We have several Religious and Cultural Observances Days in our school system. Some are student holidays, and others are just required to be days where no new learning or tests happen.

And I’d like to do something to talk about them on the news show, but I do not have the time to research and write up a script. And I do not have a news crew, and if I did, it would not necessarily take me less time to talk about it with students and then edit all of their work.

So I asked Chat GPT. I first said

Please remember this list of holidays.

Here is a list of holidays

a. All Saints Day/Dia de los Muertos
b. Bodhi Day
c. Diwali
d. Eid al-Adha
e. Eid al-Fitr
f. First full day of Ramadan
g. Good Friday
h. Last day of Passover
i. Lunar New Year
j. Orthodox Christmas
k. Orthodox Epiphany
l. Orthodox Good Friday
m. Rosh Hashanah
n. Theravada
o. Three Kings Day/Epiphany
p. Yom Kippur

Then I said,

For holidays a, b, c, d  give me a table that  
- In the first column list the holiday
- In the second column has a put it in a table a a 100 word kids news show with 2 anchors written on a third grade level. 
- In the third column list one tweet, but no emojis

Call this group 1

The idea is the 100 words would be for the day before the holiday, and the tweet would be a reminder of the day of.

Here is what I got back for All Saints Day.

Holiday	Kids News Show Script	Tweet
a. All Saints Day/Dia de los Muertos	Anchor 1: Hi friends! Today, we’re talking about All Saints Day and Dia de los Muertos. These holidays are celebrated on November 1st and 2nd. Anchor 2: That’s right! People remember and honor their loved ones who have passed away. They also celebrate the lives of saints. Anchor 1: Families visit cemeteries, create colorful altars, and share special food. It’s a time to remember and celebrate together. Anchor 2: So let’s celebrate the lives of those we love and the saints who inspire us!	Today, we honor our loved ones and saints on All Saints Day and Dia de los Muertos. Let’s remember and celebrate together! #AllSaintsDay #DiadelosMuertos

Next, I want to reach out to parents to make sure what ChatGPT wrote is culturally responsible and use my judgment on what to keep in. ChatGPT’s response about Easter talks about the crucifixion, which as a Catholic is correct. But, I don’t believe as an elementary school teacher it should be included.

I am currently failing on several different projects. I’ve been convincing myself that sheer hard work and perseverance can help me overcome these challenges.

However, this is a lie I am telling myself.

It’s like trying to win a marathon by sprinting the entire distance. No matter how fast or hard you run, you’ll eventually burn out and be unable to reach the finish line. A smarter approach would be to pace yourself and adjust your strategy as needed.

My focus on The Morning News has diminished as I’ve tried to juggle multiple tasks. In an attempt to keep all these balls in the air, I’ve only kept missing. It’s time to reevaluate my strategy.

I’ve been running into a problem (and I suffer from it as well) of people not asking for help.

I asked ChatGPT why people do not ask for help and I got the usual answers.

• Fear of being judged
• Fear of being a burden
• Lack of Trust
• Feeling you should do it on your own
• Stigma of asking for help
• Being unaware of resources

But, that list feels like an expression of the Fundamental Attribution Error. The Fundamental Attribution Error is

The fundamental attribution error refers to an individual’s tendency to attribute another’s actions to their character or personality, while attributing their behavior to external situational factors outside of their control.

THE FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR: WHAT IT IS & HOW TO AVOID IT

The subtext to the list is “if you did not fear, if you trusted more, if you knew more” you would ask for help.

Instead, think of it as a math/economics problem. Is asking for help cost-effective? Does the benefit outweigh the cost?

The benefits of help

• Time: I might save more time than it will take to do it myself.
• Quality: I might get a better outcome than if I do it myself.

The cost of help

• Time: I WILL spend time explaining or teaching how to solve the problem.
• Quality: The person MIGHT not give me the level of quality I need

On top of these two, the relative value of time can change. The actual time in the present is more valuable than potential time in the future.

In that light, not asking for help is reasonable.

