It Burns With a High Flame

The science fiction writer Ray Bradbury died a few weeks ago and as is now typical when someone dies, Twitter quickly filled with stories and anecdotes. One quote (retweeted by Ta-nehisi Coates) that Bradbury gave to the Paris Review caught my eye – speaking about the wide range of influences on this work, he said, “A conglomerate heap of trash, that’s what I am. But it burns with a high flame."

Ray Bradbury- not looking too trashy here

Besides the creative (and self-deprecating) turn of phrase, what I love about this quote is how it captures the enthusiasm Bradbury had for the world around him and the influences that this “heap of trash” had on his work. Enthusiasm, energy, intensity, curiosity, wonder, inspiration. That's what he's talking about when he writes that he "burns with a high flame" and could there be a better description of the kind of passion we all want to feel about our work? This passion and intensity of feeling are not only characteristics of great writers, but I would argue, are also key skills in being an effective school leader. 

Great school leaders need to have passion for their work, joy for teaching kids, and inspiration to encourage their teachers. Those are the easy and obvious answers, just like an obvious answer for Bradbury would be that he read Verne, Shakespeare, and Steinbeck. Which he surely did, but what made him the greatest science fiction of all time was reading those authors, while also watching movies every week as kid at a theater four blocks from his house and being in the poetry club in high school. Just like Bradbury's influences extended beyond the usual masters, a school leader’s enthusiasm and passion needs to extend outside of the school building and beyond the usual narrow range of education and management books. I'm not saying don't read Fountas and Pinnell or Jim Collins. I'm saying don't think that's enough. 

Burning with a high flame as a school leader means you are always on the look-out for some small piece of information, some little story, a figment of inspiration that you can use to make your school better. You read often and widely. You talk to interesting people. You understand that brainstorming, daydreaming, and thinking with your head in the clouds is important work. You find connections to your work in virtually any situation and you probably annoy your family because you always want to explain how something you’re reading or watching connects to your job. You keep a list of these little ideas and insights and go back to them often, because you never know when some old idea is going to be useful. You record voice memos and take photos on your iPhone and email them to yourself. And you share all of these with people you work with (enthusiastically!), because you want to be an interesting person and you want interesting people to share back with you. The work of leading talented adults and educating brilliant children can be and I would argue, must be informed by the “heap of trash” that is around you at all times.

In the interest of sharing, here is my “heap of trash” with the rule being that everything on this list has sparked some personal insight, provided a hook for a PD session, or given me a story I use to build culture with students.

• ·     Twitter – I don’t use Twitter to share my thoughts on where I’m eating lunch – I use it as a curated reading list of interesting people. Twitter gives you direct access to incredibly smart people’s thoughts and what they are reading. I follow about 100 people, ranging from sports announcers to political pundits to punk rockers. Some of my favorite follows:

o  Kurt Anderson- novelist and host of Studio 360

o  Chris Jones- writer for Esquire

o   Anna Holmes- founder of Jezebel.com

o   David Carr – writer for The New York Times

o   Aziz Ansari- comic(and foodie)

o   Rembert Browne- writer for Grantland

o   Education folks like Kevin Carey and Kristen Graham of the Inquirer

• Kottke.com – personal website of Jason Kottke who has one of the first bloggers. His site is basically just him posting items that interest and fascinate him, like a video of a slinky on a treadmill or him explaining why it’s so hard to make a better tablet than an iPad.

• The New Yorker – there is no better magazine for great writing and great ideas. I don’t read it cover to cover each week, but I find at least two great articles in every issue.

• The New York Times – the best newspaper in the world. So much good stuff each day.

• Reality TV – remember, this is a heap of trash! I’ve been known to include video clips from The Bachelor in PD sessions and long-time readers of the blog know I used Top Chef to anchor an earlier post.

• Instapaper- an iPad app that takes articles from websites and strips out all the formatting to give you a nice, clean page with just the text so it’s like you’re reading a book. Besides the ease of reading, the app is great because it easily syncs with websites like longreads.com and longform.com which aggregate great long-form articles from tons of websites. Easy way to catch up on high-quality magazine pieces.

• Podcasts – super easy way to listen to great radio/internet programs on your own schedule. Favorites include: 
• The Tony Kornheiser Radio Show 
• This American Life
• Planet Money
• Fresh Air 
• Nerdist 
• The Jalen Rose Show on the Grantland Network  

• Education websites and authors 
• The Notebook – Philadelphia’s incredible local education paper and website
• Gotham Schools- NYC focused but national news too 
• Eduwonk.com 
• Starting an Ed School 
• Dy/Dan 
• Edweek and its various bloggers 

• Go for a walk or a run. Without headphones. Just look and think.