The Evaluation Mindshift - March 2, 2021

The Evaluation Mindshift

By, Michael Earnshaw

March 2, 2021

@MikeREarnshaw

@PunkClassrooms

March is the month that wraps up “Evaluation Season.” Whether you are tenured or non, on cycle or not, sometime in early/mid March is when teachers’ evaluations needs to be complete and signed off on. There has always been, and unfortunately always will be, the mindset of many educators that evaluations are a “gotcha,” or a hoop that needs to be jumped through. This belief in evaluations will only be ceased if and when administrators begin to prove that they believe in the true meaning behind evaluations: GROWTH. 

We’ve all been in the teacher’s workroom either hearing our colleagues, or maybe even ourselves, breathing a sigh of relief that our evaluation for the year has been completed. This pure scene, that we are all guilty of, proves that it is the belief that evaluations are an act, a performance, that is scheduled once or twice a year, to show a school administrator that you are the most engaging, creative, fun, and top-notch teacher that has blessed our students. There’s nothing wrong with striving to prove those qualities, they are exactly what will help to improve our students’ lives for the long haul. But if those need to be displayed on a scheduled date or two with an administrator, that admin is not fully doing their job correctly. 

A shift in this negative evaluation mindset needs to start with modeling from those completing the evaluation. Principals, assistant principals, deans, and district office administrators are typically those that complete teacher evaluations. It’s precisely these individuals that hold the power to transforming the teacher evaluation landscape for educators everywhere! Here are a few approaches that need to be made to begin a new era. 

• Visit Classrooms Regularly. To truly know what is happening in our classrooms we need to visit them regularly and consistently. How can anyone justify that rating a teacher’s entire school year on one or two officially scheduled dates is fair? Evaluators need to know what happens day in and day out, the good, the bad, and the argyle. These are the days where the magic happens and those unexpected pockets of learning are bursting at the seams! If evaluators are not consistently in classrooms they will miss these moments. Another benefit of getting into classrooms regularly is that it helps to create a comfortable, trusting relationship. The more an evaluator is in a room the more fluid each visit becomes. The air doesn’t stiffen when an evaluator enters if it happens regularly. What happens is that the evaluator becomes another member of the class, an active participant! Try getting into every teacher’s room at least once a week for 10-20 minutes. 

• Positive Post-Its. Never ever just leave a classroom without providing some form of feedback. No matter how many times you’ve visited, no matter how comfortable the teacher has become with you being there, if you leave without providing any feedback it can begin to chip away at the trust you’ve established. These are informal classroom visits, so your feedback does not need to be entered in your online evaluation tool or sent in an email. That makes the purpose of these visits now seem very formalized. Instead, leave a small Post-It note behind. Jot down the amazing and impressive things you observed that teacher doing. This is to help build them up, acknowledge their strengths, and expand on them. Now if there was something extremely detrimental that needs to be addressed that can be done in the online evaluation system or an email. Let the Post-Its always state the positives. 

• The Collaboration Comfort Zone Crushing Crew. The entire point of evaluations is the help promote teacher growth. Evaluators must be a part of this process. Educators are all guilty of sometimes not seeing their true potential. They get comfortable where they’re at, approaching their lessons with what works for THEM. Evaluators must begin to push their teachers out of their comfort zones. Evaluators must model that risk-taking is accepted and encouraged. When evaluators engage in conversations with their teachers where they’re bragging on their strengths and positives, nudging them to leave their comfort zones with new lessons and activities, there is always one question the evaluator must ask, “How can I help?” After that question is asked and answered, it’s imperative that the evaluator follow-through on this. This team approach will build confidence and comfort in continually leaving comfort zones, and more importantly, a trusting and collaborative relationship. 

Imagine the difference our classrooms would look and feel like if both administrators and teachers took advantage of the powerful opportunity of growth with evaluations? This reality is within reach. It will not happen overnight, it will take some time and dedication on the administrator's end, but it will be worth it for everyone involved, especially our kids. 

double vision - February 3, 2021

double vision
By, Michael Earnshaw
February 3, 2021
@MikeREarnshaw
@PunkClassrooms 

destroyed my image
*
mirage
reflected illusions
*
you see
frustration
weakness
letdown
pain
*
i see
focus
strength
accomplishment
love
*
perception 
beholder’s view
*
you see
failure
letdown
waste
nothing
*
we see 
accomplishment
pride
treasure
everything
*
smash
spring away
*
birth your reflection

blink - February 2, 2021

blink

By, Michael Earnshaw

February 2, 2021

@MikeREarnshaw

@PunkClassrooms

sight discontinued at dusk

recharged

or

escaped

darkness cleansing

purify

or 

erase

dawn will erupt the silence

replaying 

Or 

rebirthing 

Chewing on Rocks - January 18, 2021

 Chewing on Rocks

By, Michael Earnshaw

January 18, 2021

@MikeREarnshaw

@PunkClassrooms

“Today, I had a kid eat a rock during snack.” 

