Epic Fail

According to urbandictionary.com, epic fail is defined as "complete and total failure when success should have been reasonably easy to attain." In the last few years, the phrase epic fail has been tossed around quite a bit. Often times it is used in relation to something funny… like a person that is filmed having a ridiculous fall when walking down a street.

This blog post is NOT about the funny kinds of epic fail. This blog post is about the non-funny epic fail of flunking a class.

SMS is cracking down on failing grades this year. Teachers are keeping kids in during lunch to complete work. Mr. Smith is also working with students during the restricted lunch program. The entire effort is designed to eliminate epic fails (failing a class when success should have been easy to attain.)

Understanding failure is an important first step to preventing it. A fellow principal's blog (Mr. Enders/Highland Elementary/Camp Hill, PA) led me to the work of Art Markman. According to Art Markman, author of Smart Thinking, there are three main types for failure. Two of the types have value, one does not.

The first type is called The Calibration Fail. In these types of failures, there is a correlation between effort and accuracy. We think we performed correctly, but we actually failed due to a lack of accuracy. Examples of this type of failure include skipping parts to a multi-step essay answer or making careless computation errors in math. If we calibrated properly and took more time to read the problems and edit or check our work, we would not have failed.

The second type of failure is called The Edison Fail. In these failures, we take the necessary time and effort but we do the assignment wrong. Examples include writing a narrative instead of a persuasive essay or using the wrong formula to do math problems. When this happens, it is imperative that we take time to find out why the mistakes were made. Markman states, "In the work beyond school, the most successful people are not the ones who never fail, they are the ones that learn most effectively from their failures." Thomas Edison said, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work" when he invented the light bulb. This type of failure is OK as long as we take time to find out what went wrong.

The final type of failure is called The Bad Fail. This is the absolute worst type of failure. This is failure that results from us being negligent. This happens when we don't even try to do the work.  This is when the teacher puts a zero in the grade book because we didn't turn anything in. We didn't open Study Island. We didn't write the blog. We didn't do the project. There is no value in this type of fail. We don't learn anything from the attempt because we didn't attempt.

The Bad Fail is an epic fail. It is ridiculous to take a zero. Success is attainable. Try to complete the work. Turn in what you have. Even if you have a few Calibration Fails or Edison Fails, you will pass. Even more importantly, you will learn!

So here is my challenge to you this week… let's eliminate The Bad Fail at SMS.

Teachers, demand that work is completed. Students, be sure you pay attention, ask questions, and make a solid attempt. And students, be ready for extreme restriction if you are not going to turn in your work. It is time to step up. I know you can do it. See me if you need help.

We're Watching

I've almost always been pleased with the choices that our student body makes regarding behavior. Whether it be in the classroom, the halls, the restrooms, or other areas of the building, our student body does well with following rules and being respectful.

However, there are occasions where students lose their cools or make bad decisions. This year we've had some mistakes such as pushing, punching, stealing, and smoking. These behaviors are not frequent and they are investigated each time they occur.

When we investigate misbehavior, we interview those involved and we interview witnesses. And we look at the camera. Yes, we do use the surveillance camera to help us investigate misbehavior, especially when we have conflicting information.

Famous basketball coach John Wooden is credited with saying "The true test of a man's character is what he does when no one is watching." Thanks to all of you that make good choices whether or not there are adults in the immediate area.

For those of you that make a mistake, the quickest path to demonstrating good character is to own the mistake. Admit what happened. Accept responsibility for the choice. Serve the consequence. The next step is to do all you can to not repeat the mistake. Learn from the incident and grow.

If you have been targeted by a student that has misbehaved or have observed the violation a school rule, please remember that you can report the incident. Report to any teacher, counselor, or administrator. Report in person or in an MBC message. Our goal is to provide a safe and secure learning environment for everyone. Your reporting helps us to do so.

If you are tempted to violate a rule or to mistreat a peer, please remember that we expect you to demonstrate good character regardless of the situation. We expect you to treat each other and the property of others with respect. We expect you to pass the test when your character is tested.

Make the right choices, SMS!
First, because making good choices is the right thing to do.
And second, because we're watching.

Have a great week.
Miss Nass

Make Up Days

Well, well, well! We've got to figure out how to make up 14 school days! Yowser!

Two of our days are easy. We have planned make up days on Monday, February 17th and Friday, April 18th. The state has waived two more days based on the crazy cold temps in the original polar vortex. That gets us down to ten more to figure out.

The Indiana Department of Education has announced that they will allow schools to make up snow days in one of three ways.

1) Schools can add days to the end of the calendar year.
2) Schools can make up time by adding one hour to normal school days. Six additional hours are required to make up one secondary day. Five additional hours are required to make up one elementary day.
3) Schools can make up time by providing online instruction (such as on a Saturday). This option requires that all students in the district have access to the internet, rigorous activities, and 'reachable' teachers.

If we choose to use method number one only, we'll be going to school until June 13th. Ugh. The district will be talking about what our capabilities might be for option three.

Right now, let's get outside the box and have some conversation about option 2. Talk about the questions below in Connect. Your Connect teacher can then share them with your team leader… and team leaders will talk about this later this week.

Q1. If we have extended days, what do learners need?
Q2. If we have extended days, what kind of schedule would be best for learners?  Would we extend all normal periods or would we have a 'period 7' at the end of each day to alternate between core activities?
Q3. If we have extended days, how will that impact our lives outside of the normal school day? What things will we need to adjust/consider.

Thanks for getting the discussion started on this very interesting topic! Once decisions are made, all make-up time will be announced so that everyone can begin planning.

Your Toolbox

Let's say you are in your junior year and you are in a construction trades class at Prosser. This is a great class, designed to help you in the future. The teacher assigns you a task. You have to build a treehouse. The teacher teaches you about the coolest tool… a hammer. You hammer and hammer and finish your treehouse.  Good job.

Your next assignment is to install a sink. That is a great project! You pull out your hammer. Somehow you install the sink but it was harder than it had to be and the end product wasn't very pretty. The hammer made dents all over the basin. But you got it done. Good job.

Your next assignment is to wire a room. Bringing electricity to room outlets is a great project. You pull out your hammer. Now it gets ugly. Your hammer won't bend the wires and you keep breaking the plastic outlet covers. You also get a little shock as you swing the hammer into a live wire. You don't finish the project. Bad job.

What are the similarities and differences with these projects? They are all construction projects. They all require tools. And you used a hammer every time. The hammer worked for some but not for all. It would have been nice to be able to use a wrench or a screwdriver. And a little more choice would have prevented the projects from being so boring.

Construction tools are like technology tools. One tool can get a lot of jobs done but one tool isn't the best thing to use every time. Using one tool every time is boring.

What are you doing to learn new tools? Have you experimented with VOKI? Youblisher? Big Huge Labs? Your teachers are going to work on some new tools later this week in their professional development sessions on Wednesday and Thursday.

When your teacher finishes his/her half day of training, ask "what did you learn today?" or "what's new in your toolbox?" Follow that up with "when can we use it in class?" It is hard work learning new tools, but it is so worth it.  Let's support each other as we all work to learn some new tools.