A Teacher’s Thoughts — Guest post from my amazing wife, Nancy Chiabotti-Martinez

Posted on April 5, 2020

Sorry for the long post but after reading one more comment about how upset some parents are with their child’s teacher,

I had to share. Most parents I’ve spoken to get it. They understand that teachers were not trained to teach like this and we, like them, were thrown into this awful situation. People can call it “distance learning” all they want. But please realize that this is not really what distance learning is. We are actually in “crisis education” with everyone doing the best that they can.

Please remember when you are interacting with your child’s reacher that we all come with a different skill set regarding technology. Some teachers hit the ground running, some were competent but are still learning, and yet others have never really used technology in the classroom before. While I can’t speak for ALL teachers, I can speak for me. While I would love to be back in the classroom, physically teaching my 34 fifth graders, the reality is, I am not. Am I trying to reach them and do the best I can? Absolutely.

Here are my stats out of my 34 students: 17 students “attend” live lessons regularly, 8 students are hit and miss with lessons, 4 have checked in ONE TIME, and sadly, I have not heard anything from FIVE. Not for lack of trying on my part.

Let’s be real. There is no new curriculum being learned. We are reviewing what we already know in order to keep their skills up. WE ARE LEARNING THOUGH! We are learning how to show we care by being present in the moment. We are learning by listening to others. We are learning how to be patient and kind to each other. We are learning that just being there is something we all need. We are learning that technology is great, but there is a huge learning curve. We are learning that teachers don’t know everything. We are learning that we miss each other.

Just remember, this is CRISIS education, not distance learning. But you know what? Our kids will be ok. Education right now is not what anybody wants. Not the parents, not the teachers, not the administrators, and most definitely NOT the students. Make no mistake though, our kids ARE learning. They ARE learning valuable LIFE skills. They are learning how to be good human beings who care deeply about each other and the world we live in. They are learning how to problem solve and be adaptable.

Be kind. Wash your hands. Stay home so we can all get back to a new normal.

Th above was originally shared by Nancy Chiabotti-Martinez on Facebook, and with her permission I have shared it here. As I have shared, these unprecedented times call for us all to provide each other with patience and grace in unprecedented levels as we each work to mitigate the impacts of this horrible virus on each of us. Our world is responding, and out children need us more than ever, and they need us to come together in so many ways to care for them, not turn on each other!

#ROAR4KIDS

Posted on January 4, 2020

It’s Time to #ROAR4KIDS

Saying it plainly, “It’s Time to #ROAR4KIDS.”

The idea of focusing our energies on one prevailing idea, concept or thought has been with us for some time in recent blog years, and yet, I felt that I had, at this moment, an opportunity to not just identify one big idea to carry me through another year, but an entire decade!

I reflected on some of my previous #oneword commitments, #Resilience, #Transformation, #Perseverance, and realized that these pronouncements seemed to focus on me, not the people I seek to serve. While not a bad thing, I thought, maybe if I tweak my perspective just a bit, I could make my #oneword more meaningful to my work as an educator, superintendent, author, speaker, perspective challenger, advocate for our students.

As you know I had also been contemplating a bit of a personal push into the author arena, onto the speaking stage in a broader light to shine, and thought to myself, “Hey, wouldn’t it be great to have one concept that really got at the essence of what I am trying to accomplish.” Well, as it sometimes happens, my unconscious found an answer that had been escaping my awake cogitations about this. Yep, it came to me in a dream.

Born from an early winter’s dream “#ROAR4KIDS” entered my frontal lobe and has become this decade’s focus for me.

#ROAR4KIDS “Results through Opportunity and Access Via Resilience for Kids.”