“What, no way? What did you say?”

“You’re kidding, a 5th grader legit ate a rock?”

“Yeah, I told them that they will be seeing that rock again.” 

And the attendees in the virtual meeting all shared a laugh. Even those that still had themselves “Muted” were seen in their Brady Bunch-esque square shedding a tear from the hysterics. 

At our school, our students are still learning remotely and since Thanksgiving 2020 our staff has been working from home. This has both its ups and downs. This blog isn’t about delving into the never ending debate of remote vs. in-person. This blog is to remind us to laugh. 

For the first quarter and some weeks of our 2020/2021 school year our classrooms were occupied by the teacher and paraprofessionals whose names were on the placard outside the door. Teaching happened in the front of each classroom, each staff member creating their own NASA-like station to engage our students who seemed galaxies away. Things were going great, everyone was in a good groove. We were able to stop by one another’s room, socially distanced and masked up, to have those crucial, 120-second conversations that are game-changers for educators. You know what I’m talking about, that hallway banter that happens when switching classes or walking your homeroom to their Special’s Class. We were even able to start holding Tuesday Town Hall meetings. These were 30-minute informal staff meetings where our Assistant Principal and I were able to give updates and info on anything new and also for staff to ask questions or share tips and strategies that would benefit others. These were not mandatory, but we did have about 90% of our staff show up. With all of the distance we had to put between ourselves with the pandemic these weekly gatherings helped to make us feel like a staff again, united, and committed to bettering our students. 

Positive Covid-19 numbers were rampantly rising in our area. With the positivity rate on the rise in Chicagoland, our Superintendent and School Board made the decision to allow staff to work from home following Thanksgiving for one week. This was to help prevent the spreading of Covid-19 amongst our staff. There was no way to police any staff from traveling or getting together with others despite what the top doctors were recommending. One week of work from home passed and numbers did not get any better. Another week of WFH was granted, and then again until winter break, and here we are now, January 18, 2021, and we’re still working from our living rooms, kitchen tables, and home offices. 

During these remote weeks we still instituted our Town Halls, but it wasn’t the same. Nearly all of our staff showed up to these, but something was missing. Everyone logged into our Zoom at the scheduled time and our Assistant Principal and I basically read off bullet points, something we vowed to never do in a live staff meeting so why would it be acceptable now? Once we were done we asked if anyone had questions or anything else, but no one ever did. 

I’ve struggled to feel connected with our staff during this time, you can read about it here, and I began holding our Town Halls three times a week. Now you may be thinking, “Mike, if you didn’t have much info to share weekly how could you possibly fill three days?” Well, these meetings aren’t so much to deliver info but to spend time with each other. I began rephrasing how I asked if anyone had anything else. Instead of, “Does anyone have anything?” I began asking, “What’s something positive you’d like to share?” or “What’s a highlight of your day?”

The reasoning behind the change in questions was to open conversations, to get some dialogue going. I have always believed that relationships are first, not only with teachers and students but everyone, including administrator and staff as well as staff and staff. With the very bland style of meetings we were having it went against everything I believe a staff meeting should be. Being virtual we are very limited, but we can still smile and laugh. 

No matter what our situation, we can always smile and laugh. 

Being an educator is a whirlwind of emotions on a daily basis, and the climate today with the Covid-19 pandemic does not make anything easier. Educators are working harder than ever, longer days that are taking time away from their own families. If I can’t get our staff up, moving, and partaking in team building activities like we do during in-person staff meetings (more about these in my upcoming book, shameless plug) we needed to share those smiles we were lacking. Creating laughter by sharing those funny stories we always say, “We should write a book about a day in the life of a teacher, no one would ever believe what we experience!” is just what we needed. 

