Bill Selak Talks

Apple Fitness+ recently added kickboxing to their workouts. Back in the day, I took Shotokan Karate lessons, so I thought this would be an easy transition. Wow… I learned a lot about the power of routines. And of course, I applied it to schools and classrooms.

With AI all the rage in April 2023, educators are pretty quickly creating resources–articles, blog posts, podcasts… even books! I see an important connection between engaging lesson plans, artificial intelligence, and Bloom’s Taxonomy. Project-based learning typically was at the top of that pyramid: creation. But with AI, I think the sweet spot is actually at Analyze. In this episode, hear why the top of Bloom’s Taxonomy shouldn’t be the goal in your classroom.

I’m a big fan of “just right”. Goldilocks started it, and I’m continuing it.

After two separate conversations–one with my Leadership Coach Aimee Giles and another with the EduAwesome human John Eick–I realized that I need to take time during my day to be creative. It’s not a “I like to be creative” thing… it’s a “I need to create if I’m going to meaningfully engage in my work” thing. It’s getting my pre-frontal cortex in that “just right” zones, and it’s good stuff. Enjoy today’s episode!

Read more: The Goldilocks Of The Brain (Your Pre-frontal Cortex), Bored or overloaded? This is the amount of stress you need to get things done

You know that feeling when you have a really good lesson? You got the plan, students are in the zone, and the thing they create is just awesome! For me, those lessons are a lot like cooking scallops. But even more interesting (and profound?) is how lessons like this connect to values I have. So the question becomes: what are your values, and how can you live those out at your school with students?

Here’s that Google Site with two screen recording tutorials I talked about in this episode: https://sites.google.com/hillbrook.org/podcasting/home

When you put two things together, magic can happen. Obvious examples like chocolate and peanut butter might come to mind. Similarly, teachers can make two objectives and combine them into a tasty lesson. Think: learning 16th notes and human body systems. Or, cardinal directions (north, east south west) with patterns (algebra: AB pattern) in a song.

Device-free time can be magical in a classroom (and at home). Lots of learning happens without devices. Lots. But… what does a school like when you can’t imagine it without devices? Without the ability for a student to write a song, publish a book, start a podcast, create an infographic, or create a video to explain their thinking? Can you imagine a classroom where these tools have to exist, where learning is so student-centered and so creative that these devices are as important as pencil and paper?

I am not impressive to my fourth grader, nor are most (all?) of the things I share with her. But… there are some extraordinary, dare I say magical, things that exist in the world that did not exist when we were all kids. And I’m okay with her not being impressed with things I share. But… I can still hold onto those magical things for her, and for her generation. In this episode, hear about just how special and transformative GarageBand is for me, and how it really can help us reimagine what learning can look like with all students.

Transcript (auto):

Hey, there I am Bill Selak, and this is me talking. I guess that’s why I named the podcast Bill Selak Talks. So I’m going to talk with you wearing three different hats. I normally talk just in Ed Tech, Human Educator Leader space. I’m going to do that. So Ed Tech Educator Tech Director, brain hat. Let’s go with hats, not brains. That’s one of my hats. Second hat is going to be parent and the third hat is going to be, let’s call it the keeper of the magic. So you know Ed Tech, right? You care about doing extraordinary things with students, with other teachers around technology parent. I have a fourth grader. She is my oldest. And there’s a new era that we are entering into. If you have a kid that is older than a fourth grader, you are now giggling at me and you’re like, you’re not in your head. I know where he’s going. We’re not at the Tween yet. We’re like at the preteen. I guess Tween is preteen. So the pre preteen where she knows better, obviously. But also she’s not impressed with things that I say. Other people can say them and they will be impressive. I’m going to even like, there have been examples where I have taught a teacher how to do a thing. They have done that with her. And then she said, look how brilliant and smart this teacher is. We did a cool thing. I was like, yeah, I helped the teacher do that. That’s happened a couple of times. The point is that it’s just like I am not impressive anymore. And that’s okay. This is a new era. Here’s how I’m not impressive. Lately. My kids are, like, hopping in the GarageBand doing a thing. Mostly they’re on Minecraft. So it’s not like they’re like musical prodigies at home, although they could be they wanted to hop on and do like, a quick little recording something with the garage band. I hopped on my little soapbox that I think you’ve heard about just how magical it is that an iPad can help you record an entire band if you want. You don’t even need a real drummer anymore. You can just click the drummer track, grab some loops, bring it over, customize the drummer. Like, it’s so cool. And even now, as I’m getting excited about how exciting and what the possibilities are for every human, it’s not just adults. It’s not just professional musicians. It’s not like music students. It’s kindergarteners that can write songs in garage band. This is amazing. And so I start to share this and she cuts me off the fourth grader that she is, and she goes, I know, dad graduate is so great. Blah, blah, blah. Uh it’s amazing. And this is why you went to College, which um is true. So, like, at the very least, I’ll give her credit that she’s listening to me and knows that I legitimately went and got my undergrad in music because I wanted to be able to record my own music and record bands because I love the idea of having, like, a song in your head or being able to get together with a group of humans, write a song, play a song. But then to have that captured, like, it’s so ubiquitous. We have music all around us, and I think so many people don’t understand how extraordinary it is to be...

As my phone auto-played a song this morning, I was vividly reminded about the hour we spent in 2002 at Orange Whip Recording Studio with the band Bad Astronaut trying to find the one perfect lyric. That level of passion, detail, critical thinking, and perseverance is something we need to be doing way more in schools. Creative Rigor… let’s make it the driving force in education.

As school leaders, how do we have a high impact on our school’s culture without adding another thing to teachers’ plates? Where’s that sweet spot where you get high impact with low effort? My answer to that is this year’s Talent Show act for employees at Hillbrook School. Hear how we made a music video, and how I (hopefully) structured it in a way that made all employees feel included, were proud to be in the video, and also didn’t have to attend any additional meetings/rehearsals. Also, here’s that video (if you’re reading this through your podcast feed, go to billselak.com to watch or visit youtube.com/hillbrookschool):

I’ve learned so much this year in my leadership coaching with Aimee Giles. We’ve talked a lot about my values–imagine the islands from the movie Inside Out… that’s what we’ve created, and what we use to check decisions I make (and don’t make). In this episode, hear about two of those values (“I’m going to touch the microphone” and “Deep Appreciation”) and how they are impacting my leadership style.