that to you.

However, it was a good day! No, it was a great day!

I got the chance to get some work done and read a book by Andy Andrews called The Noticer. While there were many insights in the book, the one that came early and made me think about education, was the call to read books about great persons. One of the main characters in the book is an old man named Jones. He states the importance of reading when he says, "Other people's experience is the best teacher. By reading about the lives of great people, you can unlock the secrets to what made them great" (p. 9).

It reminded me of why it is so important we as a society - educators, parents, and community - do all we can to help our children read better. Studies have shown the importance of reading to young children as well as the benefits to having a larger vocabulary and this book reinforced for me why I must continue to read all I can. Particularly on the lives of great men and women. I'm going tomorrow to pick up a book (after I go pick up my luggage :) - who will you read about?

Defining Success

I read somewhere that reading outside of your areas of expertise or knowledge can help you become better at what you do. One of the reasons, if I remember correctly, is that seeing things from a different perspective can help us solve problems more quickly and possibly find better ways to do things in our work.

That being said, I found an article in Entrepreneur magazine that was about answering three questions before writing a business plan. While this activity doesn't seem to pertain to schools and education, I was intrigued by the first question, "What does success look like?" This most definitely pertains to education, as researchers, legislators, and educators argue about the answer to this question.

The author of the article claims this is "by far the most important question that almost nobody asks." I think it is the same in the educational field. Just as most of us would measure success in business by profits and business growth, so too do too many feel success in education is measured by standardized student achievement tests. And, just like business success is different for different entrepreneurs - flexibility in time to attend family activities or time to volunteer for example - school success may be different for each student, school, and community. Without the knowledge of what success is, what it looks like, and how it is determined to be achieved, the actions taken by districts, schools, administrators, and teachers may not be leading toward a common definition of success.

Digital Legacy

Last week in Guernsey, Kevin Honeycutt spoke to the students about having a digital legacy. The importance of remembering that everything we do with technology is destined to become part of our legacy cannot be understated. The anonymity of the internet tends to cover up the fact that once something is published on the web or sent as a text, etc., it can be accessed forever. Hopefully, our students realize this and think before they type/text/respond electronically.

On a related note, I found this short video (4:24) interesting. I guess I hadn’t really thought of the amount of information that is out there about each of us. This site also has information on digital citizenship and "your digital presence."