Category: Thought Leaders

Building Communities from within
Collegiate Edu Nation (CEN) schools have opportunities to build their communities from within, and we encourage schools to lead from within by leveraging the creativity, innovation, and strength of their students, faculty and administrative staff. Every community has a unique position as to internal and external resources, but we encourage schools to evaluate their community development opportunities. Here are some examples of small communities building effectively from within:

Through Our Eyes
Students as young as first grade have helped activate community opportunities through a proven student-driven initiative known as “Through Our Eyes”. In this strategy, students in a group of classes each photograph 10 things they “like” about their town and 10 things they “dislike” about their town. The student images are then joined together in a class collaboration to determine whether there are any common themes and how the students can work with their community leaders to activate solutions and minimize liabilities.

“Through Our Eyes” can be developed in a way that best fits your unique community. This could be through AVID classes, gifted and talented classes, or through various innovative 4-H clubs or actions.

Community “leaders” can include peer students, faculty, staff, parents, churches, elected officials, and other official and unofficial institutions. Some communities may have community development institutions such as chambers of commerce, municipal development corporations, colleges, etc., while some very small communities don’t have these official entities, so that the school can work to create effective action groups to work with students for community action.

The full collection of students’ and classes’ photos and discussions can then be presented in a public community meeting for wider discussion and broader community response to elicit further ideas and community action planning. Students, schools, and communities can then collaborate toward solutions meeting challenges and opportunities.

One important collateral benefit of this project is that since younger students may need to be driven to sites to find their “likes” and “dislikes” to collect their project photos, these initiatives can spur crucial discussions within families about things that are going well in town and aspects of challenge in the community. As groups of students aggregate into collections of families, themes of community issues evolve, and community reaction and action take place.

Rural Resource Team projects
Rural Resource Teams are a more involved undertaking that should probably be led as an AVID project and can use the community action institutions that may have evolved or have been activated by “Through Our Eyes” projects. Rural Resource Teams involve linking internal resources with external resources in an intensive week-long dialogue and collaboration phase followed by extended action phase to activate solutions and opportunities.

Students and their schools should plan resource teams months ahead of time to maximize student and community results.

External resources are drawn from the many institutions who have a governmental obligation to work for your community or a commercial or industrial need to strengthen your community. Students will need to evaluate your community to identify relevant external resources. These can include Agri-Life Extension – which is in every county in the U.S., rural electric cooperatives in every region in the U.S., community colleges that may be involved in your collegiate education opportunities, public or private universities, and trade associations for the major industries that drive the region’s economy. State and Federal agencies such as the Texas Department of Agriculture and regional workforce solutions teams are also important sources of expertise and guidance.

Internal resources can be invited in delegations of focused groups for their discussions and synergistic scaffolding collaborations with your external resources. The internal resource delegations can include elected officials, ministers, business leaders and innovators, senior citizens, students, and other local professionals such as nurses, doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc.

The resource team process is then scheduled into a series of dialogue sessions between the external resources and the internal resources to introduce and explore concepts and opportunities. The external resources then spend intensive time sharing ideas and exploring other communities’ approaches to similar opportunities and challenges. The students then convene a community meeting for the external team to announce a first draft of findings from the internal discussions and external elaborations. The AVID classes then work with a lead entity from the external delegations to create a written summary of the findings and potential community action plan. The AVID classes can follow and facilitate action over a period of years.

Leadership Training– Future Sweetwater
Students can facilitate or create a leadership training program. Many communities small and large have a recurring community leadership training program that can be adapted specifically for students to maximize ongoing leadership by students. These can be found online via Google etc. to find detailed schedules and topics and then created in your specific CEN community such as leadershiptyler.org.

Examples are Leadership Lubbock, Leadership Sweetwater, Leadership Tyler, and so on. AVID students could evaluate multiple examples and create an initiative to create future leaders in your community and region. The aim is to build competent leadership and address challenges and opportunities as presented in your Through Our Eyes potential projects. In addition to Leadership Sweetwater to develop business leaders, community volunteers in Sweetwater created a Future Sweetwater program directly for high school sophomores that was inspired by the results and talents of the Through Our Eyes student participants.

The idea is to provide outstanding learning opportunities for young men and women in an inclusive atmosphere that stimulates participants to work together in innovative and proven ways to create effective community actions that both meet challenges and address challenges to improve their communities.

