Healthy Relationships are Cultivated

Over the past couple of years on this blog, I have had the opportunity to really develop my leadership abilities by delving into several foundational areas of leadership. These experiences have enabled me to draw into a deeper commitment and understanding about who I am/what role do I play? and what kind of an impact I can make/have made with my leadership.

Some key resources that I’d like to point to are the Intentional Leader guide from Leadercast which contains monthly themes, weekly directions and daily activities. Each week I would review the theme, read and answer the questions, reflect individually, do some action-research and discuss my thoughts with colleagues. This resource was a fantastic way for me to focus my energies to increase my confidence, my influence and my ability to make a real and lasting difference as a leader/colleague. (See my first post about this HERE.)

My second key resource was recently acquired. The Leadercast Now is an online subscription website that allows me to watch specific video clips on leadership followed by choosing and/or creating action steps. The video library has 100s of real leadership scenarios (with regular additions) for me to choose to watch. Just as the Intentional Leader was focused on specific themes, Leadercast Now has 7 behaviors of a Leader Worth Following – simplicity, bravery, beyond you, vision, culture, insight and creativity.

So for the 2014-15 school year, I pledge and will actually book a weekly timeslot to watch one video, make/complete an action item and blog about my findings/learnings.

This week I took time to watch Dr. Henry Cloud’s “Great Leaders Cultivate Healthy Relationships” video clip. Not only is it important to have growing and healthy relationships, but also to have trust, encouragement and connection with others. Dr. Cloud notes that there are THREE important things for humans to survive:

OXYGEN       GLUCOSE     RELATIONSHIP

Humans require oxygen to breathe, glucose for food and relationships to grow and develop.

Another piece he mentioned was that it is important to LISTEN to one another. Taking time to ask colleagues questions about a particular situation/topic, “What is it like for you? What is it like for your clients (staff/students/parents)?” Holding a time and a space to share these answers will be key for a department to move on or to develop a new process or to ask for further assistance, etc. The main thing is that people are being listened to…..which in this 24/7 fast-paced global world may not always be considered important. This time allows for encouragement and connection which changes the situation into a more positive light and energy.

Dr. Cloud’s talk reminds me of Kid Presidents Pep Talk for teachers and students:

It also warms my heart to know that I don’t have to do life and work on my own. I am able to collaborate, bounce ideas, disagree, share, learn and give/receive support and encouragement. I’ll take a few moments to either call, email or visit a few key people over the next few days that support and encourage me – hearing/reading these comments are a good thing!

 

Do you have ideas on how you will build your own leadership abilities and experiences? Feel free to share in-person or online.

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Intentional Leader: Catalysts for Change

Monthly Theme: Change

Week 2

Change.

It. Is. Not. Easy.

 

Education and Change.

It. Must. Be. Different. To. Engage. Inspire. (our current students)

 

For those educators who are interested in taking time out of their work to really question their ideas, values and belief systems should take some time to view this incredible playlist of Re-imagining school TED Talks.

 

These videos are powerful as they allow us to question:

–         How is this change affecting my daily work?

–         What kind of professional learning support do I require to move forward in my teaching practice?

–         How can I share my learning and network with other teachers in my school, in my division, in the province and around the world?

–         Are there things that I am doing now that I should be stopping?

 

The Playlist consists of:

1)      Ken Robinson: Schools Kill Creativity

2)     Salman Khan: Let’s use Video to Reinvent Education

3)     Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the Cloud

4)     Daphne Koller: What We’re Learning form online Education

5)     Geoff Mulgan: A Short Intro to the Studio School

6)     Sugata Mitra: How Kids Teach Themselves

7)     Peter Norvig: The 100,000 Student Classroom

8)    Dave Egger: Once Upon a School

9)     Liz Coleman: Reinvent Liberal Arts Education

10)  Arthur Benjamin: Teach Stats Before Calculus

11)   Kiran Bir Sethi: Kids Take Charge

12)  Patrick Awuah: Educating Leaders

 

Watch these individually or with colleagues, you are certain to have some great conversations surrounding each one!

