jan oneill's blog

 For me, it means focusing on the kids first and always. And SMART goals with "zones" gives us a way to do this. Listen to the podcast on our home page from the webinar "Engaging Students in Change" and you'll hear some of the best examples of goal monitoring and adjustment involving kids and their teachers that we've ever seen.

Anne and I had the extraordinary opportunity of participating as one of 24 women-owned companies (selected out of over 100) to present to investors in NYC. Springboard Enterprises https://www.springboardenterprises.org/about is the organizing group, and through them we've discovered a wonderful community of support. These are women who are passionate about making positive change in the world, whether through advanced traffic management systems, connecting women to "best of" brands, or like us, transforming American public education.

We're in a Kairos moment right now, a moment between what was before and is no more, and the unknown future. 

Kairos (καιρός) is an ancient Greek word meaning the right or opportune moment. The ancient Greeks had two words for time, chronos and kairos. While the former refers to chronological or sequential time, the latter signifies a time in between, a moment of an undetermined period of time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kairos

I’m gravely concerned about a recent posting in Teacher Week by Renee Moore, a former Mississippi state teacher of the year and Milken Award winner. In a post entitled “Fixing NCLB: How Testing Hurts Disadvantaged Kids”, Ms.

I happened to catch Diane Ravitch on public television recently describing her positive reaction to the expressed desire of the Obama administration to eliminate the draconian punitive measures in No Child Left Behind. In her view, we aren’t helping students learn by threatening their teachers and administrators with school takeovers, staff firings, and the like.

“To set and work toward any goal is an act of courage.” -- Stephen Covey

Dennis Sparks recently wrote in his blog about the power of setting incremental goals, saying

Large goals can overwhelm school leaders who may not know where to start and how to maintain momentum over a period of many months and years. That’s why it’s important that leaders break large goals into small parts that can be addressed on a daily or weekly basis. ("Breaking big goals into small goals," April 21 - find a link to Dennis' blog in our Resources)

On one of our first dates, almost 25 years ago, my husband took me whitewater canoeing. Only later did we discover that the river he selected is one of the most challenging in northern Wisconsin; in fact, every year at least one person drowns on this river.

We were untrained, unskilled and not exactly well-prepared. We had the wrong kind of canoe (fiberglass) for what we were about to do and none of the required equipment (air bag, knee straps, helmets), and we failed to put on our life preservers.

In a recent blog, I wrote that adding more time to a school day won't mean improved student results unless there is a system of continuous improvement in place. This fact seems to be born out by a recent Miami Herald story about Rudy Crew's "zone" program which expanded the school day for low performing kids. After $100M and 3 years, the program is now called a bust. You can read the article at http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/1049341.html

The last  comments on this blog caused me to have another "Ah ha!" moment re: change, the time between ("Kairos"), and how time gets used. "More time" doesn't necessarily lead to better quality results.  If a teacher is both artist (heart-engaging) and scientist (mindful of results) then,"more time" does lead to better results, witness the school-wide science teacher in Indiana.