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Easter Appreciation, an easy way to celebrate your EGGcellent team!

March 22, 2018 by adteaman Leave a Comment

My principal bestie, Melinda Miller and I have this Facebook group dedicated to Staff Appreciation and Celebration. It’s an entire page for administrators to share and creatively copy all sorts of great ideas, all meat to encourage, motivate and celebrate your teachers/staff. While it can be overwhelming, it does make me feel SO much better to see that everyone’s year has an ebb and flow…and how rarely anyone does #allthethings. There’s such a Pinterest pressure, even as an administrator, to get it all right, all colorful, and all the time…this group has shown that we all have seasons where we need someone else to be a spark in our world!

In light of that, someone shared this seasonally appropriate activity this week, that can be adapted to fit your campus or even your classroom, or office team! You’ll need to purchase some tiny trinkets, think dollar spot erasers, or candy, and some plastic Easter eggs.  (Or jeans passes! or leave early passes!) I’m going to set this up in the lounge next Monday and allow teachers to celebrate each other as they see fit!

 

 

Pages 2 & 3 are generic that you can just print out and use! Thank you, Mandy Ellis, for your version that I used for ours! Spring days can be a trying, “testing” time for most educators. These little treats & tricks can help brighten your staffs days…which in turn, trickles down to our students. 

A happy teacher makes for happy students!

Click To Tweet

 

Seasonally &

Filed Under: Principal, Staff Development Tagged With: AmberTeamann

When did you last learn something totally new?

March 21, 2018 by adteaman 1 Comment

My counselor emails our staff each morning. (I know…amazing, right??) I thought hers today was particularly incredible.

This Spring Break, we went skiing in Taos. On our second day, Sam decided to learn to snowboard, but by the time we got his gear switched, the lessons were full. So, in an attempt to make his day more enjoyable (or less lonely), I decided to join him. I’ve skied quite a while, but snowboarding was brand new.

And you know what? I remembered how hard learning truly is. As an adult, I really only try and learn things that are in my field of study – things  I can master because I have prior knowledge. But this? No prior knowledge, people. And no natural ability. None.

I fell.

A lot.

Sometimes (most times), on accident. But sometimes I fell on purpose (because mama needed a break).

By the end of the day, I was tired and sore in places I didn’t know could hurt. We spent a better part of the day laughing at each other, but there was some crying, too.

Because learning is hard.

There were moments we both thought about giving up, but we didn’t, and I’m so glad because while we ended up loving it (but also kinda hating it), we were in the mess together.

 

 

May we always remember that learning can be hard and painful and exhausting. It can make us laugh…

Click To Tweet

 

What are you doing to remind yourself what our students are exposed to each and every day? How can you support your team in feeling that growing pain again, and appreciate it?

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: #3rdyearisthecharm, Principal Tagged With: #admin, #beintentional

When you encourage & empower….

February 26, 2018 by adteaman Leave a Comment

One of my favorite memories as a teacher is from back at the technology center. I received an email from my assistant principal titled “Dress code”.

Gulp.

It asked me to come see her at my conference time at the end of the day.

Double gulp.

Still having no clue as to why I was going down there, (I was in a tee shirt and jeans, but it was a jeans day!) I went in and blurted immediately, “Dr. Milligan, I am so sorry about this outfit…I will dress more professionally moving forward!”

She looked up at me blankly…and from behind me, I heard hysterical laughter. I leaned my head back and dadgummitt..the principal and another one of our teachers, were practically on the ground, laughing SO hard. Apparently, she had failed to log out of her computer earlier in the day and they’d had their way with it.

I explained why I was there to her, and asked, just to reassure myself, that I was dressed appropriately and she said the most powerful thing ever.

“Amber, I trust your professionalism and know you have high expectations for yourself. Your choices define your path.”

I WANT my people empowered to make strong choices. I want to arm and provide examples of what our educational world looks like when they are confident and an end goal in mind.  Instead of doubting, denying, or questioning their goals and aspirations, I want them to see that their choices define their path. 

That requires intentionality on my part. I hope to model that with #allthethings I do to be a lifelong learner, with goals and plans. But it also means allowing them to have goals and dreams as well. Sometimes you need someone else’s perspective on what you can become to actualize your own potential.  

Surround yourself with people who encourage and empower your dreams and goals. Be the person who encourages and empowers your people. If you don’t have that in your circle, you’re in the wrong circle.

 

If you’re the person who shuts the doors…don’t be alarmed when your go-getters find a window. 

Click To Tweet

 

 

Door opener &

 

Filed Under: #3rdyearisthecharm, Leadership

Leading Out of Your Comfort Zone

February 25, 2018 by adteaman Leave a Comment

This weekend I’m at an SDE conference with my kinder team.

