I'm almost done with Hyatt's book. And it's great, though much of it I've already experienced and muddled my way through as I've struggled to build my own platform now.
But I wish I would have had this book eight years ago when I first began blogging.
One of my biggest take aways comes from the chapter "Don't Settle for Less than Great." Hyatt notes that sometimes people get so caught up in the daily grind that they tend to lose track quickly. The fact that they get lost is totally unintentional too. It just happens.
Hyatt offers a great example when it comes to this - he writes about how he was scuba diving with his wife while on vacation. They were so focused on the marine life and the crystal clear water and how calm and fascinating it was, when they looked up at their surroundings, they realized they were a mile from shore! They had been caught up in the tide and never even realized it! Luckily, the were able to make it back to shore (after an hour of paddling!).
Hyatt applies this to our work. He writes, "So much of life is similar to this experience. You start out with one thing in mind and then, without consciously intending to do so, end up in an entirely different location. It is the power of the drift."
Immediately, I connected this to teaching. We are always fighting the drift. Stop me if you've ever had this happen to you . . . the district brings in an amazing speaker (or presenter) and you get all jazzed up to try something new, but then you go back to your classes, each with 25 kids in them, and get caught up in the grind and before you know it, you're lost at sea and you've totally forgotten about the new idea or strategy or skill you discovered. Happens to me a dozen times each year.
So when I read about the power of the drift, it totally rang true for me.
To avoid getting caught in the drift, Hyatt offers six pieces of advice.
1. Take a stand for greatness. Go all-in. Or as our principal says, "Make a stand. Be ready to die on a hill for something." That's how I feel about my Sticky-Note Book Report. I don't care what new curriculum we get or new standards we have to meet, this assignment is powerful and the students (for the most part) love it. I'll die on a hill for this every time.
2. Connect with the original vision. Hyatt states, "Sometimes you just have to close your eyes and once again become present to what it is you are trying to create." One time when I was facing the drift was last spring. We had just come back from the MN Teachers of English conference. I had half a dozen new ideas I couldn't wait to try. One was the Socratic seminar discussion method. So I chose a time to give it a try. As the day grew closer, I kept coming up with excuses to keep doing the same old thing. And truth be told, I was thinking of just chucking it and trying it later, but then I closed my eyes and thought back to how rich the Socratic seminar was when I first encountered it at the conference. That gave me the motivation to stick to my guns and go through with have the seminar in class.
3. Remind yourself what is at stake. This one, for teachers, is easy. For me it comes down to one thing - student engagement. Are the students going to find this interesting? Will that help them access the skills and ideas I want them to?
4. Listen to your hear. I am a Virgo, so I'm all about the touchy-feely stuff, so this was perfect for me. Hyatt writes, "Most of us have spent a lifetime ignoring -- or even suppressing -- our intuition. I don't know if this is a product of modern rationalism or American pragmatism. Regardless, I believe intuition is the map to buried treasure. It is not infallible, but neither is our reason. And it can point us in the right direction. We need to pay attention to this inner voice."
5. Speak up. The hardest one for me. I don't like to stir the pot. When we read Patrick Lencioni's The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, I realized that my reluctance to speak up and challenge anyone was part of the dysfunction! In fact, I'm one of those who would suppress my own ideas in order to make sure that everyone else is happy and not all stirred up. I am working on this, but for me it's still very, very difficult. Sure, I can blog about it, but when it comes to stirring this up face-to-face, I'm terrible.
6. Be stubborn. I love this from Hyatt, "This is perhaps the toughest part of all. We all want to be liked. We don't want to be "high maintenance" or unreasonable. But think back to your own history. Aren't the people you respect the most also the ones who demanded the most from you?" That last line is so true!
The other chapter that really hit me hard was eleven, "Create an Elevator Pitch."
An elevator pitch, for those who don't know, is a quick sales pitch about you or your product/service. As I read this, I literally thought that I should devise an elevator pitch to sell to all of my classes on the first day.
Who am I? Why should they want to come to class? What will we be learning? How will it change their lives (okay, I'm getting a little grand here, maybe I should have phrased it, "How will it connect to their lives?"
Hyatt discusses a colleague who listened to a person's elevator pitch and then asked her to clarify some things and give her greater detail because there was nothing in the original sales pitch that made the person stand out at all.
So I began wondering what do we, as teacher, think sets us apart? I'd love to have us all write short sales pitches and then see them published anonymously, just to see what others had to say.
I'd love that.
Because shouldn't we all strive to be different? To play to our strengths? To offer our different experiences?
The final chapter that I'll blog about is eighteen, "Focus Your Efforts Online."
Hyatt begins the chapter with this statement - "The most effective way to sell anything is word of mouth. Consumers trust the recommendations of their family, friends, and coworkers. They have credibility that you never hope to have . . . This begat the question, 'How do you get word of mouth started?'"
Hyatt goes on to discuss the various ways businesses can have a presence online. He warns that people can't just put their entire stores or services online and wait for the world to come to you. That is what Gary Vaynerchuk warns about simply throwing right hooks without offering any jabs.
I think we as teachers are prone to this. Just because we put assignments online, doesn't necessary mean students will come to them or find them (and here's that word again) engaging.
It's my belief you will fail in 'flipping' your classroom if you just put what used to be "in class work" on line. There is no reward for students. If they don't enjoy coming to your class when they have to during the day, why should they tune in on their own time?
Thus, you have to make things engaging. Now, I'm not saying I always do this. One thing I try to do when I do 'flip' my classes, is that I post responses right away for students to use as models. Then during the evening (and this is difficult) I actually pop in to our blog and respond students' responses. If they haven't left any, I shoot out a text reminding them.
One of my colleagues in the math department had a brilliant idea. Since we all have MacBook Airs, he told his students that for an hour in the evenings, he'd be online and available to FaceTime with students to help them with their homework.
Great idea. I love this.
Yet, no one took him up on it.
Why? It's unengaging.
For me, it all comes back to culture. Now I'm not saying he didn't have good culture in his class. Simply, he didn't have a digital culture that encouraged the students to tune in.
I suggested that he do something to reward those who FaceTimed him. For example, tell the class during the day that if anyone logs on during the evening they would get some form of reward. Then I told him to have a large box next to his computer with slips of paper or prizes inside. Then when a student would FaceTime in, he could rummage around in the box and pull out their prize - it could be a stupid McDonald's toy or some junk around the house he's trying to get rid of (I call these Super Duper prizes. I use them when we review for tests. You wouldn't believe how well these go over!) or it could be something written on a sheet of paper, such as "10 Bonus points on the next quiz" or "One Free Mountain Dew" or even "One free tardy slip to be used this quarter." Anything like that to reward the students. I believe if he did that, he'd have students soon streaming in on FaceTime.
And it isn't about the reward. It's about engaging and personalizing things for students.
And that's what is at the heart of everything I try to do. In class or online.
No comments:
Post a Comment