There is this myth that change in education comes as we place more devices into the hands of kids. This statement is one that is both a truth and a lie. We talk often about learning not being about a device. It isn’t. However, access to technology is definitely imperative. Why? Simple… Access provides opportunities for kids to reach information. In the last few months, we’ve definitely seen why such access is critical as lack of access is blinding. That’s what it’s like for anyone without it…especially kids. Tools, as important as they are, play a small part when it comes to change. The rest? YOU, the educator YOU, the admins YOU, the parents YOU, kids The moment that we accept that we are no longer the key holders to all of the information and that kids bring valuable experiences to the table is the moment that change can truly happen in education because this requires a thought shift on one of the toughest mountains…mindset. I don’t know about you but I didn’t teach any brainless drones. Every single one of my kids came in with their own perceptions and perspectives of the world that they lived in. My job? To help them question…think…process…develop… Create…innovate The room numbers outside of our classroom doors are just that…numbers Learning is everywhere. All of us? Learners

It’s sad to me that some teachers still see technology as some "additional thing" that has to be done in addition to the important stuff of learning…you know, the "testable things". It’s also tough to hear "techies" refer to the apps and tools as the "end all, be all" to learning. At the same token, I live a life where the technology is integral and important and not to me, but to the children around me…the ones in my home who reap the benefits of my technological knowledge while living their own edu life of tech disconnectedness. Sometimes I feel that I live on this "middle plane" in between the dire need of technology access and all of the other things of education. We talk about being "content driven" and while I do agree to that, I also know that there is value in learning outside of content. We talk about not using tech for the sake of tech but there is value in knowing how certain technologies work. It’s not about the tech…but then again, it is. The other day, I sat with my 9 year old nephew coding the "dancing yeti" via Google’s Made with Code. He’s always shown great interest in all sorts of creative pursuits but NOT coding…until now. His thinking process was not just about coding in order to see the yeti dance but learning this new idea and wondering how he could apply it in other ways. His questions… Can I save this picture and do other things with it? How can I download this video if it doesn’t give me a button to download? How can I use this Yeti in my other projects? What else can I do with coding? Those questions were the reason that I created the TACKK below and also why last night happened. Coding Beyond the Yeti Last night, Braeden went through last year’s hour of code lessons for the first time and was completely enthralled in not only the application of learning but in something that I often hear described by Dean Shareski…JOY! Each completed task brought excitement that is typically reserved for puppets. It was as if each task unlocked another window of opportunity and it was beautiful to watch and experience. I was even reminded that when he was 4, we bought him a "Barney" that plugged into a computer. He gleefully said… "Auntie…I was coding back when I was 4 because I had to program Barney to say what I wanted him to say just like I’m doing with these Angry Birds. I’ve experienced this before and even more so in minecraft. When I make machines with red-stone and levers, it’s just like this!! So Awesome!!" That connection was made while talking about "If then" and "If else" statements, which he’ll come to learn as conditionals in geometry and I imagine that he’ll make some connection then as well. It was at this moment that I made my own connection…that sometimes technology supports the content but sometimes it is so much more than that. Sometimes, it’s simply for fun or "just because" and when that happens, technology becomes a catalyst for wonder. It’s this act of blatant "disrespect" of content where some of the most curiosity driven innovations were born. I wonder if I can find a way to edit this video in a way that hasn’t been done. I wonder if I edit this picture to be something else. I wonder if I can learn advanced math or discover a new way. I wonder if I can learn about this disease and stop it. I wonder if I can publish my own book. I wonder if I can write and publish my own music. I wonder if I can start my own company. I wonder if I can design and print a prosthetic limb for my friend. I wonder if I can create something that will change the educational experience for kids like me who didn’t quite fit into the "standardized box" of education. I wonder… In case you missed it…Technology, at its core, provides opportunities to extend, dig deeper, create and wonder. Every kids deserves this…every single one. PS: GTAATX folks…this is my essence…THIS

