Helping to find solutions daily for those in leadership, education and seeking to serve others. Providing motivation, encouragement and inspiration daily as we all seek to be the solution daily for all.
Do we need to raise the bar or lower it? How does this affect our standards? If you are working in a particular field or area and people are not reaching the current established levels set, what is the solution? Change the level, change the preparation, change the assessment or maintain the level? What is the solution?
What is the purpose of standards? Standards are critical to the safety, quality, and reliability of our products. Standards provide the regulations, processes, and services we receive. When we think about standards, we think about health and medical care. We know the people providing care for us have standards they have passed and use to keep us safe. We also believe the same thing about our educational services. There is no area where standards are not vital.
Recently, we have heard the news of shortages in the teaching field. Standards are being changed or lowered to accommodate this need to allow additional individuals to join the educational force. Other areas are having difficulties in finding people to fill their open positions as well. How will this work to accommodate the standards established for the regulations, processes, and services we receive for safety. Do we lower standards, change standards, or what solutions do you have?
The shortages of pilots are causing the airline industry to make decisions on how to change the standards, raise the retirement age, increase pay, and cancel flights to try to keep pilots on duty.
Lowering standards can be found in the education world as community colleges found lowering standards still had a higher failure rate. Preparing students to be college and career ready does not seem to be meeting these low standards, so the solution to lowering standards is a deeper issue. We need to look at the preparation of students coming from high school to college and then from middle school to high school. Where in the chain is the link the weakest? What do we need to strengthen? Meeting these low standards needs to happen first.
Do you know of other areas standards have been changed? What does this mean? What is your opinion? Please share your thoughts as we look for solutions to solve the many levels of the issues uncovered with standards.
I am not like most people, I believe. My husband tells me often I am not normal. I rarely turn on the television and prefer to read. In my time of reading and in his time of turning on the television, I have heard about potential food shortages as the next fear on the rise in our country.
As an educator for 25 years, I know children do not always eat all the food prepared at school. We often prepare more than we need because, like in restaurants, it is better to be over-prepared than under. So what happens to all of the food in all places food is prepared and not used? It is thrown out is the answer, I believe!
Just a little food for thought! (Corny pun!). What if we could organize within our communities a way to gather the food not used and enjoy having pot lucks at local churches, parks, civic buildings, or other locations for anyone and all to come until the food was gone.
I would hope we would not have scenes of fighting or chaos but opportunities for those who need a little extra help to gain a free meal, engage in community spirit, and enjoy a few moments of being part of neighborly love.
We need each other now. Step up, speak up, show up and be the solution daily in a community that needs you to be part of it!
The need for coaching support today is more extensive than it has ever been before. Help at each level in the organizational chain needs to be strengthened after being pushed to the limits over the past few years.
Every individual, if asked in a survey, will tell you they have been impacted over the last three years by the events happening in our world. We have experienced illness, death, lockdowns, trauma, soaring gas prices, and supply shortages, and the list can be expanded to many other issues. The critical point is trauma and the stress it has provided.
Building a support system within our organization or bringing in outside coaching will help individuals get back to their center to regain a balance. Stability is the thread we need to sew our environment back to the strength, resilience, and flexible fabric it needs to be as we work to achieve.
Who are Coaches?
Effective coaches treat individuals as professionals. Building a professional relationship knowing and recognizing individuals are capable of making decisions for themselves. People will engage in conversations when they understand coaches are not imposing practices, thoughts, or ideas on them. Coaches are partnering with them to determine the best course of action. When we try to do something different, it is a dehumanizing act, and it minimizes the effect of the potential for professional growth. Coaches need to examine who they are and how their actions affect others. Most importantly, always look at the coaching process as we help make it the best for each individual.
Important questions for coaches to ask themselves:
What are my beliefs?
What can I do to build trust?
How do I communicate?
Do I listen?
What action steps do I take?
How do I lead myself?
How do I lead others?
Impact of Coaches
Coaching is unique! Selecting the right coaches for the right team or individual is an essential part of the process. Matching the needs of those being coached with the individual who can provide for them is critical, but matching the personality is also an essential piece!
One of my favorite TedTalks is Rita Pierson! Her best line is, “Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.” Adults are the same way! The first step in every relationship is building trust and finding common ground. Establishing a partnership in working together to achieve growth over time is the primary goal. Establishing a clear understanding of what coaching is will help build the foundation for a positive working relationship.
Coaches will bring a toolbox of strategies and resources to support the individual or group they are working to help grow. The method will be selected, implemented, monitored, and then analyzed. They will work on this together to evaluate the next steps. The coach’s impact will result in the efforts of all those involved. Clear communication and record keeping will help them make adjustments as they proceed. This should never be an evaluation piece but an improvement, growth, and innovative approach for individuals to take ownership of their development.
Do I need one?
