Put Down Your Old Tools & Pick Up New Ones
Posted: May 29, 2012 Filed under: Change, Collaboration, Leadership | Tags: C2C, COETAIL, DWELL, New Tools, old tools, protocols Leave a comment »Spring time. It is such a great time of the year. It’s a time for tulips, pussy willows, and getting the garden ready for summer. Excitement abounds as plans to end the school year are set and summer vacations are scheduled. What I like most is that a feeling of rebirth, reinvention, and re-invigoration are in the air. At home and work, it is time to do a thorough spring cleaning. Around now, most of my favourite magazines inevitably find their way to friends, the faculty room for some gentle re-use, or my blue box for the requisite recycling. But I also find time to enjoy parts of them one last time before sending them off to a new home.
In DWELL, I recently re-read an interesting article about William McDonough‘s work as an architect, designer, sustainability guru, and founder of Cradle to Cradle design. Reflecting on his work, McDonough spoke of an important lesson that he learned from one of his mentors, Walker Evans. Evans was a noted large format photographer, who at seventy, took to using a simple Polaroid camera for much of his work. Why did he do this? Simply, he recognized that …
“…you need to learn that every ten years, you put down your tools and pick up new ones; otherwise, you only have one life.”
CC Photo Credit
So, I have found myself thinking about Walker Evans’ words of wisdom and William McDonough’s example. I have always enjoyed and valued the change that teaching internationally has afforded me. Over the years, I have gained valuable experiences in a diverse range of international schools in Europe, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East. I have worked as an elementary classroom and middle school subject area teacher. I am certainly richer for the experiences that the constant change has provided.
Maybe it is because it is spring. Maybe it is because I am approaching the end of my eighteenth year as an educator. Or maybe it is because I feel the need to make room for something new by getting rid of the old; but I keep asking myself …
What can I do to live more than one life?
What tools will I put down next year?
What new ones will I pick up?
As a life long learner, I need to practice what I am not good at. What do I need to practice?
As I confirm my summer plans, I am also considering what old tools will I put down and what new ones will I pick up? What disruptive technology can I adopt next year to help me live more than one life? I have started my list and am excited by the possibilities. I do believe that some of the characteristics of great educators is that they continuously reflect on their work. They seek to stretch themselves, and are comfortable being out of their element.
But I also find myself considering how can I encourage my colleagues to live more than one life? As a learning leader, principal, or headmaster, what are you doing to help your colleagues put down their old tools and pick up some new ones? Are you embarking on a 1:1 iPad pilot program? Implementing a new standardized assessment like the ISA? Beginning to explore different forms of running records? Reconsidering the idea of literacy in today’s ever changing world? Offering alternative sources of professional development like a COETAIL course, instructional coaches, or the use of agendas and protocols to enhance collaboration? What part does identifying disruptive technologies play in your end of year reviews or goals meetings?
What are the old tools that you might put down? What new ones might you pick up?
“Excellence is not an act, but a habit.”
Posted: May 14, 2012 Filed under: Coaching, Collaboration, Leadership | Tags: coach, collaboration, Gawande, leadership, school improvement 2 Comments »
CC Photo Credit
Sydney Crosby, Rory McIlroy, Rafeal Nadal, Lindsey Vonn, Dr. Atul Gawande, Itzhak Perlman, and Usain Bolt share a number of commonalities. Each has reached the upper echelon of their chosen profession — be it sports, music, or medicine. Yet, despite being at the pinnacle of their individual professions, recognized as true models of excellence, they each also have a coach.
As an educator, my professional practice has been shifting away from the traditional paradigm of a teacher, to become more of an instructional coach for the students who bound into school each day. As an educator, much of my day is spent offering and developing specific, targeted, and deliberate practice / feedback so that students can develop the depth and breadth of abilities they will require for future success. Simply, learners improve by working on what they are not good at.
