Smiling Is a Super Power

     

Well, the school year is over, and we all made it safely to the end! As I look back on the many events that occurred, I would have to say it was truly challenging. The thing that saved me again and again was and continues to be my positive attitude. For example, there was a situation that occurred during the school year where I was speaking with some very hostile parents. They were seated in my office, raising their voices, and just plain mad.  I have asked office staff to be sensitive to such situations and to close my door when they hear folks get emotional or upset so that we can respect their feelings. Well, right on cue, Kathryn comes to my door and closes it for me. Can I tell you how much I appreciate my office staff!!!  Later that day, she said something to me that I will never forget. She said, “When I came to close your door, you were just smiling at these parents as they were yelling at you.”

     Well, I have to confess, keeping a smile at such times might be difficult, but I have found that it never fails me. As I recently read in Dan Kerr's blog entry on Connected Principals, “A smile breaks down barriers, it diffuses tense or contentious situations, it fosters positive intent, and it inspires a student’s or colleague’s perception of who you are and how you feel about them.”  Being positive is something I demand of myself and of my staff. School climate and culture grounded in positivity is one of the foundations of a great school.

     We have many more challenges ahead of us with the upcoming school year. AND, school grading and accountability can certainly put a spotlight on things that desperately need attention in the schoolhouse. Sometimes these needs might seem daunting, but keeping morale high and pressing on to positively face every obstacle are critical to surviving this job with a happy and healthy outlook.

     And when it comes to the children, your smile and your welcome greeting might be the only happiness that a student encounters in their life all day. I can walk into classrooms and tell where students are happy and into others where they are not. I can walk into classrooms where students love their teacher, and I can also walk into others where they fear their teacher. Practice smiling and keep everyone around you smiling. Do you laugh during your day? Look around you and find inspiration in the faces of the children you teach. Did you know that 1 smile can generate the same level of brain stimulation as up to 2,000 bars of chocolate? Click here to see a YouTube video about The Power of Smiling.

A smile is something you can’t give away; it always comes back to you.                    – Maya Angelou

                      

Inspired by dkerr’s blog entry, The Power of a Smile, April 21, 2013, Connected Principals

Practice What You Preach

Practice What You Preach
                                                    

As a first year principal this year, I set out with a lofty list of goals to move the school vision forward. Now, as I am nearing the close of the school year, I am beginning to reflect on how close I have come to the targets I set for myself and for the school. We have come very far in a short amount of time. I am beaming with pride about many areas where I have grown personally and where I have seen my faculty grow as well. While it is true, that some goals were not met, I feel confident that growth was made and that we will pick up where we leave off this year and continue to pursue advancement with the ultimate goal of student achievement in mind!

One area where we have ALL grown exponentially is in the area of data analysis. Technology has advanced to the level that I can track and analyze data on just about anything. Through various initiatives this year, my faculty has begun to analyze data regularly to the point of asking for more data on their students and designing student assessments based on student need. Further, many of our teachers are now triangulating data as a best practice. It has been so exciting to watch this growth. I even have one team of teachers who have requested planning days this summer to begin creating common assessments in order to better assess student progress with the newly implemented Common Core State Standards. The great part about this request is that the team asked me for leadership support instead of me asking them to “get on board” with a specific initiative. This is what makes leadership enjoyable…seeing your teacher leaders driving change.

I think the most unexpected growth I have seen this year is in the “thirst” for data analysis occurring all over campus. I have been modeling data analysis at every opportunity. For example, I place bar graphs of diagnostic data and mid-year data in our Cheetah Chronicle (our internal Monday memo) and in grade chair and School Advisory Council Meetings. Next, I embed behavioral data analysis graphs in most every faculty meeting. I also demonstrate to the faculty any time that I make a decision based on data. We had a bus/dismissal situation in the afternoons that I was able to use specific behavioral data collected from bus discipline referrals to convene a meeting with the transportation staff. We plead an effective case because our data was so strong. And…I monitor data on everything: enrollment data, student session results from the computer lab programs, behavioral data, achievement data of every kind, attendance data, lesson planning data, and even energy conservation data (quantitative data). I conduct data chats with the teachers and have them reflect on their own student data. Lastly, I survey the students and the teachers constantly (qualitative data). We just completed a bullying survey and are currently collecting data with a cross-section of teachers in a lesson planning survey. Analyzing the results and making sound decisions based on their interpretation is critical to our success. 

