Why all educators should experience a root canal

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I spent about 2 hours with one of these things in my mouth this afternoon.

After about a week of pain* and increasing doses of Tylenol with decreasing degrees of effect, I got in to see my dentist. A new cap on a tooth had developed an abscess - and it hurt like hell.

The root canal was something that I began to REALLY look forward to.

Now why I still think it is patently unfair that anyone who is as religious about flossing and brushing and bi annual cleanings and annual checkups and avoidance of sugared soft drinks should experience any dental problems at all, I believe everyone should all have a dental problem now and again.

The thing is I CAN have dental work done. I have a job. I have a dental plan. I have savings in the bank. I have transportation. I even have access to the Internet where I could read what was going to happen during the procedure. I knew my bad tooth was a temporary condition.

Although my family was far from rich, regular dental care was part of my childhood. And that has shaped my world view. Isn't dental care just a part of life?

For how many of our kids can we say the same thing? For how many of their parents? As our student poverty rates increase, are we as educators changing our perceptions of what it means to be growing up in today's society?

• Where not everyone has dental care?
• Where not everyone has parents who have dental plans?
• Where not every family has transportation to a dentist?
• Where a toothache may just be a part of life, not a short-lived condition that will be remedied?

I'm just saying that all of us old, middle class folks who are in education need to drink deeply from the well of empathy when working with children of poverty. Our world is not their world.

Think about it the next time you have a sore molar.

*The kind of pain that made you think Tom Hanks has the right idea in Castaway to remove his painful tooth with a rock.

BFTP: What does a good library tell you about a school?

 Your library is your portrait. - Holbrook Jackson

... children in one set of schools are educated to be governors; children in the other set of schools are trained for being governed. The former are given the imaginative range to mobilze ideas for economic growth; the latter are provided with the discipline to do the narrow tasks the first group will prescribe. - Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities.

Had I any say in the decision, my grandsons would never attend a school that did not have a good library program.* You can tell a lot about a school's philosophy of education - in practice, not just in lip service - by what sort of library it supports.

A school with a good library:

1. Believes that education is about teaching kids how to ask and answer questions, not just know the "right" answers.
2. Believes that asking questions is a sign of intelligence, not stupidity.
3. Believes that kids should have access to a diversity of topics and points-of-view and be taught the skills to make informed opinions of their own.
4. Believes that kids' personal interests are legitimate areas of investigation.
5. Believes that it is as important to create kids who want to read as to simply create kids who can read.
6. Believes that access to good fiction collections helps kids meet developmental tasks and reading fiction can foster empathy.
7. Believes that kids should be content creators and content sharers as well as content consumers.
8. Believes that it is important to have more research skills than simply being able to Google a topic - and that it is important to have a professional who helps kids master those skills.
9. Believes that edited, quality commercial sources of information should be available to all kids regardless of economic level.
10. Believes that technology use in education is about creativity, problem-solving, and communications.
11. Believes that the classroom is not the only place learning occurs.
12. Believes that kids, like adults, sometimes need a "third place" where they feel welcome, comfortable and productive.

It's in times of budget cuts that a school's true values come starkly into focus. Libraries are a visible sign that a school is educating governors, not the governed.

Which kind of school do you want your grandchildren to attend? With what kind of school do you wish to be affiliated as an educator?

What does your library reveal about your school?

* Good = proactive professional and support staff, adequate materials, articulated curriculum, pleasant physical plant, up-to-date technology.

Original post January 24, 2010
This post was reincarnated in an expanded verions as a Head for the Edge column you can find here.

The plunger

My friends in other districts have been tracking the amount of time a ticket is open for years, which is something I started paying attention to last winter. ... While we’ve made improvements, we can always improve here. I’d love to have a year where we stay under 20 work hours for an average ticket. Nathan Mielke

 

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The Terminator. The Executioner. The Great Emancipator. The Father of Our Country. The Angel of the Battlefield  ...

As nicknames go, "The Plunger" is probably not the most exciting. But it's one in which I take pride. As tech director, I am the last, best place to go for resolving a stubborn technology problem in the district. Everything from a ball of hair to a serious (ahem) obstruction.

Over the years I've found that to be an effective plunger, you need to understand a few things, including..

• There is no such thing as a small problem in technology to the individual being impacted. See this post. Here's the deal. School systems are made up of individuals. You take care of the individual, the system works.
• People will put off difficult tasks. It's human nature, I believe, to make the quick fixes first. Encouraging a mentality in technical staff to look at problems chronologically rather than by time needed to fix a problem needs to be encouraged.
• Talking to people F2F or on the phone is more effective than e-mail. When I ask why a particular job is taking so long to get done, I often get the reply "I am waiting to get e-mail back from _________." When people don't reply, get them on the phone or, even better, go visit them. Don't let others' procrastination reflect on your job performance.
• Problems are often simply a lack of understanding, of clarity, of communication. I was recently asked to provide volunteers e-mail accounts in the district - a big job that would get bigger. When I asked why these folks needed email the reply was "so they could print." I reminded the requester that we have generic logins for people who just need to print. Problem solved. Figure out the real issue before attempting to resolve it.
• Get everyone in the room. Sometimes tasks are not completed because of personality conflicts. My job as the plunger is often to get all parties in the same room, talk about the problem, and then get clarity on who needs to do what. Sometimes uncomfortable, but about the only good remedy I've found.
• Offer assistance. "What can I do as the tech director to help you solve this problem" is probably the best question I can ask. Can I get information, a budget code, an agreement, a tool, etc. that will enable you do clear this one out of the helpdesk backlog?
• Have patience - but not too much. I hate to micro manage, but I also know that it's my job as a supervisor to help others prioritize. Helping create a timeline is sometimes necessary.
• Put it in writing. Sometimes a task is not done because the person responsible is uncomfortable with the policy behind it. I will then put the request in writing with the reminder that if there is a complaint, it can be directed to me.
• Reexamine a rules and legacy practices. "I am supposed to be only in this building on Tuesdays and Thursdays." "We don't keep projection lamps on site in buildings." "We don't give computers to teaching assistants." "We never move the location of a smartboard once installed." If a job is not getting done because of a long-standing practice, take a good hard look at the practice - or consider an exception to that practice.
• Sometimes the solution to a problem is admitting there is no solution to the problem. Being open about insolvable problems (I get too much spam, there is no money for this in the budget this year, this product does not have this feature, etc.) is the only way to close an issue. It's a last resort only to be used after all other avenues have been explored.
• Know the difference between a problem and a dilemma. Dilemmas can't be solved, only managed.
• Don't quibble over pennies. OK, I abide by the golden rule of school budgets whenever possible - "Never pay for something from your budget that you can get someone else to pay for." But if a problem can be solved by just buying a damn part that is under $100, I'd just as soon pay it and get the job done. Why save a few bucks and risk having your department's reputation for good service tank?
• Create team members who are plungers themselves. Encourage and reward timeliness, creative problem-solving, good communications. That way you can take on the really big clogs. Last week I challenged our tech team to significantly reduce the number of job tickets that are over two weeks old. In one week we went from 116 old tickets to under 60. Yes!

It's a lot more rewarding to work for department known for its competence that for its dysfunction. And once you have created a positive reputation, you'll never want it any other way.

Happy plunging.