This past weekend, I had the unique opportunity to serve as a teacher mentor for the Austin Education Game Jam, hosted by Globoloria, Atlassian HipChat and Skillpoint Alliance. This "Gamathon" event challenged development teams to create high-quality, commercially viable video games that were content focused while also empowering learning through more meaningful and engaging experiences. From a spectator standpoint, it was interesting to see teams, with most having only met that day, thinking about what gaming in education could be and then making plans to create that experience. Each group, bringing their own experiences as student learners and entertainment content creators, took great care to think about how game design supports learning and in what area could great impact be made. Watching each game come to life was an education in and of itself with the most powerful being the moments that we saw developers "googling code" or looking at a quick youtube video to learn how to do some small part in the game. We are all still learners, right? There were also moments when, without thinking, a connection would be made to a childhood learning experience. "I cringed at the thought of making a game about math because I was never good at math" "I learned a lot more about the subject while I was making a game about it" It was in those moments that I had my greatest "aha moment"… We NEED kids doing this…designing their own games for learning…and yesterday! Engaging the educational game industry to help drive innovation in learning is certainly critical but involving the diverse expertise of students and forward thinking educators can only drive more successful outcomes. With that said, watching a room full of developers completely immersed in collaboratively designing, building and learning reminded me of the power of project based learning which then led to a few thoughts… Kids will be empowered learners if they are a part of the creation process and even more so if they are the creators. As Joseph South, with the Department of Education Office of Edtech, pointed out…The key to engaging kids lies in the developers that have mastered the art of capturing their interest. We shouldn’t be communicating that games have zero value. We SHOULD be learning from these game designers. Gamification, in the sense that it exist in education, isn’t the same as immersive learning through gaming. Project based simulation of real world tasks isn’t the same as badges for behaviors. I have always loved gaming and found myself connecting to the games of my adolescence and why I loved them. I learned to solve problems and in doing so developed parts of my brain that I didn’t even know existed. It wasn’t just about garnering points, it was about doing so in such a way that the embedded skill was second nature. We know that coding is important and globally we’ve bought in to the idea through our participation in "hour of code". Now we need to have deeper discussions about next steps and how that looks. As a person who spent hours on end mastering the moves of every single Tony Hawk game, becoming a digital guitar hero, earning almost every top career path in The Sims, beating my daughter in Dance Dance revolution, spending hours playing Angry Birds while also embedding the game in math lessons and finally understanding football through John Madden…I am exceptionally excited that Entertainment gaming is joining these discussions. Where do we go now? Well, we collaborate to drive innovation with students being the driving force. Can you imagine how we can deeply impact learning? I can only hope that at these events in the future that race and gender diversity isn’t left on the table in the name tags of the people that didn’t show up. I’m hoping that we/they at least signed up because we need women and people of color in these discussion too. Unfortunately, this event was absent of both of these.

