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Chris Ericson is Assistant Superintendent of Schools.
The district’s partnership with the Ball Foundation has really had an impact not only on the district, but also on me personally. On a district level, working with Stephanie Pace Marshall has helped us to appreciate this district as a living, dynamic system. She has made us aware of the process of transformation and the power of story. Story helps us translate our vision from something abstract to what it will look like when realized. It also helps us to honor our past and appreciate what we do not want to lose.
Our focus is on transforming teaching and learning but we have broadened that concept in that we are transforming the system as a whole. We’re creating how we are “going to be” in that system, how we’re going to evolve, and how we’re going to work. We have a frame of reference for how we’ve operated in the past and how we are now living into a new reality.
How we talk to each other has been impacted. We talk about the work that we’re doing, but just as importantly is how we work and interact with each other, including the relationships that we’re forming. We’ve all come to value process to a greater degree. That was an “aha” for me – I knew as a district that we’ve always valued process and relationships, but we are now more conscious of being genuinely more inclusive.
Our Ball partnership work has made us better thinkers. In the past, when we’ve talked about work, it has often been from ground level. But one thing Stephanie talked to us about was taking different perspectives, from the 50,000 foot level down to the ground. To really make a difference for students, we have to be able to strike a balance. While we need to address what’s in front of us every day, we also need to be able to take a more comprehensive, in depth approach to transforming teaching and learning. This concept has really impacted how we approach major initiatives including the strategic plan and the redesign work. We try to take that higher, broader perspective, and yet, appreciate the rigor and complexity of our work. It takes us away somewhat from being mired in the mundane. There are those days where you feel like all you’re doing is putting out fires, but the partnership is elevating.
On a personal level, this work has helped me to be more patient and more reflective. I’ve always valued relationships, process and true collaboration. But now I try to use my time differently. I am outcome-driven, and while I know the value of giving time toward goals, I didn’t always spend my time aligned to my values. I gave what I thought I should or could give, and then I’d move on. Now I am more reflective about how my time is aligning to what I value as important rather than urgent.
I’m also trying to be more cognizant of distributing leadership. Sometimes it’s hard for me to delegate. And yet, I’ve started to see that with an investment of time with people – maybe by putting more time into the beginning of a project or spending more time on mutual reflection – that we’re all in a better place to continue the work and do what we need to do. It’s really made me appreciate how we can sometimes impact the work that we think is so important by letting go and sharing responsibility.
In my meetings, I’ve also tried very hard to eliminate strictly informational kinds of items. I try to create open space to work more on instruction and learning issues to have greater impact on student achievement.
Our partners from the Ball Foundation have been, in every sense of the word, true partners. They are critical friends who raise our sense of self-efficacy and professionalism. They share with us specific information and expertise, but their questions are what are most impactful to helping us move our work forward. They challenge us. There will be a tremendous void once the formal partnership comes to an end but I feel confident that the culture of the district has been impacted for the better related to both what our work is and how we work together.
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Debbie Gatti is the Registered Nurse for the district and coordinator of the district nutrition project.
I’ve always thought of literacy as reading words and being able to explain them back. But now, after spending a couple of days with the Ball Foundation whose main focus is on literacy, I understand it to be much more than that. That understanding has made me look at how I communicate with the children who are dealing with chronic illness.
For example, now when students with chronic asthma come in every day to use their inhalers or get a breathing treatment, I sit right next to the students while they are using the inhaler or doing the breathing-in treatment and ask them questions about what they are doing. I also started drawing pictures for them because at one of the Ball trainings I learned that a lot of kids don’t have very good reading ability but are still visual learners. So, we draw pictures of the lungs and talk about how the medication that they’re using actually works in their lungs. Then, when they’re done with the treatment, we do landmarks on their bodies to show where their lungs really are. Most kids think the lungs are two little sacks right here on top of their chests.