And that was our entire Town Hall. We talked about that 5th grader eating a rock for a snack, and then the weirdest things we have all eaten! Did this conversation have anything to do with education? No, it didn’t...but then again, it did. Education is all about relationships. 

PRISM - #OneWord2021 - January 6, 2021

 PRISM 
#OneWord2021
By, Michael Earnshaw
January 6, 2021
@MikeREarnshaw

PRISM - noun - a glass or other transparent object in prism form, especially one that is triangular with refracting surfaces at an acute angle with each other and that separates white light into a spectrum of colors.

2021 will be my third year adopting the #OneWord approach to improving myself throughout the 365 days rather than setting unrealistic resolutions. For my #OneWord 2019, I went with BELIEVE and left my comfort zones, both personally and professionally, more so than I ever even dreamed! If it wasn’t for BELIEVING, I would never have begun writing and sharing it with the world, speaking at educational conferences, or talking about two of my loves, Punk Rock and Education with my brother Josh Buckley on our podcast Punk Rock Classrooms. By living 2019 through the word BELIEVE I was able to move myself to be the husband, father, educator, leader, and the person I knew I was destined to be but had always lacked the confidence to get there. 

Building off the momentum from 2019, 2020 started off amazing! I was flowing through the first few months, just like the word I had chosen to live by, WATER. I was able to break down even more barriers that stood in my way to make me better and stronger to help inspire others to work together to change our world for the better. By adopting WATER as my #OneWord2020 I was able to accomplish a goal that I have had since elementary school, to have a book of my own published. In January of 2020, I am proud to say that I was able to sign a contract with Edumatch and will be able to share the EduCulture Cookbook: Recipes and Dishes to Positively Transform School and Classroom Culture in the Spring/Summer of 2021! 

Everything was on track for 2020 to be one of my best years yet! WATER was freely flowing and I was living my best life until a dam was built out of nowhere. The WATER was stopped and everything in my life began to overflow and flood out in every aspect. At first, I felt that the Covid-19 Pandemic was to blame for building a dam that was stopping my positive flow, but after months of living through a non-stop flood, I realized that it was me that had built the dam. 

I was seeing the world through one lens. Everything that was happening, school shutdowns, quarantines, no toilet paper on the shelves, I only saw the negative in every situation. This had a horrible effect on me to be the leader my staff and students deserve, the husband my wife chose to spend the rest of her life with, and most importantly, the strong father my kids needed. My self-care slowly declined. Runs and weight lifting sessions were sporadic, I’d be lucky to get in two a week. Diet, I guess if you mean eating everything and anything I wanted. I wasn’t reading, wasn’t connecting with my crew, my PLN, and spending way too much time just zoning out in front of the TV every night with nothing good fueling my body. 

Whenever something went wrong at home or school it wasn’t my fault, it had to be someone else’s. All of the goals I had set for the year were put on hold because the Pandemic wasn’t allowing me to reach them. I became depressed and self-destructive but of course, it wasn’t my fault, there just wasn’t any other way, it’s because of the Pandemic, right? 

I only saw the world, my world, through my eyes. 

I chose the word PRISM for my #OneWord2021 because I now understand that everything I mentioned above was because of me. I chose to use the Pandemic as an excuse. I wasn’t taking responsibility for my actions and took the easy way out. It took many months living through this to understand I was the cause of my own struggles, but I am grateful to have found see the light from a different lens. 

I chose the word PRISM because of the simple, yet awe-inspiring job they do. PRISMS bring in one bland ray of light, one view, one perspective, but project a plethora of beauty, colors, and a rainbow of amazement out of the other side. PRISMS help us to see more than what is there, other perspectives, alternate avenues. PRISMS help us to see that there’s more than meets the eye, that there is light in the darkness, beauty in catastrophe. 

PRISMS help us to see that there is so much to be grateful for even amidst our world being flipped upside down. 

I will live 2021 looking for the light when everything around me is dark and bland. I will continue to BELIEVE and flow like WATER, and that will lead me to the rainbows that surround us all of the time. I will stop only seeing my ray of light, I will listen more than I speak. I will show gratitude daily because there is so much beauty that has come out of this pandemic and to truly move forward we mustn’t revert to how things were.

I will see the beauty in every situation. 

I will see the beauty in others. 

I will see the beauty in myself. 

