Original Posted September 2nd, 2010
I must confess, I am finding that my educational leadership journey is a lot like having children. I have been around kids and teachers or principals all of my life. I have had great and not so great moments with each. They feel familiar. Comfortable. However, not until I had children of my own, did I truly understand how little I actually knew about kids and how much I had left to learn. Labour, delivery, lactation, episiotomies, Apgar scores … the learning curve was steep. I can say the exact same thing about my growth as an educational leader. Missions, visions, difficult conversations, instructional supervision, school improvement processes …. there is always something new to understand. Although the learning curves are steep, they are incredibly rewarding.
For the past nine years at the International School Bangkok, I have been fortunate to work with many exceptionally talented formal and informal educational leaders. They have been incredible colleagues, leaders, role models, and mentors. They have generously shared many pearls of wisdom. I admire and respect each of them for their unique strengths and leadership qualities. There is one particular quality that they have in common. Each possesses an incredible depth and breadth of knowledge. They exemplify the idea that “If you want to lead, you’ve got to read!”. And read I have. Reading is an essential element of my professional development plan. Fullan, Hargreaves, Marzano, DuFour and other gurus provided excellent starting points. However, I soon realized that there were other authors and sources for inspirational ideas. So I filled my RSS reader and set up a netvibes account. I started to read Daniel Pink, Seth Godin, the Harvard Business Review, and Chip and Dan Heath. Malcolm Gladwell was viewed through an entirely new lens. I am always on the lookout for a good recommendation. Do you have any?
Dr. Atul Gawande has perhaps been the most influential author of late. Better is a book he wrote about how the medical profession improved itself. It inspired this blog. While reading, I kept thinking about applying the lessons he shared from the world of medicine, to the world of education. It’s from his story of Dr. Apgar and the development of the Apgar scale that I gleaned a second pearl of wisdom. “If you want to make any change, big or small, simply start counting”. It seems so simple. If you want to loose weight, start counting calories. If you want your New Year’s resolution to get to the gym to become a reality, write it down in a log. I quickly adapted this to my classroom practice and now regularly track essential instructional practices like the types of sharing that close a readers’ or writers’ workshop. It has made a difference. Dr. Apgar transformed the world of medicine simply by counting. A complex procedure, additional resources or time were unnecessary. She simply collected the information already at hand and used it in a different way to influence change. Have something that you would like to change? Try counting.
BETTER 