Results:

Are we making a difference that matters? Are we seeing positive outcomes occur due to the decisions we make? Are answers we provide leading to improvement in the actual grow of our children? Are investments we push forward providing a return on that investment that is meaningful? Are the strategies we employ effective, being evaluated with objectivity, and demonstrating with confidence that they are the correct strategies? Is the instruction we are supporting, implementing, developing the most meaningful and relevant instruction that is actually targeted on improving specific issues, or at least in readying our children for new questions and skill sets that matter? Are the communities we are building asking the right questions that are focused on empowering our students become the leaders we need, or do we continue to focus on issues that are preparing students for a world that has passed them by? Are we developing leaders who are nuanced in focusing on the correct result for students and who are empowered to take the risks with passion to support these children to aspire to greater heights that we can imagine for them? Are we supporting real and authentic relationships for our children, and helping them recognize that they are all humans, who bleed, who care, who think, who love, who feel, who have goals, individuality, can accept, support each other, and build a society where their differences, much like the outside of a Number 2 pencil should not distinguish the amazing work that can be done by their internal lead.

Results are the outcomes of our work, and yet, in a number of cases, we miss-lead ourselves by thinking that we have worked hard, finished implementing something new, and that we have put the effort in, so we must be good people. Though far too often than not, we have not moved the needed, we have not improved the system, we have not found the results that our children desperately need.

I choose to challenge my thinking about results. I will strive to look deeper to see what actually changed based on my decisions, actions, goals, investments, answers, and commitments. I also plan to challenge the status quo thinking of our systems that frequently want to believe we have made good choices, but then don’t invest in the time to understand the actual consequences of our actions. Results do matter, yet, if we are too busy patting ourselves on the back for our efforts, without understanding our true impact, we are missing out on a lot of great feedback that could actually help us reach the goals we have set for those we are seeking to support.

Through Opportunities and Access:

Each of our students must be provided with the opportunities they deserve. It is a simple statement, yet far too often we continue to look at our educational institutions and their exists inequities, disparities, unbalanced opportunities that skew the lives of our children. While many would argue that of course things should be fair, and that equal opportunity should be apparent, and that no matter where you grow up you too have the same opportunities as everyone else in the community, this is not an accurate perspective of the realities for many of our children. The variance in their birth places, their homes, their family’s economic opportunities, educational opportunities, career opportunities all influence the academic realities that limit opportunities to students. We must work to ensure that our students are provided with opportunities to find more and more opportunities to discount the already imbalanced pursuits they face.

I believe that we must be the people to open doors, let widows fly open, break down walls, dig tunnels, provide supports to climb up and over hills, and dismantle any false obstacles that our society might create for these children. We must speak up on their behalf, use our voice to help them find theirs, and educate, educate, educate all of their family members so that we build a rolling tide of opportunity that becomes the new normal for all of our students who have not found their opportunity in the way things have always been.

To be clear, it’s not just having an opportunity that matters. It is in arriving at and having access to the end results that is meaningful. Students of all walks of life, and of all means, must be provided with the experiences, instruction, knowledge, technologies, thinking, and questioning that are meaningful, relevant, and create a new paradigm for our students to become. While our systems have allowed for more students of color, diversity, low-income, etc. to succeed than ever before we are not fulfilling the promise of every child, no matter what their history, to succeed. Our work is far from over!

Via Resilience:

I believe that resilience, much like good character of the heart, mind, and soul, can be assisted to develop through supportive, thoughtful, engaging, purposeful processes that impact one’s life. Further, I believe that through initiating and acting upon exceptional teaching practices and leadership development practices we, as a society, can have more of a positive impact to ready every heart, mind and soul we encounter for the adversities that will come their ways. While we cannot temper all adversities in such a manner that leaves no scars, we can work towards supporting the development and growth of resilience in each child, in our colleagues, our staff members, our families, and our broader society.

#ROAR4KIDS

“Results through Opportunities and Access via Resilience for Kids!”

Several simple words that are going to provide me with the frame for this decade. I hope you give yourself an opportunity to not just see this next year before you, and to make a bigger commitment to those in your world. You deserve it, they deserve it, and those that you aim to serve, surely deserve it.

Dr. Rob Martinez is the proud Superintendent of the Mt. Diablo Unified School District. He is well known as “Resiliency Guy.” He is currently authoring a new book with the Dave Burgess Consulting Group, speaks around the nation on topics of resilience development and leadership, and is available to help you on your journey through a number of avenues. Follow him on @Twitter @Facebook @Instagram as “Resiliency Guy.”