For the past few hours, I’ve thought, rethought, written and erased…over and over again. In between going back and forth, I got to experience the vile realities of twitter trolls…people creating accounts for the sole purpose of saying the most unreal, racist, sexist, body shaming…things to me. Clearly, speaking out against the "media interpretation" of awesome teaching ruffled some feathers. And yet, I am still stuck at… How do I best convey why #IWishmyteacherknew is not just a "bad thing" but a "Oh heck no" thing…. First let me say that I am an advocate for student voice. I believe wholeheartedly in not just hearing from kids but fully including them in the education process. I have also called out the educational community, on a number of occasions, about equity, community and decision making with students and families of poverty. So, naturally I was intrigued by this campaign as the example that I saw was mild. It was the child wishing for friends. I shared it and then I read the article…many articles. I was mortified because those shares were not just "students sharing their thoughts"….those shares were "students sharing personal family experiences". In the age of social media, this is NOT good…not at all. You see…aside from this teacher, and the colorful index cards of notes that she tweeted, there are families who are also connected…families who have children in her class…in the community…families who have facebook, twitter…the evening news. No family should have to hear that what their child was feeling and shared with their teacher was posted to social media while watching the news. Talk about being blindsided… Now, before you go all, "She had to have had permission" on me… Let me be clear in saying that this teacher was asked on multiple occasions about permissions and the only permission that she seemed to have had was from the kids. They are 8 and 9 years old….sharing personal FAMILY details. If those thoughts were shared without parental consent, this is a problem…a Big one!! I even consulted with my sister who is blind on this issue and I asked what she would do if she saw that my nephew wrote to his teacher about issues that should have been discussed with her but were instead shared online. Let’s just say that if that happened, a visit to the school and superintendent would have been in order. There are quite a few who demand that this teacher was "brave" in selflessly sharing the voices of her students. No…the bravery was in the kids who wrote them. I personally find it quite exploitive that following the viral state of her shares…were tweets to give to her donors choose projects. That’s not brave. That is called pushing an agenda. Those tweets were auto tweeted to anyone that used that hashtag…same verbiage…even to me. In addition…I need to alert the greater world that… THIS TEACHER WAS NOT THE FIRST TO DISCOVER AND SHARE THE EXISTENCE OF POVERTY. Newsflash: Millions of children in this country live through extreme poverty or unreal living situations. As a matter of fact, if you extend this prompt across the nation…you may even hear stories about… Homelessness Abuse Divorce Neglect Drugs/Alcohol Depression (as a matter of fact, a teacher actually shared a student saying that they had depression via this hashtag) Starvation Lack of guidance Struggle Worry/Concern Lack of resources/supplies You may even hear about kids who are poor but still happy. Those stories exist too. (You didn’t read many of those though) Even with the pieces of story shared are parents, siblings and extended family members. There are multiple sides that are not considered. There are parents who work late and hard to support their kids. Often, kids at that age do not connect with that. Imagine that working mother reading that her kid needed her in a news article online…and feeling the guilt 10x over beyond what she may already feel. Maybe that’s not the story. Maybe it is. We don’t know though. (Anonymity does not exist in this case for these families because original work with handwriting was published. Most parents know how their own kids write. Again…minus consent = problematic) Sharing student work is done across the edu-sphere in all forms. This was different. This wasn’t just "work". We were reading notes, written in the original handwriting of students (locally identifiable…If I am a parent of a child in that class, I can simply ask my child or use community knowledge to know who those kids were and which families they were. Community shaming is real. That is unfair…period!) But…tell me…Did you really need to see it written in the handwriting of students to know that those problems existed? Were you completely oblivious to the real state of the american child that it took the "Freedom Writer-ish" act of a "still new at this teacher" to connect with the fact that our kids need help because the world sucks and they feel it? You should probably check your privilege because if you are too blind or disconnected to see the world around you and know that kids are affected without needing them to pour their hearts out onto colored index cards for the world to read…you are a part of the problem. These shares are doing nothing more than what they are already doing… …Exploiting the struggles of families Yes people…families are stuggling…lots of them! Student work is not owned by teachers or schools. We have zero right to share their progress, thoughts or examples. That right belongs to families and unless we get permission from parents and/or students…when they can legally consent…we have no business putting their thoughts on the web. No, I am not muting kids. It is about ethics. It is about what is right and wrong. One of the many twitter trolls that I had today reminded me that at the beginning of the school year, parent permissions to share student work are sent and retrieved. Let me guarantee you that parents who sign those forms did not count on their personal lives being shared. There is no way. If this is the practice in your school or district, it is time to revisit that. One more thing… I am most disappointed in an educational community that turned a blind eye to this in public and were not strong enough to speak up for what we know is right concerning student/family privacy…until it became apparent that silence wasn’t the best option. It shouldn’t have to be me or any of the other educolor group members to push these discussions. Silence means that everyone loses. If you were silent on this issue…what lessons can you possibly teach kids about the same? In case you missed it… We do not own student work. We cannot share personal thoughts of kids without consent. Trust matters. My son shared a personal narrative with his teacher last week. He did it because he has great trust in her as another caring adult. Let’s hope that she does not betray that trust.

