Quarantine Home Projects: Get the Kids to Help

For the past ten weeks or so, my job as a principal shifted significantly, as did the jobs of quite a few people in the world. I went from interacting with hundreds of people every day, shifting gears every five minutes, and bouncing around my school for 11 or 12 hours per day, to mainly doing one of two things: sitting in front of my computer monitoring online classes or doing my normal email tasks, or having my headset in on a webinar, conference call, or phone call. Rather than sit all day, I walk during conference calls. I spent so much time on the phone walking around either the park or my school that I completely wore through my shoes, and then could not find anyplace to purchase shoes because of the quarantine order. Needless to say that at the end of the work day I was ready not to sit on my computer or in front of a screen.

Ten Things for Your Kids (and You) to Do Now That They're Not in School

In case you didn't notice, the world is going crazy right now. And whether you're a toilet-paper-hoarder, a COVID-19-conspiracy-theorist, or a hide-in-your-bathroom-with-a-glass-of-wine-person, your life is probably pretty different right now than it was two weeks ago, especially if you have a child. And especially if your child's school has been shut down for the next two weeks or longer.

So I decided to take my educational expertise, my Renaissance-Dad skills, and my parenting foibles, and come up with a list of things for you to do with or for your kids in order to keep your sanity for the foreseeable future. While events, sports, movie theaters, and other businesses are shutting down right now, there are plenty of low-cost and free things that you can do together as a family, as well as things that kids can do to keep their brains sharp while school is not in session.

Outside activities:

Thanksgiving Tree: Helping Kids (and Parents) Learn Gratitude

Fall is a wonderful time in Arizona. The temperature finally shifts from surface-of-the-sun to absolutely perfect. We are able to open our windows and go outside. And while most of the country is raking up leaves and preparing for snow, we are getting ready to enjoy our sunshine for the next six months.

But, just like the rest of the country, as we move into November, we get ready to celebrate Thanksgiving. As parents, we look for ways to teach our children thankfulness. Enter our Thanksgiving Tree.

Every year, we crumble up brown packing paper in the shape of a tree and cut out dozens of paper leaves. Each evening, before dinner, each member of the family takes a leaf and writes down something that we are thankful for. The one rule is that whatever it is cannot be repeated. We get things like, "I am thankful for family" (sweet), to, "Vitamins" (weird), to, "Quesadillas" (who's not?). But as we move through the season, and the tree gets more and more leaves, our kids are learning to be grateful for all of the things that they have.

And I've come to realize that my gratitude increases. On the bad days at work, I am still thankful for my job. When breakfast is a half-warm piece of toast because I didn't have time to let it actually toast, I'm thankful that I have something to eat. When I get cut off by another driver on my way to work, I am thankful that I have a car, and thankful that my horn works (yeah, I'm still learning). The fact of the matter is that the Thanksgiving Tree is just as much for me as it is for all of us. So whether it is leaf shaped papers taped to a crumpled paper trunk, a notebook with a list, or a stack of index cards, I encourage you to practice gratitude for the next couple of weeks.

Oh, and by the way. Happy Thanksgiving!

Seven Things Every Teacher Wants Every Parent To Know

I started my full time educational career in 2003. I have been a teacher, a curriculum writer, a coach, an Athletic Director, an Assistant Principal, a Principal, a Director, a Head of School. Basically, if it needed to be done in a school, I have done it. Yes, I have even filled in as a crossing guard and a janitor from time to time. Every year, as the school year starts off, I feel like one of my biggest jobs is to bridge the gap between school and home. When two groups of people as passionate about their jobs as teachers and parents are come together, it can feel like Clash of the Titans. That's why I decided to share my list of Seven Things that Every Teacher Wants Every Parent to Know.

1. We are on the same team. There will be times this year when you will disagree with something that happens in my classroom, but you and I have the same goal and the same desired outcome for the school year: the education of your child. Please remember that I do what I professionally know how to do to educate your child, and I want your child to be successful. I will do what I can to support you, and I ask that you do what you can to support me.

Summer Reading List for Your Kids: 13+ Books to Keep Your Kids, Tweens, and Teens Occupied

Four years ago I wrote an article about some of my favorite books as a recommendation for summer reading (if you missed it or if you need some outstanding books to read, you can check the article out here). Most of the books that I recommend in that article are for teens and older. Great for parents, but maybe not much help for your kiddos.

If your kids are anything like mine, they attack books during the summer like a starving Tasmanian devil devouring carrion. It seems like they read almost every book in the library before the first week of summer is up and are always looking for new recommendations. So leading into this summer, I thought that maybe I could get some help from my kiddos, and--after some coaxing--I got them to tell me about some lesser known favorites. Don't expect in-depth book reviews here (have you ever tried to get a story synopsis and thoughtful critique from an eight-year-old?), but these are kid tested and approved! If you have a reader and a library nearby, here are some recommendations.

