Category: Leadership

Asset-Based Experiences

Finally, we spend a lot of time starting with deficits in schools. We shoot ideas down because we can think of reasons why something won't work. We focus on learning deficits in classrooms and on state assessments. We talk a lot about what we aren't seeing. Our kids need to know how to read and think critically. I'm not arguing that. However, no one is inspired by a relentless focus on their deficits. I learned from my good friend, Dr. Tim Kubik, it can be more powerful to focus instead on what assets we do indeed have. The strengths and skills and special talents that students and teachers bring into schools every day are endless. If we were to spend more energy amplifying the good instead of diagnosing the not so good, I think the energy in our schools would change.

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Taking Care of People

No gesture is too small. All gestures matter. If we all took the time to make those small gestures, our classrooms would change. Our schools would change. Our districts would change. Our communities would change. This is how we change the world. Through small caring on a daily basis. If we all do our part, the world will change.

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Our Most Precious Resource

Listening is becoming more and more rare. True listening I should say -is becoming more and more rare. And yet, every person we come into contact with has something to teach us. We cannot learn from each other and appreciate each other if we aren't taking the time to listen to each other. When we slow down and listen, we can see hearts more clearly. There is good in everyone. Sometimes, it's just harder to find when things are tough. When the emotions are big and times are stressful, it's easy to miss the good that's there. Often, we all want what's best, we just have different opinions about what that looks like.

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Mesmerized by the Day-to-Day

If someone makes a small move that has an impact on you, tell them. If you see someone make a small move that has a positive impact on another person, tell them. Tell them with specificity and joy in your heart. That encouragement may be just what they need to keep making those small moves tomorrow. Too often, our small beautiful moves get swallowed up by loud problems. When you look at all of our work at one time, it's overwhelming and easy to see problems everywhere. When you train your mind to celebrate small moments, you see possibility. You find hope. It's not that we ignore our problems. We work on them, but we don't mentally live there.

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The Joy of Who & How

So, the next time you feel really happy in your work, pay attention. Pay attention to who you are with and how you're going about the work. Somewhere in the middle of all of that is your joy. Your joy is your gift to our profession and now more than ever, we need people walking in their light and their goodness.

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Proximity Matters.

Being around and lending a helping hand can do a lot for a school and school district. Proximity builds trust. So, we must make space for proximity and make space for staff to be around each other too - in a relaxed way. Don't be filling that time with to-do lists and boxes to fill out all the time. Sure, sometimes we have to do what we have to do, but we tend to overdo it. Make space for meaningful connection and discourse. What we water grows. Water connection. Start with proximity.

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Actions & Consequences

This decision and delaying the project design workshops were important in letting the fire burn slowly for a while before adding another log. When we’re rushing around in education to get a charge out of being busy, as Meghan put it, we tend to throw logs and all sorts of combustibles onto other people’s fires, fires they might have been perfectly comfortable to let get low enough that everyone felt safe around them. If you’ve sat around a campfire this summer, you know putting another log on the fire is often a group decision, not one for one person alone.

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The Day After Perfect

So, whatever role you're in this school year, people need less attempts at perfection in our schools. People need more humanity. I think our school year would change if we were able to make that connection for ourselves and alongside others.

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Looking Within First

It feels good to be ridiculously in charge of ourselves and our impact. Perhaps if more people made a small step toward that kind of self-awareness and ownership, the world would change.

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Reflections on an Emerging Student-Centered Learning Ecosystem: Inquiry and Ideas (Part II)

As the fellowship took shape, each teacher brought assets of their own that they knew could work, but also a willingness to learn that came from not seeing their approach as “the” answer. In the words of improv comedy, they came with bricks rather than a cathedral.  This kind of openness to inclusion would be key to ideation and innovation. The smartest person in the room may be the room, but only when everyone who should be is in the room.

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