Blessed, not Stressed

Blessed, not Stressed

As I sat and pondered on what to write about for my next article, the Nightly News was on NBC.  While watching, I noticed that just about everything that was reported on was negative in some way, shape, or form: plane crash in Russia, destruction from a storm in the Philippines, tornadoes in Illinois, etcetera.   The negative continued on and suddenly it hit me.  I have no reason whatsoever to feel stressed.  I soon realized how good I have it, and started to think about all the things that have blessed me in my life.  I couldn’t stop.

Why is it that we tend to be more stressed than blessed?  Why is it that our stressors tend to outweigh our blessors (pretty sure that is not a word, but it works).   Why is it easier to see the negative things that surround us rather than the positive things that stare us in the face?  We can change this.

This time of year is all about family and thanksgiving.  After we feast on our turkeys (or other foods) next Thursday, we will begin to focus our attention on Christmas.  Christmas is a joyous time of year because we get to spend more time with our families doing the things that we love to do. 

This holiday season, count your blessings and be thankful for all of the good in your life.  If you sit down and think about it, you can probably come up with a million and one reasons to feel blessed.   I challenge you to feel blessed and not stressed!

What does this have to do with school?  Why is a superintendent telling you this?  Well, you know the old saying… “If momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”  The same applies for students.   Stress in the home can directly lead to stress at school.   Talk with your children each and every day about the positives in their lives.  One thing that I’ve started to do is ask my kids the same question every night before they go to bed:  “what was your favorite part of the day?”   Now they go to bed thinking about something positive. 

In any event – I will end with a short poem written by yours truly:

Are you feeling crabby?

Things in your life a little shabby?

Are you walking with a frown?

Well, it’s time to turn it upside down.

                               

Now put on your smile

Even if it’s for a two-minute trial.

You will feel better

And your life will feel like it’s coming back together.

If you are still feeling stressed after reading this article, think of the this:  you could be a turkey!

Proud Superintendent

Proud Superintendent

What makes a school great?  This is obviously an overloaded question, which would most likely yield and overloaded answer.  I will keep it simple.

The answer….it depends on who you’re asking.  If you ask the legislator’s that passed the No Child Left Behind legislation the answer is high test scores.  If your students do well on the State test; then you are a great school.   We have to focus on the parts that make up the whole in order to achieve such greatness.   

Have you ever made Rice Crispy Bars but forgot the Marshmallow’s?  How about Spaghetti and forgot the sauce?  Do you know where I’m going with this?

Certainly the ingredients to a great school include more than just test scores, and I can tell you at GCC we are whipping up a great batch of school each and everyday.  I’m proud to be the Superintendent of such a great school.  We often focus on the negative in this world and we tend to overlook the positives.  This is wrong.  We should take pride in our positives, and learn from our negatives. 

I recently read a great article about how Golf applies to our lives.  What does a golfer remember after a round of golf?  The simple answer is – the great shot he/she hit on that one hole.  Of course a golfer hits a number of bad shots, but the one thing he/she remembers is the great one, and it’s the great shot that keeps them going back out for more golf.  Why can’t we apply this to our lives today?   The answer is……..drum roll please………..I said drum roll please…………… we can, and we need to start today.  

So lets begin.

The pride that the communities of Cooperstown and Hannaford have in their school goes unmatched by any other.  I’m willing to take bets on it.  If you have ever wondered why students don’t cheer, or even don’t attend school events anymore – wonder no more.  Please come to a GCC event.   Sportsmanship and Pride are two things that our patrons and students take with them to all of our events.    The support that our communities have for our kids, and the support that our kids have for each other is a site to see. 

The Cooperstown gymnasium is maybe the only place where you could play “If your happy and you know it” at a sporting event and the entire crowd takes part (including teenagers :).  Yep, they put their right foot in and then they take their right foot out, and you better watch out because they shake it all about.   They do the hokey pokey and they cheer and support one another. 