Bedtime Stories - November 4, 2020

Bedtime Stories

By, Michael Earnshaw

@MikeREarnshaw

November 4, 2020

In the Earnshaw household, there are two camps when it comes to sleeping, heavy and light. First, my son and I are in the heavyweight division. Once our heads hit the pillow, eyelids close, we’re in a mini-hibernation until the morning hours appear. We don’t need much sleep, both of us are always the first two up in the house, but that may be because throughout the night we don’t wake. My wife and daughter, on the other hand, they’re in the light division. They fall asleep fast, but any little creak, whisper, or slight breeze electrifies their eyelids open! Unfortunately for me, I endure a lot of shakes, yells, and yes, even punches, to wake me before my natural biorhythm clock would allow. Now I know what you’re thinking, are you really complaining that your poor wife and daughter wake you when they’re scared at night? C’mon, I’m not that bad of a husband and father, so yes, yes I am complaining that I am awoken by their fears. Oh stop it, you know you would be too. Now it’s my time to redeem myself. Many nights I do get up and sleepily stumble throughout our house, checking every door and window to make sure they’re locked. I check the basement, both the finished living area and the spooky unfinished part that still has ceiling lights that come to life via a string. I check closets, underneath beds, and even behind shower curtains. I’ve learned throughout the years that they know, somehow, they just know if I lie and tell them I’ve searched everywhere. Now, I check everything and everywhere. After that, they are back to sleep and all is quiet again. There are some nights though, that instead of rising from my bed like a zombie taking their first steps, I ascend my head a few inches off my pillow, make sure my good ear is facing the doorway, and listen. I then tell them in my best Tom Waits voice that everything is fine, just go back to bed. And I do. The morning after these nights are always a hoot. My wife or daughter, or both, do the shuffle into the kitchen that I should have done a few hours earlier when they were scared. I’ll always ask, “How’d you sleep?” 10/10 times on these mornings I’m told, “Not good. I was scared, you should’ve checked for us!” Now, why am I telling you this? Do you care about what happens during the moonlit hours at our home? My guess is no, but let me explain why, if you’re an educator, you’ll want to. Those nights that I don’t check things out, I’m not helping my wife or daughter. I’m just moving on with my plans of getting 5 to 6 hours of sleep, and I get it sans the 2 minutes I said everything was fine. What about them? Do they get the same quality sleep they deserve? Nope. They are up, tossing and turning, listening for whatever originally awoke them, and many more sounds! Education is the same. Many times we reach all of our kids, checking on them, making sure they have complete comprehension of the material and concepts being taught before moving on. We do this because we know that education builds upon itself. If a student doesn’t have a grasp of the material, they will begin a spiral of being lost in lessons as the class progresses. This is why we have RTI tiered interventions, 504 plans, and IEPs. But do educators always ensure every kid has that understanding every time? Let’s be honest here, no, sometimes the world has turned and left someone there (who doesn’t love a classic Weezer reference?) I’m guilty of it. I’ve done it as a teacher and yes, I’ve done it as a principal. Why? Because it’s easier. It’s easier to move on. It’s easier for us to stay comfortable and get to where we set our plans to go. It’s easier, but it isn’t fair. I became an educator to inspire others to know their strengths, own their weaknesses, not to fear asking others for help, believe in the power of collaboration, and be determined to change our world for the better. I made this my personal mission for every student, teacher, and individual I have the honor of serving. My mission will not be met if I don’t get out of bed for every single one of them. It’s our duty to propel every student along on their educational journey. There will be times it is hard, frustrating, and uncomfortable, many times for us. We can’t make that an excuse. We must help every child, every time. The next time my wife or daughter need me to scan the house while the rest of the world is sleeping, well, I will. I made a promise to protect them long before I joined hands in marriage and brought my beautiful daughter into this world. Oh, my son? He’s sleeping.

Prison Break Pie - April 29, 2020

Prison Break Pie

From the upcoming book: The EduCulture Cookbook: Recipes to Transform School & Classroom Culture

By, Michael Earnshaw

@EduChefEarnshaw

Prison sentences are never that bad at first. Like any new situation we’re thrown into, whether it’s of our own accord or not, there’s that awkwardness that permeates throughout our air. The glares from every set of eyes as you enter your new “home” for whatever period of time you’ve been sentenced, heckles from others who have already taken up residence, believing that you don’t have what it takes to make it in the “joint”, taunts and threats shouted and echoed as you slumber through the bland, cold, gray halls for the first time to remind you that no matter what status you believe you hold, you’re at the bottom of the food chain. Others have been residents long before you, and many will remain after you make it out, if you make it out. After you make it through this initiation though, it’s actually kind of pleasant.

