Breaking: Good News

This past week my school took part in a wonderful event.  Our students participated in a “Not Perfect Hat Day.”  The idea behind the event is to promote the uniqueness of the individual.  It focused on the premise that perfection is unattainable.  The only thing we have to be perfect at is being ourselves. 

I know the event was a success simply from the remarks that my six year old said when we got home from school that day.  He said to his brother, “Jeter, nobody is perfect.”  He went on to say, “we just need to be the best we can be.”

As happy as I am that this had a profound impact on my child, I can’t help but be disappointed at something else.  The founders of the Not Perfect Hat Club helped us promote this event.  They were tremendous at getting us ready, Skyping with our students, and sending out information to the media.  Just about every major media in the state of North Dakota was informed in one-way shape or form about this event.  On the day of the event, just one news organization came to cover it.  I want to personally thank the Jamestown Sun for coming out and promoting something positive.

We did not do this to gain attention, rather we did it raise awareness and promote individuality.  We simply intended to promote a positive message to our students.  But it completely saddens me that we seem to have things backwards in society.  The media should flock to something positive.  

I’ve said this before, and I will say it again.  “The world is a great place.”  We must train ourselves to see the positives, promote the positives, embrace the positives, and mimic the positives.  Positive news will yield happier people.  Happier people will then yield healthier people.  It's actually quite simple.  

Does negative news have its place?  Absolutely.  Should we hear about it? If it contains information for our well-being, yes of course.  But we need to shift the focus?  We need to start catching people being good, and then we need spread it all around.     

I honestly believe we the world is great.  I also believe that it can be better.  I believe that todays children will have a big impact on society.  This is precisely why it is my duty as an educator to promote the uniqueness of every child.  Every child that comes through our doors is great at something, and has the ability to impact this world in a positive way.  But we shouldn’t have to go to school everyday and remind students that the world is great.  They should know it.  They should see it.  They should live it.  They should be constantly reminded of it through a variety of different mediums. 

A couple of challenges for you as you embark on your journey through life.  Be a change agent.  Focus on positives and promote them.  If you see somebody doing good shout it out.  Shout it out so loud that everyone hears it and sees it.  Tweet about it.  Blog about it.  Lets spread the positive, continue to learn from the negative and embrace this wonderful world in which we live.  Are you with me?  I couldn’t hear you.  Are you with me?  Still couldn’t, but I will bank on the idea that you are. Jump on the positivity train with me and lets start tooting the horn on the good.

Here is your first good… the Yankees currently lead the Red Sox 10-4.  Sure puts a smile on my face.

You can learn more about the Not Perfect Hat Club and what it means to not be perfect by reading "The Not Perfect Blog Post" on my blog page.

What Are You Waiting For?

“I have this theory that if one person can go out of their way to show compassion, then it will start a chain reaction of the same. People will never know how far a little kindness can go.” Rachel Scott, the first victim of Columbine tragedy.

 

About eight months ago I decided to really step outside my comfort zone.  I began religiously writing blog posts.   For those of you that really know me, you will understand that I’m actually quite insecure.  On the outside I’m a happy-go-lucky type of guy and I express myself in an energetic way.  Most people would call me confident, and others possibly arrogant.  These are actually far from it.  I play a good game, but on the inside I’m quite different.

 

I’m insecure.  So when I decided to start writing and sharing my blog posts to the world you could imagine that it was a giant leap of faith for me.  But I cannot help but think I was put on this earth to do more than what I’m currently doing.  I lie awake at night thinking about how I can make a difference in this world.  I get to work in the greatest profession one could imagine.  I get to inspire people each and every day.  I’m sure some days I do better than others, but the opportunity presents itself with each new sunrise.  My conscious however, continues to tell me that I need to do more. 

 

So I’ve turned to writing.  Over the last eight months I have written over 20 blog posts.  Most of these posts have been attached with a theme of motivation or inspiration.  Some were written to challenge people to think better and to do better.  Others were written as tributes to those that have had a positive impact in my life.  Whatever the post may be, I always try to incorporate a positive message each and every time.

