Principal Appreciation Month

I received a very nice email from a parent. It is nice to feel appreciated every once in a while. I asked his permission to share this on social media.

Dear Mr. Bray,
For this Principal (Headmaster) Appreciation Month, you are thanked for all your efforts and hard work that makes SIS a better school.
As a SIS Board member, it was a privilege working with you and seeing first hand your ability to bring SIS through a difficult transition, overcome enormous challenges, and improve SIS numbers and the quality of its education.  As an SIS Capital Improvement Committee member, I appreciate your help in identifying what SIS most needs for long term improvements and sustainability of its quality education and other programs.  As an SIS parent, I'm grateful for all you've done to improve the opportunities of students and encouraging more parents to become involved in SIS activities.
For keeping SIS on the right track moving forward, you deserve recognition and appreciation, and are wished a happy Principal Appreciation Month, a happy Halloween, and a happy weekend.

Thanks for the kind words! It means more than you can ever know.

New Year, New Job

Saipan International School

It is with great pleasure that I'm announcing that for SY2014-15 I will be returning to Saipan International School as the new Headmaster; Aysem will be working as a counselor and teacher. I still have five months at KIS and in EdTech, but I will be taking the reigns of the international school that Aysem and I worked with from 2003-07. It is an exciting opportunity for us to work with the learning community of SIS to move the school forward in teaching and learning. One of the first items of business -- Google Apps for Education turned on with our school domain. This is an important step to creating our brand, because it will provide students, faculty and staff with email addresses from our school domain -- official email for official school business; plus, access to the amazing tools of Google with our learning community. We will be traveling to Saipan in the beginning of May for a week to begin the transition process and planning for SY2014-15. This development also coincides with the 20th anniversary of the school, so we will be able to help celebrate this milestone with the entire community.

Leading by Example with regard to Evaluations

The old saying goes that the best teaching method is modeling behavior and I believe it is true. Which makes me wonder why so many international schools fail to have transparent evaluation processes for their leadership positions. I've been to three international schools as an employee and many more for conferences/workshops/presentations, and the rule has been a lack of evaluation for administrators. As a budding educational leader, I see this as a major hurdle in international education. How can we expect to judge the value of others, if we aren't held to the same standard? It is an ethical and professional dilemma in my mind. I know as educational leaders we are forced to make some tough decisions, and that those decisions leave us open to criticism that could be unfair or bias, but does that allow us to avoid transparent evaluation? I think not. 

In fact, it is more of a reason to have transparent evaluation and feedback avenues for faculty, staff, parents, and students. It is similar to the idea of a free press. When a truly free press exists, society's issues are aired openly and discussed in a public forum that allows for multiple view points. With a controlled media, the public feels disenfranchised from legitimate methods of discourse. This results in vandalism, violence, and revolt. A healthy democratic society, which I hope schools try to be, runs more smoothly with a free press. Think of transparent evaluation for administration as your school's free press; it allows the society to vent issues in a constructive manner rather than destructive.

West Virginia as developed a rubric and evaluation system for educational leaders that is an excellent starting point for schools that are looking to improve leadership and model reflective practice. I'm hoping that these type of systems become the norm in international schools in the future rather than the anomaly. In the past at KIS, Robin Schneider (@robin_ISH) used Google Forms to gather data on his job performance as the middle school principal, which was something I admired and appreciated about him. He was not required to do this by the school, but wanted to model reflective practice and the importance of evaluation for all teachers and administrators. It is too bad that his efforts ended after he left the school.

