Writing a book....

Never in a million years did I think I would write a book...
Heck...growing up I didn't even like reading books! I was a big "BOOK IT!" person, but I only did that for the pizza.

My book "LESSON 1" was published on August 12, 2021. What an excellent experience! 

Here's the story behind the story.

Starting to Read: I would occasionally read a book in my adulthood. The first full book I remember reading was, "Rainbow Six" by Tom Clancy. I was in my 20s and had many more exciting things to do than read books. Even in college, I would do the absolute minimum amount of reading. I would lose focus, get to the bottom of a page, and have no idea what I had read.

I really started reading a lot when I was working full time for the Army in 2014-2016 because I found myself on an airplane every other week going to a conference, recon, or training event. I decided that because I spent so much seat time, I would become a reader.

I started with hard-copy books and found a few that I really enjoyed. Then I moved to digital books using my tablet and found it awesome that I could carry an infinite amount of books with me and read whatever I felt like. Sometimes I wanted to dig into the genius of Nick Saban or some other football coach while other times I just wanted a good Dan Brown story. I didn't read at home, only on the plane, so when I stopped flying all the time, I really stopped reading.

I go through phases of reading. For months at a time, I will read in the morning before I go to the gym. Then for months at a time, I won't. 

Writing down angry notes: While at those conferences, recons, and training events, I found myself interacting with several different organizations, both military, and civilian. I found that many civilian organizations had much more efficient ways of doing things than we did in the Army. I would take those lessons back to my organization and implement what I could. I really enjoyed seeing how other organizations did the same things that we did. I enjoyed seeing how other organizations developed their task organizations, task management systems, and their ability to communicate laterally and vertically. Some of those things were able to fit into the Army, and others did not. Some of those things worked really well, and others made things worse.

I would take a few minutes after each trip to reflect on what went well and what I didn't like. I had a word document on my desktop and I would simply open it up, take a few minutes to type out some notes, then close it and wait until my next trip. There was no real format, organization, or thought behind my notes. Some of them were rants, and some of them looked like praise pieces. 

Forgotten: In the fall of 2016, I transitioned from working full-time for the National Guard back into the classroom. I moved back to my hometown, was teaching a new subject, and my world was moving very fast! I had forgotten about my comments for months at a time. Once and a while I would be cleaning out my Google Drive and would say, "I remember this" and open up the document and reminisce about the great times I had in the Army. I would close it and move on to the next thing I had on my agenda, forgetting about my future book for another few months.

Kyle Anderson: I met Kyle during my first week of college and we became friends right away. He is still one of my very best friends over 20 years later. He published a book, "

To The Edge: Successes & Failures Through Risk-Taking" on March 7, 2020.
Kyle was the first person I had ever met that wrote a book. That was cool!

A week later our school shut down for the rest of the year due to the COVID-19 lockdowns. There I was, sitting in my upstairs bedroom, waiting for my students to log in to Google Classroom. It was a crazy time. I had a lot of time sitting. Waiting.

One morning I opened up that old document with my notes and started organizing it. I had 12 single-spaced pages of rants and rabble. I thought to myself, holy smokes...this could be a book! I started expanding on some of the topics, linking them to classroom and locker room issues and it started looking like a book. The title was a struggle- to learn more...buy the book. 

Rejection: I talked with Kyle and he linked me up with his publisher. I sent my (VERY) rough draft to them and waited. They got back to me and said that due to the pandemic, they were understaffed and not taking on new authors, but encouraged me to try again.

Forgotten Part II: I had a fairly solid rough draft, but now it was summer and I was basically back to "normal" with my activities of fishing, four-wheeling, and preparing for my first year as a head coach for the freshman football team with all the intricacies of being a head coach combined with all of the external COVID-19 policies. School went back to in-person and combined with everything else, I was also prepping for hunting season.  

In the fall of 2020, another book hit Amazon. "Daily STEM: How to Create a STEM Culture in Your Classrooms & Communities" by a friend of mine, Chris Woods. Chirs was the second person I had known to write a book. That was cool!

