The Marshall Blue Note Blog: More Than Adequate

Before we dive into "the inspirational part" of our afternoon, we need to talk a little about our performance... As we progress through the month of August,we'll talk about our scores face-to-face when we meet as teams in our initial CT meetings.

We maintained a C as our AZLEARNS letter grade last year (by way of comparison, here's last year's breakdown). And here's the Daily Sun's take on FUSD's 2013 performance overall, Marshall included.

Finding Your Greatness

I don't think we're done striving to find our Greatness, either as individuals or as a school. I still believe that setting the goal of working towards becoming our best-selves and doing our best-work at every possible turn, is the right direction for those of us who work and teach here at Marshall.

To me, focusing on doing our best, and perhaps even working to be a little better day-by-day, is a lot simpler and easier to understand than trying to focus on a set of numbers or obtuse formulas and algorithms, which seem so hard to understand, much less pin-down or predict.

Remember this video (see: below)? I shared it with you last year at the the end of the first week of the school year. It think its message is still relevant to us:

Somehow we've come to believe Greatness is a gift, reserved for a chosen few, for prodigies, for superstars, and the rest of us can only standby, watching... Greatness is not some rare DNA strand... Greatness is no more unique to us than breathing, we're all capable of it.

All of us.

Marshall isn't doing badly. But, at the same time, I am convinced that Marshall can do a lot better than merely maintaining its status. I'm absolutely sure of it.

But how?

Remix Our Assets

We can all see the numbers, and it should be fairly easy for us to identify where our deficits lie with a little simple math. And we will spend some time doing this in our upcoming CTs. But beyond that, as we've discussed before, determining an ever-more pragmatic approach to how we can deliver ever-more effective instruction to our students has become ever-more difficult.

To be sure, teaching to the discrete skills that our students lack is one way. But we've done that. For years. And, in my opinion, it's yielded very limited, marginally effective results. Maybe we're just not teaching "Reading Comprehension: Informational Text" or "Math: Problem Solving" well enough. But I doubt that. I think it's far more likely, instead, that we're not embedding "Reading Comprehension: Informational Text" or "Math: Problem Solving" broadly and deeply enough.

It's obviously a necessity to teach discrete skills, but just doing that probably won't get us where we really need to be. In fact, it might not ever get us there.

We run the risk of getting stuck if we continue to operate as we have in the past, teaching and testing a set of specialized skills. In fact, I've a hunch, unless we consider new ways in which we can remix, realign, and reapply our many unique assets, and teach our students to do so as well, we're going to remain right where we are, classified as we have been for the past several years: Performing. Average. Adequate. A "C" school.

More Than Adequate

We should be more than adequate.

We have many assets, and therefore we have reason to hope for something better: a label that more accurately (more adequately!) describes us, our abilities, and what our students are capable of doing.

Our excellent teachers and support staff members are our number one asset. I believe we have many of the very best teachers in FUSD working at Marshall. The depth and breadth of your experience and skills is truly amazing.
Our schedule is an asset. Our weekly opportunities to meet in hour-long CT meetings are too.
Our status as a Title 1 school, and the many personnel that we're able to employ with these funds, is an asset.
Our one-of-a-kind arts and science magnet programs are an asset. Our fundraising and grant writing successes which provide ongoing support for these programs are also an asset.
Our new arts & science workshop/lab is an asset.
Our outreach events: The Gallop, Exploration Stations, Cookie Walk, and the Spring Carnival are assets.
Our Heritage Garden is an asset.
Our awesome PTO is an asset. The concerned membership of our Site Council is as well.
Our diverse, challenging, talented students are an asset.
Our supportive community and local organizations like Epiphany are an asset.
Our longstanding reputation and notoriety as a unique, vital learning place is an asset.
Our special education programs and the students they serve are an asset.
Our location adjacent to downtown, Lowell, the library, and the woods is an asset.

I am encouraged by this list! But I'd also like to point out is probably quite incomplete... I've probably failed to recognize a number of other assets our school possesses.

Nevertheless, I believe the list is more than adequate.

It is more than adequate to empower us to provide our students with the kind of educational experience they both need and deserve.

It is more than adequate to empower us to do much, much more with what we already have.

It is more than adequate to encourage us that we possess both the resources and the willpower we will need to succeed.

Let us resolve, then, to be remixed and revitalized as a staff in such a way that we will all be more than adequate this year, as we chose to be Great, our very-best selves, and thus collectively, the very best community of educators we can possibly be.