Turn the telescope around
While students may routinely say “we live in the middle of nowhere”, encourage them to “turn the telescope around” to often find out that they live in the “middle of everywhere”. Help them gain perspective to find those aspects of your community or region that are actively sought by others who wish that they had what your students take for granted. If you’re not in Manhattan, learn from Mosquero:

Check out www.villageofmosquero.com. The thriving central business district that you see in these western region photos don’t exist, but were created by students in Mosquero, New Mexico, to show businesses that they wish they had and then actually create and operate these Edu businesses in empty buildings and potentially collaborate with outsiders recruited by the students as active business partners. Census estimates that 55 people lived in Mosquero in 2019, down 42% from the 2010 census population, but it is the county seat of Harding County and the center of more than 2,000 square miles. The next time you or your students say you live in the middle of nowhere, act like Mosquero.

The best leaders I know are as much coaches as they are anything else. These wise folks commit huge portions of their time to the development of the folks around them.

In that process, these astute leaders skillfully deploy some exceptional coaching up strategies:

Noticing — They observe carefully the processes, the people, the interactions, the dynamics. Noticing is a discipline.

Inquiring — They ask powerful and deep questions that not only cut through the clutter, but also compel thoughtful and reflective thinking in response.

Listening — They listen a hole right through you when you’re talking.

Engaging — They are very busy people, but when they are present, they are fully present.

Learning — They are constantly learning about themselves in order to be better servants and learning about others in order to better serve them.

The development of those within our sphere of influence might well be the most important thing we do each day. Coaching others up is a learnable skill, and it always pays dividends for both the coaches and the coached.

*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to www.nelsonwcoulter.com

“Down on a Dirt road, where things don’t change
And everyone still knows your name
You’ve got a place to call home, and you’ve got place to hide
You’ve got a land you love and a name to be proud of
And you’ve got the address to the Good Lord up above
There ain’t much more you could ever ask for
When you’re born down on a dirt road”

The lyrics of Frank Foster’s song “Dirt Road”, says it all for me. Since the 1950s, our rural and urban populations have swapped and it is evident as one drives through all the small towns of Texas. It is heartbreaking to see those that are no more than ghost towns. The same little communities that once held family gatherings, the best steak fingers for miles, maybe a fandangle, and always at least one each of every church known to the “country man”.

The top two reasons people migrate to “the city” is – jobs and education. For decades, urban high schools have offered workforce certifications and college degrees. They adapted to changing times and the rise in technology-driven careers. As a result, jobs have been created and many graduates have a more viable and employable skillset. Meanwhile, “the country” folks were enjoying the slow-paced life, never missing a Friday night football game and staying true to the belief that school ends in May of the 12thgrade year.

I grew up on a farm, where I was blessed to learn all the important life lessons like how to haul and stack hay, break ice in water troughs, bottle feed calves, and the list goes on. When I became a classroom teacher, it didn’t take me but a few weeks to notice the extreme deficit in life skills among the students in the very same high school I had graduated from just six years before. What I was witnessing was the impact of long-term standardized testing, the expansion of technology and the transformation of family dynamics. I immediately went into problem-solving mode and worked to try filling the gaps and created a “How-To” class. It consisted of soft skills, financial literacy, organization, time management, study skills, note-taking, exposure to a multitude of careers, the college application process, community service and so many more lessons on just how to do life. A bonus to this class was that I took them out to my granddad’s shop and taught them how to change their oil, rotate their tires, and for the most important lesson…how to back a trailer!

Shortly after, I ran across the development of what Roscoe was doing. Watching from afar back in 2008, later joining in on external rounds, to a little closer when my husband taught welding there and my son got to be a part, to now joining in as Director of Continuing Education, I could not be more excited to help carry out the solution, that I truly believe will transform rural Texas. We have a crisis on our hands and still a long row to hoe, but if we want our grandchildren and greats to have the opportunity to grow up on a dirt road, every hour spent is well worth it! I encourage you to take a minute to listen to the words of Frank, especially during those challenging times when the GRIT is running low. May we have the most successful year yet!

We all learn, every day, in millions of ways.

We learn when we read, when we observe, when we consider, when we discuss, when we listen, when we attend, when we ……….

However, nothing matches the learning efficacy of when we DO something. There is sticking power when we actually remodel that room, assemble that tool, plant and grow that garden, train for that competition, speak those sentences in another language, calculate the area under the curve, etc. John Dewey was on to something in the 1920s and 1930s when he was advocating for experiential learning.

The late Dr. Phil Schlechty often reminded us that, “Students don’t learn from work students don’t do.” Indeed. What PS didn’t specifically note in that assertion is that “students” come in all ages. His assertion holds, regardless of age. We learn best when we actually DO something.

Applying ourselves to a worthy task/skill requires a lot of and from us, namely effort.

Those investments of effort – the doing – always pay powerful dividends – LEARNING!