After football season, I talked with Chris and he linked me up with his publisher. They got back to me fairly quickly stating that they loved my book idea, but because they were in Canada, they felt it would be a better fit for a new publisher, "Road to Awesome."

BOOK: I had a conversation with Darrin M Peppard and he loved the idea of my book. Through several zoom calls, cover renditions, and grammatical editing, my book, "LESSON 1" was published and available on AMAZON on August 12, 2021. What an incredible experience!

Since then there have been some great conversations about my book and the leadership lessons contained within it. A huge thank you to Kyle and Chris for the motivation and to Darrin for taking a chance on me and my idea. 

When I ask- "What do you think?"

 Picture this- My 8th-grade classroom. Full of young teenagers. Full of awkward hormones. Full of wonder, but also want to look cool, and TERRIFIED of being embarrassed in front of their classmates.

The topic is irrelevant- Here's the question:
"What do you think?"

Silence.
Interesting.

I talk with my students about three types of questions. 

Informational: These questions have exactly one right answer. For example, if the question is, "Who was the third president of the United States?" There is exactly one answer and if you know it you know it and if you don't you don't. A lot of math problems are informational. There is exactly one right answer and you can be right or wrong- there is no in-between. 

Opinion: These questions can have multiple right answers. The catch is that there needs to be some evidence backing your opinion. Opinions vary and this can lead to some GREAT discussion as long as there are some guardrails in place to prevent arguments from getting out of hand.
"What type of speech should be abridged and is not protected by the first amendment?"
As long as you bring some evidence backing your opinion, you are right! These are my favorite types of questions to ask. It forces students to establish an opinion based on facts. This will be a great practice for them as they transition to adulthood.

What do you think: I try very hard to express to my students that when I ask, "What do you think?" you can't be wrong. Most of the time these are hypothetical and so far beyond logic that it would be impossible to have an analytical answer. Something like, "If you were to take a trip to Mars, what would you want to do first?" or "If you just cut a deal with the French to buy the Louisiana territory, how do you start that conversation with President Jefferson?"  

It's interesting to see these types of questions play out in my classroom. When I ask an informational question, hands shoot up from the students who are sure of their answer. No one else moves, fearful of giving a wrong answer. That's understandable. Giving a wrong answer would mean embarrassment.

When I ask an opinion question, I have a lot of hands go up! Amazingly enough, middle school students are HIGHLY opinionated!  (I'll give you a moment to collect yourself from the shock of that last statement!) The best part of opinion questions is that students can be right as long as they justify their answers. Sometimes these justifications are pretty sketchy, but at least they are putting some thought into them. These questions generate the most discussion and are typically the most fun! These questions are great practice for students to explore their thoughts, beliefs, and motivations. When done correctly, it also opens them up to differing opinions and facts they may have missed due to personal bias.

When I ask, what do you think...you can't be wrong. The problem is that it takes a great amount of thinking. When I ask these questions, I am usually looking out over a vast landscape of confused faces. Sometimes we will get some good discussion, but for whatever reason, it's difficult to get students to engage with these types of questions.

But why? They can't be wrong...but they can't make certain that they are right either.
...and if they aren't right- they must be wrong...and that's embarrassing.

Maybe because some students believe that they HAVE to be right. There is no option to fail...at anything...ever. (I wrote a blog post when I was a STEM teacher talking about failure. Read it HERE!) I have students all the time who miss one question on a quiz or worksheet and are at my desk asking for extra credit. 

Maybe it has something to do with our EITHER-OR society. You are either 110% for something or you are 110% against it. There is very little room for anything in the middle. Stating one opinion on one topic can place people into an ideological box that's almost impossible to get out of. That's not good for free thinking or the expression of thoughts.

I'm going to keep asking these questions and I'm going to continue to remind my students that they can't be wrong. Maybe I can help them expand their brains into being able to think a little better.

What do you think?

Leave me a comment!

The Emotional Wheel isn't spinning- You are.

 In middle school, there are a lot of emotions and hormones flying around. Sometimes a student will be so upset they can't even tell you what's wrong. Now what? 
"Are you angry?"  "I'M NOT ANGRY I'M SCARED!"
"Why are you scared?" I'M NOT! I'M JUST SAD!"
The emotions are spinning- so which one is it?

