Education Blog
10 Thoughts for a Meaningful School Year
1.If you’re going to take care of students, you need to take care of yourself.
Being in good health can’t be something that only happens on vacations and weekends. You need to spend time every day making sure that you’re taking good care of yourself so that you can take care of others.
2.Parents and teachers are each other’s best allies.
You only see your students a few hours out of their day. The rest of the time, they’re in the hands of other adults. Unless you’re on the same page with families, kids can slip through the cracks.
3.You like kids.
Read More >>Literacy vs. Wisdom
So I had an interesting evening last week. I’ve been doing a series of community keynotes in the state of Minnesota on behalf of the Minnesota Alliance With Youth. In each community I’ve been speaking with community leaders about the critical importance of organizational and adult wellness as it pertains to the wellness of youth. If WE’RE not doing well, THEY’RE not doing well.
But last week I went to Marshall, MN and was placed into content far outside my comfort zone: their evening conference was for teens and about financial literacy.
Hmm… financial literacy. Search has a new site called BankIt which is a collaborative effort between Search and CapitolOne around financial literacy. So it’s not that we don’t know something about the topic. It’s just that I don’t know much.
So I needed to think creatively.
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Teacher Appreciation Week: Yeah. But how about Monday?
So we’re wrapping up Teacher Appreciation Week. I’m not a cynic. I like this week. I like the idea of it. I’m glad we have it. But I’m also a bit leery of it. Here’s a passage from my book that illustrates my misgivings: 
There’s something just a little off about Teacher Appreciation Week, at least if looked at in a certain light. My primary concerns go a little something like this.
1. If we think of appreciating teachers (or any other profession for that matter) as an annual event, we could fail to recognize the need for respect and appreciation on a more daily and ongoing fashion.
2. If teachers themselves buy into the idea that this week marks a departure from what might be an under-appreciated experience, we can grow increasingly complacent with a less than satisfying daily experience.
So again, I have no bones to pick with the concept of this week.
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Education Reform and Innovation: Doomed to Failure?
My friend Nels is a cellular biologist. He’s wicked smart. He tells me what he’s working on and I’m able to track what he’s up to for about the first two minutes and then he loses me. I started college as a biology major before switching to English. All that means is that I’m able to understand what he researches in the most dangerous way possible – just enough to think I get it but not well enough to actually get it.
There’s one chapter of Nels’s career, however, that I’ve been reflecting on quite a bit lately. In fact, I called him a few weeks ago and exclaimed, “I did it! I found the intersection of our work!”
When Nels was fresh out of college and before he went on to get his PhD at the University of Chicago, he worked at Medtronic, a Minnesota-based company that creates medical technologies, most notably the pacemakers used to regulate heartbeats to avoid heart attacks. The pacemaker is a remarkable device that has saved thousands of lives.
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Mandated Testing: As the Wind Blows
So here’s a thought.
My son Sam has his state reading test today and his math test tomorrow. He’s in fourth grade. And the deal is this: he’s really good at mandated tests. I don’t mean to brag (much). It’s just that he’s one of those kids who seems to like taking them and he does well on them. So he takes them, we wait for his scores, and then we buy him a Blizzard. It goes something like that.
We don’t stress about these tests, and thankfully, nor does his school. They do send a letter home encouraging us to make sure he gets enough sleep the night before the test and a good breakfast the day of.
So last night when he asked if he could stay up later than his 6-year-old brother and read a bit, we said no since we did want him to get a good night’s rest. He was cool with that.
But then around 3:00 a.m. a major thunderstorm blew in. Real fire and brimstone lightning. The “shake your windows” variety.
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As a former teacher, I’ve seen first-hand the issues that educators face every day. I hope that by writing this blog, I can share some insights (as well as a sense of humor) on teacher job satisfaction and school climate, and spark conversation about how to improve our schools.
—Nathan Eklund, M.Ed
Senior Education Consultant
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