For instance, when a staff member doesn’t ask for help, it may be because they calculate the short-term cost of seeking help to be higher than the potential long-term benefit. The staff member may need to spend time explaining the project and addressing any issues that arise, which can be more time-consuming than doing the project themselves. Furthermore, the downsides of seeking help are concrete and immediate, while the benefits are uncertain and may be ephemeral.

ChatGPT is a tool like the spelling and grammar checker. We use those as they save time. I use automated image filters to make my images better. That does not seem like cheating. It makes my work better and saves me time.

How could I use ChatGPT to save time and make my work better? Could I save 1 hour a month using this tool? Could I use the time saved to do something that the robot can not?

In my school system, there are a bunch of days that are student holidays that are not official Federal holidays. I’ve always wanted to do news segments talking about it, but it just felt overwhelming.

ChatGPT could easily write a short message for the morning news show about each of these¹. I could have all of them done (there are a bunch) within an hour.

With the time saved, I might

• Ask parents if what ChatGPT writes is accurate and appropriate
• Ask on the news show for students who might want to record
• Send out an email two weeks before asking parents/kids to record something for the news show on the holiday
• Play the videos on the news show the week before the event.

The thing the AI can do better than I can is “write” the text. At this point, AI can not make relationships with parents and students. It can not make students feel seen about who they are and what they do. It can not create an environment that celebrates and nourishes our students. Those are things that (at least right now!) only people can do.

---

Endnotes

1 Here is the text ChatGPT wrote:

Ramadan is a special time for Muslims. During Ramadan, Muslims don't eat or drink anything from sunrise to sunset. This is called fasting. At night, they break their fast with a meal called Iftar. Ramadan is about being kind to others, helping those in need, and praying more. It's a time for Muslims to come closer to God and be better people. At the end of Ramadan, there is a big celebration called Eid al-Fitr, where people visit their families, exchange gifts, and have a big feast. Ramadan is a time for families and communities to come together and support each other.

I saw a short clip of an actor I respect saying he has not played a video game in a few years. He said he went all in, had two focused weeks, beat the game, and then wondered what he had to show for it.

I think video games can be a wonderful thing. But, I am replaying Portal 2 and I don’t know if I am having fun. I wonder if I could write. Reach out to someone I’ve lost track of. Play a game with my wife.

See replaying is out. But playing at all? I struggle with this. I loved Bioshock (1 and 3). The first portal was amazing. Braid! Nguyen writes about how the art of games are an expression of agency.

But I don’t know if it fills what I want my story to be now. So, maybe I’ll take a break. (Unless it is a game with someone else. )

This morning, while entering Starbucks, I noticed a large SUV parked halfway on a handicap spot and halfway onto the access aisle. The car engine was running, and I did not see any handicap placard or license plates.

As I stood there, a woman rushed out of Starbucks and attempted to open the passenger side of the vehicle. She was stymied by the locked door and jogged to the driver’s side, found what she was looking for, and ran back inside.

Disabilities are often invisible, so I can’t say if she needed the spot or not. I found it frustrating that she chose to park in such a way that blocked the access aisle. As someone who uses a mobility van with a ramp, I know firsthand that if someone parks in the access aisle, it can make it impossible for me to get my son out of the van via the ramp.

It’s like a game of Tetris, where every block needs to fit into its designated space. By parking in the access aisle, the woman was like a misplaced block that made it impossible for other blocks to fit into their spaces. In other words, she wasn’t just taking up two spaces; she was taking up three.

There is a saying that goes, “If you knew what I know, you would believe what I believe.” I can’t figure out what she believes. I can’t see this through her eyes. How do you park in a way that will make the life of a disabled person harder?

In the Teacher Leadership class I took talked about the importance of getting feedback from stakeholders. My admin I sat and had a few conversations.

For my teacher and student stakeholders I’ve done a series of surveys. For students the format is:

• What is your favorite part of the news show?
• What is your least favorite part of the news show?
• How could we make your least favorite part better?