I think it's important to be able to place a name on an emotion. It's important because once we can name an emotion, then we can work toward bringing us back to the center. Enter- The Emotion Wheel. There is a full-sized Emotion Wheel at the bottom of this post and there are thousands of different versions of them for various ages. They are all basically the same in that the core emotion is in the center and more detailed emotions radiate from that central point.

The younger the person, the closer to the center you will be in describing your emotion. A younger student may only be able to express that they are, ANGRY whereas an older student/adult will be able to move further out and describe that they feel HURT or even further out describing their emotion as EMBARRASSED.
Being able to process an event and identify the emotions attached to that event can be very helpful. For example, if a middle school student is not invited to a birthday party, they could feel several things from EMBARRASSED, INSECURE, etc. These emotions all point back to the fact that they are ANGRY. They could also be experiencing the core emotion of SAD, depending on their reaction.

You can also work the wheel from the outside working in toward the core emotion. Perhaps a student feels very INADEQUATE after failing a test when most of their classmates did well. That can be traced toward the center as either REJECTED or INSECURE, and they both share the core value of FEAR. So why are they scared? Are they scared that they will get in trouble at home? Are they scared that their friends will think they are stupid? These are questions that are one step removed from, "what's wrong?" and questions that can start to have reasonable answers when the world seems unreasonable. 

After a student can name the emotion, then they can get to work swinging the emotional pendulum back to the center by answering those questions.

"Will I get in trouble at home?"
"Well- Last time I had to sit in my room without my phone and study what I messed up so I could get points back on test corrections."

"Will my friends think I'm stupid?"
"They never have before, so they probably won't this time."

Deescalating emotions starts with being able to even know what they are. Simply knowing that they are feeling something like FEAR, SUPRISE, or ANGER can help them start to manage their emotion. 

So how do they manage their emotions?
That's a topic for another day...
Share your thoughts and resources in the comments below!

...are you okay?

This is how I start my conversations with students when there is a behavior issue:

"...are you okay?"

I looked up the word, "behavior" and I found the second definition fascinating:

"the way in which an animal or person acts in response to a particular situation or stimulus;"

I find it fascinating that not only does this apply to humans and animals, but the definition actually puts animals first. This helped me think about they situations and stimulus that my 8th graders are dealing with. Some are taking on adult-sized burdens.

Some are helping their brothers and sisters get ready for school.
Some are taking care of things around the home while parents work.

Some have alternate living arrangements. Living with a grandparent, aunt, friend...

The bottom line is when they walk into my classroom, I don't know what has happened over the past 24 hours so I am quick to listen and slow to anger. I wasn't always this way...

At the first school I taught at there was a 6th grader who was tardy every day. Being a young teacher I marked them absent without a question.

This is the rule.

You broke it. 

Tardy.

After about 10 days of this, I decided to take action. We stepped into the hallway and I explained the importance of being on time to class. A great lecture from a great teacher...RIGHT?!
Wrong.

This poor student broke down in tears. It was completely my fault for taking such a harsh approach. A little shook up from her response I asked, "...are you okay?"

They were not.

As it turns out, her mom had taken a new job and was working afternoons, not getting home until almost midnight. Bless this mom for doing what she had to do to take care of her children, but that meant that the burden of getting a 6th grader and a 4th grader dinner, homework done, cleaned up, and in bed was now squarely on the shoulders of a 6th grader. The reason this 6th grader was tardy is because thry would make sure their little brother was eating breakfast (at school) then getting him to class, then head upstairs to my room. 

I never marked her tardy again. That was an adult-sized burden. 

A few days ago I had an 8th grade student who was falling asleep in class. I run a pretty dynamic classroom, but at every chance, their head would go down on their desk, using their arm for a pillow.

After many years in the classroom, my response time has shortened from days to minutes and my approach much more passive and leaningin the direction of compassion.

While the students were in a "Pair-Share" period I quietly took the sleepy student in the hall and asked, "...are you okay?"