*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to www.nelsonwcoulter.com.

I am writing today to talk about a new program that we are starting at TCISD that we are very excited about. My hope is that we will help our students and also spread the understanding of how the body and mind must both be cultivated in our youngsters!

I began looking into the Ready Bodies, Ready Minds program when Dr. Cline and I were brainstorming about our afternoon specials classes this past year and she asked me if I had ever heard of RBRM. She recommended I look into it as she had seen good results in classroom learning and test scores in one of her previous districts. I was able to attend a two day workshop at Region 14 this past month and I found it so very interesting. Athena Oden, P.T, author of the RBRM workshop and curriculum did the presentation face to face. Oden teaches that experiencing the world through our senses is directly tied to cognitive development which hinges on the development of the motor, visual, tactile, proprioceptive, vestibular, and auditory systems.

Oden discussed the fact that society has changed the way children play over the last few decades. These changes have occured in as young as newborns up to older children. An example of this would be the practice of putting babies in “containers” that initially were invented to keep them safe, but in doing so have also prevented them from using all their senses to experience their world. We learned the term “Container Baby Syndrome” is actually used by pediatricians and is a widespread condition. Google it if you are skeptical, it was unbelievable the amount of information I found! Lack of “tummy time” for some children has caused lack of core strength and postural control. Core and postural control is also heavily related to oral motor development, which I had never thought about. However, if you think about the neck extension, and muscles used by a baby during nursing you can definitely make the connection. Remember also that Americans tend to push to wean our babies off the breast, bottle, and pacifier as soon as possible most of the time. For older children, the increase in screen time has replaced activities that would continue to develop the body systems such as bike riding, rolling down grassy hills, chasing fireflies barefoot on the lawn, or climbing into a treehouse.

Now think of those same children starting school and being behind on development in the mentioned areas. Do you see how asking them to sit up in a chair to do school work could be problematic? If sitting in a chair is hard then you can certainly see how a lack of endurance in extremities and the trunk needed for handwriting will just compound the student’s problems. That’s where the RBRM lab comes in. Students will attend the lab four days a week and rotate from station to station. An example of a station would be the “Superman” and just as the name suggests, students lie on their tummies and stretch their arms and head up while raising feet and knees off the ground. Try it for 20 seconds, three times, if you are up for a challenge. You will definitely feel it in your muscles and will understand why it is prescribed to develop core stability and motor control. The “Cocoon Crawl” requires students to crawl through a tunnel made of fabric for tactile stimulation and increase upper arm and shoulder strength. The kids are going to have a lot of activities such as these that will keep them engaged and getting stronger everyday. I also can really see the labs building confidence in the students and they feel themselves getting stronger and in more control of their bodies. I think it is important to mention that the lab does not replace PE class or recess but works with them to continue to foster development.

As we implement the program, I am so excited to see what kind of results we will be getting. I am learning a lot through my study of these development theories and I feel confident that this time next year I can report back to you with good news on how this program has benefited our students. Everyone keep learning, growing and stepping out of those comfort zones, I wish you all a great start to the 21-22 school year! Take care.

I’m sitting in my office waiting on three young men to pick up keys and garage door openers for a house they will move into this week. They have two combined years of teaching experience, the world by the tail, and are excited about every opportunity presented to them.

I met these young men (then boys) in March of 2015. I had no understanding of the TRUE power of positive relationships at the time. I had just been hired to be their History teacher and Basketball Coach. They gladly jumped out of trucks and helped my 8-month pregnant wife and me unload box after box out of the U-Haul. We were off to a great start.

Two years later I was off to another job in West Texas, but the relationships formed with these boys, their parents, and the community was the greatest blessing of my professional career. They taught me more than I could ever teach them – how to build relationships, how to invest in kids outside of my classroom or basketball court, and how to build meaningful, purposeful connections with individual students. I was 7 years into my career before it ‘clicked,’ and all it took was several teenaged Panhandle boys. Who knew kids could teach you the purpose of the profession?

One of the young men ended up quitting basketball, one went to college after our first year, and one became the favorite player I have ever coached. I have a picture of my son’s first birthday party framed on my desk. They are all in the picture. I get to deliver the invitation to his sixth birthday party to them this morning. I know they will all be there. He looks at them like Batman and Superman. They have a powerful, positive relationship with my son. I am so glad they taught me that all those years ago. My hope is we can continue to build upon it, they establish relationships with every student in our building, and lifetime bonds are built.

I am writing today to talk about a new program that we are starting at TCISD that we are very excited about. My hope is that we will help our students and also spread the understanding of how the body and mind must both be cultivated in our youngsters!

