Category Archives: Connections

“Bee” The Educator and Leader…

15 Friday Oct 2021

Posted by in Actions, Attention, Connections, Decisions, Education, Educational Leadership, Effective, Leader, Leadership, Presence, Relationships, Teachers, Value

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One question I am frequently asked is where do I get my ideas for writing my blogs every week. Well, it usually depends on the week. Most of the time, I see, hear, or read something related to education or leadership in general, and as I have said before… it gets me to start thinking. As I begin to think on the matter, my mind starts processing… is “whatever” a good or bad representation of education or leadership? And then, I start writing.

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So… recently, I was reading John MacArthur’s book Why Believe the Bible and in one of the chapters, there was this graphic illustration by H. P. Barker (1896-1952), who was once a missionary who served in the West Indies….

As I looked out into the garden one day, I saw three things. First, I saw a butterfly. The butterfly was beautiful, and it would alight on a flower and then it would flutter to another flower and then to another, and only for a second or two it would sit and it would move on. It would touch as many lovely blossoms as it could, but derived absolutely no benefit from it.

Then I watched a little longer out my window and there came a botanist. And the botanist had a big notebook under his arm and a great big magnifying glass. The botanist would lean over a certain flower and he would look for a long time and then he would write notes in his notebook. He was there for hours writing notes, closed them, stuck them under his arm, tucked his magnifying glass in his pocket and walked away.

The third thing I noticed was a bee, just a little bee. But the bee would light on a flower and it would sink down deep into the flower and it would extract all the nectar and pollen that it could carry. It went in empty every time and came out full.

As I read that, I thought this is exactly what we see education and leadership should not and should be. The approach of each one, the butterfly, the botanist, and the bee exemplifies both educators and leaders. As we think on each one…

The butterfly educator or leader… They just fly around. Always being seen but never bringing or taking anything. Flapping their wings, wanting others to admire their colors.

The botanist educator or leader… They analyze everything. Always writing what they see, but never offering feedback, just keeping notes; using them only when needed (for their own benefit, of course).

The bee educator or leader… They invest. They get down in the flower. They work. Not to say educators and leaders are empty, but the bee draws from the flower, pollination takes place, and everything and everyone is for the better.

As we continue to lead, we know each type of educator or leader stated above. More importantly, though, is the question of… which one are you? If we are not the bee, then we are not helping others. Is that not what we are suppose to do first? When we invest, spend time, and form bonds, education and leadership are for the better. Be a bee.

Go be a great educator and leader today… Our future needs it…

Remember… Think Leadership and Be For Others…

©2021 J Clay Norton

Want more Leadership Thoughts? Follow me on…

Twitter @thebookchamber

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An educational slide becoming a constant…?

01 Friday Oct 2021

Posted by in Circumstances, Connections, Culture, Decisions, Educational Leadership, Encouragement, Engagement, Leader, Leadership, Value

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Let’s start today’s blog off with questions…

Is our society becoming incapable of understanding what education should be? Can society think in terms of what is good or bad for education? Has relativism taken over?

I’m a big fan of educational cartoons. One that I often use in my college class is the pic for today’s blog. Yes, it is dated, but the idea from 2010 has not changed any, I believe. Can you see the slide? Has society taken education out of the hands of educators?

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The most gloomy aspect of our educational slide is that the problem continues to feed itself. This past week, the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) released the 2020-2021 District and School-level Assessment Results, and in it was the 2020-21 Mississippi Academic Assessment Program (MAAP) Executive Summary.

