Burning questions

I don't know about you all, but leadership in my short experience so far is a lot of fumbling through and figuring things out as I go.  Not all the time (thanks, grad school!) but a lot of the time.  So I have some burning questions to run by you that I'm wondering if anyone has found some solutions/strategies for yet.  Buckle up, they're biggies--

1.  How much communication is enough (transparent, honest, open) without being too much (burdensome, overwhelming, scary)?  Are there things better left to leaders to know without broadcasting, or is constant info-flow the best strategy?


2.  How do you balance vulnerability (being a real person, relating, sharing) with confidence as a leader?  Are they exclusive, or is there a way to balance both?  Do those you lead prefer you to be vulnerable and real or confident and stoic?


3.  How do leaders cope with giving so much more than receiving, and with the lack of appreciation or recognition for their work?  (They say it's lonely at the top... I think a big part of that is not having anyone above you to recognize your achievements or celebrate your successes.)


4.  To what extent is employee morale the responsibility of the leader?  How do you build others up in those times that you're feeling worn down yourself?


5.  How do you help fellow leaders grow professionally (as in, the others on your leadership team) when you're still learning and figuring it out yourself?

Thanks, everyone!  I look forward to gaining some insight from fellow leaders!

Igniting my Fire.

As I reflect over the course of this year in the Leadership Program and all the meaningful relationships and joyful experiences I have had, I wanted my last post to be about the reality many of us maybe facing-- Being Tired.

and I am not speaking in the sense of physically tired (although this maybe applicable, especially during the week), but the type of tired one gets when balancing graduate school, careers, job opportunities, job displacements and/or personal matters.

If anything, this post is more about encouragement.  As we wind down the semester, I am in need of encouragement.  I see the light at the end of the tunnel, however, the tunnel is so far away, yet so close.

Does anyone have any great resources, motivational speakers to listen to or short-texts I can read to revamp my spirit and energy level as we finish this prepare for graduation, prepare for the Georgia Milestones and continuously set and meet high expectations for students even when others lose their momentum also?

I listen to "Every Child needs a Champion" maybe once or twice a week, however, I fall back into the mindset that this isn't applicable in my capacity.  This then forces me to reflect on my experiences  working with children, working with adults and growing leaders.

I am on a quest to ignite my fire as I complete this school year.   Do you have any flames I can continuously burn?

Identifying Conflict

At the end of yet another interesting week at my school, I stumbled across Elena Aguilar’s blog focused on the necessity of addressing healthy and unhealthy conflict in a school leadership team. Blatant conflict doesn’t really occur at my school, especially on the leadership team; however, covert conflict runs rampant. If an individual doesn’t like an answer he or she gets to a question or request then, oftentimes, that individual will seek out someone who will provide an answer or response that the individual wants. This occurs regardless of the respondent’s ‘rank’ or area of responsibility. I was on the receiving end of such an occurrence this week; a department chair asked a question about AP exam logistics and when my answer did not fit within her parameters, she went to two other people until she got the answer she was looking for and I was directed to do what she wanted, essentially.

This wasn’t the first time this has happened to me, and it definitely wasn’t the first time that I’ve witnessed something like it occur. Sadly, these types of actions seem to be a large part of the school’s culture, and they are only serving to perpetuate the toxic nature of our culture. The first time I was involved in this sort of conflict, I was informed by one of my leaders that “well, that’s just how _____ is.” This sort of dismissive reaction has left me with the following questions (both of which are mostly rhetorical in nature):

• Who’s really in charge here - the teachers, the students, the parents, or the school administrators?
• How do we make decisions as to our courses of action - do we do everything we do in order to raise student achievement?

I’m not saying that adults in the building should be literally or figuratively duking it out; however, when we don’t acknowledge and address issues they can become a cancer within the building. In my school, since our students perform well on their own, we, again, have this idea that perception is reality & that everything is going well. Aguilar, in her post, emphasizes the need for a leader to identify and address conflicts. I especially like her suggestion that a leader define what healthy conflict looks like:

• We wrestle with ideas.
• We ask questions to probe for deeper understanding.
• We change our minds.
• We demonstrate curiosity.
• We hold student needs at the center of our work.