  It’s been one week since we moved away from our home town. It was a place with its own set of issues but my entire family still lives there and to be completely away is tough. We have texting, social media, FaceTime, Google hangouts, Skype and pretty much every means of connecting possible. However, nothing beats the rush of emotions that I feel as I hold my tiny niece in my arms…her finger surrounding mine.  She’s in the hospital again…long sigh. Technology can’t replace the giggles from tickling my 1 year old nephew after chasing him around the house. Seeing Braeden and his art was magical because watching him work live is an unexplainable event. My daughter, in all of her spunk, lights up the entire room when she enters it. When someone says, "Rafranz you act like you’ve been away for a long time"…They don’t really understand the love that I feel for my family because it’s not about being gone for such a short time. It’s the finality of my new city being "home". This is the most difficult part. Don’t get me wrong, I love my new community but I’d be lying if I said that being here wasn’t hard. It is. I also have a new perspective on tech and connecting. As much as I love the convenience of what tech gives, something has to be said about the power of physical connections.  This is why I don’t believe in an all tech all the time environment. We can’t allow ourselves the convenience of forgetting the power of a simple hug. To my friends that think otherwise…live a little this weekend. Hug your families. Hang with friends. Smell the air around you. Feel the ground underneath your feet. Dig into the earth. Close your eyes and be thankful for life unplugged. ….Because this is the life that fuels our spirits and truly enables us to be whole people outside of our work…especially if that work is consumed by tech.

Yesterday, I spent my morning at our high school and at one elementary school. As eye-opening as those experiences were, especially concerning much needed digital learning upgrades, it was exactly what I needed. As a matter of fact, I was in such a great mood the rest of the day that I could not even explain why…other than being high on life and the responsibility of serving kids. I’m pretty sure that I’ll be on a couple of campuses at some point today too. When you’re the person in the district responsible for how we use technology, everyone wants you to see the great things that they do with technology. There’s excitement for the teachers who are using their smartboards. You get escorted into the campus technology all-star’s classroom. You see the carts and the lab that teachers can use. You may even see the PE teacher utilizing projected video with kids in the gym to exercise on a super hot sunny day. If you’re really lucky, you walk into a planning session of teachers and listen as they reluctantly explain why they can’t access the tools that they may need. I take that back…If you are really lucky, you find inspiration and perspective in the faces of kids who were excited as you mentioned minecraft, the music room full of instruments for students to create sound and the substitute teacher flagging you down to see her overhead projector with transparencies. In one word, you are reminded about the need to be transparent. I spent the rest of my day thinking of ways to shift mindset of how we as a district will utilize what we have. A Smartboard displaying a website, power point or even the worksheet under the elmo isn’t transformative…at all. I’m also not going to take the stance of yanking them from the room. That’s insane. What I can do is show teachers how to use them as collaborative spaces for kids…by kids. I can show teachers how to design for learning with collaborative centers, utilizing both digital and analog tools. We can build a culture of creativity in lieu of consumption. Kids playing games on classroom computers as earned "technology time" isn’t ideal when we want technology to be just as accessible and normal as a pencil and paper. Surely, we wouldn’t make pencil and paper an earned reward…would we? It’s easy to sit behind a desk in an office or in countless meetings talking about what we can purchase and even implement. However, you have no idea how to truly bring change without immersing yourself in your spaces of learning. And listening…not to the words being spoken but to what is not being said. And seeing what is not seen.