Heart, Mind, Soul & Actions, What’s Missing?

Posted on November 14, 2019

Today, in Saugus, California, another report of a student coming onto a high school campus, attacking with abandon, and succeeding in  taking the lives of fellow students. It simply makes my heart grow cold, my thoughts swirl with fatigue, and my soul become heavy with the loss that families, friends, communities now must endure as we all seek to understand and determine how we can move forward. While many articles have been written, many thoughts and prayers have been shared, and oceans of tears have been wept, we still are collectively at a loss for true actions to impede these types of events from continuing to disrupt the true fabric of our schools. Today, I ask again, What’s missing? I truly need to know! Not just for the sake of my own children, family and friends, but for the 30,000 plus students that I care so deeply about each and every day. I’m absolutely interested in your feedback, solutions, and guidance, as we all need to be in on taking steps to protect all of our children!

What’s missing? A simple question, yet, one which I often feel we miss when we seek to solve problems of humanity. As a society we often seek to solve a problem from our personal or ingrained perspective. In the case of gun violence on our campuses I feel this re-occurring to a great extent.

Think about it, when we align with a group, we tend to generalize and seek to apply similar logic to the problems we face:

If we are politicians, we seek to legislate, rule, and govern, yet, with fear that we will lose popularity with those who align with us if we go against the perspective of their will.

If we are religious minded, we seek to pray for and send thoughts to those in need, seek to change others to our way of thinking, and we hope for change, while we often do not seek to address the other prevailing issues of the day that need changing through purposeful legislation, or remedies that are truly actionable for each member of our society.

If we are educators, we seek to teach, support and guide, care for, and yet we are corralled by the rules of the system, limited by fiscal resources, and told to do better. (Take up arms in classrooms to protect students? Really? Is this the answer, arming teachers on campuses? I think not.)

If we are first responders, we seek to protect, act, and ensure safety, at the risk of our own lives, and yet, we cannot be everywhere, protect everyone, and stop time to mitigate and solve problems that have yet to occur or that are well hidden from society, such as the case with mental illness.

I know I am generalizing on a grand scale, and thoughts and actions are not always aligned to certain ways by groups, and still, my point is, when we seek to solve a problem from our current perspective, we tend to come up with the same actions for many problems, rather than to build our perspective from a wider view first, and work towards attacking the current problem in a multi-faceted manner.

In the case of our children, who engage in heinous and anti-social acts, who are focused on the destruction of others, I ask again, “What’s missing? What are we not seeing? What must we do differently to curb these violent acts from being perpetuated on others? What’s missing?”

I think we all should be asking this question to help us understand the problems better, to identify what led students into this path of destruction, and how can we discover alternatives that we might be able to provide that could have derailed their focus before they got to this point of committing the unthinkable. I think this approach might help us to realize that there doesn’t exist just one answer, to the problem!

Unfortunately, I do believe this: The legislative body of politicians from both sides of the isle will never allow the masses to rid the world of guns!

Unfortunately: No matter how much we provide thoughts and prayers, while providing comfort to many, will not bring people back to life, nor heal all who may contemplating acting to harm others.

Unfortunately: We can’t just lock everyone up who we believe has some type of mental illness! Quite frankly, many of us are far too accusatory and we would fill up our prisons with anyone who is different from ourselves

I must say that the idea of arming educators to me is an insane idea. I do not believe that there is an appropriate way of arming teachers, having a security guards at the entrance to every school, or having a good kid, bad kid scanner that will buzz whenever someone is having negative thoughts. Simply put, turning schools into military zones will not protect everyone inside from the outside, or the broader community.

Many, smarter than I individuals, have said it, we must have a multi-faceted approach that seeks to support each person with finding balance within their heart, soul, mind, and actions. We must then work towards appropriate, sensible, logical, parameters to ensure, as best we can, that if a person’s heart, soul, mind and actions are not in balance, and if they are seeking to impact damage to others, that we have safeguards in place to help and stop them, and that we can rest assured that we have done everything we can do to protect them and others!