I would like to see more of an instructional coaching model help improve my professional practice, shape the growth and development of my profession, and ultimately strengthen student learning. Teaching and learning is simply too complex to be able to be successful in isolation. Without another set of eyes, offering a different perspective, people are unable to achieve and maintain their personal best. The idea that once you graduate, from something like middle school, high school, university, driver’s ed, or cooking school, that you no longer require instruction, is simply outdated.
CC Photo Credit
As an educator, I know that I will always have something to work on. As a professional, I recognize that each of my colleagues will always have something to work on. As an educational leader, I will always value the role coaching contributes to the journey of continuous improvement. As the husband of a learning coach, I see the importance of letting teacher’s, like students, take ownership for learning and choose their individualized path; be it keeping a mini-lesson truly mini, developing improved questioning, making better use of assessment data, organizing better collaborative meetings, or adopting new classroom management strategies. The list is and should be, truly endless.
I see coaching being an essential role of every school administrator. The most effective learning leaders are those who observe, judge, and help facilitate professional learning. They enable their colleagues to become more competent; to move through the four stages of competence.
It’s certainly true that some background knowledge and expertise is important to be an effective coach, but the best players do not necessarily make the best coaches. The great violinist, Itzhak Perlman is a case in point. His wife is his coach. Coaches don’t need to know it all.
CC Photo Credit
It is in this context that I find myself wondering, how do principals and headmasters stay at their best? I think looking to the world of sports, medicine and the model that already exists in education, offers great opportunity. Instructional coaches are becoming increasingly common in our schools. Perhaps it is time that formal educational leaders tap into the potential that coaching offers to further support their work.
To close, I wanted to leave you with one of my favourite quotations. It’s one of the values that my family emphasized while I was growing up and is one that I hope to impart in my three sons, and the kids who I work with every day.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit.”
I’ve never really known who originated the quote, but according to a recent episode of Grey’s Anatomy, it’s attributed to one of the great Greek philosophers. Thanks to coaches like Maggie Moon, Pam Harper, Justin Medved, and Tom Baker, I know that coaching helps ensure that the work you do is your personal best, helps a school strive towards excellence, and helps improve student learning.
Looking For Learning
Posted: April 26, 2012 Filed under: Change, Collaboration, Learning, Schools | Tags: collaboration, education, Fieldwork, Instructional Leadership, learning, Looking for Learning Leave a comment »Getting back into some sort of blogging routine feels a lot like getting back to the gym. I have great aspirations, but do not seem to always find time to fit everything in. It’s hard. So last week, I set a small personal goal for myself … try and build a blogging routine by posting something this week.
Following up on my previous post, I continue to find myself thinking about learning — its big idea, what it means to me, and my colleagues? What does it look like in our community? I am a firm proponent that schools should always be learning focused collaborative endeavors. As an educator, my professional practice continues to be a work in progress, constantly changing, adapting, and evolving. Now I am much more of a “coach” or “critical friend” to the kids I work with than ever before. Quick, timely, formative feedback is incredibly powerful either on the ice at a hockey practice or in a reading workshop. I would not want it any other way.
CC Photo Credit
As an educator, I am looking for a similar critical friend or learning coach to help improve my professional practice. It is something I look for in my colleagues and formal administrators. Fieldwork Education’s Looking for Learning protocol is the closest experience I’ve had to receiving consistent, timely formative feedback.
Looking for Learning, is an effective process for working collaboratively with colleagues (teachers, instructional coaches, parents, principals, etc.) to see what learning is happening in classrooms. The focus is on student learning. So talking to kids about their learning is at the center of each visit. Should a teacher be in the midst of a mini-lesson, classroom visitors can simply move on to another room, and drop by later when whole group instruction is no longer in progress.
Ten to 20 minutes is the typical length of a teacher or administrator’s classroom visit. In the busy day to day routines, finding ten or 20 minutes here and there to visit a colleagues classroom is easily manageable. However, it is absolutely fabulous when I manage to set aside an hour to visit and talk with students about their learning in a wide range of classrooms, grade levels, and content areas.