This student wasn't willing to open up to their issues, but they did share with me that they hadn't been sleeping well at home because of some family drama. I let them know that if there was anything I could do, I would do it. Two days later this student approached me and explained that some things had been worked out and they were sleeping much better. I was so happy! Happy that I had asked. Happy that things were better. Happy that they trusted in me to tell me things were better!

As we approach the holidays, some of our students are not okay. As we take time off from school, some of our students will be short on food, warmth, and attnetion.

Sometimes the stress of being taken out of the routine of school can overpower the joy of clebration.

It's heartbreaking, but it's reality.
I will never pretend to have all the answers, just making observations.

ENGAGE! Three Tips for Middle School Teachers

How do you get 14-year-old kids who are awkwardly trying to be "cool" to care about whatever it is the state has mandated they become proficient in?  I don't have all the answers and I fail every day...but here are three ways to get your students in the game:

Move: I am a firm believer in getting students up out of their seats and moving. It doesn't have to be long, but a simple, "Stand up and push in your chair" gets some blood moving.

Then...and this is key... Tell them what you want them to talk about before you give them their partner criteria. What I mean by that is once they stand, give them the question they are trying to answer or the topic they are going to discuss first. If you start off with, "You are going to find someone wearing the
same color socks as you and talk about..." they are not listening- They are checking to see if their friends are wearing the same color socks.

The great thing about having them meet with someone from a different table is that they are bringing back "outsider information" when they get back to their original table. Their brain is engaged, their blood is moving, they got to chat with a friend for a few seconds, and life is good!

Academic Freedom: I give a lot of assignments where there are a few different ways to complete them. Mainly they involve some form of writing and/or drawing. My mentor teacher whom I met on my first day in the classroom, and on the 3rd day accompanied me to the superintendent's office (I had left Iraq about two weeks prior and had some "leadership tips" for said superintendent which were not warmly received...but I digress...) taught me that, "If a student can illustrate it, then they understand it." That has stuck with me since 2007.

It's not possible on all assignments, but whenever you can, let students engage the material their own way. Make a poster, pamphlet, or script for a YouTube video (that works better than if you say, "play").

Be Vulnerable: I have tried so many things in my classroom that have failed...it's awesome! I say that because if we only do what we know how to do we will never get better. We need to push our students in that direction and model it ourselves. Heads turn and ears perk up when you say, "I have never tried this before, and I have no idea how it's going to work...but we are going to see!"  This instills a little bit of stress into the class but in a good way. Students don't want to fail and they don't want to see their teacher fail. But the fact that you show them you are willing to fail means a lot. The best part about trying new things is when they work!

I was messing around with QR codes at m
y previous school (probably 2011-2012). They were kind of a new thing and a lot of people didn't even know what they were when they saw one. I had my students in patterns make "flash card videos" with an anti-bullying message. Then I linked those to a QR code, printed it with a title that said, "BE THE CHANGE YOU WISH TO SEE IN THE WORLD" and taped them up in the commons area. Most students didn't have phones then, but we had a bunch of iPads in the building. At lunch, there were little groups of students all huddled around an iPad watching an anti-bullying video made by some of their little brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends. It was so cool!

Use your imagination and show some vulnerability!
You are a human too- You are allowed to try things that fail.

So are your students- Read about preparing to fail here!

You have two seconds...

 I look out at my classroom of 8th graders and I see them in various levels of attention and focus.

A few are locked into what we are talking about. I have caught their attention and kept it.

A few were with me for 12-15 seconds, but now they are gone. Their thoughts are somewhere else. I’m not too upset, give it another 12-15 seconds and they will be back.

A few checked out 2 seconds into the topic. Again, I might get them back in a matter of a few seconds.

1…2…3…4…5…6…7…8…Next.
1…Next.
1…2…3…4…Next.
1…2…Next.
Next.

I watch students drop in and out of focus on our topic. But why?

I believe that students have conditioned their brains to do two things:
First, they only consume content that they want to consume. If something shows up on their screen (TikTok, Instagram, Netflix, YouTube, etc.) that they don’t like, they do not watch it. They scroll up. Next.