Some ideas:

Socio-Emotional Learning:

We must invest in a multi-pronged approach to provide services at all of our schools, through trained professionals, through our medical providers, and through our governmental agencies for individuals at all stages of their lives. With curriculum programs that focus on building positive and strong mental health development, we would then allow for our children to grow in peace, and to build their personal resilience skills, problem solving skills, and to develop an approach to life that is well-balanced. These types of services are needed throughout our lives. Thus, we should work to ensure that mental health services are provided through medical care providers to all, free of charge, and that everyone within our governmental agencies are trained in also providing levels of service that seek to guide, support, and assist with making healthy choices.

Hope, Inspiration and Goal Building:

There is a difference between providing mental health services to ensure that individuals are developing positive mental health strategies, and in building individuals who aspire to greatness, through a positive style of living, have internal hopes, dreams and goals, and who want to make our world better for themselves and others. Some might say that religion is the owner of this arena, yet, I would say that the ideas of supporting each person to have hope, be inspired, and to develop meaningful, relevant goals, can also be owned by individuals, our educational institutions, health organizations, and community and service-oriented groups. Yes, hope, inspiration and goal building can come from a variety of sources, and we must build opportunities for more positive to exist in our world than negative.

Legislation, Rules, and Governance:

If you are still with me, thanks! Here is the tricky part!

We must continue to build a new way of thinking that will create a tipping point in the mind of our collective bodies of legislators! It appears to me that many of them have solidified their beliefs that there are simply far too many people who have bought guns in the past, or who will buy guns in the future, who back the National Rifle Association (NRA), so strongly, that they can never rise up against them!

This must change! As a society we own the responsibility of helping them to see there is a different possibility, a new paradigm, a different perspective. We must help them see that they do not need to continue to be beholden to the NRA. They do not need to sustain their mis-beliefs that everyone feels the need to own a gun, and that somehow, these weapons of mass destruction that were created to cause ultimate death and destruction to enemies on the battlefield of our governments, must be allowed into the hands of our average citizens!

This must change! Real and complete background checks, limits on types of weapons, registration and review of licenses to continue to own weapons, safety training, and possibly even gun buy-back programs for destruction of weapons are some ideas. I am not fool hardy enough to believe that we can rid the world of guns, but for the love of God, we must have real limitations that seek to protect the masses, rather than to protect the rights of some, that are not truly rights listed in our constitution!

Safety:

School facility funding is far too low, and practically nonexistent from the federal level, and simply doesn’t meet the needs of a society that needs to protect its most valuable resources, our children. When each district in each state is left to its own to design and to pay for the design, development, construction, and safety of schools, there becomes another field of inequity for the children of our marginalized communities. If we truly believe that we must have consistent levels of security at each of our schools, such as: closed perimeters, access through a limited secure entry, guards on the outside of our schools monitoring the perimeters, safety locks to protect those inside at any moment, school-wide communication systems that can be used by many at the drop of a hat, then we need an enormous infusion of dollars to accomplish this! It is far too easy to say, we need these things, and then to leave the responsibility to local authorities to fund these ideas, with no new resources. Dear legislator, put your money where your mouth is, and invest in all of our schools to ensure the safety of all of our children!

This issue hits home!

Far too often we see these horrific scenes play out on our televisions, and far too often, we see the aftermath, the arm chair quarterbacking, and the retreat to old ways of thinking to protect our perspectives.

What I call for is a new way of solution building.

I ask that you ask, “What’s missing?” Take time to review, before jumping into a solution that is based in your current perspective, and seek new ideas, all ideas, to combat these types of heinous acts at all levels. Please, now is the time! If not, us, then who? If not now, then when? If not you, then who? We all must own this problem. If we do, then we have a better chance at working together to solve it!

Let’s take the lead of our children, who have had enough

#NeverAgain

Let’s work to let the life our children live be the measure of our success!

Dr. Rob Martinez is the Superintendent of the Mt. Diablo Unified School School District, and is well known as “ResiliencyGuy” Please follow in on @Twitter, @Instagram, and @Facebook as @ResiliencyGuy