When conflicts aren’t addressed, it perpetuates the status quo, and, especially in education, the status quo is something we should seek to avoid.

To Tenure or Not to Tenure...that's the question

I am in charge of new teacher support. I affectionately call my group of teachers "The Blue Crew". Our Blue Crew members range from having 1 year to 3 years of experience in the classroom, and it is my responsibility (and major project) to ensure that they have the resources and support necessary to be successful in the classroom. Two of my Blue Crew members are up for tenure this year, and my principal wants to know what I think. Herein lies the rub...

Teacher A: She teaches lower grades, and so to me does not possess a sense of urgency when it comes to education at all. She used to be our school's PreK teacher and was amazing, so my principal offered her a K/1 position so she could loop with her kids and get higher pay. Needless to say, these past two years have not been anywhere near as amazing as her year in PreK. Her struggles that we work through are (1) designing her own curriculum versus having one created for you as is done in PreK, and (2) knowing what is rigorous of K/1 students and not limiting them which is also done in PreK. Overall, I think she just lacks the drive behind being a career educator and is doing it until something else better comes along...But, is that reason enough to not tenure someone? She shows up to work, and does alright, but is it too much to ask for excellence?

Teacher B: This girl is a box of chocolates - you never know if she is going to cry in front of her kids, be out for 2 weeks, walk out of the room in a panic, or get into an argument with a parent. Despite all of this, her scores are ridiculously high, her students are some of the most behaved in the building, and she is highly effective. Not to mention, I think it is tough finding such an amazing, fifth grade teacher who can handle our students so well. But, she is completely unreliable, emotional, and inconsistent. Should her professional character even influence the tenure process?

                                      

I owe my principal my final decision about the two, but I feel like I still don't even know how to make this decision or even if I am basing my decision on the correct information. I have read a lot about tenuring awesome teachers, bad teachers, and how that effectively it is almost impossible to non-renewal an ineffective educator: http://teachertenure.procon.org/ (for all sides of the debate).

Here is what I think I will recommend...
Teacher A: She can have one more year since she did PreK, and I would option that year. In that year, her students must show growth, and she must demonstrate her instructional development and professional learning if this is her chosen profession. If she is not capable of demonstrating those things, then I would non-renew her.

Teacher B: I would say yes, but I would also inform her that her professionalism will prevent a lot of things from happening to her in the future. For example, she really wants to be grade level chair, but it is hard to make someone so inconsistent a grade level representative. So, I would tenure her for certain but make sure that she is growing professionally as well.

What would you do? Tenure or not tenure...?

The Multiplier Effect

The Multiplier Effect by Liz Wiseman, Lois Allen, and Elise Foster.

     Is your leadership team diminishing the smarts and capabilities of your staff or are they working to multiply the smarts and capabilities of the staff? My principal was introduced to The Multiplier Effect at a DoE training in the Fall. She loved the book so much that she introduced it to the department chairs in order to build capacity. Over the last few weeks, each department chair has presented a chapter of the book and we have talked about how we can use the information in the book to better ourselves and our departments.
     In the book they discuss the 5 disciplines of multipliers (see below). They compare leaders as "diminishers" or "multipliers" of the abilities of a staff. We are working at McClarin is to determine where we each stand as a leader and how we can move from a diminisher to a multiplier. If you are looking for a resource to drive your direction as a leader, I highly recommend the book.

     We have all worked for diminishers in the past (or perhaps in the present). Where does your leadership team/principal stand? Where do you stand? I am looking forward to using the information from this book in my work as a leader!

Just wanted to share this great resource!