The teachers see me “practice what I preach”. Perhaps this makes them feel empowered that they can also analyze data to make sound decisions. Whatever the case, there appears to be a layer of data analysis on our campus that was not there when I first came to campus. As a matter of fact, I knew we were making progress when one of my teacher leaders asked to train the faculty on the use of reports in the SuccessMaker program. She was conducting her training about analyzing the data, and she said, “You know we are all about data here.” I know I was grinning from ear to ear when she said that.

Where will this take us for next school year? I firmly believe that next year we will begin to closely examine the results of data and make interpretations based exclusively on what works BEST for our students. For instance, the questions should become very narrow: “Is the intervention I am using increasing student achievement?” OR “Is there a better intervention for increasing achievement?” Data is a part of the educator’s life. Data provides powerful tools to help us fine tune our craft, and it is absolutely critical that the leader is examining the data for the school’s progress continually. My advice….PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH.

The Elation of Eight

Today I had the opportunity to sit in some refresher professional development. It was awesome and really got my mind moving in the direction of possibilities. The training was on the Common Core State Standards 8 Mathematical Practices. As I reflect about the things that I thought were exceptional about the training I would say:

1. The trainer  -- Cylle Rowell, our District Math Coach, is highly motivating. She has such a passion about math and a love for students that she makes me feel as if I want to go back to the classroom and teach again just to try some of the exciting strategies she is showing us. However, Cylle tells me that the change to impact student achievement starts with the school leadership. I just need to "look for" these awesome practices when I am observing instruction in the classroom. Also, I need to train the teachers and support them as they learn these 8 practices for themselves.
2. Resources -- While doing our "reporting out" in small groups, we were discussing key concepts of the practices, and I (Self-Proclaimed SmartPhone junkie) was Google-ing this and that to support our conversations. I came across an amazing, DID I SAY AMAZING, website that has videos of each of the practices and what they look like in the classroom. Each of the 8 practices is described as it appears for students and as it appears for teachers. The site is www.insidemathematics.org
3. Knowledge -- I had attended Common Core State Standards training at a CCSS Summer Institute, a Jacksonville one-day professional development and several minor sessions. Yet, I had been paying attention to the new ELA standards and not the math. Our district has been coaching me on the math standards, and I feel more confident about them each time I am exposed to them. But TODAY, I really felt like I made a huge leap in my understanding of the 8 mathematical practices and all the benefits of students learning in this manner. I feel empowered to help our students!
4. Ideas -- It just so happens that I have been working with my school CCSS team to try and build awareness of the standards for our entire faculty. One of my super epic teachers has suggested the idea of presenting a CCSS best practice at each of our remaining faculty meetings. We have been exploring how to do this, and then EUREKA, today I walked away from this training with at least 7 (I missed the chance to use 8 again- LOL) different ideas how to create awareness that start at the faculty meetings and go even further.

As you can see, I am ELATED about EIGHT. I am grateful for a district that invests in its leaders and its teachers, and I am excited about next steps in moving my faculty toward the CCSS goals. I encourage you to experience the Elation of Eight!

A Good to Great Remembrance

As I explained in an earlier post, I am trying to stretch my wings a bit and model the use of technology as a leader for my school. I am certainly enjoying the fun that Blogging has become for me. It is a good opportunity to reflect on my own learning as I grow a little more each day.

One struggle that I am having is MAKING the time to post the blogs weekly. Every day, I will think to myself, I need to post my latest Blog, and it gets pushed down the to-do list until I conclude my long day, head for the house, and go to sleep thinking..."I will do that tomorrow. I promise myself. I will."

My gap between posts has been weeks. Now that I am finally sitting down to do it, I think I feel guilty doing something so creative when there is so much real work to be done. What am I thinking? I have to cater to my creativity and the gift of ideation (A term from Strengthfinders). Even more important, I need to always reflect on the growth I am making--the progress toward my goals and how to make the move from Good to Great. I just ordered that book this week after hearing it referenced three different times by other educational leaders. It rolled in today from Amazon, and I couldn't put it down.

It describes effective leaders as those who look outside themselves for factors to credit when things go well--a mix of personal humility and professional will. I think back to the first real message I sent to my faculty, and it was through a VLOG or Video Log. I made one version and then made another and another. I labored over what to include in the video because I was so uncomfortable talking about myself, but I wanted to introduce myself to the faculty in a cool, technology-driven, and engaging way. In retrospective, I am glad that I have to exert myself to be out in front, because as this book tells me, it is okay to be humble. I should always credit others, even if it is purely good luck AND I should always accept responsibility.

As I close out this third Blog posting, I will post my video for a remembrance of that feeling of strain I sensed while doing something that could have been viewed as promoting myself. It was not self-promotion, but it was an undertaking of what I am doing tonight....modeling the use of technology as I etch my citizenship in the digital world.