When visiting a classroom and talking to kids, four essential understandings helped shape conversations:
Is this a learning classroom? This simple line of questioning is incredibly powerful. It is non-threatening and one that every educator, parent, and student would expect to hear a resounding, YES! When a learning community has an established, shared common definition of learning, the power if this question is amplified.
Is the learning appropriate and sufficient? As an elementary literacy teacher, this idea always makes me think of students’ “Just Right Books”. Ideally, learning for the kids should not be too difficult, nor too easy. It should be just enough of a stretch that they can independently achieve a level of success. When speaking to kids, I tried to speak with them in order to find out if they were learning something new, consolidating their learning, simply treading water, or drowning.
CC Photo Credit
What is helping or hindering the learning? This is perhaps my favorite line of questioning. I always found it to be amazing to hear students reflect on who they are as a learner, identify what they see as a need to further support their learning, and articulate exactly what is helping them on their journey.
Here’s a list of possible questions to help guide your conversations with kids.
The final piece of the puzzle is getting together with a colleague to share and discuss your visit. This always created the biggest challenge for me, but I soon found that a short conversation over coffee at recess worked best. It is easy to participate in a reflective conversation with your colleagues because Looking for Learning is not evaluative. As the visitor, your role is to simply share out the evidence you collected during your visit, not your impression, your opinion, or suggestions for next steps. When visiting classrooms, I tried to take detailed notes because I always found receiving specific quotes from the kids seemed to encourage reflection because they helped me recognize if my perception matched those of my students.
I am a BIG fan of Looking for Learning. Not only do I see its great potential to support student learning, but what I like most is that after speaking with students and my colleagues, I find myself energized and enriched by the experience. Thank you Pam Harper and Fieldwork Education.
LEARNING … It’s What We Do
Posted: April 14, 2012 Filed under: Change, Leadership, Learning, Mission & Vision | Tags: definition, leadership, learning, mission, quality, vision 2 Comments »
CC Photo Credit
For the past few months, work has been a little busier than usual. We have been busy wrapping things up at the end of one accreditation cycle and launching into a new accreditation process — Excellence by Design. Although things have been busy, I find the accreditation work very engaging and worthwhile. I think it is because I always enjoy the collaboration and thinking about the potential that our learning community holds. I believe it is important to recognize where we are, celebrate our wonderful accomplishments, and start to envision where we want to be. The accreditation process has certainly provided me with a tremendous amount of food for thought.
Recently, friends who work in other professions were sharing what was happening in their work and personal lives. Both also happened to be in the midst of some sort of accreditation / self-evaluation process similar to ISO 20000 certification. I was struck by the similarities of purpose, process, and importance of accreditation in their work. I was also surprised by the ease and simplicity with which they could clearly communicate the work that they do, be it producing a good or providing a service. Both shared the great lengths that are taken in their professions to establish a simple, common understanding of what they do. It was central to their growth, development, and how they monitored the quality of their work.
So, I found myself wondering, what is it that we do in schools? Do we have a common understanding of what we offer our children, their families, and the greater community? My guess is that if I asked this question to my colleagues, LEARNING would likely be a top response. But do we have a common understanding of what it means to learn? Could every member of my school community share the simple, common understanding with a parent or colleague? Would we be able to consistently identify learning throughout the grade levels and across the curriculum? I must admit I am not so sure.
I believe that International School Bangkok offers some great ideas for helping develop a simple, common understanding of what they offer the members of their community. A simple, clear and concise Mission and Vision Statement is a great place to start.
MISSION
To be a model of excellence for educating students for success in the world community.
VISION
Through outstanding teaching in a nurturing environment, ISB inspires students to:
- achieve their academic and personal potential
- be passionate, reflective learners,
- becoming caring, global citizens
There is tremendous power in being able to simplify a complex idea and I believe that International School Bangkok does a particularly good job at it. However, what I find most impressive is that as a community, they have established a common understanding of “learning” and what it looks like.