Communicating

Blog 5

 

How do you communicate suggestions to your principal without offending him or her?  How many of you feel comfortable talking to your principal about issues in your school?  I have a dual role in my school; as a teacher and as a leadership team member (Special Ed Department Chair).  I often want to go to my principal about issues that I have as a teacher myself and issues brought to me as a member of leadership.  I really like my principal, but there are things that he as a leader could improve upon as with all leaders.  I have an Assistant Principal I can talk to, but I don’t feel as comfortable talking about certain things with my Principal.  I often go to him about departmental issues with no problem and would like to share some culture issues with him.  I have shared reading material from class as hints, but don’t think it is seen as hints.  What should I do?

Creative Versus Comfortable

In my educational career so far, this school year has probably been the most taxing on me - initially, I chocked it up to a massive amount of change in both my personal and professional lives that seemed to come all at once. With a new school and grad school, my personal life took a bit of a backseat - or a spot in the wayback, to be exact - & I started to become more critical of my surroundings. At first, after conducting the culture survey for EPEL 8650 (The Principal), I just believed that I was working in a toxic culture. As first semester wore on, I became more and more frustrated - things didn’t seem to be changing and I did not have the power to change them. 

Honestly, I became a little judgmental in regards to what I would deem “unacceptable behaviors” from educators, let alone adults. I kept my opinions to myself with the exception of a few trusted friends who did not work in my school or district. 

After a few weeks of marinating on this approach, I only found myself sinking more and more into a pit of gloom; those individuals whom I was silently judging weren’t affected - they just continued on as they have done for a while. I started to consider if I was the problem - maybe I thought too highly of myself. I spent the end of the semester trying to just roll with each day, and I was able to make it to winter break. When I returned, I found myself searching for an answer for my dissatisfaction - why didn’t I like coming to work?

And when did I start thinking of my career as work???

Realizing that the only person that I could change was me, I started doing a lot more self-reflection, and in my readings and podcasts and journaling I realized that I’m a creative in a comfortable’s environment. Many of my peers are aversive to my ideas because they are comfortable where they are - in their practices, in their classrooms, in the building - they do not want to rock the boat. The student’s perform well, so perception is reality - we’re considered an incredible school…some even refer to us as the kids getting a private school education at public school prices.

Perception is reality.

Or it isn’t.

I could launch into a rant about the things that I would change, but I want to get back to this idea of creatives and comfortables. Creatives like to think outside of the box. They like to be challenged. They’re problem solvers. They’re risk takers - well, I’m getting back to being a risk taker. They don’t settle for good-enough. They strive for let’s-make-it-better. 

A few years ago, I went from being a creative to being a comfortable. It wasn’t a decision that I wanted to make, but for me it was a question of surviving where I was teaching - a high-performing school with a if-it-isn’t-broken mentality. Over the course of my first year, I was told to “go-with-the-flow.” 

So I did.

I made it a year before I started getting antsy.

Although not the original source of my epiphany regarding creativity, Adam Dachis’ insights on “Why Comfort Is a Productivity Killer” really resonated with me, especially when he describes being “‘comfortable’ in a job I mostly hated, but I didn’t realize it because [it] was so simple…I could go home and be lazy at the end of the day and no harm done—you know, except for pretty much giving up on what mattered to me.” OUCH! I’ve read and taught enough dystopian novels to know that perfection does not exist…or it doesn’t come without a cost (that I don’t want to pay)…but I need an environment that is not only going to allow me to be creative, but one that encourages and supports me in doing so. Margie Warrell, in her Forbes piece, poses some great questions that I feel every school leader should ask her or himself:

• Do I keep doing what’s always been done, or challenge old assumptions [and] try new approaches to problems?
• Do I proactively seek new challenges or just manage those I already have?
• Do I risk being exposed and vulnerable, or act to protect my pride and patch of power?
• Do I ask for what I really want, or just for what I think others want to give me?
• Do I ‘toot my horn’ to ensure others know what I’m capable of, or just hope my efforts will be noticed?
• Do I speak my mind or bite my lip, lest I ruffle feathers or subject myself to criticism?

I have a place that I want to be in the near future…and it’s time to get out of my comfort zone. What about you?