Week 7 -- Promoting Critical Conversations #SAVMP

Week 7 -- Promoting Critical Conversations #SAVMP

How Do You Go About Getting Honest Feedback from Your Team?

This is such a great question. I am truly grateful for the thought provoking questions that George has provided us in each week's assignments. These are not easy questions.

Here are my thoughts about promoting critical conversations: 

Critical conversations can only happen in an environment where honest feedback is honored. For the first year at my current school, I have worked diligently to provide an expectation of a positive culture. We have too much to do and too little time to do it in for the adults on campus to focus on things beyond our control or to engage in destructive conversations about our students, parents, the district OR even each other. One of my favorite quotes of all time is where Abraham Lincoln says ... "All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind."   I have ALWAYS tried to be positive in everything I do. Attitude is such a huge part of conquering any obstacle. I recall when my doctor told me I had colon cancer. He was shocked at my reaction which was ridiculously positive. I smiled at him through tear filled eyes and told him, "Okay. I've got cancer. What do I have to do to beat this?" This is how I approach every problem and all of life. So at school, I discourage negativity but.... I encourage problem-solving. I don't want the faculty to be confused that I frown on disagreement or other points of view. These are necessary to make us stronger. I have one teacher at school who is my "go-to" person for real and honest feedback. I call her my "real-talker". She alerts me to things that need to be watched, handled with care, or revamped. So, if any teacher comes to my office and says, "I don't mean to be negative...." I listen to what they have to say, and then I let them know that notifying me of problems in the system is NOT being negative. I always want to hear what they have to say. I honor everyone's opinion. AND, I also ask them to think of resolutions to the problem so that all of us have input in improving OUR school.

Next, I promote a culture of growth and learning by the students and the adults. We are currently undergoing individual data chats at school where I walk all of the teachers through a data activity that analyzes their instructional impact, their student achievement indicators, and the global data that represents our school's impact on student achievement. As all of us reflect on OUR data, we are asking questions like HOW CAN WE DO A BETTER JOB WITH OUR STUDENTS? WHAT CHANGES NEED TO BE MADE TO HELP OUR STUDENTS LEARN WITH MORE EASE AND MORE SPEED? WHAT CAN I DO TO INCREASE STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT? WHAT HIGH-YIELD STRATEGIES WILL INCREASE STUDENT LEARNING? HOW CAN WE QUICKLY CLOSE or ERASE ACHIEVEMENT GAPS? To answer these questions, all of us have to reflect and honestly undergo self-actualization in order to make change. These are difficult conversations to have especially in the face of raw student data. I read a book this summer that captures this process beautifully. In Peggy Hinckley's book, Monitoring, she says, "The data is not a personal indictment of you as a teacher. It is the next teaching decision."

To have such honest questions will require difficult and honest answers. If the data shows we are not meeting the needs of our students, we must make changes. We must make these changes with urgency. Accordingly, it is critical conversations and honest analysis that will move us there quickly. 

So, honoring feedback and asking even the adults to grow and learn will promote the critical conversations and reflection required to help us all improve. I will continue looking for less thistles and more flowers..... and, as a few of my previous posts will contend....I will also hug the cactus. We must look at the flawed parts of ourselves in order to repair them and make continued progress!

Week 6 -- Roads to Innovation #SAVMP

Well, for this week's assignment, there were many ways to tackle it. I really didn't even have to BLOG. I could have just commented on someone else's entry, but instead I am trying to build my BLOGGING MUSCLES and blog more often. So I chose to answer the assignment via this question:

How do you go about creating innovative practices in your schools?

Certainly, as a new principal, at a turn-around school, I believe that I have not focused on innovation as much as I would like to; however, I do recognize innovation when I see it, and I know how to support it. 

I believe the easiest way to create innovative practices in our schools is ......simple......
YOU JUST SAY YES!

I have some brilliant and daring faculty who are true innovators. When they come to me and ask, "What do you think about this?" or when they inquire, "Would it be okay if I tried this?" my answer is always YES! YES! YES!

As the experts in the classroom, the teachers need my support when they are feeling courageous and want to branch out, especially in areas connected to technology integration.

I can recall multiple times over the course of the year where a teacher wanted to try something new. I fully supported them, and their idea blossomed, was a success, and it resulted in increased student engagement in learning. Risk-taking leads to innovation which leads to growth and success!

Step 2 for creating innovative practice at our school has been my Promotion and Praise of those who have taken the risks leading to innovation. I have 3 venues where I promote the practices of those who are taking the road to innovation. I promote and praise in my Monday Memo called the Cheetah Chat, in my Friday Focus called the Cheetah PUPdate, and during faculty meetings and/or after-school professional development sessions. The way to continue risk-taking behavior is to make certain it is rewarded. 

Innovation is critical in our ever-changing world. The technology is advancing so quickly that I can hardly keep up, and I am pretty close to the cutting edge of many types of tech. The problem will reach the tipping point  in education when the majority of children entering our schools know more about the technology than the teachers teaching them. In actuality, this might already be true in most high schools and many middle schools. Teachers MUST be innovators and need to embrace the culture of innovation to maintain relevance. I have set a new goal for myself this fall to try a brand new technology that I have not used yet. I am keeping my fingers crossed that I get there next month. May we all be innovators. Our students need it.  