Many school administrators would fare well, and actually enjoy time in the “clink”. It is a very structured facility, where your daily routines run like clockwork. Every morning your cell door, as well as every other in the prison, unlock and open at the same time in unison. You step out, greet everyone within your vicinity with a smile and nod, and then head to breakfast. Here, you get your coffee, spend some time socializing with the same individuals you do every morning. Each day the conversation is different, but it’s the same. Basically, you’re just biding time until you’re back in your small four walls.

After your coffee break you make it back to your cell. The door is open, but you don’t have the freedom to just leave, or at least that’s what you believe. You spend the next few hours reading, writing, and doing what you have convinced yourself that you are supposed to be doing during these morning hours. You’re spending time with yourself “catching up” on what you think needs to get done.

Before lunch hits is when you get to make your rounds. A brief stroll to get another cup of watered down Joe, a step outside in the courtyard to get a little bit of sunshine. Maybe a quick workout or pickup game of basketball. Within the blink of an eye, you’re back in your cell, acting as if the reading and writing has built up to catastrophic proportions while you were out.

You get in another hour or so, thinking you’ve made some headway, and then return to the Mess Hall. Lunch is quick, bland, and unsatisfying. Some days you’ll completely skip the meals because they not only look, but smell worse than any meme you could find on public school meals served to kids from the 80’s.

After lunch there’s more down time reading and writing. It never seems to end. No matter how many hours you dedicate to these time consuming tasks there’s always more. In all honesty, it’s been self-created. This is what you feel you need to do with your new role. It’s what we’ve seen portrayed in television shows and movies. You’ll share some of your pieces with others, but many times they don’t want to take the time, or they feel as if they are drowning in work themselves. You’ll get a reply from some, others you need to hunt down and ask a few times face to face. At the end of the day you can put away your journal and books and relax a little.

During the later hours of the day you have some dinner with friends, watch some meaningless shows on television, and wind down for the night. Before “Light’s Out” you may read a little bit for pleasure, dreaming of better days. Then you’ll close your eyes just to wake up and do it all over again tomorrow. Like clockwork.

____________________________________________________________________________

I lost three years doing this after I was sentenced. Like everyone inside, it wasn’t my fault. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end for me. Each day that passed I began to get inside of my own head. That was the worst part, knowing that this would be my life for the next 20 or so years...unless I broke out. I told myself that was my only option for clarity, for sanity.

The funny thing about prisons is not that you are locked inside with a strict structure and routine. That’s fine. The true prison is your own mind, your own thoughts. That’s where the agony and anguish lies. Thinking how tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that will be the same as today. Our minds are the prisons that we cannot escape. I needed to break out, it was the only solution if I was going to make it where my actions had brought me.

____________________________________________________________________________

The prison I described above was one which I had chosen for myself. It was my goal to become a building principal. Since I had begun coursework for my Master’s in Educational Administration I fell in love with leading and inspiring a staff. When I began the program I was only doing it for the credentials and to get a bump on the teaching salary schedule. Quickly I realized the much larger impact I could have in education and touch many more lives of students by leading a building.

I was fortunate to earn the title of Assistant Principal for a two year run. This wasn’t much different than my time as a classroom teacher. I was in classrooms daily, building relationships with staff and students. I was able to work hand in hand with others and positively change the lives of over 300 students, which was much more than the 90 I had as a middle-school ELA teacher.

____________________________________________________________________________

The principalship is a different monster. Nothing could have prepared me for all of the behind the scenes paperwork and minutiae that accompanies the leader of a school. At first I did my best to get out and build relationships. Since I was a child I have always known the key to changing the world is meaningful, trusting, and sincere relationships. But as my first year as an elementary building principal began to unfold into the later months I was finding myself spending more time in my prison cell.

The paperwork was overwhelming. There always seemed to be something else that needed to be completed and submitted to my supervisors. I also saw the amount of emails that my fellow principals were sending to their staff on a daily basis. They were all much more seasoned than I was, and I believed that to be effective I needed to follow their suit.