If you are asking if you need a coach, the answer is yes. I have had a coach, I am a coach, and I have supervised coaches. Coaches are like your own personal trainer, cheerleader, and go-to person. They can help bring you ideas and tell you if you need to think about something from a different lens or if you did a great job communicating that idea. Coaches are so important. My area of expertise is in education, but I am available to help any leader. Please leave me a comment or send me an Email. I am willing to help you at no cost via Zoom, email, and phone. Leadership is significant, and I want you to be successful. My solution is to provide as much support as possible to those who are leading and serving others.
Asking questions is something I think is essential to do. It gives your mind a chance to be engaged in thinking deeper and to explore ideas you may not have opportunities to provide time to think.
How do you? It is a question you can fill in the blank with the remaining substance of the question. I was driving to a doctor’s appointment and looking at the many things I saw along the way, and I thought…How do you? Try it out and see what you want to know more about.
Put me in Coach
It is time for the baseball season. My grandsons are busy at the ballpark! It took a little while to get things going as they were looking for additional people to be coaches for the little ones.
When we look at the time and effort of the individuals who work with the kids, it is terrific. We need coaches not only on the baseball fields but in other areas of our lives. Do you have a coach? Are you a coach? Do you want a coach? Think about what coaching can do for you and others. What questions do you have about coaching?
Trust
How important is the word trust? If you answered right away with yes, trust is vital, then I have another question. If trust is so vital to us, how do we demonstrate trust? How do we show value in the word trust? Let’s think about trust and how it is used, honored, and valued.
Thank you
“Memorial Day is an American holiday, observed on the last Monday of May, honoring the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. Memorial Day 2022 will occur on Monday, May 30. Originally known as Decoration Day, it originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971. Many Americans observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries or memorials, holding family gatherings, and participating in parades. Unofficially, it marks the beginning of the summer season.” History Channel
This coming weekend we celebrate with family picnics, parades, and celebrations. We want to thank all of those who have served, are serving, or planning to serve in protecting all of the individuals of this great country!
What is one topic you would like to learn about, discuss or share?
Please send in any ideas you have on topics, questions, or ideas to discuss. The purpose of being the solution daily is to help find solutions. Together we can find solutions. Blessings for a fantastic week as the first day of summer is June 21st! We are almost there!
In our current situations, we have all faced many critical, unpredictable conditions not seen before. We have dealt with in our years of service overcoming what many have referred to as “burnout,” not motivated, exhausted, and leads me to what I believe is replacing all of these words in our workplaces today: “Drainout.”
Think about how you and your co-workers feel right now. How do you feel overall? What are the topics of conversation you are having? When do you have a time in your day you feel completely at ease? Do you have a place where you can relax?
“Drainout” does not happen just at work; it can occur in every aspect of life. We have for decades heard about “burnout” in reference to how people get at work when they feel stressed or overworked. Still, We know we need to add several more layers to this phase due to Covid-19, trauma, inflation, and shortages of supplies, and the list can be expanded to include many more topics creeping into our lives.
“Drainout” results from a trauma to our workforce, families, communities, churches, and overall life. The emotional stress, changes, and demands drain each individual as the energy is being pulled in many directions. Employees, leaders, and families are exhausted of the emotions, energy, and ability to think, create or engage at the levels needed to achieve and thrive. People are feeling they have no control over situations and leading to a massive increase in mental health needs as “Drainout” is hitting every profession, industry, home, and community.
What can we do?
This is an enormous problem with not one solution. I believe there will be many solutions to work on to help elevate the number of issues facing individuals today. Continuing to throw money at problems I can identify as not the solution. Money only adds a layer to the issues we face, as we have to pay the money back. It is a cycle of repeating bad decisions. Inflation reduces the value of our money and increases our debt.
We can begin to look at what we can do as individuals to help stop the “Drainout” for ourselves:
Admit we have a problem- The first step in finding a solution is to admit we have a problem to solve. Once you have acknowledged the problem, we can begin to address the next steps.
Identify the areas to address- We have admitted a problem; now, we need to break down the problem into areas to address. Example: Not anytime to have fun with my friends. Spending too much money and not enough to pay all of the bills. I am always tired.
We are setting action steps: Problem-Areas and now action steps. Examples of actions to take for those we mentioned above. *Utilize a calendar to schedule activities, meetings, everything we need to do, and what we want. Color code it to identify the areas you are spending your time. *Develop a budget to monitor spending. *Set a scheduled time to go to bed and utilize a sleep application to monitor the amount of sleep you are receiving.
Analysis: Problem-Areas-Action Steps=Analysis Now, take the time to review the data you have collected. What have you learned? What changes could be made to improve?
Implement: Now, you are ready to implement the solutions you have identified. This will help you reduce areas you are wasting and improve the quality of time, money, and priorities.