Developing Leadership #SAVMP Week 5

Week 5 – Developing Leadership #SAVMP

How do I develop leadership? I must say this is one of my favorite things to do. However, at the last three schools where I have been able to lead, it was not a natural part of the culture of the school for teacher leadership to succeed. This was a culture that had to be developed over time. Actually, I am involved in year two of creating such a culture at my current school, and nothing pleases me more than watching a teacher begin to lead others. It is vital to distribute the leadership across the entire school or else we will exhaust those few who have been the engine of the school. They will run out of gas, and morale will dip. To prevent this from happening, avoid using an elite few to impact change and rely on every faculty member and their abilities to make the whole team stronger.

How do I do this?

1. Look for those with natural leadership penchants and begin to tap into their talent. At our school, we had no Talented and Gifted program. Weeks after arriving on campus, I identified several teachers who were innovative in their approach to teaching. They also were fearless in their desire to try new things if they believed they would help their students learn. AND, they were highly organized. These teachers began their gifted endorsement coursework, and today the two I challenged are now part of a very successful fledgling enterprise in our new Chee-TAG program! Each of them demonstrates their talents to the faculty at faculty meetings. One recently held two separate sessions on grant writing and earning money to support innovative programs in the classroom. The other is a technology tester, and she recently demonstrated Classroom Dojo to the faculty as a behavior management system. Teacher Leaders Rock!

2.  Look for those who are not leading at all in any way and think of ways to draw them into leadership roles. This tactic is the most fun to watch develop because you have to get teachers to believe in themselves. One of the strongest leaders on campus this year has been a teacher who was so modest she never promoted her own skill sets. She felt this was boastful and was uncomfortable sharing her expertise. Now, she has accepted a role as grade chair, and she is mentoring three new teachers to our school. This teacher was always strong, but she liked to work in the background unnoticed. This may have been a more comfortable existence for her; however, it did not benefit the other teachers on campus. Now, she is leading, and she is a shining star. She is in the kitchen, and she is cooking with gas! 

3. Create systems of teacher leadership. This is critical for leadership development. A Principal needs teams to carry out the vision across the campus. For me, it has been a year-in-the-making developing my leadership teams. I have relied on our grade chair team and our school improvement team. The grade chair team and I will soon engage in a professional learning community where we begin with a book study and conclude with taking our vision of common assessments to the rest of the faculty. Our school improvement team will meet with me once a month to take a status check on all of our improvement initiatives and how they are impacting our students and their learning. I could easily be frustrated trying to push all of these initiatives using a top-down model, but I have locked arms with a strong group of teacher leaders who will fan out and monitor the vision with me.

4. Develop the leadership strengths of those closest to you. The inner circle that surrounds a Principal can bolster or can harm the leadership style of the instructional leader. To ensure they are supporting the leader, I believe it is important to share my vision with those around me and allow them opportunities to practice supporting and investing in the vision. As these leaders maneuver through the growing pains of pseudo leadership roles, I must be careful to monitor progress and protect them from the frustrations that can exasperate developing leaders. This means I will dole out responsibility to those capable of managing it, and I must protect those who carry this heavy load--which sometimes means I need to let them work through their own development of leadership style, even when it gets messy. But when it gets too messy, I have to help these new leaders reflect and regroup.

I could write for ages on this topic because I love to watch new leaders grow. Distributed leadership is, in my humble opinion, the most effective leadership style. I am always analyzing new personnel and thinking about long-term plans for how they will work and lead on our campus. Everyone has talents, and if we repeatedly share our strengths, our system will be STRONG. 

The Importance of Trust #SAVMP

Week 4 – The Importance of Trust #SAVMP

I think it was my parents and the way they raised me that made truth and the search for it such a pillar of my beliefs. Even today, one of my flaws is that I can't even tell the little white lies that make some people so successful. I just can not bring myself to add that layer of duplicity that makes politicians and those who promise things they can't deliver so successful. In turn, I surround myself with other truthmongers, and I value the people who have the skill for discerning a lie quickly. I would love it if.....Liar, liar, pants on fire....would really happen when people told lies. LOL.

I don't know if others value the truth as deeply as I do, but I live my life as if they do. Just a few weeks ago, I encountered a scenario where I had to dig for the truth at work. The digging led to an uncomfortable situation, but the end result has been that I have strengthened a relationship between one of my teacher leaders and myself at school. The interesting thing about the whole story is that the lie was actually just a misunderstanding. A teacher believed that I had not released her from contract to transfer for a job at another school. When I discovered this information was being shared on campus, I quickly located the email from the other principal that confirmed that this was not the case. I also called the teacher in for a chat and explained the damage that could be done to my credibility if her information contradicted mine. At that stage, the faculty who heard both stories would be forced to choose between which story they believe to be true, and this would be confusing to them and unfair to me. When we talked through the facts of the scenario, it turned out that the teacher believed her version of the story. It took the email from the other principal to show her the TRUTH. We came to agreement on how to proceed, and things are 100 times better in our relationship. While it was very difficult to dig deep and have these uncomfortable conversations, it was instrumental in correcting a misconception held by a staff member and in terminating any further confusion for those who tried to understand the facts. The truth had set us free.

Lastly, I stare at the truth about myself often....sometimes too often. I am, what you would call, acutely self-aware. I know my limitations, and I repeatedly measure myself with the truth of those limits. Sometimes this leads to insecurity because--being a perfectionist, I struggle with not being perfect! Age and experience have softened my critical mindset about my skills, and I have come to HUG THE CACTUS many times over so that I can grow and get stronger every year. With a growth mindset, I will use truth to help me improve.

So, truth is very important to me. I have tried to insist on the importance of truth in my friendships, my marriage, my motherhood, etc. I get most frustrated when my children violate my trust, and I love them no matter what, but I relentlessly look for the truth.