I felt like I was Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Three years had passed, three years I would never get back. Three years that I don’t feel I was the best leader for my staff, or more importantly, our students. I was miserable. I was depressed. I began contemplating my choices and if there was any other career field I could enter with the credentials and skill sets I had. This was not why I had entered education. This was not why I had worked so hard to become a building principal. I told myself that I could not spend any more years trapped inside my cell, making phone calls, replying to emails, and creating and submitting meaningless documents. I declared I had two choices:

End it all and leave the field of education.
Break out of my cell and lead how I had always believed in my heart.

Year three ended and I had taken a lot of vacation days during the months of June and July to self-reflect, find myself, and plan my escape. My heart was telling me that I was destined to change the lives of many, and that serving as a principal was what I needed to do. I wasn’t done yet.

____________________________________________________________________________

I realized that many of the paperwork tasks I thought I needed to complete daily were just enemies I created in my mind. I knew that in order for me to be free and live out my vision of changing the world I needed to get back to forming relationships. I needed to get out of my front office and spend as much time as I could in the hallways and classrooms amongst our amazing staff and inspiring students. Many ideas were formulated in my brain, but there was only one that I knew would be the perfect solution. Once she entered my mind I knew there was no other path to take to break out of my prison. Adina would be my savior!

____________________________________________________________________________

Close your eyes and imagine being the only one in your school. It’s silent, no noise is polluting the clean air of the hallways. Then, with the snap of your fingers, you hear plastic wheels rolling over the tiles of the hallway. It’s loud, the “thud, thud, thud” takes over and pushes out whatever peaceful thoughts were dancing in your head.

“Uuummm...what is that? It’s so loud!” was what everyone had asked the first time they met Adina.

A smile always grew across my face before I answered. “This is Adina, my mobile desk!”

“That’s cool, but what about your office?” questioned many.

“The school is my office,” was the only explanation they needed.

____________________________________________________________________________

I know I may sound like a broken Rancid record, but to me, relationships are everything. To truly make a difference in the lives of others, and the bigger picture of changing the world, we must have relationships. I’ve spent my entire career, sans the first three years as a principal, putting relationships first. It served me well and many lives were transformed. It’s time to do that again.

After many plans and ideas, it hit me that the best way to get back into the hallways and classrooms, and still get all of my work done, was to get a mobile desk. She’s nothing fancy, a section to place my laptop, a little cabinet for pens and pencils, #KINDNESS bands to pass out to students, and jeans passes for staff. There’s also a section to place my skateboard and display what books I’m currently reading for all to see.

____________________________________________________________________________

The first few weeks that Adina was with me was a learning curve for some. Classes would exit their room for a bathroom break or a Special’s class and there we were, working at an intersection of hallways. When I needed to satisfy that hunger of the excitement that fills a classroom we could easily roll into any of our choosing and spend time working and being visible and part of the learning.

“I need to talk to you...uuummm...are you in your office? asked a teacher as I was in the middle of the hallway.

“Yeah, this is my office. What’s up?” was my response.

She then took a step forward, breaking through the invisible threshold to have a conversation.

As time went on staff and students understood my new concept and became comfortable talking and working together with me anywhere in the school. Of course if there was a confidential conversation that needed to be had we would step inside a closed door room, but these were few and far between.

____________________________________________________________________________

Besides connecting with others and building relationships, I noticed many positive changes that came with the addition of Adina, many that I hadn’t even imagined when we began our dance together.

My inbox had significantly  less emails. I was no longer receiving small fires that were requesting my extinguishing. Being available and visible I was able to take care of these flames well before they erupted into a full blown blaze.
Student behavior improved. With being nearby at all times I could hear if there was a disruption brewing inside of a classroom. A student walking out of a classroom in anger or frustration, no problem. I was right there.
I knew what was happening in our classrooms. I knew the lessons and content being taught, and I was invited to be a participant of these lessons much more frequently. If something amazing was taking place and I wasn’t invited, I just crashed it!

____________________________________________________________________________

It’s been nearly two years and Adina and I are still together. Students love her and have given us personalized decorations to clothe her in. If it wasn’t for her I’d either be miserable, locked inside of my prison of an office or have left education completely. Had that happened I would  still be miserable and just  contained in a cubicle.

You don’t have to serve a life sentence stuck inside of your office. Find someone, or something, that will break you out and show you the beauty of the landscape freedom that lays before you. For me, that was Adina, and I am forever grateful.