I began looking into the Ready Bodies, Ready Minds program when Dr. Cline and I were brainstorming about our afternoon specials classes this past year and she asked me if I had ever heard of RBRM. She recommended I look into it as she had seen good results in classroom learning and test scores in one of her previous districts. I was able to attend a two day workshop at Region 14 this past month and I found it so very interesting. Athena Oden, P.T, author of the RBRM workshop and curriculum did the presentation face to face. Oden teaches that experiencing the world through our senses is directly tied to cognitive development which hinges on the development of the motor, visual, tactile, proprioceptive, vestibular, and auditory systems.

Oden discussed the fact that society has changed the way children play over the last few decades. These changes have occured in as young as newborns up to older children. An example of this would be the practice of putting babies in “containers” that initially were invented to keep them safe, but in doing so have also prevented them from using all their senses to experience their world. We learned the term “Container Baby Syndrome” is actually used by pediatricians and is a widespread condition. Google it if you are skeptical, it was unbelievable the amount of information I found! Lack of “tummy time” for some children has caused lack of core strength and postural control. Core and postural control is also heavily related to oral motor development, which I had never thought about. However, if you think about the neck extension, and muscles used by a baby during nursing you can definitely make the connection. Remember also that Americans tend to push to wean our babies off the breast, bottle, and pacifier as soon as possible most of the time. For older children, the increase in screen time has replaced activities that would continue to develop the body systems such as bike riding, rolling down grassy hills, chasing fireflies barefoot on the lawn, or climbing into a treehouse.

Now think of those same children starting school and being behind on development in the mentioned areas. Do you see how asking them to sit up in a chair to do school work could be problematic? If sitting in a chair is hard then you can certainly see how a lack of endurance in extremities and the trunk needed for handwriting will just compound the student’s problems. That’s where the RBRM lab comes in. Students will attend the lab four days a week and rotate from station to station. An example of a station would be the “Superman” and just as the name suggests, students lie on their tummies and stretch their arms and head up while raising feet and knees off the ground. Try it for 20 seconds, three times, if you are up for a challenge. You will definitely feel it in your muscles and will understand why it is prescribed to develop core stability and motor control. The “Cocoon Crawl” requires students to crawl through a tunnel made of fabric for tactile stimulation and increase upper arm and shoulder strength. The kids are going to have a lot of activities such as these that will keep them engaged and getting stronger everyday. I also can really see the labs building confidence in the students and they feel themselves getting stronger and in more control of their bodies. I think it is important to mention that the lab does not replace PE class or recess but works with them to continue to foster development.

As we implement the program, I am so excited to see what kind of results we will be getting. I am learning a lot through my study of these development theories and I feel confident that this time next year I can report back to you with good news on how this program has benefited our students. Everyone keep learning, growing and stepping out of those comfort zones, I wish you all a great start to the 21-22 school year! Take care.

The wisest leaders I know are relentless focusers. Or, RE-focusers.

These leaders understand that their personal time, energy, and resources are finite. They know full well that they cannot do everything, meet with everybody, read every book, invest in every project, or attend every meeting.

Thus, these wise leaders decide with laser-like clarity the most important things in need of their attention (the late Stephen Covey described them as “the BIG rocks”) and they relentlessly focus and re-focus on those elements of highest import.

The words, the calendars, the schedules, the efforts, and the expenditures of these wise leaders send an undeniably clear message about what they deem important.

Failling to do so is what former Secretary of State Colin Powell describes as “mission creep,” the inevitable dilution of our impact and effectiveness when we allow the myriad competitors for our attention to de-focus us.

Time to (re)FOCUS?

Likely. Always.

*To read more of nc’s blatherings, go to www.nelsonwcoulter.com

As superintendent of Lytle ISD I have had the opportunity to serve in the district in which I grew up and graduated. School worked for me, so I guess I never wanted to leave. My grandmother, dad, son and daughter all graduated from Lytle ISD. While my family was focused on agriculture, education was important too as my grandfather served on the Lytle ISD school board for 22 years despite having only a 7th grade education. My dad also served on the board for nine years.

As part of a small rural school, my friends and I had many opportunities to participate in a variety of activities. The traditional school model worked well as I made good grades and participated in many UIL events and sports. I left Lytle in 1981 to attend the University of Texas. However, not everyone was so lucky. My brother didn’t have the same experience in school. His elementary years were troubled with difficulty in reading. Unfortunately, the school system provided a one size fits all model with few interventions. A young boy raised outdoors working with his hands was expected to remain indoors, sit quietly and finish irrelevant, boring tasks year after year. Traditional schooling gave him traditional grades which only reinforced a dislike for school.