When I dove into the findings, the two areas that caught my attention were comparing the top ten and bottom ten schools of 2020-21 and preceding years of reported results. Guess what? Not much changes. While there is a resorting, per se, the top ten and the bottom ten are usually the same schools. Now, let me say that I acknowledge that the last quarter of the 2019 school year and the 2020-21 school year were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Just think, we have students who did not set foot in a school building for almost 18 months. However…

Now, here is the interesting part… If you take the map of Mississippi – Census Low Response Score that predicts the mail return rate of the 2020 census based on the return rate from the 2010 census, you will find that the top ten schools are primarily in communities with a high self-reporting census rate. The bottom ten schools are primarily in communities with a low self-reporting census rate. Connection, correlation, thoughts? Is it, or the lack of, leadership, money, teachers, students, parents, community buy-in? It has to be something, right? Is blame even the right word to use?

While each one of you, I’m sure, will have conclusions of your own, I suggest that no community wants their educational setting to be low-performing or in the bottom ten. Why would they? The money winning questions has to be, though, what has to change? What needs to happen? Talk about hitting your head against the wall enough times to make your head hurt and then saying you don’t have a headache… Maybe the better question is, why is it happening? For change to occur, hard questions must be asked, and answers must be found to say that we want a fair and equitable education for all. The notion of “the better we all do, the better we all do” works.

As educators, what we do and do not do matters. As for educational leaders, teachers, students, parents, community, the same is true. Remember, the slope of a slide only goes downward. Let’s find ways to help everyone climb and reach for what education should be… for all.

Go be a great educator and leader today… Our future needs it…

Remember… Think Leadership and Be For Others…

©2021 J Clay Norton

Want more Leadership Thoughts? Follow me on…

Twitter @thebookchamber

Want to share this leadership thought with others? Click on one of the social media sharing buttons below and help spread the good…

Having a “wha-ha” moment… Abner Doubleday, Baseball, and The Civil War

27 Friday Aug 2021

Posted by in Connections, Education, Engagement, Teachers, Useful

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Do you ever have that moment when you run across “knowledge” and have the “wha-ha” moment? Well, I did the other day. First, let me say that I love trivia… useless and useful. Random facts of this and that, knowledge of who, what, when, why, and where… yep, that’s me; sign me up for the daily email. I tell my classes that one of my goals in life is to be a Renaissance Man – master of nothing but knowledgeable of everything. Learn something new today that I did not know yesterday – success.

Anyway… here is where I’m going. You history people are going to love this…

Right now, I am listening to the audiobook Gettysburg by Stephen W. Sears. As the Battle of Gettysburg unfolds, Abner Doubleday shows up… Yes, that Abner Doubleday, the inventor of baseball (some say that is a myth, but nonetheless). My first thoughts were, “What’s he doing there?” “What was the union army doing playing baseball?” “Did they want to get a team together?”  Yes, I know that Abner Doubleday of baseball.

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Here is the Abner Doubleday I did not know… He was a Major General in the Union army. He fired the first shot in defense of Fort Sumter. Doubleday had a pivotal role in the early fighting of Gettysburg. Interestingly, he was relieved of his duty by Major General George Meade. Also, he obtained a charter/patent on the cable car after retirement while he lived in San Francisco.

Ok… I had the “wha-ha” moment. Go figure. As usual, it “got me to thinking…”

How many times as educators do our students have the “wha-ha” moment in our classrooms? How many times do we help them find a connection to something that will bridge misunderstanding or just add to something they do not know? How many times do we take for granted they already know something? How many times do we find ways for those connections to happen? What are we doing to help expand our lessons for “take-a-ways” they can remember?

Call me an idealist educator (and I strive to be one)… but I still believe that students are impressionable. Those “wha-ha” moments don’t have to be huge or drawn out. They don’t even have to be tested. However, I’m willing to bet when students go out of your room, they might possibly talk about it. Odds are, they might even tell someone else what they “learned.” Do yourself and your students a favor; find “wha-ha” moments.

Go be a great educator and leader today… Our future needs it…

Remember… Think Leadership and Be For Others…

©2021 J Clay Norton

Want more Leadership Thoughts? Follow me on…

Twitter @thebookchamber

Want to share this leadership thought with others? Click on one of the social media sharing buttons below and help spread the good…