What makes a great school?  It is more than test scores.  It is a pride in doing what we do.  We live, we learn, we play.  We lift each other up.  We lend a helping hand, and we take pride in everything we do.  This is what makes a great school.   As for tests scores making a great school…I think of it like this.  Making progress in our scores should be a major goal for our student’s and teachers.  Supporting each other in everything we do is a major activity of reaching that goal.  If we can motivate, inspire, and support each and every day – we cannot do wrong, and we will continue to see progress.

Thank you to the communities of Cooperstown and Hannaford for supporting our students in all that they do.  I look forward to doing the Hokey Pokey with you real soon.

What is Next?

What is next?  I ask myself this question everyday simply because I learn something new everyday.  It seems like education continues to evolve and change at a rapid pace. I fear that in this evolution we tend to forget the real reason we are here.

We hear we must do this and we must do that.  Federal funding has decreased, and the pressures to get students to proficiency has increased. More and more, students are coming into our districts and less funds are available to get them the education that they deserve.  We spend more time as educators learning new technologies and implementing new mandates, that I fear we are doing our students a disservice.  I completely agree that we need to “keep up with the Jones” so to speak, but I also believe that we need to filter down on the "new" stuff and concentrate on the "what is important."   All too often it seems that once we get a handle on something new it becomes the old and the process repeats itself.

Currently, our students take one test which determines if they are proficient or not in English and Math.   Imagine if we carried this same idea to other aspects in life.  I'm sure Michael Jordan has missed a free throw a time or two.  Does this make him non-proficient in basketball?  He could jump, he could defend, and he was quick.  We could apply this or a similar analogy to a student who does not perform well on the English portion of this test.  The student is extremely creative and innovative.  The student has people skills that go unmatched by their peers, but we labeled them partially proficient or novice.  The point is that one test cannot be a significant measure of academic success and school proficiency. We have got to change the way schools and our students are judged by this.

In any event, we cannot forget about educating our children. Technology is interesting and can be very tempting, but we need to make informed decisions about what is important.  We need to focus on the student...the individual student.  The more time teachers spend with their students, the better they will understand how they learn.  If we can turn our classrooms into student-centered classrooms and facilitate learning to the individual child, we will see our proficiency rates rise.  The more time we spend with our students and the less time we spend learning something that will eventually be replaced by the time we learn it, the better off we (and our students) will be.

As we look forward, I just simply ask that we continue to keep the students in the forefront of our minds.  A decision that does not positively affect our students is not a good decision.

Travis Jordan

Superintendent

Griggs County Central School

Academics vs. Activities

This time of year is extremely busy.  Students who participate in spring activities
often seem to be gone from school more than one day a week (sometimes three and four times a week).  Because of this, the question arises every year (mostly during this time of year)…What are the kids learning?

Many people like to compare academics and activities - and obviously one probably out-weighs the other.  However, a closer look might surprise you.  The truth is that both of these work hand-in-hand to provide our students with the best education possible.

I was blessed to be a basketball coach for 11 years of my life.  I've also been blessed to be an educator for about 10 years.  I've seen the best of both worlds, and I've seen some troubling times as well.  Through it all I’ve gained a deeper understanding of the importance of both the academic curriculum and the social curriculum.

The academic side of school offers our students a curriculum that is not only challenging and worthwhile, but it also gives them a recipe for the future.  It gives our students a solid knowledge base so that they can begin to tackle the world after they graduate.  Mastery of the academic side of school is measured by a grade-point system (look for major changes to this in the future).

The activity side of school offers a social curriculum that teaches students some very valuable life lessons.  It teaches our students the importance of hard work and dedication.  It teaches students the values of team work and perseverance.  It provides students with a social dimension, which requires interaction and dependability.

Both of these educational entities allow for success and failure, and in most circumstances, you cannot have one without the other.  Most successes come directly from failure.  So whether a student fails a test or misses the game winning shot – the values learned in both circumstances help determine who our students become.