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Intentional Leader: Embrace Change to Avoid Complacency

Monthly Theme: Change

Week 1

As I look at my educational rooted surroundings, I am amazed at how much has changed since I went to school as a student. Yes, I could be dating myself in saying that when I attended K-12 school, the following educational learning conditions were present:

–         All students did all the same work

–         Videos were shown via 16mm film, VHS and Beta

–         Individualized work, memorization and proper study skills were predominant

–         I did have teachers who were passionate and engaged my classmates and I but that varied from year to year

–         Lots of paper and pen work, reading from textbooks, writing notes from a chalkboard or projector

And now, as an educator myself and former Assistant Principal, attending a K-12 school in 2013 now showcases:

–         Differentiation for a variety of student learning styles and student needs

–         Opportunity for students to interact with their environment through various media, with other classrooms throughout the world

–         Collaborative, cooperative learning environments

–         Thinking about the thinking = metacognition and building criteria to set a target/make a judgement on the learning experience (ie. Critical thinking)

–         Learning from online sources, developing own learning artefacts

–         More opportunities for student exploring, creating, imagining and aspiring

Changes that have affected our educational norms have been divulged via Sir Ken Robinson’s infamous February 2006 TED Talk on Schools killing creativity. As well, other changes, due to the internet revolution have challenged us as well. See an updated version of the Social Media Video 2013 below as well as the Social Digital Media Revolution Statistics that will have your head spinning as to the vast expanse and reach social media has on each one of us.

 

Intentional Leader: The Joy of Giving Back

Monthly Theme: Legacy

Week 2

When I think of building a legacy, in the professional sense, I see our school division successfully able to build one via our Learning Coaches program.

Our Learning Coaches are now in their second year of implementation at all of our school sites. Their role is to facilitate job-embedded and ongoing professional development for teachers. They help identify, model and share promising practices related to inclusive education. (For further information, see Alberta Education’s Exploring Learning Coaches in Alberta 2010 publication.)

We also have specific expectations set up which include our five commitment statements, goals, daily work, results, interactions, engagement, reporting and evidence of success as seen below.

 

PSD’s COMMITMENT TO INCLUSION

Move from …

• The idea of fixing students to the idea of improving environments
• Dependence on staff (teachers and EAs) to focus on independence
• Special Education to ALL students being special
• A deficit model of thinking to a strength based model of thinking
• Having high expectations for some to having high expectations for ALL

Each of these ideas are located along a continuum.  Historically, in education, we have been more on the left  side of the continuum and over the last decade we have been moving towards the right side of the continuum.  These statements are an explicit declaration to our commitment to inclusion.

GOALS

In relevant and meaningful ways all students will learn, contribute and be active members of their learning community in the most inclusive and enabling environment. The ultimate focus is student learning.

DAILY WORK (of the coach)

With both individual teachers and/or groups of teachers the coach can:

• Support collaborative work at the school – solution focused – are growth agents
• Model lessons
• Observe students and provide feedback (identifying instructional needs)
• Facilitate lesson study or other professional learning structures
• Promote reflection
• Support joint problem-resolving efforts
• Assist in planning – curriculum,  environment, supports (technology, human, and other)
• Team teach
• Participate as a member of the school-based success team
• Facilitate data conversations to improve instruction (common assessments, PATs, DIPs, etc.)
• Supply resources with follow-up reflection (relevant, meaningful, research-based and “learning appropriate” information and resources )
• Promotes continuous learning experiences (asks questions, researches possibilities, seeks a variety of options)

 

RESULTS (benchmarks)

• Number of teachers engaging with the coach and the frequency of contact
• Types of supports that are accessed

INTERACTIONS BETWEEN COACH AND PRINCIPAL

• Coaches and Principals should meet a minimum of once a month
• Consideration should be given to additional meetings at start up, reporting times and year end
• Discussion is focused on the following:
• types of supports provided
• trends and themes the coach is observing
• number of contacts with teachers
• supports that the coach needs (PD, helping the coach reflect on their role, troubleshooting, etc.)