Second, they refresh their attention every 15-60 seconds. TikTok videos average 21-34 seconds and Instagram Reels average 15-60 seconds with bloggers and influencers stating (limited sources) that on both platforms the “best” length for video engagement is 7-15 seconds. They will watch it until the end, building up the algorithm better than if they scroll off a 30-second video when they are only 15 seconds in.

In a very small sample size (about 140) in a very unscientific piece of research (I asked my 8th-grade classes to raise their hand to various questions) about 90% of my students used a variety of social media platforms daily with the most popular being TikTok and Instagram.  Based on the hand-raising method of research, a vast majority of my students watched between 1-4 hours of videos per day, more on the weekends and when the weather is bad.

Using some pretty bold estimates: a large number of students sitting in my classroom have consumed between 1000-4000 hours worth of videos that are most likely between 7 and 60 seconds each. That’s how their brains expect to consume content.
Wow.

Most of these videos are on auto-play, so as soon as they hit the screen they start playing.
1…2…3…Next.
1…Next.
1…2…3…4…5…Next.

If they don’t like it…Next.

It was cool for the first 9 seconds…Next.

This applies to not only Social media but television shows…music…games…what else?

As adults who grew up without social media, Netflix, and Spotify, this is new to our brains. Personally, I had about 30 years of brain development prior to my first swipe.

When I was a teenager I would turn on the TV and pick one of the 25 programs on. Whether I liked it or not, I would watch what was on or I would find something else to do. I would turn on the radio and either listen to what was on, try to dial in one of the other 12 stations, or turn it off. I had very little choice. I would make do with what was on. I didn’t have the option to choose what was next.

Fast forward to today.  On Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon Prime I choose exactly what I want to watch and when. I can choose to pause, restart, fast forward, and basically do anything I want to keep things that are entertaining to me in front of my eyes. If it’s not entertaining…Next.

When it comes to music, I have curated playlists to play only songs that I like or songs that are similar to those I like. If I don’t like a song…Next. If I’m trying to get a new personal record in the weight room and I need the right motivation…Next…Next…Next…here we go! Spotify, Pandora, and iTunes have come a long way from trying to guess how long to press fast forward on my first Walkman!

The first video game I ever played was, “Snoopy and the Red Baron” on Atari. I was an Ace. It was the only game my babysitter had, so it was the only game we played. My cousin had a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) with Mario, Top Gun, and RC Racing. Those were our 3 choices. That was it. My 12-year-old son will play 10 different games on Roblox within a 20-minute period. If it’s not entertaining or he’s not doing well…Next.

My brain was developed when there wasn’t much choice, and those choices came slowly. Think of the 14-year-old born in 2008 or my 12-year-old son born in 2010. They have never known a world where they couldn’t watch, listen, or play what they wanted to when they wanted to. They never will. If it’s not what they want at the point in time…Next. 

With the video media, after 7-15 seconds…Next.
With a new hit song, after their favorite part…Next.
With a game where they are losing or losing interest…Next.

As I look out at my classroom, I can almost see their brains scrolling. That was a pretty cool sentence we read about the Declaration of Independence…Next. 

“Thomas Jefferson said…” Next.
“What do you think about the third amendment?” Next.

As I was having a social media conversation with my 8th graders, I asked a question of the class. As my student gave their opinion, I watched the rest of the class and watched as they started listening to the response before their brain started scrolling.
Next.

My 8th grader gave a response that lasted about 10 seconds, and in that time 10 of my 27 students started scrolling. In that 10 seconds, 37% of the class didn’t find the answer entertaining and didn’t want to listen anymore. Next.
Wow.

How do I teach in that mental environment?
I have no idea.

My state-mandated content can’t entertain like the videos on TikTok and Instagram. Next.
My energy and passion can’t hook their attention in the first 1.5 seconds then maintain or keep it for the first 15 seconds, then the next 15…then the next 15. 

In a 55-minute class period, there are 220, 15-second periods. I can’t compete with that.
Next.

The mental environment that my students are in isn’t going away. As a matter of fact, it could be becoming curated more for entertainment with less time to between.
It’s my job to figure out how to teach in that space.
I don’t know how…yet.

If you’re still reading, share your thoughts.
Next!