Learning is the primary focus of our school and we recognize learning as a life-long adventure. We value meaningful learning where students construct enduring understanding by developing and applying knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Increased understanding is evidenced by students who:
- Explain its relevance
- Describe how it connects to or conflicts with prior learning
- Communicate it effectively to others
- Generalize and apply it effectively to new situations
- Reflect critically on their own and other’s learning
- Ask questions to extend learning
- Create meaningful solutions
CC Photo Credit
If learning is an essential component of any school, why do more schools not have a definition of learning at the heart of their Mission and Vision statements? It is these documents that help shape and provide direction for a school and its improvement plan. In the world of education, just like the world of business, having a shared, common understanding is essential for establishing a cycle of continuous growth. ISB’s definition of learning provides an essential framework for collaboration, a tool for monitoring the quality of student learning, and a means of adjusting professional practice because stakeholders are looking at things through a shared, critical lens.
Dating, Buying, Recruiting
Posted: March 2, 2012 Filed under: Leadership | Tags: bias, interview, ISS, questions, recruiting, Search Associates, Sway Leave a comment »Originally Posted December 2012
CC Photo Credit
Since I last wrote, the Bronfman’s ideas presented in SWAY, continue to bubble away in my thinking. First impressions are not always what they seem.
As a home owner and former first time home buyer, first impressions can be misleading. Sure the kitchen needs to be updated. Avocado green and Harvest gold are so 1977. Yes the closets are a little small and the roof is less than exemplary; but the floors are beautiful, there’s a jacuzzi tub on the deck, and it has great gardens! Is this really the house for me or am I caught up in the moment? Am I looking at the right things or am I looking at only what I want to see? Is my first impression correct?
Going on a first date is another experience where people can find themselves getting caught up in the moment. It’s been a while since I’ve been on a first date, but I can remember finding myself having coffee, sharing a meal, taking a stroll and later wondering — Was there chemistry? What kind of connection did we make? I wonder if they like me? Will I hear from them again? Buying house and going on a first date are emotionally charged situations. People aren’t always at their best under these circumstances.
Dating and buying a home are a lot like recruiting. It’s easy to understand why home owners and people in search of a connection get caught up in the moment, but what is really interesting is why hiring managers, across all professions, including education, make the same mistakes. According to the Bronfman’s, it is because recruiters simply don’t ask very good questions.
Here are a few of the most common interview questions. Do any of them seem familiar?
Why are you interested in the position?
What do you offer this position?
What do you see yourself doing five years now?
What do you consider to be your greatest strength / weakness?
Tell me about a recent success / failure?
What subject did you like the best / least?
What do you know about our company / school?
Why did you decide to seek a job with our company / school?“
adapted from Sway
As someone who has experienced both sides of the table, I have asked and endured similar questions. Semi-insightful and self-evaluative questions don’t really let anyone get or give a sense of the real candidate. “They are taken from the Barbara Walters school of interviewing.” ( p. 81). Likewise, “Why should I hire you?”, is too predictable. Prepackaged questions elicit prepackaged responses. They do not provide an accurate reflection of the true candidate. Other questions turn candidates into historians or require them to gaze into the glass ball of the future. Are these questions going to provide you with the best insight into an individual?
When hiring, principal’s can make the same mistakes as a home buyer and first dater … they focus on the wrong things — chemistry, connection, likability. When recruiting, “we often base the image of the ideal candidate on ourselves. Somebody comes in who’s similar to us, and we’re going to click; we’re probably going to want to hire them”. (p.86).
How do you ask the “right questions”? Is staffing a collaborative decision making process? Is the interview format structured, relaxed, or some sort of combination? What types of questions do you pose? Are candidates asked to demonstrate anything, like complete an IN BOX activity? Skype is now an important tool for recruiting. How often do you ask to watch a candidate’s lesson? Or talk with their students about learning?
I find myself fascinated by the recruiting process. What questions do you ask? How do you manage first impressions?
First Impressions
Posted: March 2, 2012 Filed under: Leadership, Schools | Tags: diagnosis bias, leadership, Shane Battier, Sway Leave a comment »Originally Posted November 2011
CC Photo Credit
I just finished reading SWAY: The Irresitable Pull of Irrational Behaviour. A friend and colleague who recommended the book described it as the opposite of Gladwell’s BLINK. It is a fascinating book that examines the pull of irrational behaviour.