So, the kids are learning more about their illness and why they take the medication and how it benefits them. I try to give the older kids more vocabulary so when they are trying to communicate their needs to another caretaker, they are understood. It’s an empowerment. The kids actually know, “This is my illness. This is what I deal with. This is what I need.” They can become advocates for themselves.
I have one third grader now who is my asthma inhaler teacher who teaches other students the “No Dragons” program. If you have an inhaler with medication and a puff comes out the side when you use it, it means you are a dragon. So we teach the kids how not to be dragons when they use their inhalers. This third grade student has excellent technique, so I always bring her down to demonstrate when I have another student who is new to the “No Dragons” program.
Before my experience with Ball, the students would come into the health office and use their inhalers. Of course, I was concerned if they didn’t have the correct technique, but besides showing them how to use the inhaler, I didn’t take the time to explain why they were doing it or how to explain to someone else why they were doing it. As someone who has dealt with chronic illness all my life and who grew up with doctors, I was able to learn the vocabulary and explain myself quite well. These kids don’t necessarily have that benefit.
It’s amazing how I’ve taken a different focus on my work with these students. If I were to sum up what this experience with Ball has so far done for me personally, I would say it is true enlightenment of what literacy is. It’s not just reading and writing, but all aspects of communicating with the outside world.
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Jim Himes is a district psychologist.
At one of the Ball meetings, I was particularly taken by the exercise where we were each given a different part of a story and had to walk around and talk to people to figure out what the story was. The story itself fascinated me and the process of putting the story together fascinated me.
The story illustrated the plasticity of the brain. It was about a woman who had a condition where anytime she tried to stand up, she felt like she was falling over even though she wasn’t. Apparently this condition affects quite a few people and ruins their lives. They can’t walk, they can’t work, they become incapacitated and are at a total loss. This woman had an electrode placed on her tongue so that it affected her brain and stimulated her in a way that she was able to have her balance again.
For the exercise at the Ball meeting, the story was condensed and cut into pieces. We were each given a piece of the story and had to circulate around the room talking to people and collecting pieces of the story. Then we went back to our original table group and put all the pieces together. Because of my scientific background (I have a degree in biology), I was able to fill in some of the holes in the story about brain plasticity. When this information was put together with the pieces the other group members contributed, it seemed to complete the story (which is maybe why I was taken with this exercise). I acted as a spokesman for our table, and Carla said, “Yeah that’s it. That’s what happened.”
It was a much better experience than I expected it to be. I generally do not like group activities. I’m very comfortable talking to a group when I have something prepared. But if I’m sitting with 15 people I don’t know, I’m not only not comfortable with it, I don’t like it. I overwhelmingly prefer to be sitting with 15 people I know. I don’t think I knew anyone at my table at this meeting. But I thought the way they structured the exercise really pulled people together. It was an exciting exercise for me and I really responded to it and enjoyed it. There were other exercises that I enjoyed as well, but if you asked me to go back and name all of them, I could not do it. But that one sure made an impression on me.
Afterwards I asked JoAnn and Carla about the book that the story had come from, and they said it was The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge. So I went home and immediately ordered the book from Amazon because I was fascinated by it. When I did my Master’s at Cal State Long Beach many years ago, I wrote my thesis on how the right and left hemispheres of the brain relate to school children. At that time, the idea that the brain’s division into two sections affected how information transferred between the two was considered pretty firm. Doidge takes the opposite tact and supports it with research saying that the brain is very plastic and that things can change in a very short amount of time. So when the book came in the mail, I read it and found some things directly applicable to what I do here at work.
I was interested in the section where the author dealt with autism since I work with two severely handicapped autistic classes – the primary and upper. In the book there was a case study of an autistic man and how they worked to help him socialize in a better way. One of the main deficits of autistic children is socialization skills along with communication skills and often cognitive skills. I’m planning to look more closely at that part of the book to see if the methods they used are applicable to younger children as well.