**Individual teacher performance is not a topic of conversation

ENGAGEMENT

• All teachers will work with the coach; how they work with the coach is flexible.
• Individual conversations
• In PLCs or grade level meetings
• In classroom or outside of classroom

REPORTING

• A minimum of two times per year the coach reports to staff general data about numbers of teachers they worked with, trends and themes, types of supports provided and additional supports that could be provided.­

EVIDENCE OF SUCCESS

Intentionally, coaches and Principals gather ‘good news’ stories and new learnings (testimonials from teachers) to be shared regularly with staff – What is Coaching doing for the staff and students?

As well, our Learning Coaches and Administrators read through an amazing article written and shared to us by Joellen Killion entitled, Are You Coaching Heavy or Light?, at the beginning of this school year. This article really dug into the ‘meat’ of what we would like to see our Learning Coaches working on with staff.

My role is working with the Learning Coaches to support their work at their school sites, to offer professional learning opportunities during our monthly meetings and to engage in thoughtful dialogue with them as they continue their work with staff. So far, this year has been incredible to watch these Learning Coaches truly work with staff to build their capacity, to network with each other (some Learning Coaches have different skill sets than others) and to share this learning on our PSD70 Learning Coach Blog.

This program, I believe is leaving a lasting impact and I hope this will continue despite the Alberta governments’ financial squeeze on educational resources.

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Intentional Leader: The Sweet Reward

Monthly Theme: Perseverance

Week 4

And he goes on to say ….The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

At the end of the day, your talents don’t define you nearly as much as the strength of your will. Using difficult situations as a fuel to solve your current problem will influence a positive outcome.

 

 

Intentional Leader: Learning Through Tenacity

Monthly Theme: Perseverance

Week: 3

When I think about recent inspirational figures, three gentlemen come to mind – Steven, Wesley and Simon. They are The Freedom Singers. Their fight for survival, for a new life in Canada, for perseverance will leave you in tears (grab a kleenex box). Listen to their story as they tell it to the Season 6 Dragon’s on CBC’s Dragon’s Den.

Their lessons remind me that to persevere, I must:

• keep moving ahead.
• work. Sometimes smart work, sometimes hard work.
• be determined. It takes time!

Another person that comes to mind in this same light is Dr Eva Olsson. Her Keynote speech – A Legacy of Caring, Compassion and Character at a recent conference that I attended had the 450+ of us (administrators, teachers, facilitators, Alberta Education personnel, superintendents) all captivated and deeply emotional. Her main purpose was to promote that each one of us is to “become the person you are destined to be” not due to someone else’s urging (like Mom/Dad or others).

Steven, Simon, Wesley and Eva have shown us that by refusing to give up when life’s circumstances conspired against them, they powerfully modeled the value of perseverance.

 

Intentional Leader: Persevering One Step at a Time

Monthly Theme: Perseverance

Week: 2

To persevere, we must continually move ahead, move forward in our thoughts, reflections and actions. One project that comes to mind when I think about our school division’s perseverance regarding mental health and building student capacity…is our own Youth Resiliency Initiative. This initiative is intended to build health and wellness in schools and communities building, programs, and partnerships. Additionally, the initiative focuses on developing strategies that build and support a more equitable foundation for resiliency in youth served by Parkland School Division.

“PSD’s ultimate goal is student success and well-being, and the Youth Resiliency Initiative is a strong example of a program we’ve introduced to directly support that goal,” said Tim Monds, PSD’s Superintendent of Schools. Monds added, “The implementation of a division-wide initiative focused on enhancing resiliency will enable us to respond to the unique physical, social, and mental health needs of each school.”

The Initiative also fosters opportunities for students and their families to connect with broad, responsive supports and services. In the 2011-2012 school year, one school, Parkland Village started “evolve” and this project was so successful that other schools in the division have incorporated this Initiative into their work with students and communities for 2012-2013.