Additional Support
As one glove does not fit all, we may need to have immediate solutions for the issues we face. “Drainout” is how it sounds. Individuals may be so drained they need immediate help from professionals. It is perfectly acceptable, and you should always ask for help. Coaches, mentors, support groups, networking groups, and other professionals are there to help you. I have used them all, and I am one as well. It is essential to have a structured system to support you today more than at any other time in our history. Here are some additional ideas for support:
Eat healthier- Grab some fruit instead of chips
Excercise- Take a walk during lunch
Listen to music- Find some tunes that help you relax
Journal write- Sometimes writing can help you express, reflect and decompress
Creating a safe space/time- We all enjoy having a particular spot with things that help us feel safe and good.
Track your stress, feelings, and events that cause anxiety
Learn strategies to use when you feel stress, anxiety, or anger. Breathing
Do something you like to do!
There is much to discuss “Drainout” as we face many troubling issues. Let’s work on replenishing everyone by providing a kind word to each one we see and meet. Provide opportunities to share in networking, groups, and connecting. Show patience, understanding, and empathy to others. There are many things we can do to help fight against “Drainout.”
Have you ever felt like you were off-balanced? A change happened in your life, and now things as you knew as “normal” are now the opposite. Oh, yes, the pandemic! The Covid-19 pandemic is one example. Can you think of more? Many things can impact us in positive and negative ways, which cause us to feel off-balanced and not centered; how do we handle it.
Word of the Day
I am a big believer in vocabulary! We do not spend enough time exploring, providing, and giving children time to explore “words.”
It could be because I come from a home where my parents did not know how to read. When I would go to school in my early years, I can remember my Kindergarten teacher saying, “I am sure your parents have read this story to you, but I am going to read it today again.” Nope, my parents had not, and I heard it for the first time. We forget many children do not have rich conversations or have exposure to reading materials or opportunities to visit other places. How can we help to improve their vocabulary for them?
Are you facing “Drainout”?
In our current situations, we have all faced many critical, unpredictable conditions not seen before. We have dealt with in our years of service overcoming what many have referred to as “burnout”, not motivated, exhausted, and leads me to what I believe is replacing all of these words in our workplaces today: “Drainout.”
Think about how you and your co-workers feel right now. How do you feel overall? “Drainout” is not something that happens just at work, it can happen in every aspect of life. We will discuss more this week.
Donuts, Veggies or Ice Cream? Choices
Do you hold meetings? If you do, do you provide a snack? When people walk into your meeting, do they find chocolates or candy on the tables? What do you think about offering food or something for meetings?
I am curious about this idea. I know I have, it seems, always had candy on the tables and offered snacks. During my career, I never used a line budget for my building expenses. I thought doing this was my choice, and I usually paid for it myself. Sometimes I had vendors who would send stuff, but mostly me or sometimes my Assistant Principal would get things.
Fast Forward-Future Skills Needed Today!
As we have witnessed in the past three years, leaders have shifted to rapidly respond, react and realign approaches to meet the needs of change. Change is not something new to leaders, but a change at this level of magnitude left leaders scrambling. We have not seen this level of change happen at his rapid domino pace.
What do we need from leaders based on the experiences from the past three years to prepare for our future? How can we be readily prepared for rapid changes? Can we give this some thought and reflect on what we have learned as we move forward?
It is May, and the end of the school year is fast approaching. As the weather begins to warm up, so do the temperatures of everyone. We see a wide variety of changes happening as the end of school closes in on all of us.
Many teachers face life changes as some are retiring, some are taking on leadership roles, and others are moving to different locations. These are life changes that spark genuine emotions even if we do not feel like they impact us in any way.
Our students are feeling the stress of the timeline as well. Many will be heading off to start a new life journey with college or careers. Some will be facing issues of what they feel like is a safe place for them being removed, or ending a structured time with friends, a regular time of receiving meals, and knowing they will not have others to be with each day they can trust and count on daily.
These emotions still do not distract us from our purpose of teaching and learning. We have until the last bell rings to engage in and be flexible in our teaching and learning. It takes some out-of-the-box thinking, but the creativity we all have can capture the moments we have with amazing things.
Helping our students to engage in learning is essential to reaching the academic goals we establish and meeting the needs for their learning. Our expectations can offer significant benefits to the learning environment but not eliminate the high expectations. I am referring to the need for choices, providing students with a clear understanding of the “how” and “why” the expectations relate to them and “what” they can do.
Reflecting on my own teaching experiences, I can recall being transferred to another building with a principal who did not know my teaching style. The first time he walked into my classroom, the look on his face was priceless. He did not find the desks in a row with students all sitting quietly with me at the front of the room giving an instructional lesson. Instead, he found: A group of students in the back of the room with one of my volunteers reading, three students at computers, a student with me at my desk, and students with books and folders at their desks. Some students took papers to trays to turn in, and others selected new books.