The book also related to my personal life. I’m at retirement age, and I was very interested in the aspects of the book that dealt with the aging brain. We all live in fear of the more extreme kinds of memory loss and I have familial experience with that – it’s the kind of thing you do not want to happen to you. Doidge wrote that he has been engaged in developing a program for memory skills, and that he has seen significant increases in these skills in older people. I would definitely want to get more into that.
I was glad I got exposed to the book because the way things are going financially in the state and in our district, we don’t have the liberty to go to conferences the way we used to. And the fact that I’m darn near ready to retire, I may not have been exposed to it at all unless I stumbled on it through my own research.
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Beth Hodges was a BTSA (Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment) Induction Co-Director when she told this story. She is currently the coordinator of the FRC-First 5 grant.
The activity that was the most transformational for me was when I had the opportunity to interview teachers at other schools. The Ball Foundation was helping the district begin the process of creating a strategic plan by conducting interviews, site visits, and surveys in order to find out what was most important to the people in the district. I had the opportunity to interview four teachers in the district, and the experience transformed my whole understanding of who we are as Rowland Unified.
At the time, I was an elementary teacher and the teachers I interviewed were high school teachers. Three of the four teachers were former Rowland Unified students. One of them had actually been a student at the school where I was currently teaching. They had all come up through the Rowland system and had chosen to become teachers in the district.
In every single interview, there was that same common thread of wanting to do what’s best for the students. Even though what we taught was so very different, we were all very similar in what we wanted out of our profession and the outcomes that we wanted for our students. I realized that this was the foundation of the district. The whole experience really, really touched me, and I can’t underscore enough how amazing it was to have three of the four teachers be former Rowland students.
My current work involves working with new k-12 teachers in the credential program, and I’ve found that the interview experience has affected my work with these teachers. I always keep in the back of my mind that even though this is a first grade teacher and this is an 11th grade AP teacher, they are very similar. They may express things differently, but they really do want what’s best for their students. That came out loud and clear in those interviews. The whole process gave me a better perspective and full picture of the population of teachers that I’m working with.
Word cloud created at wordle.net.
Suzanne Isago is an account clerk at Giano Intermediate School.
Last year I felt honored and privileged to be part of the strategic planning committee. I worked on Strategy V, which was to ensure superior classified and certificated staff who know what they’re doing and are well educated for their positions. Also, to make sure that they all have colleagues they can talk to and approach for help if they need it. We discussed many different areas like not only having the knowledge and experience, but also the desire to learn more about areas that aren’t necessarily their own. For example, because classified employees have to sometimes cover for other positions, it’s important for us to know each other’s jobs. That kind of working relationship shows a lot of teamwork inside the schools. What’s so great about it is you’ll be able to call on anybody in the district to find an answer to your question. It’s almost like, “Let me drop everything and help you.” I love that about our district – they want to make sure that they answer your question and help you do everything right.
When I first heard about the opportunity to work on Strategy V, I thought, “Oh yes, I want to be a part of this. This is a great opportunity for me to learn more from people who are so well educated, like the administrators and teachers.” When you’re around those kinds of people, you gain more knowledge. Your thinking changes in a positive manner. I also feel like it’s so easy to approach them now. Before, I thought, “How do I approach them? How do I approach an administrator?” I always thought so highly of them, and now being able to talk to them on a personal level has changed my working relationship with them. This process made it so that we were all on the same level, and we could speak what we believe.
As a result of working on Strategy V, I think I’m more open-minded. When I need to find an answer to an issue or a question, I’ll think, “Let me go out of the box and try to solve the problem or get an answer.” Before I would say, “I’ll just go ask somebody else.” It was so easy to pass the buck, but now when someone needs help and I don’t have the answer, I’ll say, “I think I know somebody who might be able to help you.” Or when somebody is new at our school, I want to make sure they are introduced to our administrators or to whomever I think they’re going to work with. That way, they can have the support that they might need throughout the day. So there’s somebody they can go to just to say, “Hey, what’s your thinking on this?” or “What should I do about this?” Overall, I think I’m trying to be more helpful.
Word cloud created at wordle.net.