Everyday when I walk into my building, I feel as if the weight of the world is on my shoulders. Correction…I feel this whether I am in my building or not. My mind races a million directions…constantly refreshing ideas faster than I can blink sometimes. Every step or conversation stimulates internal thoughts about how we can be better…small, subtle changes here and there. Confession: It’s hard for me to focus when every ounce of my being is internally screaming…"Nooooooooo"…at the celebration of things that we should be doing differently. I cringe at the phrase, "this is how we’ve always done things". This is the worst phrase known to humankind as people tend to allow the brick wall of sameness to halt progress. "This is how we’ve always done things" is the ultimate destroyer of ideas, growth and future innovations. My job in our district is ultimately to help our school communities move forward. For me, that meant that I had to spend a few months observing and living in our realities. There are so many pieces to the puzzle of "future readiness" and being in this district has reaffirmed my belief and understanding that although President Obama’s ConnectEd to the future initiative was about digital connectivity, we can’t ignore the necessity of human connections with our local communities. At the same token, digital connectivity means that kids can connect beyond our communities and learn with the world. This is my greatest goal and challenge. Our Realities Our school district has a BYOD program and an extremely low percentage of computers to supplement those without. We also seem to have a low percentage of kids with actual devices. Our brightbytes data will clarify this in a matter of weeks. Like most school districts, digital initiatives have taken a backseat to testing. We are awesome with gathering data through test prep technologies and even more awesome with administering online exams per our state requirements. My reality is that I am here in this position because we also recognize that we can and should do much more than tech for testing. I also recognize that in a district with zero mobile devices, other than specialized departments, our "much more than tech for testing" will be a gradual process. Building A Foundation I am fortunate to be in a place with a superintendent who completely gets it. She understands that as great as our district is, we can be greater and she leads through action. Every school district needs this! Last week, she started utilizing Google Classroom with our leadership staff to create a workflow for collaboration, communication and productivity. Sitting down to train her and a few of our core leadership team was soul fulfilling as in that moment, I understood where I needed to focus. In the last few days, I’ve seen the fruit of her/our labor spreading like wildfire. Our instructional specialist are starting to collaborate digitally. Teachers are sharing lesson plans and asking that they be commented with feedback. People are excited in such a way that it is certainly contagious and also the greatest feeling on earth! My vision for how we approach professional and digital learning is that in a space where our slate is blank, we have an opportunity to do this right. We are taking a top-down approach to leading and learning, meaning…that we will become a collective unit of digital leaders, implementing into the work of leadership…thus creating a model that can and will inspire the change that we want to see in our teaching and learning. So far…it is working. While I am all for giving kids the tools and letting them lead the way, I also know that the greatest barriers to student/teacher innovation aren’t just their own mindsets but the mindsets of those charged with leading.  We can and will do this right with sustainability in mind. With that said, my department is also moving with the intention of putting the world into the hands of our students and that excites me more than anything. While I will probably always feel the weight of the world on my shoulders, I always remind myself to be patient. Yes, I will still internally cringe at the sight of things printed that should be digital, the use of phrases like "engaging and interactive" when neither word applies, computers that barely work, spotty wifi and the focus on state testing. I will also breathe in the realization that what makes me cringe also stimulates plans towards change…plans that become action…actions that spread over time. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is sustainable digital growth.      

