Chapter 3 - SAFETY

Safety is a word that consistently pops up when you read about good school leadership and now I see why. People need to feel safe physically, emotionally and psychologically in order to create or produce amazing things. Being a bully is something I must constantly monitor personally mostly because as an older sister to three siblings I did my fair share of bossing around. Now that I’m older I try to respect my younger siblings and their opinions but it can be a challenge to hold my tongue and not shoot down some of the things they come up with. I’ve learned that as we get older I can’t tell my brothers and sisters the decisions they need to make but instead I need to support their opinions and provide my support.

There is a list of bullying behaviors in this chapter that reminds me of my department head. In fact tomorrow I plan to show this list of behaviors to another department colleague and see what her opinion is. She is a big micromanager in our department especially when it comes to her subject, Biology. In fact I’d prefer to teach Biology to Earth Science but not until she retires because she makes teaching the subject really stressful. She also likes to take personal credit for ideas the department as a whole create and she has personally criticized teachers at department meetings on average once a year. I know she has a big heart but, I’m glad my science classroom is detached and downstairs away from the main set of science rooms. Is it bad when your department has a list of procedures on how to handle policies set by your department heat? (1) Do not argue. (2) Nod your head and then do your own thing (3) Remember she retires in 2 years.

Have a great night everybody and be thankful payday is Friday‼‼

~Pat~

Chapter 2 - SUPPORT

I’m really peeved off right now because I had just finished my blog when it back spaced on me and deleted all the info I had just typed‼! Talk about frustration. So I will not be typing all my post using word to avoid another catastrophe like tonight.

First let me state that so far I’m enjoying these chapters of this book so far and will be trying a couple of these leadership connecting strategies with my fellow coaches this softball season/year. I’m hoping to build a strong foundation coaching squad so we can build a great overall softball program.

There are different types of support. Basic and essential ones like financial and supplies which are necessary for the everyday running of a school. I would feel VERY unwanted if my principal didn’t have a desk for me when I arrived to a new school. If the students don’t have the necessary books getting through lessons will be a lot more challenging and sometimes students wouldn’t be able to finish their homework at home. Last year my classroom was not swept in a timely basis. There was a month when my room was swept once a week for month and I literally had half a centimeter of dust on my floor. My students would constantly complain about it and I just felt like I was letting them down so I started sweeping the room myself.

More important for building teacher connections would be the emotional and human support provided by the leaders. Teachers need to feel like what they are doing matters. Leaders need to be visible and checking in with their teachers about any needs or wants. The story at the end of the chapter about the principal Mary just touched my heart. I wish I had a principal like that and I only hope that I can become a principal like her. Mary was visible from the very beginning of her principal career and she talked and really listened to her teachers. She made 72 welcome back supply boxes because she wanted her teachers to know they didn’t need to worry about supplies which is something I personally worry about in my own classroom. More importantly she wrote a personally letter to her teachers about herself and what she expected from them that school year. Mary then wrote personal notes to her teachers talking about things they would be working on throughout the school year. I know I’m repeating a lot of what Mary did but I want to be like her when I fill that leadership role. I’m going to make it a goal to be visible on my campus and know what is happening in my teacher’s classrooms by visiting them often and hopefully that means weekly.

That’s it for this chapter blog, until next time…

~Pat~

Chapter 1 & 2 in Leadership Connectors

Communication and Support....

     The first chapter on communication is in my opinion one of the most important to build leadership connections between staff and administration. Teachers need to hear praise about positive things they are doing in the classroom to help encourage them to keep working hard. It cannot always be generic praise like “the schools scores are going up because of your teaching” (addressed to the whole faculty) or “this department is working hard building this [insert strategy]” (addressed to a whole department). Individual teachers need specific praise as well as general praise to feel like their person instruction is being noticed and not always lumped together with all the other teachers. This emotional support is necessary for teachers to have assurance that they are valued members of the school and that the hard effort each teacher puts into their lessons is not undervalued.

     It is equally important for leaders to listen and understand what someone is telling or asking them. My current department head is very bad on actually listening to what her teachers have to say. Many times I ask questions to clarify a situation of what is asked of me because I am confused about what is expected and she interprets that as threatening her authority or not respecting her opinion as a veteran teacher. She also has very poor body language when she is unhappy with a conversation taking place during a department meeting she will cut off all conversations and usually ignore the teacher she feels is responsible for the disarray of said conversation.

First Face-to-Face

This is what I wrote at our first meeting about the pink video:

      How do leaders get unmotivated teachers or staff to produce? That’s the underlying concept I took away from the Daniel Pink Drive video. Money and rewards cannot be used to promote cognitive thinking development because the threat to a person’s safety and security interferes with their creativity. Instead teachers and staff need to be given autonomy and freedom to freely develop their thoughts to produce the never before thought of concepts. Always having an administrator looking over your shoulder and checking off a task list hinders the creativity wheel. Having the freedom to go into whatever direction you prefer is enjoyable and non-threatening allowing for off the wall (outside the box thinking) subjects or topics to develop. By having more pride in what you are producing there is a stronger sense of purpose and buy-in for the user or participant

After a couple of 263 meetings I want to add that walk-throughs are neccessary but the ideal walk-through is a true coaching style one where the teacher comes away with an action plan to improve some form of their teaching instruction.

I also want to say on a personal level I enjoyed meeting Irene and Marci. I am looking forward to our blog posts and online interaction.