It’s easy to have great ideas, or energy, or a big grand vision. The hard part is remembering that it is your experiences that led you to a place where those ideas, or big changes you want to make, is your reality. Making changes is not inherently bad, unless it’s at the expense of damaging relationships or sacrificing the integrity of your campus/classroom. All of what you’ve seen or read, or been exposed to is what helped shape who you are today. From things that you remember or feel from when you were in school, from coworkers or administrators that taught you what you didn’t want to be, to the role and mindset you’re currently in…there are a variety of influences that helped create the educator you are, right now.
But that’s not where everyone else is.
You have to be careful in your passion and zeal to make an impact that you don’t leave your people behind. This is one of the reason they say significant change takes such a long time, there has to be a level of trust in place before people can take risks. I met an amazing educator at #EMPOWER17 who took a risk in opening up to a mentor, one who also happened to be his evaluative supervisor. At the end of the year, when his sharing and risk taking led to some evaluative push back, he choose to take a demotion and move to another district. That trust had been shattered and he knew he wouldn’t be able to ever feel safe taking those risks again. That district lost out on someone who wanted and was willing to be innovative and take risks.
I also think that it’s hard to drill holes in the boat, if you’re busy paddling. If you’re the only person moving your ship forward, for whatever reason, means there’s going to be plenty of time & room for people to be drilling. Keeping your team involved and feeling that they have a voice or say in what is happening will help keep them invested and feel as if they are a part of the change, instead of change being done to them.
What do you do to ensure your whole ship is helping you paddle? I have a copy of “Bold Moves for Schools” to give to some fabulous reader who comments below. I would love to hear how YOU are keeping your ship afloat!
Captain Amber
Wow! For a minute there I thought this blogpost was my story. 🙂 I am trying to keep my boat afloat by reaching out to experienced passionate educators to me help navigate these uncharted waters. She helped me understand that transparency in failures and successes create trust. I tried it and it worked!! However with an impending new campus administration there are a lot of unknowns. Katie Martin advised me to go where the tide leads. 🙂
I love your insights. Thank You for sharing
Hello! I loved the post! I’ve been working with my PLC team and our supervisor to make improvements to our resource class. It has been a huge undertaking but one where we’ve supported each other. It’s been rewarding to have the variety of teacher passion and commitment to evaluating what we currently do and how we can improve to be sure our students have a comprehensive resource program We’ve learned from each other as a PLC team and been able to engage with administration in a positive way. Always working for what’s best for students.
Before everyone boards I like to ‘ensure’ that the end is in sight. If everyone is paddling towards the same point/vision, together we can pick up slack, encourage, ensure our strokes are in unison. I tried this when introducing a new role statement for House Group teachers, as both academic and pastoral chief carers. This meant that House Group teachers had to critically invest in conversations and reflections with students and their carers. Whilst most did this well with students they taught and assessed, few did this with members of their House Group, as many were not in one of their classes. The strength in this relationship is that students feel comfortable with someone who is in a non-assessing relationship; a respected teacher without an assessment rubric. The wisdom in how to approach classroom teachers when difficulties arise is sought and taken from someone who knows the system and the student.
“Keeping your team involved and feeling that they have a voice or say in what is happening will help keep them invested and feel as if they are a part of the change, instead of change being done to them.”
This is so true! I’ve been thinking a lot about how we have to set our staff up for success. This starts with hiring and placing people in the right positions for their skill set, and then leveraging those skills so they can grow their colleagues.
We set up a Culture Committee three years ago in our building. They began with easy, fun things, like a ‘business breakfast’ where we went to breakfast and came in later than the start of our work day. Bubble Wrap Day and Cream Puff Days were celebrated. This year the committee and I used Teach Like A Pirate as our theme for PD. This, along with strategic planning, has allowed us to move forward as a staff and parent group for the benefit of our students. Above all, we talk and communicate and ask ‘why.’
Change is always hard. But recently our school system started a team of teachers t each school that would “lead the way” in our technology initiative and implementing 1:1. I was part of our school’s team. To me the best thing to help us was going into it not expecting us to “shine” naturally. We had admin and a tech coordinator who understood failure was a must in this change and learning process. I am grateful for this and have tried to bring that into my class as well.