An Open Invitation

Dear Friends, 

Something that I have preached about and practiced myself is the need to be a life long learner. I think when we talk about educational change and growth creating a culture in our schools of life long learners is second to none. This means we all need to be learning; administrators , teachers and of course our students. To create a school culture one needs  to begin with the school leaders. We are all school leaders and therefore I am reaching out to all of you. 

Today with social media and the Internet professional development is 24/7/365 and I think that is great. However we need to raise the bar and as was mentioned at a recent EDUVUE hang out we need to look at it as professional learning.  If we view it as learning it needs to be teacher driven and owned, differentiated, personalized, and ongoing. 

That needs a more personal touch and can't be accomplished by "drive by " PD. 

Star Educational Consulting offers that personal connected touch to help schools shine. Please check out the website and email or call me about some introductory offers. 

Wishing you all a Great Day!

Akevy 

www.star-educational-consulting.com

Follow us on Twitter @Stareduconsult

A NEW VENTURE

As I get ready for Yom Kippur the holiest day of the Jewish Year I find myself in new and uncharted waters for the first time in over 20 years in education.
My passion for learning and helping others is still strong and our children deserve the very best , and I believe our teachers and administrators want to do the very best  and are dedicated to doing so. Today the opportunities for professional development are all over and can be accessed 24/7. However I believe that PD needs to be owned and driven by the teacher and be tailor  made to help that individual  teacher succeed. What works for one teacher may not work for another. This type of learning needs to be ongoing and not just during professional development days. Earlier this week I attended a google hangout about PD and Jamie Vandergrift coined the phrase professional learning as opposed to development. I like this distinction because since we strive to be life long learners this implies that our professional growth and learning needs to be ongoing and not just every few months.
With this passion and feeling I am beginning a new venture and have created Star Educational Consulting.

I look forward to working with you and learning and growing with you so that we help our students and schools shine.

Akevy

Taking the Next Step

I had the privilege this week to Skype with two excellent educators about assessments. In the course of the conversation we started talking about grade, and homework and we realized that once you talk about one topic in education and look at reforming it you realize that you have just opened the door to three more areas that you need to change in order to bring about reform in the first area.
Therefore the obvious question is "What is the next Step"
At this point in the conversation I mentioned what the Rabbis said happened right before the Jews crossed the Red Sea on the way out of Egypt. They say that the sea didn't split right away and that it wasn't until Nachshon jumped in showing his faith in G-D and letting the water get up to his nose did the sea actually split.
Therefore to bring about reform it is going to take someone to jump in first. However that is not the end of the commentary given by the Rabbis they say that it did not split all at once but rather each time the Jews would have to first take that leap of faith into the water before it split. It was if you will a slow process. The same is true with any type of change especially educational change or reform.
Whether it is a new take on assessments or grading it is going to take time, at the same time however we need to take that jump and try to make small changes starting at first in our classrooms, or grade level, or school before we take on changing an entire system.

What can I do.
Well on a personal level I do try to conduct my own classroom based on my beliefs and as an administrator I try to get my teachers to buy into what I am preaching.
I blog and tweet about what I believe as well.

To be honest I still want to do more. Which brings me to a new endeavour and that is the launching of Star Educational Services which is a consulting group to provide Educational and Leadership ideas to help students and schools shine. To learn more please direct message me @akevy613

My small steps to help bring about reform.

Akevy (Akevy613)

Defining Success

In all areas of life we want to be successful. As adults we want to be successful in our jobs and with raising a family . We want our children to be successful in school and as educational leaders we want our students and our teachers to be successful.
However who and how do we define success. Is it Wall Street's definition or in the classroom is it getting straight A's or perhaps for our teachers it might raising his /her students test scores. All of these possibilities have one major flaw ( at least) and that is that depend on someone else or the definition of what someone else believes to be success . What cooperate America may define as success may not fit my value system, does that mean that I am not successful. As much as teachers give tests and have other data it has been my experience that the same student can be an A student for Teacher X and a B student for Teacher Y. Is that student not successful. And finally our teachers there has been much debate over test scores so should that define a successful teacher.
Therefore I believe that success is something personal and needs to be measured by each individual. For the C student who pulled himself up a got a B, that student was very successful.
Therefore I happen to like Coach Wooden's definition of success he says the following; "Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming".

As many of us are preparing for the new school year and who doesn't want it to be a successful one let us keep this definition in mind in thinking about our own growth as educators and more importantly when looking at our students. If we want our students to be successful then we have to help them maximize their potential and become the best that they are capable of and for some students that might be an A but for others that might be a C.

May we all become the best that we are capable of and have successful school year