Begin with the End in Mind

Those of you who know Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People know that my title today comes from his second habit. I work on a "Leader in Me" campus, where we take his habits and try to instill them in kids. I know, I know, it sounds like another of those "follow me and I'll show you the way, for only 90 bajillion dollars"types of character programs -- except that it's working. Really well. And the best part is that it's not only character education for kids -- it's working on the grownups, too. In fact, this blog exists because of my personal Wildly Important Goal. (Yes, I speak fluent Edubabble -- stay tuned for more!)

This summer, I also attended a four-day seminar by David Langford, who has researched and shared dozens upon dozens of tools intended to help kids problem-solve and become more intrinsically motivated. Although I had some serious issues with some of his ideas, I really liked his thoughts on having kids determine what an end product will be.  Also, he is a huge fan of sticky notes, and I like sticky notes, too. (Especially when I can color-code them. Hush. It's a teacher thing.)


With the start of my GT pullout classes last week, I wanted to "Begin with the End in Mind" and set the tone for the year. So I took that "quality" idea, reached into my bag of tricks and mixed this together:

For those of you "in the know," you may recognize the Thinking Map in the photo above. I'll spare you the testimonial, but I really like these tools, too. I talked to my students (grades first through fifth) about what quality means, then they brainstormed on their sticky notes how they know they've completed quality projects. They then had to group their sticky notes close to others with similar messages. (My favorite up there came from a first grader: "I wark my but oof.")

I put together the bulletin board with titles after everybody had the opportunity to define quality. Now, it's a visual reminder in my room that we all know quality when we see it -- and, we know how to create it.

Starting Something New

We live in an era of a million ideas. Everybody, it seems, has the "next best thing" for education. They know what we need to fix it! To get our kids to read! Write! Do Math! Behave! Just buy this product...go to this workshop...read this book or listen to this expert. And you -- that's right, you! -- will finally be a successful teacher.

What it sometimes reminds me of!

Does that sound bitter? It's not meant to...well, maybe a little. I've been a teacher for 10 years, and have taught everything from high school journalism to kindergarten GT students. I've been to dozens of seminars, read loads of educational books, magazines and blogs, and you know something -- I have become a better teacher. Not because of one program, or one product, or one dynamite author. But because I've listened, I've learned, I've taken pieces of the ideas they have and mixed them with what I myself have experienced in my classrooms.

I've remixed.

So now, with this blog, I want to add my thoughts to our million-idea mix. I'm not wildly creative -- I wish I was, but those groundbreaking, world-changing ideas are not mine. (For some amazing ones, check out my friend Cristina's blog @ http://thinkappythoughts.blogspot.com/)

Instead, I'll share how I've taken some of the old, mixed it with some of the new, and come up with some pretty cool projects for my current batch of kiddoes. Have great ideas of your own? Send 'em my way -- and we'll keep learning together.