The authors of SWAY, Ori and Rom Bronfman, share an interesting study about the draft rankings of NBA players and their resulting professional careers. It turns out that scoring points, rebounding, blocking or stealing shots does not impact the playing time or even the career lengths of NBA players as much as draft order does. In essence, “once a player is tagged as a ‘low pick’, most coaches let that diagnosis cloud their entire perception of him.” (p.71-72). We all have a tendency to label ideas, things, or people on the basis of our first impressions, and find it difficult to change our perceptions once they have been established. In essence, we are inclined to see what we want to see, expect to see, and what seems to reinforce our opinion.
As an educator, this is a big concern. I don’t want to have any pre-conceptions concerning my students. I know that it will interfere with my work in support of their learning. I make conscious efforts to avoid having a fixed opinion of my students. Perfect, I am not. But I know that I am doing well simply because I continue to challenge myself, ask questions, look at things from multiple perspectives, use multiple sources of evidence, and remain flexible.
As a colleague, I know I can do better. I need to do a better job of managing my diagnosis bias. Like most professionals, I have an opinion of my colleagues, mainly based on first impressions, limited evidence or perspectives. Regretfully, I have certainly not been as flexible with my colleagues as I have with my students. I am striving to challenge myself to re-think my first impressions, to ask questions that will challenge or highlight my own personal bias.
As an inspiring administrator, monitoring diagnosis bias, is of keen personal and professional interest. I am equally confident in saying that I have benefitted from, and been restricted by, the bias of administrators that I have worked with. I have witnessed colleagues who struggled to overcome this bias. As an educational leader, your bias has an enormous impact on the culture of your community, and ultimately on the quality of the teaching and learning in your school. Do the first impressions you make of people help or hinder your efforts as a learning leader? Are they empowering or limiting?
As educators, we need to avoid the pitfalls of the NBA coaches. But how can we do it? I think the best place is to simply try. Be meta-cognitive. Be flexible. Be reflective. How often do you change your first impressions? Challenge yourself to look at things with different lenses. I think if you do, like the Houston Rockets, you will be able to recognize the talents of individuals that may have gone unrecognized or under appreciated. And like the Houston Rockets, you are likely to find your own Shane Battier, your own superstar.
List Building
Posted: March 2, 2012 Filed under: Ed. Reform, Leadership, Learning | Tags: Atul Gawande, checklist Leave a comment »Originally Posted October 2011
CC Photo Credit
Since I last wrote, and now that school is back into full swing, I have continued to think about how checklists can help improve student learning and my professional practice. I have started to realize how many checklists I already use on a regular basis in support of learning.
As a literacy teacher who follows a workshop model based on Lucy Caulkins and the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University, a form of checklist guides the multiple conferences that I have daily with my students. They follow a common format, a type of checklist, to an effective conference.
- Research : Spend a few minutes with each student to determine individual needs.
- Complement : Begin by identifying a particular strength or improvement in the learner.
- Teach : A quick little targeted mini-lesson to help individual growth.
- Link : Link the mini-lesson to past and future ideas.
For years, I have used a hodgepodge amalgamation of binders, notebooks, clipboards, papers, and sticky notes to help track learning, performance, anecdotal notes, and learning targets. Some of my colleagues are experimenting with the Confer App for iPad and iPhone. It is formatted to follow the conferences structure and serves as checklist to remind teachers of the key components of a reading / writing conference. I’ve chosen to experiment with Evernote, creating a similar conference checklist that I can use with multiple devices and keep everything stored in the cloud. So far I’m quite pleased. I especially like how I can embedded recorded conversations and digital exemplars of student work in my notes for each learner. With conferences next week, I expect my notes to be more insightful and useful than ever.
In thinking about a back to school checklist, I’ve started to revise and add to my tried and true checklist. I have started breaking it into manageable pieces following the guidelines on making an effective checklist. I have started to break things into the common components of Communication / Collaboration / Organization / Resources / Culture. I’ve made it available at SCRIBD. Give it a go. Let me know what you think. I’d love to continue to revise and improve the checklist and hope that you find it helpful.