Feedback is a balance. To support the school district’s initiatives, it’s important to maintain a sense of unity between the school-level programs and the county-level initiatives. It’s essential to consider feedback from both staff and students, it’s equally important to ensure that this feedback does not detract from the county initiatives. You can’t sacrifice coherence for popularity or simplicity.

Some feedback I took. The student shares were people’s favorite part (the video I do during a classes Moring Meeting). I am going to keep doing them. Students liked pictures of school events. I can do more of those and play them during the required Minute of Silence.

Feedback was mixed. As an example, many students did not like the mandated Pledge of Allegiance. But, feedback was all over the place. Too slow. Too fast. Please feature more students. Please stop having students do it. I felt that gave me license to experiment. Over the next few weeks I am trying some different styles of Pledges. I’ll then resurvey teachers and students on which they liked.

Some feedback I felt I could not take. Some students wanted to talk about current events, like sports or the weather. My school’s morning news is pre-recorded. Any talk about current events would be at least a week after the event happened.

Afterwards I made a video (spread over two days) walking through all the feedback and talking about what I would try to do over the next quarter. I want to take their feedback seriously and inspire me to try new an interesting things.

• North Tier
• Teacher Leadership – Champions of Innovation
• Summer 2022

Overview

Teacher Leadership – Champions of Innovation is a course offered by North Tier. The course is described as

Are you leadership material? Come take the time to expand your understanding and self-awareness as a professional change agent in your school or division. In this engaging course you will find opportunities to examine school culture and develop an action plan for innovation. Renew yourself through getting to know the standards for teacher leaders, the use of Professional Learning Plans, and research best practices on cultivating a climate of “continuous improvement” among and between colleagues and students.

https://sites.google.com/northtier.org/northtier/member-catalog

Should You Take It?

Yes

Three Notes

Disclaimer: Your notes would be different from mine. This is not meant to summarize the class. This is a reminder to myself about what, at the moment, I felt was most impactful. If I took the course again in a year, I would have different reactions.

Three ideas are rumbling around my brain.

1. Standards for Professional Development
2. Creating Coherence
3. Working with Allies

Standards for Professional Development

The class introduced Learning Forward, an association for Professional Learning. Their goal is

Learning Forward shows you how to plan, implement, and measure high-quality professional learning so you and your team can achieve success with your system, your school, and your students.

https://learningforward.org/

They have a book on their standards, but for some reason, I can’t get their online store to work. So, until then, I really appreciate this quick reference guide is has an overview. Learning Forward‘s website also has good resources.

I liked the standards as a way to think through the new professional development I am working on. This summer I have been planning my version of our daily news show and going through these standards helped me see some blind spots in my plan.

As an example, I totally ignored thinking about Data. The standard around data says.

Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students uses a variety of sources and types of student, educator, and system data to plan, assess, and evaluate professional learning.

https://www.dpi.nc.gov/media/58/open

I had not thought about gathering data around the news show. I’ve never even heard of someone gathering data (other than viewership) around the news. So I have a plan for a monthly check-in with students and teachers to see if it is meeting their needs.

Creating Coherence

Coherence-making was described as

Creating coherence – One of the greatest challenges school leaders face is the presence of too many disconnected programs and priorities including individual interests as well as district, state, and federal initiatives.

Teacher Leadership and School Improvement: A Case Study of Teachers Participating in the Teacher Leadership Network with a Regional Education Service Center, Lee Rutledge (2009)

Coherence-making is not only making sure programs connect to individual, district, state, and federal initiatives, but building a depth of knowledge about the work. But, at this moment in my News Show Reboot, I am focusing on the first part. How does this initiative interact with the ecosystem of other initiatives?

Working with Allies

In doing the work of teacher leadership you need to create allies. Who is aligned with the work you are doing. Administrators are one person. Other Teachers. You also might need allies outside of your building. I feel for the news show I want to start reaching out to other elementary school people doing a pre-recorded news show. Our structure and formats might be different (I liked this, though the style I am going for is way different) but having a group of people to think through this work will be important.