Fast forward to his high school years and “no pass, no play” became the rallying cry to fix education. Sadly, it only made things worse for students like my brother who relied on extra-curricular to get through the day. In the middle of my brother’s sophomore year he sat in Biology class studying a map of Texas. His teacher asked what he was interested in and my brother explained he was going to run away to the panhandle and get a job on a big ranch. He was planning to drop out of high school but knew his family would not approve. Fortunately, the teacher called my dad and informed him of the plan. My dad (who was on the school board at the time) took my brother to the high school office and withdrew him from school. Thanks to my mom and dad’s love and support he got his GED and continued to work on the farm.

My brother did not fail school — the school system failed my brother. My personal “why” is to ensure no other child has to experience a system that fails them. I believe the system needs to be transformed and our work with P-20 and CEN will further that goal. All students need to be successful and the system needs to be designed around their needs — not the other way around.

My brother is lucky too. He had a family of support and has been very successful his entire adult life. I am very proud of him. Upon the death of our dad in 2008, he took over the family farm. He now runs a cattle operation, owns a trucking company and continues to excel as a self-taught individual in spite of an education system that failed him. On a side note, I am proud of my sister too as she is the elementary principal in Lytle ISD.

I pray ALL our children experience a system designed for their future. Please join me in transforming an old system. The Time Is Now!

While on pregnancy leave in the fall of 1980, the superintendent of Roscoe ISD contacted me about a high school math position opening at the end of the semester.  I had a BBA in General Business with teacher certification but had been working as a loan officer/processor at a local savings and loan for the past 4 years.

Math was something I enjoyed but in no world was I qualified to teach high school math. I kept refusing but he was obviously desperate and convinced me to take the job.

Keep in mind that it’s the beginning of the 2nd semester, and I have no formal math education and am adjusting to being a new mom.  How hard could it be?  Well, I went to the school during Christmas break and learned that I would be teaching 8th grade math, Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry and Trigonometry.  I had never had a geometry or trigonometry class and these kids were halfway through with the course!  So I embarked on my education journey with teacher editions in hand trying to teach myself geometry and trigonometry and stay one lesson ahead of the students, while taking night and summer classes to earn math certification. The only thing I knew to do was to let the students know that we were all going to learn by working together.    I later taught business classes, then completed my Master’s and became the counselor for the district and finally ended my career in Roscoe as the Dean of Academics.

My story, I know, is not unique to the teaching profession and many of you have similar experiences.  So after 40 years of teaching, counseling and academic advising I “retired” and began a new journey with Collegiate Edu-Nation.  At this time in my life, as I quickly approach the age of 70,  I have spent a lot of time reflecting on my past and realizing that there isn’t a lot of time left in my future for impactful experiences.  I have a host of regrets and what ifs about those past years with thoughts centered around what I would do differently if given the opportunity, hoping and praying that I might have made a difference in a few students along the way and that I didn’t scar too many either.

Early on I attended many conferences and training sessions and heard amazing stories of innovation from leaders around the world.  Last week while in Lytle ISD, I was reminded of some of those experiences when the superintendent, Michelle Smith, opened the board meeting with a video from the Innovation Playlist, “Why Not Now”, presented by Ted Dintersmith. There wasn’t anything presented that I hadn’t heard before but it was great to hear the message again that reinforced the mission of CEN, including the “Five Big Ideas of Learning”:

1. Mobilize the Community– Ted Dintersmith states, “If a community is behind you, you can do amazing things.  If a community doesn’t get it or is resistant or just wants school to be the way it was when they went to school, then change is much harder.”
2. Student Driven Learning– where students have a real voice in their learning
3. Real World Challenges– where learning is connected to the real world and students could see why it’s real
4. Authentic Assessments– student work is assessed on evidence of mastery and real accomplishment instead of a bubble test
5. Caring and Connected Communities– where every kid feels like they are part of a caring connect community

He continues to comment about the COVID crisis and its effect on education, quoting media and politicians as saying, “If we don’t get our kids back to “normal” school, a whole generation is at risk”.  Normal school is not the solution – normal school is the problem.  We have had a lot of “lost” school years – where students were valued for their ability to retrieve content , replicate low-level procedures, and follow instructions, we’re pushing out a whole generation of kids that are good at exactly what computers can do perfectly.

This journey with CEN has breathed new life into me with hope for a better future for ALL students regardless of where they come from.  We are working with an amazing team of individuals all over the state and U.S. with a unified mission of changing education in rural America that provides equity and opportunity for rural students equal to and beyond that of those in urban areas.