Kindergarten is its own beast, ya’ll.

I taught fourth grade. Big tall fourth graders who relatively could control their emotions, tie their shoes, and regular complete multistep tasks.

There were two opportunities I had to cover some kinder classes this year and my’lanta. I’ve never been more thankful to see those teachers show back up in my life! It was such a reminder that our teacher work hard and are EXPERTS at what they do! When this team asked if they could attend this kinder specific conference, I was all about it.

Why did I come?

Because I have never taught kindergarten,

Because their content is important.

Because rarely are you as the admin able to provide grade-level specific content to EVERYone, but especially kindergarten. (Think about your specials teachers, your experts, the odd specialists…how do you move them from point A to their point B?)

Because I had the opportunity to eat, text with, laugh and grow as this team got stronger together.

Because I get to hear what they are hearing. When they ask me to buy those heavy-duty fancy paper plates to build sand individual sand trays, I now know the reason why.

Because dear lord, I don’t know everything and can ALWAYS find a takeaway to make me a stronger leader.

Take advantage of moments to step outside of your comfort zone. Model what it means to genuinely be a lifelong learner. 

Don’t just talk the talk, walk the walk…but most importantly, walk WITH them.

Click To Tweet

 

Kinder caring &

 

(Also, important to note, I’m here today, Sunday, only…will be back with the rest of my Wolves for school tomorrow! #allthethings)

Filed Under: Principal, Staff Development Tagged With: #admin, #beintentional, #cpchat, AmberTeamann

Get the most out of your conference/professional development!

February 19, 2018 by adteaman Leave a Comment

How do you as an administrator (or teacher!) feel about conferences? Professional learning? Empowering your teachers?Here are the things we did to maximize sending our team of teachers to #TCEA! Make the most out of your next conference!

Often our budgets and #allthethings (subs! testing! schedules! teaching!), make it impossible to send every teacher we have to attend any conference. I am a very big believer in growing and empowering the team I have with me, so I allocate a substantial amount of money in my budget towards teacher development. We did an individualized book study as a campus, my kinder team is attending the SDE Kinder conference this month, and my first-grade literacy leaders went to see the guided reading guru Janet Richardson when she was close. We had the awesome opportunity to send a team of teachers to TCEA last week. In meeting with these risk takers, I wanted to make sure that we maximized their benefit, as well as our staff, to learn all that we could from the conference!

We had a PD today where each TCEA tripper will share something they learned. They’ve staggered their sessions throughout the day. For a couple of teachers, this was REALLY out of their comfort zone, so they are presenting the same tool/session three times. For some, they have three different things to share. As our Wolves attend sessions throughout the day, I’ve asked them to tweet out their gems of greatness with #wearewhitt. (GO check it out!!) We’ll pull that thread up in PLC on Wednesday and explore all that was shared. Ala George Couros, I didn’t go over the “how to’s” of twitter today, I just gave them their expectations and off they went! It was a GREAT day of learning!

Asking for those three tweets will help each teacher not only have “notes” for what was shared but also allow them to experience all of the sessions that were offered today. Many went over the 20 minutes allowed, which will just make your principal heart so happy! This also solidified for the teachers that went that there were expectations on their experience. Preparing and presenting will help keep what they learned in focus…everyone knows that tired head feeling after you’ve returned from a conference, the one where you are so overwhelmed you don’t know where to start? My people have a plan!

As a last attempt to ensure we could get everything possible out of the conference, I’ve asked teachers to implement ONE strategy, tip, trick, or tool that they learned about today into their lesson plans for next week. It didn’t have to be something that all 22 students had to be able to do, but maybe it could be used as an opportunity for those who need enrichment. (I shared the Discovery Education Spotlight on Strategies and was AMAZED that it was all new to them!!)

 

As an admittedly techie administrator, there aren’t a whole lot of “things” that I haven’t heard of or been exposed to in my 15+ years of teaching, techN, etc. BUT until ALL of my teachers are as comfortable and confident as I am…then I am not done learning either! My goal is to never walk away from any session and think I’ve learned nothing…even with a tool my district pays for, I was able to glean useful strategies to help build up my Wolves. 

Be that kinda administrator…the one who always wants their people to be better.

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Filed Under: Conferences, Principal, Staff Development Tagged With: #admin, #beintentional, #cpchat, AmberTeamann

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Easter Appreciation, an easy way to celebrate your EGGcellent team!

Easter Appreciation, an easy way to celebrate your EGGcellent team!

My principal bestie, Melinda Miller and I have this Facebook group dedicated to Staff Appreciation and Celebration. It's … [Read More...]

When did you last learn something totally new?

When did you last learn something totally new?

My counselor emails our staff each morning. (I know...amazing, right??) I thought hers today was … [Read More...]

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