1. Google Apps Aren’t Really "Free"  Through the course of our implementation and relaunch of Google Apps, I’ve definitely learned that the word "free" is such a myth. When we decided to move forward with creating our student Google Apps accounts, I started to hear all about monitoring of teacher and student accounts. I learned that kids will type terrible things and change ink to white in order to make pages appear blank. Adults and kids may sometimes even share personal identifiable data via Google Drive Kids and/or adults may write/post threatening content. Pretty much every horrible, terrible, very bad thing that you can image can happen While google doesn’t provide mechanisms for monitoring every aspect of their "free" product, several vendors do…to the tune of about $20,000 or more. And oh yes…it comes from my budget. Also, I struggled immensely with such stringent monitoring even though I know that it is necessary because of the use of school provided accounts. Le sigh… 2. You can live in harmony with both Google and Microsoft We offer Office, Office 365 and Google to our teachers and students which is great as I strongly believe that certain tools lend themselves to be more applicable than others. With the release of Microsoft Mix, which helps users create interactive videos from ppt and Sway, a tool for digital storytelling (that still needs work might I add)…There is no reason at all to marry one tool over the other, other than cost. I’m currently toying with creating google slides, exporting them to ppt and using Microsoft Mix to create videos which works great. 3. Dynamic Content only matters if teachers and students know about it and how to use it. We have district licensing for both Discovery Education and Brainpop. Both services have extensive educator resources available with my favorite being Discovery Education’s Spotlight on Strategies as it gives teachers immediate and actionable uses of media in the classroom. While both of these tools are amazing, they are only great if they are being used with purpose. Both also have admin panels which will give usage data and for me, this data matters. See #4 4. Data should inform the work of instructional technology too. I checked our usage data for the tools that our district provides and I wasn’t surprised at all to see that the tools provided that aren’t "test prep" tools were barely used. This was important as it helped me to understand that we have to better support teachers in understanding that the tools exist and how to use them. Teaching teachers to "log in" isn’t enough. There must be correlation between content, purpose and personalization through student accounts. It’s not about mandating usage but understanding that when data shows "non-usage" it could mean… Teachers aren’t buying it at all. (There is no why) Teachers and/or students lack the access to reach those tools. Teachers aren’t quite sure how to integrate them into instruction Lack of professional development It’s important that as we look at data that we look at ourselves first and ask…Are we doing enough to differentiate for our adult learners just as we expect them to do for students. This is critical. 5. Not all devices are created equally nor should they necessarily be the same. When I got my budget, I looked at several options for device purchasing. I’m still evaluating as it was important to identify "why" before immediately determining "what". I didn’t want to purchase all chromebooks however, the price point of a Chromebook, ease of use and integration of web tools made it much more appealing. With that said, we are literally starting from scratch considering that our district is BYOD with basically no mobile devices other than in specialized areas. If I had my way and the budget to do so, I would purchase selections of Surface Pros (Hello Minecraft!!), Ipads and Chromebooks. For year one, this is not feasible at all and I am doing my best to make the most of the budget that I have. In due time though…in due time… With that said, this is year 1 and right now our goals are to effectively integrate what we have, support it with fidelity and create pockets of change with pilots…tapping into our teachers who are eager for it. 6. Take full advantage of applicable resources! Our district is title 1 which means that we more than qualified to take advantage of certain ConnectEd Resources from Adobe, Prezi and other tools that have yet to unfold. In addition, the Office of Edtech resources have helped tremendously in creating our foundation from which we will grow. Although this is a new role to this district and a brand new dept, we are not in a system of "blind leading the blind" and that feels great.

When I interviewed for my current role, I had to create a presentation and present on what being Future Ready meant to Lufkin. It was a topic that I comfortably understood but yet and still…the most difficult task that I’ve ever encountered because even back then, I understood that being Future Ready wasn’t necessarily a finite state of being. It was and still is a culture of ideas, learning and growth created to support the global preparedness of our students and teachers. The pledge itself is created on the foundation of the 7 tenets in the slideshow below. To be clear, I do take issue with the idea of being "future ready" but only because of my own personal hangups with the phrase itself and its literal definition. At the same token, I view the 7 tenets as important topics of conversations for districts when considering and collaborating on the belief systems and support structures for innovative learning empowering student and teacher growth. There should be a culture of digital learning, personalized professional learning, immediate access for students with a focus on creativity over consumption, quality content (open educational resources), support