Record Store Day - January 27, 2020

Record Store Day

By, Michael Earnshaw

January 27, 2020

Tuesday was always my favorite day of the week. Once I hit my college career I did everything in my power to ensure that if any of my courses had to be taken on a Tuesday I chose the ones that were in the later morning, afternoon, or evening. This wasn’t because many of the local establishments ran Monday evening specials where we could get pitchers of Killian’s for $3 and hang out throwing darts until the “Loser Lights” came on. No. Tuesdays were always the day I would set an alarm to be up no later than 8:30 regardless of what nightly hour my foggy head soldered with my bag of feathers. When you’re in your early 20’s, celebrating late summer nights with friends, early wake-ups would typically be around noon. Not on Tuesdays. 

Tuesday had something special that no other day of the week could ever touch. Tuesday was record release day! Music has always been a major part of my life, getting me through good times and bad. Music is the glue that has held so many strong friendships and memories together all these years.

Ever since I graduated high school in ‘98, there wasn’t a Tuesday that I wasn’t eagerly waiting at the stickered up door of my local independent record store minutes before they unlocked. I couldn’t wait to cross through their majestic threshold and get my hands, and ears, on all of the newest releases that would transcend me to a much better place. Music was my drug and I was picking up new soundtracks for my life that contained tunes that would serve as the backdrop for many memories with dear friends that I still treasure today. 

The days following Tuesday were special as well. These were the days I spent learning and studying all of the lyrics to the newest CD’s blaring through my Pioneer CD player in my Pontiac Grand Am. I analyzed the stories and messages my favorite punk bands were screaming about, drawing connections to earlier lessons they delivered on previous records, and tying it to the current state of our world. I admired the passion and love of what they had put out for me as much as the memories I made with my friends discussing the beauty of the music. 

Why am I sharing my love of picking up new music on a Tuesday and then spending the remaining days of the week studying and analyzing these messages? Because this is exactly what we should strive to have our classrooms resemble. My love for picking up new music weekly, and then understanding everything I could behind it, is how our lessons should be designed for our students. 

There’s so much talk of creating experiences in our classrooms, engaging our students in a love of learning, bringing our passions to them through our lessons. This is exactly how my weeks were structured with my love of music. Some weeks only one great record was dropped, others I was picking up three to four. Our classrooms are the same. We can’t expect teachers to have out of the box lessons every day of the week. But they can bring at least one every week. One lesson so strong, so different, so engaging, rigorous, and out of the box that will have their students salivating for the next gem the following week. 

Once we become comfortable creating these experiences for our students, the juices are flowing. Like anything, the more we practice the better we become. That’s when you’ll seem to be dropping more than one record a week for your students. Some will be bigger, like a full length LP, while others may just be a short little burst, like when a band releases an EP of 4 or so songs to build anticipation before their next proper release. 

We’ve now come to a day and age where CD sales have dropped significantly. Many of the independent record stores I loved have closed their doors for the last time. Music is still a huge part of my life, and I still look forward to new releases every week. Instead of getting in my car and driving to those stores I long for, I now pick up my phone first thing every Friday morning and go to my Spotify app to see what is new and start studying. 

Times have changed, the process has changed, but my excitement for new music, which is now Friday, and my love for studying the lessons and messages hasn’t. 

How often are you releasing new records for our students? The day of the week doesn’t matter anymore, but new releases must drop regularly. 

State of the Union - August 30, 2019

State of the Union 

By, Michael Earnshaw 

August 30, 2019 

@mearnshaw158 

It's time to unite, challenge the educational system, and tear it down! Too many of today’s educators are “teaching” our students with antiquated methods and strategies that have been in play for decades. Gone are the days when students quietly came into school, sitting in perfect rows, copying notes the teacher writes on the chalkboard. With the rise of technology, changes in family dynamics, and a mindset of instant gratification due to the DVR, Spotify, and literally arming ourselves with computers in our pockets, educators cannot reach students with only their voice, drill and kill, immobility. Our students are so much more than a name and number on a class roster. 

It's time to let our mohawks fly, thrown on that leather biker jacket housing dust bunnies in the closet, and lace up our Chuck’s. We have strength in numbers and it’s time to let the world know that the punks are taking over.  

It’s time to truly make a difference in today’s educational world. To not only make a lasting impact on our students but to create problem solvers, collaborators, individuals confident in their strengths and not ashamed to rely on others when needed.  

It’s time to create a unified group of kids determined to change our world for the better.  

It’s time to challenge the status quo of education and approach our classrooms and students with the Punk Rock Mindset.