#beyondlaptops 2013 Take-Aways

     It has been a busy couple of weeks since the Beyond Laptops conference finished at YIS, but I have been thinking seriously about what went down and how it will impact KIS and me. But before I allow myself to wander aimlessly in writing, I'd like to thank all the attendees for sharing their thoughts and experiences for the collective good. "We all improve together," should be the motto of international schools. Of course, I'd like to say thanks to Kim Cofino (@mscofino). Without her passion for learning and amazing organizational skills, there simply couldn't be a Beyond Laptops conference. And finally, I'd like to thank the leadership of Yokohama International School. The vision to understand that hosting a conference (and picking up the tab on it) helps your community improve is a rare sight in these days. Thank you.
     After looking over last year's take-aways, I noticed that I still felt there was a need to break the bell schedule to allow more freedom for students to pursue their passions. On an upside, KIS has made some movement in the secondary school with regard to breaking the bell schedule. Next year we will be piloting a "free block" with seniors; although many of the juniors have said they would use the time to study and work on other courses, there are a few who mentioned pursuing other interests that the normal schedule doesn't currently allow. My plan is to approach a small group of seniors and offer the opportunity to explore something they are passionate about with support from a teacher (me). Hopefully with a few successes, the idea will spread and we can move toward more freedom for the students as a whole. The middle school is developing an experiential learning program to have some time without walls for the students. Progress! Along the same topic, the discussions with students also reminded me that we need to listen to them. They have valuable information about their learning, their goals, and their motivations that are beyond value to us as their teachers.
     After our discussions at this year's Beyond Laptops, I felt all four of the KIS members left with a reaffirmation of the importance of visionary leadership in education. If a school has a strong vision of what good learning is then changes in devices and strategic plans are less worrisome, because the vision will remain the same. As we discussed last year's conference, we shouldn't focus on the device or technology, but the learning. If we are focused on good learning, we will be heading in the right direction no matter what happens. Focus on learning and transferable skills and you will not go wrong, nor be held hostage by a certain device.
     Other big ideas that occurred to me were about cafeteria food and an accreditation portfolio for schools. Allow me to elaborate on the cafeteria topic first. Zest Catering makes the very best cafeteria food I have ever tasted. Period. End of story. Game over. But seriously, feeding students healthy, delicious food is a very important issue. We should be offering students healthy choices for lunch, it is a life style we are developing. My family has a history of adult onset diabetes because of poor dietary choices. If I had been raised and encouraged to eat healthier, possibly I wouldn't be staring a future date with diabetes in the face right now. I'm sure my brother, father, and mother could have put off their health problems until later in life. We, as educators, need to do a better job of teaching healthy lifestyle choices with regard to food to our students. OK, I'm off the soapbox.
     The last big take-away is about how most schools choose to handle accreditation visits and how they could do a much, much better job. We have students create portfolios to demonstrate their learning and growth over time, so why don't schools do it? That's right, build a portfolio for accreditation. Instead of looking at the calendar and suddenly realizing that the accreditation team is visiting in two weeks and then running around like a chicken with your head cut off, continually build upon what your school has done and is doing. It would be a much richer process and accreditation would actually do what it is intended to be -- a process of growth, change and improvement. #justsaying

Three Take-Aways from Alan November's (@globalearner) TCIS Visit

Over the weekend Ben Summerton (@bensummerton), Steve Katz (@stevekatz), and I (@tsbray) had a chance to go to TCIS and listen to Alan November (@globalearner) talk about education. Many of the thoughts and tools that Alan shared weren't new to me, but it was great to hear a noted speaker and educational guru confirm what we are doing at KIS. The three main take-aways for me were -- the importance of having students ask their own questions, the importance of effective and efficient searching, and the importance of authentic global audience. I'd like to thank Joseph Fambro (@krea_frobro747) and all the teachers who helped from GSIS and TCIS to make the Alan November event happen... And of course, I'd like to thank Alan November.

The importance of asking questions: 

Students certainly don't need us to spoon feed them answers to questions, what they need to be doing is generating their own questions and finding answers to those questions. Innovation and creativity will never truly develop, if questions aren't asked. Sadly it is difficult for many students to ask their own questions, because they have never been taught how; or, they have had the fear of not being correct forced down their throats. Learning is about asking questions and learning how to find answers to those questions. In order to compete in the modern world, students will need to understand how to learn and that won't happen unless they know how to question. The people in my generation were expected to change careers seven times during our life times -- that involves learning new skills. Students from the current generation will change careers even more, because in the future many current jobs simply will not exist. If you can't learn new skills, you won't have work.