I excused the student I was working with and told him he was ready to move forward. I walked over to speak to the principal. “Good Morning!”
“This classroom looks very busy, and everyone looks like they know what they are doing. I have never seen anything like this before.”
“Oh, I am sorry. This is how I teach and work. I can provide you with a more detailed plan for organizing our time. Each student has a mailbox. Inside their mailbox, they have folders for their subject areas color-coded. Right now, we are working on Language Arts and our Reading Logs. Students are working through the stations. We have a reading station with our volunteer today, Mr. Lucas; three students come back to take a test on their book and record it on their log, others are working through their assignments, and I individually call up students to do a progress check. The clothespins on the daily assignments bag indicate to everyone what station they are at. When a task is completed, the students change their clothespin to the station they will be in so others can see the openings.”
“I can see they know what they are doing. It seems like it is working.”
“Please feel free to check in on any of them to ask them about what they are doing and the goals they are working on.”
My teaching was many years ago, but I knew the choice formstudents was a big part of allowing students to take ownership. I need to mention at this time in the ’90s, grouping by abilities was a “thing.” I was the “new teacher” on the block, so my students were at risk primarily, but my Homeroom students were a mixture of students. It did not influence how I approached teaching and learning. I had high standards, and we worked the same way and accomplished goals.
Movie Making
At the end of the year, we still had lots to cover in our social studies books. I decided to let the kids take control. I put the subjects/topics on the board. Students wrote down what they were interested in learning or teaching to give to me. Then we talked about a unique group project to end our year.
I divided the students up into teams based on their interest levels. Then they worked together on the chapters to develop the vocabulary list, discussion questions, answers, vital information to know, and a short assessment.
Finally, we would turn this information into a History Rocks at RidgeFarm Elementary Radio Show. We would watch a couple of episodes of the Schoolhouse Rocks videos to get an idea of how the format could be and how to make a design set.
The kids were engaged, we were flexible, and we could show it to our grade level. Then we even showed it to the 4th graders to prepare them for 5th grade.
We took the assessments that the students made, we learned the vocabulary and everyone learned so much at the end of the year!
Reach-Create the Biggest Possible Audience for Your Message, Book, or Cause by Becky Robinson
Ready Everyone? AChance Has come to understand how to get your message out to others. REACH
I began my journey in 2018. I had been reading authors’ manuscripts, participating in book launches (I still do), and taking part in everything I could to learn about publishing and writing a book. This is how Becky Robinson and I became friends. We found each other, but I think God placed her on my path. I cannot explain it any other way. She is such a blessing.
“If we choose to, we can all make a tremendous impact on the lives of others.”-Becky Robinson
Choice is a big part of what I believe and teach. It is the choices we make that can change the direction of the path to our success, reach, impact and absolutely our negative outcomes. I hope you choose to pick up a copy of her book even if you are not thinking of writing a book. Reach will help you in getting your message out to others in a time when it needs to be heard.
“Every interaction you have is an opportunity to influence and encourage a valuable human being.”-Becky Robinson.
Bringing value to others consistently with quality content is a critical piece in REACH. The 4 REACH commitments are Value, Consistency, Generosity, and Longevity. These commitments align perfectly with the foundation of #Bethesolutiondaily and the Two Rules philosophy. If you look at your cause, book, or message, it will also. The 4 REACH commitments are the best foundation for the purpose you have. Please learn how to apply them in your message by reading Reach by Becky Robinson, available today! Don’t wait! Reach! It is in you to tell others!
Resources to Support
Utilize Becky’s website to connect to her information from articles, events, podcasts, and more. You can leave your email to connect to not miss out on updates and resources. Check out her website at beckyrobinson.com.
Only you can!
I hope no one has ever discouraged you or provided you with information to lead you to think differently. Your voice, your words, your thoughts, your ideas all matter. It is essential to hear, see and engage with everyone to see and hear all. Within each of us, we hold a particular purpose. Each individual is designed to be part of something in the world we live and share. Many of us may have walked through the shadows of the valley of death, traveled through mighty storms, and felt the power of healing and praise for our blessings. Our storms are not designed for punishments but opportunities for more significant relationships as we learn powerful lessons as God walks with us. Find your footing, embrace our faith and engage in our journey to Reach and impact. Clean our lenses to look at all as we share solutions for better days ahead. Go ahead and REACH! The world is waiting.
How do you gain more followers? Can you be an overnight success? What do you want to accomplish when you write a blog, post, article or comment?
Share your thoughts! I want to grow my connections to learn more from others! I want to Reach!
I strive each day to make a positive impact and to serve others. “To create lasting impact, you need to have a lasting presence. The longer you last, the greater the impact you will have.” Becky Robinson, #ReachBook Becky’s book Reach is available for pre-order now! Please order you will find Value, Consistency, Longevity and Generosity!