Check. Please!
Posted: March 2, 2012 Filed under: Leadership, Schools | Tags: Atul Gawande, better, checklist, education, learning Leave a comment »Originally Posted September 2011
CC Photo Credt
In Saudi Arabia, the new school year started on Saturday. The start of each school year is an exciting time. It is a time to reconnect with friends and colleagues who have flung themselves on great adventures around the world and close to home. As an international educator, it is also the time to meet new colleagues and build new friendships. This year, the rituals of the “Welcome Back Coffee Mornings” were enjoyed by one and all, but quickly, everyone jumped back into the swing of things to get our school ready to the nearly 900 kiddos who will arrived at our doors.
One of my rituals at the start of each school is to delve into my “Back to School” folder. I always go looking for a checklist that I received years ago from a principal in Monterrey, Mexico. Ever since, this checklist has helped me organize and plan each school year. I must admit, it is a bit of a laundry list with more than 30 items to think about, but it serves its purpose. The “Back to School Checklist” helps me make sure that the simple and mundane pieces of the puzzle are not forgotten or allowed to fall between the cracks. I couldn’t agree more with Atul Gawande, who in The Checklist Manifesto noted :
“The checklist gets the dumb stuff out of the way, the routines your brain shouldn’t have to occupy itself with (Are the elevator controls set? Did the patient get her antibiotics on time? Is everyone on the same page here?), and lets it rise to focus on the hard stuff (Where should we. land?).”
In the spring, my son was finding learning to read a challenge. He loves school, loves books, enjoys listening and telling stories; but found learning to read quite difficult. He has been fortunate to be supported by some of the best literacy teachers I have ever encountered, yet he still struggled. We met. We discussed strategies, plans, approaches, and after months, eventually hit upon eyesight. It has been about 6 months since he had had his eyes last tested. In short, he got glasses and began experiencing greater success with his reading. As an educator and a parent, I found myself asking … why didn’t I think of it sooner? I know better! I needed a checklist.
Checklists exists throughout the world, in every profession. They are central components to aviation. Pilots have well developed checklists for everyday routines like taking off, or the unexpected incidents of a bird strike. The medical profession is adopting a 90 second surgery checklist that has reduced patient deaths and complications by 1/3. The skyscraper industry uses checklists to reliably manage complexity. Van Halen even added “no brown M&Ms” to their concert riders (checklists) to help monitor compliance.
In the many schools since Monterrey, ASFM has remained the only one that provided teachers with a back to school checklist. End of year checklists have been more common, and few have used checklists to support student learning (RIT, support services, etc.). I find myself wondering, how can the world of education make better use of the checklist to improve student learning? What checklists can I use to more deliberately to effectively manage the increasingly complex world of students, education and learning?
Ahead of the Curve
Posted: March 2, 2012 Filed under: Change, Leadership | Tags: challenge biases, change, intellectual rigor, shift Leave a comment »Originally Posted June 2011
CC Photo Credit
I am always interested in hearing my friends who work in the business world talk about their work. Their vocabulary is peppered with words like “synergy”. They talk about leveraging opportunities for growth and harnessing innovation for improvement. They are always seeking a competitive edge. They want to do the best that they can.
The more I think about it, the more I have come to realize that my professional world and the professional world of many of my friends, have a lot in common. According to a recent TIME magazine article, most drivers consider themselves to be in the top ten percent of people on the road. Ten percent of Americans believe that they will live to a hundred years or more. The reality is that only 0.01% of us will actually live to see a hundred years. In the context of a standard distribution curve, we know that there will a few outliers at the top and bottom ends of the spectrum, but the majority will fall somewhere in the middle. Yet, no one strives to be mediocre.