 

Over the last couple weeks I’ve purposely put something out there in order to see what happens.  I posted something or wrote something just to see what kind of a response it would get.  For example,  I posted the picture below challenging people to have a conversation with somebody new each day.  Unfortunately, I think the conversation stopped shortly after I posted it.  Everyone of us has a story that needs to be heard.

 

I also sent out an “I Appreciate You” tweet and challenged people to retweet and show someone that you appreciate them.  Each time I write an inspirational blog I invite people to share it.  I don't make money from my blog.  I'm not out to brand my name.  I write simply because it feels good and I continue to be encouraged to do so.  But dang it, it feels really good to be appreciated, and you have the power to make this happen for someone else.

 

 

 

Two weeks ago I invited three students into my office and shared an idea with them.  I wanted to start a chain reaction of appreciation.  I wanted it to be student led, and let their creative minds run with it.  They came up with an idea to put  “You Are Appreciated” signs on cars and asked the person that received it to pass it on to someone else.   The students did a phenomenal job and put quite a bit of effort into this campaign.  I’m grateful that they stepped up to do something right.  I'd like to personally thank and recognize these three students from Griggs County Central.  Jachob Rosin, Nicole Samson, and Alicia McCardle - thank you for all of your hard work.

 



You Are Appreciated Sign Created by Alicia McCardle

 

I can’t help but be disappointed with all of this though.  I understand the concept that if you changed one life it was worth it, but I think we can do better.  Please listen to me for a second though.  IT TAKES LITTLE EFFORT TO MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE.  Click the share button, the retweet button, or just simply smile at someone and say hello.  Send an appreciation note.  If nothing else, do one nice thing each day for someone else.  It’s actually quite simple. 

 

I’m not saying society is horrible.  I’m not saying the world is getting scarier.  I have a voice inside my head that continues to tell me to be a change agent in this world.  Make life better for someone else.  I’m in an excellent position to do so and so are you.  I completely get that we get caught up in our own lives.  I understand that.  What most of us don’t understand is that we take for granted all the blessings we have in our lives.  We don’t think about how the world would be different if we didn’t have them.  We wake up in the morning and often times repeat the same routines throughout each day.

 

Add something to your routine today and every day that follows….a random act of kindness.  This is all I ask.  This is what Rachel Scott was saying when she wrote the quote from above in her journal.  Rachel has started a chain reaction that has inspired and saved lives.  For more info about a wonderful program that has been created in her name please visit http://www.rachelschallenge.org/  What will your impact be?  What will you do to make a difference? 

  

I challenge you to share one or more of the images you see on this blog or share the entire post. Challenge others to do the same.  Take a second out of your life, to make a world of difference in someone else’s.  I will stop writing blog posts when the little person inside my head settles down.  We have bonded like none other for the last eight months, however I wish he’d agree to bond during daylight hours.

 

I have stepped outside my comfort zone. Are you willing to do the same?  I dare you..double dog dare you....triple dare you with no sticky tag backs.  What are you waiting for?

 

The Not Perfect Blog Post

What does it mean to be perfect?  Have you ever thought about this?  Have you ever looked at someone and thought that they were perfect or had a perfect life?  Do you ever wish that you were perfect?

Perfection is a false perception.  Nobody is perfect.  Nobody will ever reach perfection.  Perfection would be quite boring if you actually think about it. So why is it that our society pushes us to be somebody or something that we are not?

I’m not sure I can answer that, but I would like to introduce you to an organization that is designed to show you that being NOT perfect is perfectly acceptable.  The organization is the Not So Perfect Hat Club.  You can find more information about this wonderful program by visiting www.notperfecthatclub.com. The Not So Perfect Hat Club sends a message to people that you are just fine the way you are.  You have talents and abilities that can take you anywhere you want to go in life.  You don’t have to try to be somebody or something else.  All you need to do is to be you, and be the best “you” you can be.  You are perfectly fine the way you are and nobody can take that away from you.