Host Foreign Exchange Students and Make Lifelong Friends

When my older brother and I were in high school, he was sold on the idea that we should host a foreign exchange student. I have four brothers, and at that time our family had two in high school, one in junior high, and two in elementary school. I think my parents' response was something along the lines of, "That would be a great experience for all of us. Let's do it." But, being a parent now, I can only imagine the internal monologue went something like, "There are already five of you. I can't imagine life being any more chaotic, so why not?"

Knots and Wormholes: Why I Like Working with Imperfect Wood

My wife's grandfather spent his entire life in Fonda, Iowa, which is a lot smaller than it sounds (and it sounds pretty small). He and his brother had a portable sawmill, and when a storm would pass through the area, they would go around milling up wood. He had an incredible supply of black walnut in his basement, and often, when my wife and I would visit, I would spend time just looking at the lumber. What can I say... I'm a wood junkie.

He passed away several years ago, and none of his sons were into woodworking. So one summer, my father-in-law loaded up his boat with hundreds of board feet of black walnut and drove it out to Arizona (you may be asking why he loaded up his boat. Many of the boards are twelve feet long or longer, and the center of a boat is the best way to transport that much lumber of that length).

As we were unloading the walnut from the boat and stacking it up in my workshop, I noticed that quite a few of the boards had knots, rough edges, and wormholes. The knots and the edges are something that I'm used to working with, but the

Daddy-Daughter Dance: Year Eight

When my oldest daughter, Big E, was 2, I took her to her first prom. I was a chaperone, and she was an adorable date. We danced and danced, and we decided on "our song," A Wink and a Smile. A couple of weeks after we had our first dance, our neighbor was going to her prom. We watched her parents take pictures in their front yard, and then she got into a car with her date and drove off. Big E looked at me and said, "Why isn't her daddy going with her?" I explained that her daddy was staying home and his daughter was going to prom with a different boy. With tears welling up in her big, brown eyes, she said, "I don't ever want to go to prom with anybody except my daddy."

DADDY WIN!!

"Can I Help?" Putting Aside Independence for the Sake of Independence

Today is the last day of 2017. It is also the last day of the NFL season, and, based on the way my Bears and Cardinals have played this year, it is the last game for any team that I care about. So while watching football and enjoying the last day of Christmas decorations, I decided to do a little baking.

With our lemon tree producing an over-abundance of lemons again, I decided that today was a great day to make a Sour Cream Lemon Pound Cake. If you have never had this, you should probably stop reading right now, click on the link, and make this phenomenal cake before reading any further.

I got out the ingredients and got into my zone. The butter and sugar were getting creamed, I was zesting lemons, and I heard, "Hey dad, whatcha' doing?" I explained to my five-year-old that I was making a yummy cake. And then I heard the words that are sometimes sweet, but usually not at the time when I want them. "Can I help?"

A Carton of Eggs, a Gallon of Milk, and a Scoop of Poop: Quality Time with My Daughter

A couple of years ago I started occasionally helping my friends Bob and Sheri on their farm. I learned to milk cows, take care of their chickens, and do all of the fun things that take place on a small farm in the morning. For the past several years, when they were out of town and needed somebody to take care of the critters, I jumped in whenever I could. It is something that I really enjoy, and it keeps me on my toes, since the only thing constant on a farm is change.

Two weeks ago, Bob and Sheri asked me to milk for the weekend. My two girls were in the play Annie, school was getting ready to start, and I was in the middle of a sizeable flooring project. It was quite hectic around the house. Nevertheless, I jumped at the opportunity to work at the farm.

Then my nine-year-old asked me if she could help. My initial response was to tell her that she needed to sleep in (and I use the term "sleeping in" very loosely, since my kids are almost always awake by 6:00). I needed to leave the house by 5 a.m., and I didn't think that Big E would be able to handle this on top of everything else that was going on. But the softie in me said that this would be a great Daddy-Daughter memory, and I told her that she could help me one of the days. I woke her up at 4:45, asked her to get dressed (and found out that she slept with her clothes under her pajamas so she would be ready more quickly), and we headed out.

Big E helped get the cows ready to milk. She carried their food. She scooped the poop from the pastures. She fed and watered the chickens and checked for eggs. And not once did she complain. It was hot and humid, even at 5:30 in the morning. There was a rain storm the night before, so everything was muddy. And yet she kept a smile on her face all morning.

As we were cleaning up, and then driving home, we started talking about the time on the farm and her experience. She expressed her desire to someday live on a farm and have horses and cows and chickens. Her face lit up as she dreamed her wonderful nine-year-old dreams.

