This school year is my very first year "in charge" and what a different experience it has proven to be. You have a whole different perspective when the buck truly stops at your desk and it is quite humbling to know that the decisions you make on a daily basis touch so many different people. Nonetheless, I am enjoying the experience and I am blessed to have an absolutely fantastic staff, a terrific group of students, and supportive parents. One aspect of school leadership I was looking forward to with this change was the opportunity to create a culture of achievement in our school. In fact, I could not wait to make our school's culture our primary focus. I believe that a school's culture serves as the difference maker in the building. It is not only what we do, but how we go about doing it that makes a difference in the lives of the young people we are fortunate to serve. With that in mind I asked our staff to make five commitments this year; commitments I believe will lay the foundation for a positive school culture and will prove to be the bedrock of all we do in the future.
1. Commit to model the way. Perhaps the most important thing we can do as educators is model the behavior we would like to see from other members of our school community. As my friends Ashley Hamilton and Jeana Carrasco are fond of reminding me, Gandhi said: "We must be the change we wish to see in the world." Each and every day hundreds of little eyes (and many larger eyes) are watching us and woe to the educator caught doing something that runs contrary to what they are preaching! If we want a school community based upon respect, we must recognize that the obligation for modeling this behavior begins with us. Whatever behaviors we wish to see on the part of our students, we must be willing to model.
2. Commit to choose a positive attitude. Have you ever had one of those before-and-after moments? I am talking about the kind of moment that changed your life or the way you approach life; there was life as you knew it before the moment and then there was life as you now know it after the moment. Meeting Roger Soweid was one of the many before-and-after moments in my life. Roger is without a doubt the most positive person I know and I believe it is impossible to be around him without being changed for the better. No matter what happens, Roger always chooses to respond with a positive attitude; this is the type of attitude all schools need to cultivate. So much of what happens to us on a daily basis is beyond our control, but our response to what happens to us is always completely within our control. Moreover, when we choose our attitude, that is our response to what life brings our way, we are actually seizing power over our lives and relinquishing the yoke of victimization.
3. Commit to the pursuit of excellence. Why choose to do something if you do not want to be good at it? Moreover, why choose a high stress occupation in which people rely upon you on a daily basis if you are not going to commit to being the best you can be? Education is far too challenging to approach it without the intention of delivering your absolute best day-in and day-out. We need educators willing to look high and low to discover the best methods to reach, motivate, and engage students. We need educators willing to seek out help from those both in and out of the profession. We need educators committed to learning and implementing the best practices. We need educators dedicated to lifelong learning in an effort to continually meet the needs of a very dynamic and, often times, challenging student population. An ongoing commitment to excellence far surpasses any commitment made to an arbitrary benchmark on a standardized test.
4. Commit to professionalism. What is it you are most sensitive about in regard to your appearance? I am willing to bet that if you spend any time with 6th, 7th, and 8th graders they will discover this sensitivity and mention it in conversation at some point during your first week--if not your first day--with them. The point is this: no matter what happens to us in the school, we must commit to maintaining our professionalism. We are, in fact, the professionals in this relationship. We have to be bigger than the moment, whatever that moment may bring. We will be criticized, ridiculed, second-guessed, insulted, have our credentials, integrity, and ethics questioned, but we must rise above and maintain the professionalism our students deserve from us.
5. Commit to the success of our students. We must be "all in" when it comes to the success of our students. As difficult as it may prove to be, we need to own their successes and their failures. Imagine what would happen if our nation's educators flipped that mental switch and viewed their students' potential failure as an impossibility--what a momentous change we would see! So often we are willing to accept a certain percentage of failure, to buy-in to the belief that the Bell Curve is an immutable fact. Just for the sake of argument, what would happen if we refused to accept this as our reality? Doesn't it stand to reason that if we changed our attitude toward failure that perhaps we may see a change in the behavior of students? Indulge me and allow me to brag on my staff and students for just a moment. Currently 96% of the students under our care are at a "C" average or above; 75% of our students are at a "B" average or above; and 33% of our students are at an "A" average or above--I am not making this up! Moreover, less than 1% of our students are currently failing!!! At the beginning of the year we clearly stated a goal of not having one student fail the 2012-2013 academic year and we are on track to make this a reality, but it only came about because a highly talented group of educators went "all in" on the success of their students.
I believe these five commitments can work together to change the very nature of a school. Moreover, once made they work together to strengthen one another; it is much easier to commit to a positive attitude and to professionalism if you are committed to the success of your students. It is much easier to commit to modeling the way if you are committed to the pursuit of excellence. Committing to one will help strengthen your commitment to the others If you decide to try these commitments, please stay in touch and let me know how they are working for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment