Being a good dad is hard, being great seems impossible

This was originally posted on Devin Schoening's Tumblr http://ayearoffatherhood.tumblr.com/

Being a good dad is hard, and being a great dad seems nearly impossible. The symbols of excellent fatherhood often come from the fictional characters of television, movies, or books. These symbols lay out a path for fatherhood that is bathed in simplicity. Fatherhood is complex, and fatherhood is lonely. Dads rarely talk deeply about the essence of their role with their children. They share proud moments. They share stories, but rarely, are dads gathered around the table talking through the finer points of fatherhood.

Tonight, I’m reflecting about my work as a dad, and I ask for forgiveness. I ask for wisdom. I ask for grace from God, my family, and my children. In these dark moments, I remember not having enough time to pay attention. I remember being harsh with my tone. I remember forcing someone to eat food at the table, and I remember yelling when someone accidentally elbowed me in the jaw. As dads, we rarely talk about these moments. Whether we are ashamed of these moments or whether even it is about pride and competition, dads don’t break down their work as dads like they do the pick and roll or a recent double switch in the eighth.

Our parenting flaws as dads are locked in our own heads, and there often appears to be no visible path to improve other than trying harder the next time. Being a dad means sacrificing time with our spouses, time with the guys, tickets to a show, or an opportunity to travel. It doesn’t mean that these things have to disappear, but they are tempered, and this is hard. Being a parent allows us to see beautiful moments in our children, and lore tells us that those are supposed to offset any loss of time, self, and autonomy, but sometimes it doesn’t, and that again is really hard.

Do any dads know what allows fatherhood to be the perfect space of love, compassion, and joy for all? I don’t know many dads that are ready to be the wise sage to lead us into this new level of understanding. Balancing life is hard, and doing it as a dad is even harder. I need a deep grace surrounding my fatherhood. I need grace from my kids. I need grace from my wife. I need grace from my community. I need grace from my God. There are no mulligans in fatherhood. There are just memories of doing things the wrong way and somehow still eliciting smiles from our kids. There resilience isn’t an excuse from my lack of getting better at being a dad.

There are dark moments in our years of fatherhood (and for me this is one) when being a good dad is hard, and being a great dad seems impossible. Tomorrow. Hope. Grace. Renewal.

edcampUSA

Landing on the moon wasn't the end of the space program for the US. It was the end of the beginning. After five years of building the edcamp concepts around the country, it feels like edcampUSA hosted at the Department of Education in Washington DC on June 6 was another moment that was the end of the beginning. This time, it was the end of the beginning of the movement to personalize and energize educational professional development. Thanks to Emily Davis at DOE, and the Edcamp Foundation for making this a reality. I was honored to be a part of the inaugural event. Though there would a few connected friends in attendance, there were many more people at the event that I had never met, but everyone had a similar passion for changing learning as we know it. If you have ever been to an edcamp, then you know the energy in the room and the energy of the conversation. You also know the hope that springs from the event, and the sense of kindred spirits that develops. All of those things were present for this event as well. I tried to capture the day in pictures as much as possible, but the beauty of edcamp is hard to capture in pictures. Below you will find a few that begin to tell the story.

Already looking forward to edcampUSA in 2015. It will soon be a must-go event on the schedule of every connected educator, and the talk in the room was how to work the logistics to make this a reality for many, many more passionate educators in the future.

The monuments at night are always a great backdrop for learning.

Learning together. Bringing together educators from around the country. 

The wisdom in the room was incredible. 

A big thank you to Department of Education for taking a chance to grow.

We need to fill the Department of Education with more and more voices from the classroom. 

Some pieces of edcampUSA looked just like every edcamp in the country. 

The board. Excited that I got to lead conversation around The Culture of YES.

A huge thanks to our organizers and more. 

We may not have changed policy, but edcamp has arrived as an important voice of change. 

How the Number 10 is Ruining our Credibility.

Through the firehose of social media comes tweet after tweet that could contribute to the growing and learning of the kids in our spaces of learning. There is an incredible culture of sharing that permeates the connected learning space. Though some of the quality information doesn’t contribute to the work that I’m currently doing, I’m certain that it does for others. The flow of information makes us better and helps us to grow. Our sharing supports learning in classrooms and districts where the fresh flow of information and ideas can be sparse. Having a connected educator lens has revived careers and saved the passion for teachers for many. It is so important that we continue to share with an eye toward quality information. 

Each connected educators has a responsibility to share, like, and favorite the best of the best material so that it rises to the top of the heap for all to enjoy. To hold to our responsibility in this area, it is important that we refuse the quick high of the garbage posts and information that can get a bevy of retweets across multiple hashtags and a slew of new Twitter followers. There are clearly folks that can’t seem to appreciate the harm that this does in the connected educator network. Passing garbage posts and information around and around fills our education air with population that doesn’t have the potential to impact the lives of kids in a positive way. 

I have been guilty of this in the past, so I point the finger at myself first, but over the past six months, I have worked to read, reflect, and curate before retweeting. Rarely and hopefully approaching never will you now see “ten ways to…” anything from my feed. These lists present education as something as simple as a top ten list, and we are definitely in a time when we need to bring more circles of supporters into the understanding of the very complex nature of educating children. 

Share like mad. Share you best stuff. Share. Share. Share. Please though, before you retweet, like or favorite something (at times without even reading it), ask whether it will contribute to a greater public perception of education and/or whether it is something that can truly impact the lives of kids. The information that we have plentiful. Let’s keep it from being polluted with the number 10 and all of its cousins.  

Learning Never Ends

Embrace the moments of inspiration that bloom this summer. There will be moments, when watching the sunrise or listening to music, when a fresh energy for teaching and learning will emerge. It will seem oddly refreshing, and it will be easy to let it pass. Work to be present in these moments and embrace the wisdom that comes in these moments of clarity. Teaching is an exhausting profession, but the space of the summer brings new ideas, resources, and perspective. Our role as lifelong learners means that even when we depart our normal spaces of learning that we continue to use our sense to construct fresh meaning of our world, so that we can share with soul to our students when our paths cross again.

Are You Ripe for Change?

This was originally posted on May 20 on Free Technology for Teachers. Thanks to Richard Byrne for allow me to share his space. 

Watching vegetables grow until the moment that they are perfectly ripe for harvest can be an exercise in patience. Each day it means carefully inspecting a variety of facets of the vegetable with the eventual question being, “will it be even better tomorrow?” Waiting one more day holds the potential for vegetable nirvana, but it also gives the squirrels another day to destroy all the patience and waiting that led up to the day of perfection in one tiny squirrel bite. 

Too many schools around the country are waiting for perfection to begin the transformative changes needed in our spaces of learning. They are waiting for a better infrastructure or few more people to retire. They are waiting for the completion of the right amount of professional development or the semester change when things will settle down. They are waiting. They are waiting. They are waiting. Waiting is often an effort to ignore doing the really hard stuff. Waiting is a strategy to avoid failure and not lean into the uncomfortable. Waiting is hurting kids. Waiting also allows others outside of education to fill the void. 

Over the last 18 months, the Affton School District in Saint Louis, Missouri has broken through the inertia of waiting and into a fresh mindset of fire, ready, aim. This shift in mental model (by a growing number of learners throughout the ecosystem) has unleashed fresh energy for innovation throughout the district. Two factors have been the primary catalysts for allowing this to occur. 

The first was building a culture of service. When things are broken, in need of update, or outdated, the innovative spirit is crushed. When instruction is inhibited because there is no support, risk taking becomes non-existent. As the lead innovator in the district, it was important for me and my team to take visual, concrete steps that showcased that fresh culture of service and rallied every human resource available, both technical and instructional, into action to solve the backlog of problems. The result has been a new trust and the opportunity for new conversations around our future as a learning community. 

The second was a dedicated effort to saying YES. The most powerful change agent in education is the word YES. It unleashes ideas. It grows confidence. It builds momentum. It releases trapped wisdom into the system. It really is that powerful. Affton said yes to an app development pilot. Affton said yes to a Bosnian Studies program. Affton said yes to traveling to other schools to see innovation in practice. Affton said yes to a library redesign. When NO is your default setting at any level of your organization, bits and chunks of the system are wilting. 

Affton School District hasn’t arrived. It is on a journey, a long journey, but no one is waiting. Instead there is a growing acceptance that failing forward fast and being in beta by design are the new way forward. Transformational change, the kind that comes from when we are working with the goal of being different as opposed to getting better, is exactly what all of the kids should expect each day from the adults that are in charge of making our schools ripe for learning. 

The Power of Story

The power of story is important this time of the year. It helps us to reflect, recover and refine our work for the future. Story allows us to slow the pace in these final weeks. Story allows us time to remember the good moments and company to comfort us as we relive the tough moments. As the pace of the year winds its way to a crescendo, make sure that you remember to capture story with your senses, and then find time while we are all still together to share the best of these stories. There is healing, harmony, and happiness to be found as we live in the power of story.

Ink Spot Strategy and Innovation

If you choose the role of innovation leader, then it requires you to incubate those fragments of ideas that bubble out of teachers and kids every day. It is paramount that we recognize them, amplify them, and allow the wisdom of the crowd to nurture them. Outside of education this has been called ink spot strategy. Ink spots when allowed to ooze create a mess, and in education, these are often positive messes. The question for us is then, how do we support the ink spots in our schools by protecting their space, removing barriers, and allowing their "ink" to spread.