You're just a guest

Last night, we had Jimmy Casas, principal of Bettendorf High School, as a guest on Dads in Ed. He was great, and I encourage you to check out the whole video recording or listen to the podcast (click here for iTunes). 
One thing he said really stuck with me as I tried to get to sleep after such a great discussion. While taking about being an administrator at Bettendorf High:

"The reality is that I recognize I'm just a guest in that community. You know, our time as leaders in different organizations will come and go, but we have a responsibility while we're there to continue to make sure that we do everything we can to maintain a sense of community and to bring that passion and to bring our best everyday to an organization. That's honestly our responsibility to make sure we are doing that, especially for our kids and to model that for our community." 

Click here to skip to that part of the show.

I hadn't ever thought of it like that, but it's so true. Think about the elementary school that you went to, or even the high school. Are you proud to say that you went there? Do you still associate yourself with it? How many of your teachers are still there? The building itself is still the life blood of the community, even though a number of those teachers are no longer there. I'd be willing to say that most, if not all, of my elementary teachers are no longer teaching at the school I attended. In my first five years of teaching, I had two different principals. In 12 years at my previous district, I went through three superintendents. Your school will still be there long after you move on, but will you make it better while entrusted in your care?

Reflecting on Social Learning

Tonight is the last night of our Social Learning class. It's a class that I was lucky enough to "make up." All in all, I think that things went really well. There are lots of things that need to be changed, but most of them concern the structure of the class. You live and you learn.
One thing that has been fun is to see the Twitter education community begin to embrace some of the people in the class. From the beginning, we've talked about how long of a process it is to grow your PLN and it's been fun to see that growth starting. What makes me more excited for future semesters of this class is I think with a little bit of tweaking the order we may be able to grow their PLN a little faster. As with everything, it sometimes takes the right person at the right time to stumble across a tweet or a blog post to crank up the interest.
More than anything, I hope that those in the class will use their new blogs and Twitter accounts to reflect more on what their doing and open themselves up to continued professional (and personal, I suppose) growth. Twitter and blogging isn't for everyone...I get that...but you have to learn somewhere. Anywhere. Understand there is a caring and supportive educational community out there. Creating new lessons is kind of like when you go shopping for new clothes - sometimes you need someone else to give an opinion. Sometimes your wife just does it for you...sorry, different blog post entirely. 
Below are the links to everyone's blogs. I encourage you to check them out and give them a follow. They come from a wide variety of backgrounds and teaching assignments. It's a great variety. I'm very lucky to have had this group. They've given honest feedback, which is huge for me to make this class successful.

Along the Way - secondary instrumental music

The Stuff I've Seen - secondary science

TKSparks3 - general elementary

That Crazy Art Teacher - elementary art

Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks - secondary ELL/ESL

Fantastic Scholastic - secondary language arts

A Musing - secondary language arts

One last thing - if you were teaching a class that explored the online education community (no, not online classes), what types of things should be included? I would really love some feedback.