So yes, this is a very busy time of the year but it is also very important.  Students who are currently juggling academics and activities are just getting a taste of what life is like when they enter the real world, when all of the sudden they are juggling family, job, finances, and possibly, school and more.  The next time you hear somebody say, “What are our kids learning,” you can tell them that GCC Students are learning life.

Social Media and Education

I can remember the phrase vividly.  I swear that my mother must have said it so many times that she had to have dreams about it.  “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.”  Have you heard this?  I can remember growing up and fearing the moments that I made my parents mad.  I can also remember the one time I had to visit the Principal’s office and crying before I even got half way there.  The weird thing about that – is that I had no clue why I was even being called there.

In this day and age it seems as though that fear has subsided and the consequences of wrongful behavior no longer outweigh the repercussions that come with it.  Students these days are exposed to so much more than you were as a kid.  When I was in school there was no Facebook.  There was no Twitter or SnapChat.  If you had something to say to somebody, you said it to their face or mailed them a letter.  Students now believe that they can write or post what they want on social media sites and not have to live with the consequences.  We as a society need to change this way of thinking.

As an educational entity it is our job to reinforce the morals and the character that students are being taught in their homes.  Obviously it is also our job to provide an enriching and engaging education which is gained in a safe, but yet welcoming environment. The main focus of schools is to provide a curriculum that students can take with them when they leave and put it to good use as productive citizens. I understand that not everything that goes on in a school system is perfect – but we must keep striving for it.  I have been told that perfection is unattainable but the pursuance of such a feat can lead us to excellence.

The curriculum is not my worry.  Social skills are what I continue to worry about.  It’s not just Griggs County, but yet it is our entire society.  We continue to say that it is ok for people (adults and children) to write what they want on social network sites and not be held accountable for it.  It’s ok for political parties to hold debates where the sides bully each other.  It’s ok for local media outlets to create Facebook accounts where people can write in and complain about anything and everything.  Do you see a problem here?  We as a society have an obligation to make things right.  We have to teach our students moral and ethical behavior standards and we have to all be on the same page doing it.  Albert Einstein said it best: “I fear the day when technology will surpass humanity…..”  If we all lived by the phrase my mom engrained into my head a million times, maybe we could put a dent into social media ridicule.  

Why schools can't do it alone

My title actually is the title of a book that I have completely fallen in love with.  I'm not that much of a reader, but like many of you - if you start reading something interesting you cannot stop.  This was exactly the case when I started reading this book.  Jamie Vollmer is the author, and I was privileged enough to hear Mr. Vollmer speak at a conference a few years back.  I was blown away then and I'm now blown away again after reading his book.

Mr. Vollmer was a guy that once denounced the system of education and thought that it should be run like any other business.  His viewpoint changed dramatically as he was faced with the challenge of speaking to a group of educators for an in-service.  I'm not going to tell you how - as I encourage each and everyone of you alike (Educators, Bankers, Farmers, Mothers, Fathers, Etc, Etc) to read this book.  It will enlighten your mind - I guarantee it.  It is worth the buy - and I actually have two copies.  Let me know and I can let you borrow it.

Over the last few years - I have truly tried to wrap my head around all of the ideas that were flowing through my mind in regards to our society and education.  I started to read this book and I honestly thought that every word I read was coming right out of my mouth.  Mr. Vollmer's insights into education (post thought transformation) mimic my feelings.  After reading the book - I'm completely rejuvenated once again and I can't wait each and every day to get to school.

It takes a village to raise a child - and I could not agree more.  I've said this many times that we as citizens of the greatest country in the world have the obligation to make the world a better place for those that come after us.  We are the most equipped generation to make positive change that every existed.

I'm leaving this blog at that.  It has been awhile since I last blogged, but expect me to ramp it up now until the end of the year.  We have lots of things going on to be proud of and I do not anticipate keeping those ideas humbled.

Mr. Jordan