2013 Summer Bucket List

House in BozKoy, Karaburun, Izmir, Turkey.

I've been noticing some folks in my PLN sharing out their 2013 Summer Bucket List and the idea intrigued me, so here goes my list. We will be heading to Turkey for the summer to finish furnishing our house. I will begin the list there:

1. Furnish the house in Bozkoy. It seems like a lame task to many people probably, but it is very important for us to finish. The good news is that we should be finished with everything in a week or two and then we will be able to enjoy the house for the rest of the summer.
2. Begin the landscaping around the house. For this summer, I don't expect to accomplish too much, but it would be great to get some top soil down and have at least 7-8 trees planted around the house. In addition we want to add some cacti along the back wall near the road to act as a natural fence.
3. Finish reading Schooling by Design. The Leadership team at KIS has been reading the book this year and I'd like to be on the same page as them with regard to planning the future of KIS's EdTech team.
4. Reflect on Out of Our Minds. Several of the faculty at KIS formed a think-tank to read Sir Robinson's book and discuss how creativity can be merged with the culture of learning at KIS. Due to several projects and conferences, I was unable to attend many of the meetings, but I want to take some time this summer and reflect on the book and what it means to us as educators. I'm envisioning some blog posts about this topic in the future.
5. Study my Turkish more diligently. I have several relatives and friends in Turkey and now that I'm also a home owner, it is time to get serious about learning this language. It is nice to be able to get around and order things, but I want to be able to hold an actual conversation with someone. There is no better place than the village to do it, because nobody speaks English out there. My goal for the summer is to be able to communicate with a local villager that I don't already know for a full three to five minutes in Turkish. I have a great app for this by the way that works on both iOS and Android.
6. Music and Movie production. Everybody needs some down time to engage in hobbies and creating music and movies are mine, so I'm giving myself an opportunity to do both as part of my summer bucket list. I will create at least five completely new songs inspired by Karaburun and I will create two three-five minute movies about the villages and/or village lifestyle. I've actually wanted to make a couple of short films about Bozkoy and Karaburun for years, but whenever we are back, we are always too busy doing something; this time I'm going to do it.
7. International Ethical Educational Leadership website. This is something I want to plan during the summer and then launch in the fall. Sadly, I've seen some fairly dubious behavior in international educational leadership. Don't get me wrong, I've seen some amazing leaders, too, but I think overall international educational leaders could really step up their game with regard to ethics. The plan is to form a website community that would share case studies about situations with ethical dilemmas and then discuss our solutions to the dilemmas to encourage discourse and pre-reflection. Pre-reflection? Yes, to think through or role play a scenario that could happen to consider better solutions and alternatives before an actual problem occurs. This way, when a sticky situation does happen in real life, you can stop and reflect on things you role played before and have a better list of options to choose from than the ones that come to mind in the heat of the moment. I know, I'm a nerd.

If I can accomplish the seven items on this list, I will feel like it has been a very productive summer and I will return to KIS renewed.