The team and I have a goal of creating resources to maximize the chance of Responsive Classroom Morning Meeting a success. Getting your entire school to buy into a new program feels like a magic trick.

It reminds me of an article by the magician Teller. He says,

You will be fooled by a trick if it involves more time, money and practice than you (or any other sane onlooker) would be willing to invest. 

Teller

So how do we make this magic trick (getting everyone to commit to an RC focused morning meeting) work? We decided to

1. Creation: Have slideshows that could be used school-wide. The idea was letting teachers focus on interacting with the students, not taking the time to create 180 morning meeting slideshows.
2. Organization: Email them to teachers the week BEFORE they needed them. So they would just arrive in their inboxes, with no need to search around for them. Also to make them available in a google drive for people who wanted to look ahead.
3. Morning News: We decided that the morning news videos would be embedded into the slideshows, so it was one stop shopping.
4. A Reason to have it on from the very beginning: And we decided that the first slide would just be music. So teachers could open up the slideshow before students came in, click play, and have some gentle background music playing in the background.

Working on the morning meeting slideshow, I realized we needed another practice to make the trick work. Teachers will need more support around the morning meeting activity. Each morning meeting activity in the book takes anywhere from a paragraph to a page. Many of the activities both teachers and students will not have seen before, so they need a way to quickly introduce the activity on the fly. We can’t assume they would know the activity.

This is my draft of how to approach that problem. I created this in WeVideo. My favorite part is the movement patterns, as that took some time to do in Canva.

Ideally there would be two versions of each video. One would be the basic one shown above. The second would be students walking through the activity. I might be able to add those during summer school. (These are also turning out to be very time intensive.)

And, we will also need a way for teachers to search for morning meeting activities. Teachers may want to do a game during the day and take time to review before playing. So, maybe we need a google site to house everything, so teachers do not spend their time looking through old morning meeting slideshow.

It is a lot. And if it works, no-one will realize the amount of effort it took to making the trick work.

I am going to be in charge of the morning news show next year. I want it to be,

• School Centered
• Student Centered
• Shorter
• Engaging and Remarkable

So far I have a Not-Todo list

• No anchor
• No weather, no Lunch
• Not taking the entire time

I don’t think I need anchors. TikTok does not have people introducing and curating your experience. By using FlipGrid we are making the entire school the news anchors. Instead of having a news crew remind everyone that tomorrow is SCA Pajama Day, we should have someone from the SCA record a short video explaining Pajama Day.

No weather for the day. If it is part of your academics, teachers should do it on their own. No lunch menu, only half the school eats lunch and knowing todays lunch will not change whether you eat lunch that day or not.

For content, the state of Virginia only requires

1. Pledge
2. Minute (not moment) of Silence

What if we organized it this way

• Pledge
• Content
• Moment of Silence

Teacher says, “ok, time for the pledge. They click the button and play full screen. We have a 5 second intro, just to get focused, then have a student ask everyone to stand and say the pledge. Then invite everyone to sit.

We go right into some content blocks. Short. Multiple short blocks might be better than long ones. Some I am thinking

• New Students: We highlight new students in their own words. We have them record to Flipgrid an introduction. No interview. No anchors. Just students in their own words
• Round Robin Content Share. During morning meeting students often share. What if we record that have the students pass around a phone selfie style and share something. I was thinking around Portrait of a Graduate “I am a communicator when I . . . .”
• Catch people being responsible: I could walk around with my phone, record students doing the right thing . . . (no stickers on their computer, cleaning up after themselves at lunch, reading responsibly, . . . )
• Students on the SCA recording and modeling what to do for the Spirit Day
• Students Modeling content and activities
• 30 Second commercials from teachers on topics

For time (because I am a single person operation) the focus has to be LESS editing. Flipgrid is going to be key. Getting people to submit ahead of time is key.

Also, I’ll need to look a few week ahead at the calendar and figure out what teachers might need to get on the morning news.