More information on the Youth Resiliency Initiative:

Parkland Village School evolve Project information

Nutella Breakfast Table Fund award

RBC Children’s Mental Health Project grant

 

Intentional Leader: Against All Odds

Monthly Theme: Perseverance

Week: 1

 

Taking chances, reaching for the impossible, being broken hearted or broken down…it’s through perseverance that allows us to maneuver through the obstacles in life. Although there are many stories of perseverance, I find that Rudy Ruettiger’s notion to attend Notre Dame is one that many people can easily relate to. (I have a 3 minute clip below, but it’s definitely a great movie for students and families to watch!)

Perseverance is not always a short path. This may be why we find it hard to believe that we are on the right track. There are no “overnight success stories”. Celebrities of song, stage and sports will tell you that they worked long and hard (and continue to do so) before they were ‘discovered’ or ‘made it big’. So too is with us. Perseverance takes a vision, a plan, support, follow-through and reflection. This cycle doesn’t stop until success is achieved. Once achieved, new goals are set. (You can certainly see this in the great technological giants such as Apple, Samsung, BlackBerry, Microsoft. As innovation and perseverance is cyclical and constant, otherwise these companies falter.)

Jessica, who writes the Minimal Student blog, has great tips and examples of perseverance for students. Check out her suggestions HERE.

 

Intentional Leader: Contagious Passion

Monthly Theme: Passion

Week: 4

My professional passion is tied to a core belief that ALL students have an opportunity to learn, to be engaged and to be challenged in the learning environment. I belong to many active educational listservs, read various blogs, follow Twitter feeds and chats, create and host workshops, provide professional learning opportunities for individual, small group and large groups of teachers and administrators and I network with various organizations and institutions. My email inbox, my twitter streams (#edchat, #edtech, #atchat to name a few) are resources that are continually challenging me. My actions and tasks change daily, yet my message needs to be clear with the people I work with – I attempt to help teachers, students and parents obtain the most effective learning environment, best tasks and relevant tools. There are a lot of discussions, some trial and error, some research, and finally, some successes!

 

My dream is to have accessible, achievable and attainable learning for ALL (staff, students, etc.) Although we live in a digitized environment, not all materials are accessible for students. For example, there is a grade 9 student with low vision who uses a Mac in his French Immersion studies. Do you know that even today, this boy cannot access a digital publisher’s copy of a course book that is used (in print) in class? So, for me, it’s really talking with teachers and finding out the student(s) in the class that would do well with access to technology for reading, writing, recording…(a S.E.T.T. framework discussion ensues which allows me to further target the resource(s)/tool(s)) Sometimes it’s forging ahead and making new connections with Alberta Education, or publishers or app developers to ask if they could locate a resource. Sometimes it’s using older technology (CDrom, mp3 player) personalized to the learner so they can participate in class with their peers.

In March, two colleagues and I will be presenting at a CASS/Alberta Education Learning Symposium in mid March regarding Accessibility: Milepost – where are we at now? See our presentation HERE with the participants input as well. Some interesting insights!

 

Intentional Leader: Stoking the Flame of Your Passion

Monthly Theme: Passion

Week: 3

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Staying true to your passion is satisfying, yet temptations such as new techniques, tasks, and tools make it quite challenging to stay true to course. Keeping my vision alive, revisiting my professional focus and sharing ideas with colleagues and family members allow me to stay on the proper path.

As I was reflecting on how I immerse myself in studying, reading and interviewing others about my passion, I came across M. Scott Peck’s book “The Road Less Travelled” which peaked my interest. I will need to check it out from the local library via print or ebook. Its description captivated my interest as Dr. Peck guides readers through process of change toward a higher level of self-understanding. This sounds like a great summer reading project where there are less multiple distractions, warmer air (I can sit outside and read) and time to reflect.

The second stoking of the flame came from a now-viral video that a Principal sent me which got me instantly thinking about how this young kid could get me (and even students) revved up. Watch it and think, how does this get you or your students “pepped” up? What activities consistently refresh and recharge you?