So how can you be the best “you?”  Vince Lombardi probably said it better than anyone when he said, “perfection is not attainable, but if we chose perfection we can catch excellence.”  Rather than focusing on an end result, focus on what you can do today.  Constant progression will put you on a path to excellence.  Will you have setbacks?  Will you have bad days?  Absolutely you will, but those moments do not define who you are.  How you handle the setbacks and rough days will determine how far you can go.

If you have a beating heart, please live by the following guidelines.

1.     You are special.  There is not one other person like you, and that is an awesome thought.

2.     You are not perfect.  Nobody is perfect and that is perfectly fine.

3.     You matter.  You absolutely matter to many people.  People you don’t even know care about you and are better just because you exist.

4.     Help others.  We can help people by lifting them up and praising them.  Even though you ultimately control your own destiny – you can influence and be influenced.  You may just find that by helping others you are actually helping yourself.

5.     Practice optimistic thinking.  If we strive to think better and do better, the world in which we live will ultimately be better.  You will find that your optimistic thinking will become habitual and it will yield a much happier life for yourself.

I’m not a scientist, sociologist, psychologist, or anything that ends in ist or gist.  I’m an educator and educatorist is not a word.  I’m a human being that believes the world is great and the people that make it up are even greater.   The words that come out of my mouth carry no more weight than the words that come out of yours or others.  I’m not famous.  I’m not a billionaire.  I've never been on Dr. Phil, Ellen, or the Price is Right.  I’m an ordinary person just letting you know that ordinary is ok, and that you control your transformation from ordinary to extraordinary.

Next time somebody tells you that you are not perfect, say thank you.  Perfect would be boring.   If you don’t believe me or want to listen to me then ponder on the following quote from Albert Einstein.

“A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem.”

So now that I’m not perfectly fine with this not so perfect blog, I’m going to stop writing and continue to not be perfect.  I will however strive for it, work for it, and dream for it, and hopefully settle on excellence.

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Collabortion & the 2015 AASA National Conference

If it wasn’t for collaboration we would be confined to our own ideas and intuitions. 

The benefits of such collaboration were bestowed upon me this past week as I attended the AASA’s National Conference of Education in San Diego.

Before I go into detail and insights of the conference content, let me first give a shout out to the city of San Diego.  You have one of the cleanest, most beautiful cities I’ve ever stepped foot in.  The people are friendly, the skies are blue, the scenery is remarkable, and amenities plentiful.  I’m not just saying this because the temperature (when factoring in the wild chill) was 100 degrees warmer on Thursday then it was in Cooperstown.  I did however sigh when I departed your great city on Sunday morning. I told myself however, that is was not a goodbye, but I’ll see you again. 

When I left that Sunday morning, I left with so much more than I came with.  Nothing that I had to pack into a suitcase, but most of which was packed into my brain.    I must say that our nation’s schools are in great hands.  The passion that is exemplified by superintendents at this conference is unlike any other.  As a young administrator, I often act like a sponge and soak up as much information as I possibly can when I’m around other school leaders.  The collaboration and networking with others is undoubtedly the most beneficial aspect of conferences.

A picture of beautiful San Diego from the 16th Floor the
San Diego Marriott Marquis & Marina Hotel 

This couldn’t be truer for this conference.  Being able to meet people face to face whom I had been twittering with was an enjoyable experience.  These administrators are doing great things in their districts.  I’m happy to call them colleagues, I’m happy to call some of them friends, and I’m extremely happy to have them in my Professional Learning Network.  I often times quote Woodrow Wilson when he stated that “I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.”  Thank you for letting me borrow your brains.  Thank you @AASAHQ for a great conference.

Speaking of brains, I need to send a shout out to some of the North Dakota administrators that were with me in San Diego.  Superintendents Chris Swenson - Wyndmere (@WyndmereSchool), Rob Lech - Jamestown (@robertlech), Todd Kaylor - Beulah (@t_Kaylor), Jeff Fastnacht - Ellendale (@ndcardinal), Jeremy Brandt – Central Valley.  If you do not currently have these individuals in your PLN, you are missing out.  Thank you gentlemen for providing me with a wealth of knowledge to take back with me to Cooperstown. 

North Dakota had a great showing at the conference.  The above named individuals were just a fraction of those representing our great state.  All of them have reinforced the importance of education to me.  North Dakota is in great hands.  I could not be happier with the work we are doing to ensure student success.  I may be completely biased (actually I’m pretty sure I am), but North Dakota knows how to do education.  We value the “whole” child and emphasize that a test score is just a fraction of the intelligent quotient for our students. 

As I’m writing about valuing the “whole” child, I would like to leave you with two of the most important things I took away from this conference.  Note – I do not have the actual sources that quoted the following takeaways.  These came about through presentations.

1.       4 out of 5 millennials believe that they cannot trust people.

2.      30% of students do not feel they belong.

If the previous prove to be true then we as a society have our work cut out for us.  Notice that I said we, and not just the school.  We all have an obligation to improve the lives of our youth.  Every child matters.  Every child has the ability to be something great.  Every child belongs.  It is our duty to ensure that every child has a chance to be great.  Let’s not miss out on opportunities to lift our students up and give them wings to fly.

Mr. Jordan

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Science Projects - Capitalized

Tomorrow marks one of my most anticipated events of the school year.   The Local Science Fair will be upon us.   Our students get to showcase their work to the community.   If you have never attended one of these events, you don’t know what you are missing.  I highly encourage your presence.  I guarantee that you will not be disappointed.

The Science Fair (I’m capitalizing because I believe it’s that important, but I’m really not sure if it should be capitalized) is Project Based Learning at it’s best.  Our students identify a problem then use critical thinking skills to identify a hypothesis.  They then communicate, collaborate, experiment, and record results.  The projects are relevant because the students choose them.  The projects are engaging because the kids put in a vested interest.  The students are actively engaged in learning and they are in complete control.  The creative mind sparks imagination.  Imagination turns to practice and this practice leads to new learning.  Now how can you not be excited about that?

I must pause for a moment to share my excitement with a quote that completely outlines my passion for SCIENCE PROJECTS (Sorry....all caps now :).

“Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.” Bertrand Russell

Tomorrow, I will walk through our local gymnasium full of excitement and hope.  I will be excited to see our wonderful students doing extraordinary things.  I will be hopeful for our future, as I will be reminded that our world will be in great hands when I grow old.  I guess one could argue that I’ve already grown old, but since my own kids have not reached the age to do a SCIENCE PROJECT, I have to consider myself a baby still.

But speaking of parents and SCIENCE PRJOCETS.  You have grown to love the process or you have grown to dislike the process.  I hope you choose the first one, and I hope you have turned the project over to your child.  This is one of the greatest opportunities your child will get to be actively engaged in learning.  This is where trial and error leads to knowledge.  It’s where imagination becomes reality.  Your child gets to showcase his/her work to the community and be darn proud of it.

I’m so excited for tomorrow that I’m going to bed with my shirt and tie on.  I feel like I’m the little football player in the movie “Little Giants.”  I’m going to bed with my cleats on and I’m ready to get pumped up.  Are you ready?  Will you be there?

Deflated Character

I consider myself an avid sports fan.  Actually, I’m somewhere above that mark.  I love sports; always have.  So it is not surprising that I was one of the 114.4 million viewers of the Super Bowl on Sunday.  I was part of the television record setting evening.  I’m not so sure that I’ve ever missed a Super Bowl, or any other major sporting event on TV.  But I’m not here to tell you how great it was.  I’m not here to tell you the Seahawks should have ran the ball at the end.  I’m not here to tell you that the ball was deflated.  Something else has become deflated and it’s having a profound impact on society.

Sportsmanship has become deflated.  At the end of the game, when emotions were high, and the game was on the line, our model athletes missed an opportunity to have a profound impact on our children.  Instead, emotions got the best of them and a fight ensued.  Before I go any further, I want people to understand that I get it.  It’s the biggest game of the year, and the last few seconds of the game.  Passion tends to trump poise in these moments.  But over 114 million people were watching and many were children.  We need to get this right.  We need to show that character wins in the end.  I particularly like the Old Italian Proverb “after the game is over, both the king and the pawn go back into the same box.”

Now early on in my career as an educator and coach you could call me hypocritical from the words I have just previously mentioned.  However, eleven years later you could not.  You see in education we are faced with the challenge of not only teaching critical content, but also critical competencies.  We must teach character.  We teach students to say please and thank you.  We teach students to respect others and treat people as they would like to be treated.  We stress sportsmanship at activities.  Win, lose. or draw we are all winners we tell them. 

How can we expect them to believe us, when some of the greatest athletes in the world are showing them different?  It also goes further than sport.  Next year marks a presidential election year.  Will our potential presidential candidates play nice?  Will they show respect for their competition?  Will they express their views in good faith and give credit to others when it is due.  If our nation’s leaders can’t show good character, how can we teach our students to do different?

I understand that there are some very good role models out there.  We do have many great people in this world doing remarkable things.  Our students are faced with the challenge of sifting through right and wrong, and as adults we must do our best to model the right.  I’ve always said that if we think better and act better, or world will be better.   We as a society must make this our ultimate goal.  As adults we must be held to a higher standard.  Winning or losing will never define us; character does.  How will people define you?

Travis Jordan

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WIN With Your PLN

Woodrow Wilson once said, “I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.”  I can’t think of a better quote that explains the relevance of a Professional Learning Network (PLN).

If you would have asked me 11 years ago when I entered the world of education what a PLN is, I would not have been able to give you even the foggiest of clues.  My biggest worry 11 years ago was surviving my first year.  It wasn’t until I started to take administrative classes that I grew a fond respect for networking.

My PLN came to existence when I got to know the fellow students enrolled in the same educational leadership classes as me.  We wrote curriculum together, solved problems, and bounced ideas off of one another.  We were entering the profession together, and thus had a commonality that bonded us.

Once initiated into administration my PLN began to grow rapidly.  Administrators near and far were always willing to lend a helping hand or just a simple ear to listen.  We have remarkable individuals in our schools doing remarkable things, and not one of them is afraid to share an idea or piece of advice. 

The past few days I was able to converse with many of these remarkable individuals.  The North Dakota Association of School Administrators (NDASA) Mid-Winter Conference was held in Bismarck.  The greatest thing about conferences is the opportunities to socialize with individuals.  It is a great feeling to know that you are not alone.  Somebody else has been where you are, and is always willing to help you through it.  It's even a greater feeling to know that as a group we are united in our ideology.  We are united in our pursuit of excellence, and we are united when it comes to creating great schools.

I’ve now attended many of these conferences and not a one has disappointed me.  Engaging in Professional Development from listening to speakers, to conversing with administrators that attend has been nothing but valuable to me as a young leader.  I know that trying to name all those that have helped me become who I am today would be impossible, but you all know who you are.

Besides conferences; being active on social media has also expanded my PLN.  Twitter has provided me opportunities to stretch my mind and build my capacities as a school leader.  My PLN has been allowed to grow through the participation of weekly edchats.  Local edchats such as #ndedchat has allowed me to collaborate and learn from educators around the state.  I’ve also expanded to participate in edchats in many other states and countries.  My PLN is made up of many people that I have never met in person, but yet have inspired me to be the best that I can be.

I can honestly say that I’m “winning” with my PLN.  I have allowed myself to step outside my comfort zone.  Eleven years ago I felt alone.  I was just trying to get by.  I did not allow myself to listen or to be heard.   My successes today are a direct result of the relationships I formed with the many wonderful people I’ve met in education.  I left the NDASA Conference today confident once again.  I’m confident that North Dakota students are in great hands.  I’m confident that our teachers are being put in positions to be successful.  I’m confident that our students are embarking in curriculum that is relevant and engaging.  I’m also confident in my ability to continue to lead my district.

As we progress through the days – we will have hiccups, and we will have triumphs.  Good, bad, or ugly my PLN will be there in a time of need.  Thank you for being part of my PLN.  Thank you for letting me borrow your brains.

Travis