for families and a shared spirit of mentorship, sharing and reflection. There should also be a focus on equity amongst all student populations, a shared vision of support for students of poverty, intentional inclusion of diverse community populations and an evaluative system that intentionally reflects on discipline practices, gifted inclusiveness and specialized programs meant to close opportunity gaps. There should also be community connectedness, not reliant on wifi or device access, but completely focused on service in the environments where our students live. These ideas are often ignored and it’s frustrating. See…there’s a line right before the 7 tenets that people seem to miss… "…by engaging in a wide range of activities such as" In a world of curriculum development, we’ve learned to view the phrase, "such as", as a suggestion and not the "end all be all". What this means is that districts shouldn’t only focus on the 7 tenets as a checklist but use those ideas to drive discussions. At the same token, isn’t it important to look at individual communities and collectively determine what matters beyond the tools and wifi…such as equity, equality, opportunity and community? While I agree wholeheartedly in digital access and putting learning into the hands of kids, I also believe that we have to look beyond the surface of the tools themselves and on who our students will become as people…how they will be empowered to feel culturally connected, creatively limitless and globally aware. I said all of this to say that perhaps the greatest myth about being "future ready" is that we’re ever in a place to truly be "Ready". If we’re doing it right, we’re constantly working, reflecting and transforming into something that far exceeds the limitations of this phrase. I get the White House’s initiative. Believe me…I do. I also get that it’s necessary because the fact of the matter is that without this discussion, most schools wouldn’t even be looking beyond the traditions that they’ve always followed. The truth is that all of the chatter about being future ready is forcing schools who choose it, to at least consider that operating under the rule of "we’ve always done it this way" is no longer acceptable. This is undeniably a great thing. Perhaps we can impress upon ourselves in our local and social communities to move beyond the buzz phrase of being "future ready leaders" in "future ready schools" to be more mindful of the deepest needs of the learners that we have now so that they can not only navigate but create pathways towards a more sustainable future.

Following the Spring Valley High assault news yesterday, I searched for student perspective from students at that school. As expected, there was a ton of discussion about the young lady being violently wrestled and tossed across the room. What I didn’t expect to see was their passionate pleas that people quit making this incident about race. They were completely adamant that the officer responsible wasn’t racist but an equal opportunity violent man who once did the same thing to a pregnant girl who happened to be white. According to them, he tossed all kids with reckless abandon. They said, and I quote… "This isn’t about race but about an enraged police officer who didn’t need to be working in a school." We can argue the point about race for days on end and even say that perhaps these kids live in the same bubble that many of our kids live in….kids who are so removed from the historical aspect of racial violence that they lack the understanding of the emotional distress of seeing a young black girl tossed across the room. Maybe they lack the ability to make the statistical connection between discipline practices pertaining to students of color compared to white students. Or…perhaps they are right and in their eyes…in their community, it’s not about race. We have to respect that just as much as we have to respect student voice in every other aspect of their learning and growth. With that said, there are those that saw that video and immediately questioned what that student did to provoke this situation. There were those that immediately saw that she was black and placed her in the same box that they do every other "loud black girl". Perhaps she was being disruptive, they said. She should have just been cooperative. She should have left the room. She should have done what she was told and when she didn’t that officer had no choice but to toss her out like the garbage man puts away the trash. …but, it’s not about race, right? In looking deeper, I saw testimonials from kids who said that she was new to the class and didn’t speak. Others said that they had no idea why this happened. Conflicting reports said that she was chewing gum or had her cell phone and refused to participate in class. I found it alarming that a girl causing "disruptions" wasn’t really being disruptive when the kids in the class had to question what she did to get to that point. This is where the "teacher in me" comes out. I would like to rewind back to the moment that the teacher decided to toss the young lady from class for doing something that none of the students around her could account for. I would like to know why that was even an option. What was their policy that allowed this to occur? I had kids that refused to do work and I didn’t toss them from class or call an administrator to force their hand. You wait. You carry on as normal and you wait…especially when that kid is new to the class and doesn’t know kids or what to expect. You wait and you talk and eventually….you get to the kid. Especially when that kid is non-disruptive. That’s what you do when your ego doesn’t get in the way of your decision making. Unless the kid disrupts…talks back…gets volatile. But that didn’t happen…did it? I don’t have to wonder what that teacher felt about this student and that saddens me.