Like most drivers, I consider myself in the top 10 percent of people behind the wheel. I also want to live to see a hundred. As a parent, I want my children to have access to the top medical care. Is anyone really comfortable with seeing a doctor in the bottom 10 percent of their profession? How about boarding an airplane for a flight with a pilot in the bottom ten percentile? Likewise, as a parent, I want my children to have access to the best teachers so that they can have the best possible educational experience. I want to be an exceptional teacher, an exceptional leader. I want to be in the top 10 percent of educators. Simply, I want to be ahead of the curve.
How do you stay ahead of the curve? I think that there a couple of key practices that P.D. Broughton outlines in Ahead of the Curve, that exceptional principals can do to stay ahead of the curve.
First, they pair intellectual restlessness with grounded competence. Exceptional principals are “life long learners”, professional development omnivores, and prolific readers. Yet they are also master teachers. They understand where the rubber meets the road and how to get things done. Like the ying and yang, they balance ideas with practicality.
Exceptional principals establish cultures where new ideas are encouraged and developed. They create a culture of continuous improvement and curiosity. “No!” or “We can’t do that.” are not typical responses. Instead, “That’s an interesting concept …” and “Let’s explore this further” is how they approach new ideas and situations.
Exceptional principals understand their school from top to bottom, but they are also ready to tear it up and start all over. They possess a deep understanding of learning, teaching, and leading. They value what can be learned from the past to help guide the future, but the exceptional leader does not accept the status quo. They are continually seeking to improve the quality of learning experiences for their students.
Finally, exceptional leaders ceaselessly revise their judgements and consider evidence that challenges their beliefs and biases. It’s easy to collaborate and think that you are headed in the right direction if you surround yourself with like minded people. Embracing the dissent and alternative points of view is challenging. It takes work. It takes thoughtful planning and consideration.
Where do you fall on the curve? What do you do to stay ahead of the curve?
Leadership Lessons @ The GAP
Posted: March 2, 2012 Filed under: Change, Leadership, Schools | Tags: change, culture, HGSE, leadership, NESA Leave a comment »Originally Posted May 2011
CC Photo Credit
Shopping, ugh! It is not one of my preferred pass times, but my wife likes to shop. Living in Saudi Arabia, this means I am her wing man and chauffeur for outings to the mall. While waiting patiently in our local GAP franchise, I had the chance to sit and think. I spent my time reflecting on the great professional learning experiences that I have had since my last post in February. Over the past few months I completed an elementary math specialist course, attended a leadership seminar at Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the NESA conference in Bangkok, Thailand. It has certainly been a wonderful period of professional learning.
So, while mulling over some big ideas and reflecting on my practices and beliefs, I started to recognize that educational leaders have a lot in common with their khaki clad brethren. Leadership, and change in particular, is a retail experience. In order to establish an effective culture, change a culture, motivate a group, or shift a school, it requires “face to face” experiences, personal attention. The staff at the GAP offer great leadership lessons. Not only do they attend to the requests of shoppers (How can I help you? Let me know if I can get any specific.), they provide individualized feedback (That’s a great color on you! Those pants are a great fit!), and offer new perspectives (Did you see the new cotton tees?). They make their customers feel valued. They are out and about in the store, roaming the floor meeting customers, building personal connections, seeing how they can help. Sometimes they are very active, while at other times they step back, let individuals shop, and help out when required.
Come to think of it, as the educational leader in my classroom, I do this already. My roles is that of a guide, helping guide differentiated student learning, providing individualized feedback, and offering new perspectives and ideas. Effective teachers don’t hide behind their desk. They are out and about, roaming the classroom, monitoring learning, engaging students, sometimes providing direct active assistance, or from a short distance allowing students to explore and build their own understanding.
I’m drawn to leaders who exemplify what’s best about the GAP’s sales staff. As an aspiring principal, I want to be an educational leader who lives outside the office, who helps propel student learning by recognizing and supporting the needs of individuals. If I want to encourage a change or implement a new initiative, I need to build relationships, make personal connections, and communicate clearly. To accomplish this, I need to be present in classrooms, hallways, the cafeteria, yard, and faculty lounge; talking, listening, observing, and helping out … just like the best teachers and the people at The GAP.