And I thought to myself, "Am I Tom Sawyer? Did I just dupe my child into doing work by making her think that it was fun?" I don't think that I tricked her, but I do think that I showed her how much fun the work is because of my enthusiasm. And my enthusiasm was even greater because of the one-on-one time that I got to spend with my daughter in the midst of an extremely busy time in our house. I love taking my kids on dates and spending time with them. But for Big E, spending time scooping poop with daddy was just as great as a date.

Do you think it will work if I pretend like I really enjoy folding their laundry and make that a date?

The Best Graduation Gift Parents and Teachers Could Ever Give Their Kids

One spring towards the end of my teaching career, I had a parent request a meeting. All educators know that when parents request a meeting, it usually means that they want to complain about something that you did. I didn’t know what this parent wanted to complain about, but I braced for it. She handed me a blank piece of paper and asked me to write a letter to her daughter. She explained that she had started doing this for her daughter in kindergarten. Every year she had the teacher write a letter to the daughter as an eighteen-year-old. She was compiling the letters in a binder, and as a graduation present, she would give her the binder with letters from her thirteen years of school. Anybody who knows me can guess that I shed a tear, both at the thoughtfulness of this mom and at the honor to be able to write a letter like that to a student. I decided then and there that when I had kids I would do the same thing.

Somewhere along the line we decided that, instead of just doing letters, we would get a copy of Dr. Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go! for each of our kids. I would have their teachers

How to Make the Most of Summer: A Guide for Educators

Before I became an educational administrator, I spent 8 years teaching. Four of those years I had summers off without kids, and four years I had summers with kids. Before we had kids, I usually spent my summers doing some sort of house project. Summer was a time to re-tile the house, put in French doors, cut off my thumb. Yeah, I really had the summer thing down. Summers with kids were the same, except there were kids in the house. So essentially I would find time to get projects done around being a dad.

 But I learned several things throughout the years, both as a teacher and as an administrator. It is very easy to let a summer slip by. Summers can easily sail past rather quickly, and the last thing I want is to be starting a new school year feeling not rested. In fact, I have discovered that no matter how long a school break is, the majority of teachers come back to school stating, “I could have used just one more day.” 

So here is a guide that I have compiled both through experience and through conversations that will help you make the most of the summer.

My Test Scores Don't Define Me

Spring is a time when most educators start to feel a little panic. In the education world, springtime is test-taking time. It's the time when most standardized tests take place. Whether they are state mandated, national, or school specific, tests are a normal part of the education world. And educators are often more nervous during these tests than the students are. Some of that pressure is what we put on ourselves, and often much of the pressure comes from outside.

Beyond nerves, many of us feel angry or disillusioned. We think, "The stakes are too high", "The results are skewed", "Too much class time is taken up", and "The test results don't tell the whole story". Depending on your district or state, the tests may be more or less frustrating and flawed. I get that.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret that most administrators know: there is no such thing as a perfect test. Even the ones you write yourself aren't perfect. And the standardized tests come with their own set of challenges. When I was a teacher, I quickly realized that our Arizona state-wide test was seriously flawed (it has since been replaced by an even more questionable test). It did not cover material that I felt was relevant to my class, and I found some questions to be confusing or poorly worded. How could I possibly hope for good results based on a flawed test?

But then I decided that even a flawed test could help me be a better teacher. I looked at my results each year and came up with a game plan for how I would improve the next year, even though my scores were initially pretty good. I could improve from pretty good to great, and then great to outstanding. There were setbacks and years when I had difficult students, but what teacher doesn't have those? My goal was not perfection. My goal was improvement.

In the school I now lead, teachers put a lot of pressure on themselves at test time. We are a highly competitive district, and some teachers, comparing their scores to others, end up feeling they don't measure up. After a recent round of testing, one of my teachers said the following. "I allow my scores to inform my instruction in order to improve my teaching - NOT define me." I feel like this sums up the whole point of testing. As educators, we should take the results of testing, diagnose areas for improvement, and look for ways to improve our instruction in order to better educate our students.

However, we often do the exact opposite. We look at our scores and equate that to our value as a teacher. Our students average a 75% on an exam, so I am 75% of a good teacher. Instead of looking at the data and figuring out how we can enhance our instruction, we beat ourselves up when the results are less than what we hope for.

Now, as an administrator, I don't look for perfect results. I look for progress. I look for teachers who take their test results and come up with strategies to gain ground. Not miracles, just successes.

So as we go into the end of the school year, let's make a conscious effort to allow our test data to inform us in how we can improve. Let's look at the results of each test and determine the best way to better reach individual students and classes as a whole. And let's stop placing a self-value on our teaching based on an exam, but rather look at improvements that we can make year after year.