The importance of effective and efficient searching:

Just Googling it isn't quite good enough anymore. If you have seen Eli Pariser's TED Talk about how search engines are tailoring your searches, then you will understand why this issue is major in education. If you haven't watched it -- YOU MUST! Seriously, go watch it now and if it doesn't scare the life out of you in some way, then you have some major character flaws. Students are going to need to know how to trick search engines and luckily Google allows us to do this by using Search Operators. The operators help you better define exactly what you are looking for and who you are getting it from.

The importance of authentic global audience:

I've been a huge proponent of this idea for years, but Alan turned me on to something I hadn't really thought about -- the importance of anonymity as well as audience. His example is the website FanFiction, which has thousands of contributors who all use anonymous identities to share their writing. One example we looked at showed a list of people who had written short stories in the style of J.K. Rowling  (famous for the Harry Potter series). There were thousands of stories by hundreds of writers and some were 400,000 or more words in length... 400,000 words! When was the last time one of your English students wrote something that long? I bet the answer is never. I'm right, right? No one is getting paid; everyone is anonymous -- so why? These people are simply sharing their love of writing with each other for pleasure, but they do it anonymously, because that way the critique is about the writing, not about them as a person. I remember working in Turkey our English department would trade (or share) grading of exams -- that way students didn't feel that one teacher was grading too easy or too hard, because their exam was graded by everyone. This trading allows someone completely objective to view the work and the students don't take the comments personal, because they don't know that person. This allows the regular teacher to help the students understand the critique without emotions getting in the way as much; furthermore, it doesn't make difficulties in the student-teacher relationship.

The Tao of Leadership Poem 9

I had a thought over the holiday that I'd like to revisit the Tao Te Ching, but this time from the mind of educational leadership. My first post will be on Poem 9 from the Tao Te Ching. I enjoy reading the translation by Stephen Mitchell, if this version of the poem differs from your own.

Fill your bowl to the brim

and it will spill.

Keep sharping your knife

and it will blunt.

Chase after money and security

and your heart will never unclench.

Care about people's approval

and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.

The only path to serenity.

At first glance a person might question what possible applications could be tied to educational leadership, but I assure you there are ideas here to learn from as educational leaders. The first two sentences have to do with knowing your own limits. If we fill our bowls with too much or sharping our knives too much, we actually limit what we can accomplish. People who are overburdened rarely work well, so it our job to realize when we need a break. We should avoid focusing on attempting to fill our bowls with all those little jobs that can get in the way of the real work of educators -- paperwork, sitting behind the desk, pointlessly long meetings. Have you filled your bowl too much? Are you blunting your knife? Remember that education is about human relationships, not pushing papers across your desk.

Chasing after money and security is a question about why you want to be a leader in the first place. Did you get into leadership for economic rewards? For more security? Then you did it for the wrong reasons, and as the poem says, "... your heart will never unclench." You can want the money and security of leadership, but without passion and vision you will be lost. With your heart focused on the wrong things, it will remain clenched like a closed fist and your performance will be hampered. Caring about people's approval is certainly a dangerous problem in leadership, because if your worry is making people happy, then you are doomed to be a prisoner to them. Your decisions must be made for ethical reasons, for just reasons, for researched reasons, for the best interest of the community, not for approval. If you follow the correct guidelines to making decisions that are ethical, people will respect you and your decisions, even if they don't approve of them.

Finally we come to the most important concept for leaders -- do your work, then step back. Focus on doing the best job you can possibly do, and then let go. Don't fall victim to being prideful or attached to your work. Be attached to the community, the vision, the mission, but not the work itself. If you step away from your decisions, you can see, admit, and correct mistakes instead of becoming defensive and entrenched. This is the only path to serenity.

What is on in Math with EdTech at KIS?

Action Research: Gamification in the Teaching of the Scientific Method

Gamification in the Teaching of the Scientific Method.pdf Download this file

I'm very excited to share this Action Research project with the educational world. Working with one of the KIS Biology teachers, Jeff Boyce, we looked into the use of games in the teaching of the scientific method. This PDF version of the results is free for all to download, use, and build upon. I have uploaded it to the iBook Store, but while we wait for it to appear in the store, and for those who don't use an iPad, I have supplied it. 

Enjoy!