Lead Like A Pirate Blog Hop. Week 6 - Enthusiasm

“Pirate leaders know that they have to bring energy and excitement to each day, no matter what”(LeadLAP pg 69)
How do you ‘fake it until you make it? What strategies do you use that enable you to make a positive choice about your own attitude?

I have used the 'fake it until you make it' mantra for many years. Both as a classroom teacher and  later as a senior leader. I have always been careful in which company I say this because at first impression, it sounds like a duplicitous way to behave. I am delighted to read in LeadLAP (Pg 69) that 'fake it until you make it is an overt strategy.  When I was a classroom teacher, 'faking it' may have meant that I was putting on an "I know exactly what I'm doing" face when dealing with a behaviour issue. It may have meant that I volunteered for something that I wasn't all that keen on doing and then discovered that I was rising to the challenge and enjoying it. The main strength of faking it was when there was 'that' child, who was difficult to like. I have found that 'faking' liking (who is the adult being paid to do a job here after all?) always leads to actually liking. I have never had a situation that hasn't resulted in a turnaround in my own attitude. 

This has been especially useful in my senior leadership role, when some staff, parents, children are harder to bring on board with the way we do things at St. Francis. I don't always feel enthusiastic; I may have started the day feeling tired, but I know that my enthusiastic attitude can make a difference. "Enthusiasm is often the missing element to engagement" (#LeadLAP pg 70)

 I can get caught up in the rush of my job and forget to smile and look enthusiastic. It is amazing what an impact this has on the people around me. I have left some staff or team meetings thinking, "Well that fell a bit flat!" I do know that energy and enthusiasm do make a difference, as hard as it can be some days.

 I try and smile at every parent as I am walking around the school at the beginning and end of the school day. We all know how important it is to feel valued and noticed in our lives. Paying it forward is hopefully the outcome of treating people with respect and ideas with enthusiasm; they then change their attitude into a more positive supportive one. 

The SLT were recently discussing the advantages of being on road duty at the beginning and end of the day. Saying each child's name, asking how their day went and exchanging a few words with their parents. This all helps to build community. 

George Corous has a great blog post about the fact that Every Interaction Matters  As part of that blog post, he has added a powerful youtube video clip about the way that every interaction sets the tone for the day. It is well worth viewing. Every interaction students experience sets a tone for the day.

Lead Like A Pirate Blog Hop Week Five - Transformation

Transform an event

On pg 57 Beth Houf describes how she and her leadership team transformed Parent Teacher Conferences at their school. Choose an event or practice at your school that you have transformed or that you would like to transform. Discuss how you went about it or how you will go about this transformation.

Our Senior Leadership Team has been talking about how we can transform the transition to school experience for our five year olds. It is forefront on our minds at the moment because we are so aware of the research carried out by Kathleen Liberty. We have become one of her 'second wave' of schools to adopt her research based calming and coping strategies.

We are aware that we need to do things differently for many of our school beginners, who do not seem ready for school. It is an issue that has been around for many years for some new students, but the numbers seem to have increased in recent years.

So how can we make this transition smoother? Perhaps we stop expecting the children to do the same thing at the same time. After roll and prayers, does everyone need to be in their phonics groups/maths groups/reading groups at the same time? Does everyone need to do their writing at the same time and in the same way? A few short days/weeks ago they were at kindy or pre school making choices and being creative. Surely we can make the transition more like what they have come from as they settle in? At least for a time?

 At the Catholic Principal's Conference this year, I was inspired by the presentation of a teacher from a Southland school about her Year 0 - 1 play based learning approach. I was heartened by the fact that she had data to support the fact that these children who still had small group teaching in all of the usual subjects, were as ready for year 2 as they would have been under a more traditional approach.

I have been doing some reading on the subject. Here is one article that supports play based learning.
It lines up really well with our school's ethos around project based learning. You could say it is the first step in project based learning for these little ones.

We want our New Entrants to be as excited about coming to school in week six as they were on day one. We want them to be inquisitive and creative.  I have more questions than answers at the moment, but I am working on it.  Ideas welcome...

Lead Like a Pirate Blog Hop Week Four - Ask and Analyse

One of the most important things that we should do as leaders is challenge the status quo. What questions do you use to do this when working with your teams?

We have some wonderful opportunities at our new school. We opened in February 2016 with the exciting and somewhat daunting task of bringing two very different schools together. We have been (and still are) working to create a new St Francis culture and ethos. We are also developing our St Francis way of delivering the curriculum in our fabulous new Innovative Learning spaces.

 One of the ways we as a Senior Leadership Team have facilitated this change, has been to provide regular release time to teams. This has meant that our teams have had the head space during the school day for half a day, two out of every three weeks, to have professional discussions. These discussions are around their practice in collaboration and their practice in problem based learning. We realised early on that this thinking and discussion time needed in part to be facilitated. This is because it was hard for our new team leaders to know what their team's next steps were. The team leaders were just as new to the collaboration and PBL concepts as their teams. They didn't know what they didn't know.

We have developed a system whereby the SLT facilitates discussion;  provides readings, asks questions, seeks clarity, gives feedback and celebrates work done or new thinking shared since the last release time. This usually takes up about 45 mins of the three hour release. The teams then go ahead and act on their new thinking or critique their systems to make improvements.

"Asking, Listening, analysing, reflecting, and learning are all essential to your role as a leader." #LeadLAP. (Pg 50)

We try to be very sensitive to the work that has already been done when we have our "collaboration meetings" and always stress the fact that we are all learning together and that when we ask questions we are not criticising but working together collaboratively to make our collaboration and PBL even better.

Lead Like A Pirate Blog Hop Week Three: Rapport

Earning Trust as a Leader
"As a leader, every action you take (or don't take), every interaction you have, every decision you make or leave unmade, every expression on your face, the tone in your voice, or the body language you convey - everything about you - either earns or erodes trust". #LEADLAP 

It is amazing how much impact the way that the members of the SLT team speak to people, has on the welfare of staff and ultimately on the school community.  I have been making a conscious effort since the beginning of term two last year to end conversations with staff in a positive light. I am also very aware of the need to greet parents everyday with a cheerful smile and a confident manner.  (This of course goes for children as well, but I think that teachers probably do that towards children more instinctively). Being friendly and positive inspires trust.

 I am not talking about the "difficult conversations" where cutting to the chase is necessary, but about the professional discussions we have with our staff around pedagogical shifts. I can still remember the sinking feeling that I had, the day that I realised that my passion alone was not enough to inspire people to change their practice. I realised that I had done some damage in the way that I implied that the efforts of the team I was working with (collaborative practice) were not good  enough. While I knew at the time that my "next steps" advice was falling like a lead balloon, it was too late at that time to redeem the situation.

 It didn't take much reflection to realise that I had failed in my half hearted attempt to congratulate them on what they had achieved so far in their efforts to get their heads around collaboration. Since that  day, the one when I knew that I had completely taken the wind out their sails, I have been much more focused on moving forwards with less speed and more encouragement. I make sure that I include something positive in every professional conversation. When working with my crew, I try to "make it a priority to build rapport and relationships". (pg 30 #LEADLAP). I try to listen and show that I value their input. " Pirate leaders embrace opportunities to hear multiple opportunities to hear multiple perspectives, and they value the contributions each person makes to the organisation - and they tell them so" (pg. 30)

In 'Leading in a Culture of Change" Michael Fullan in his study of District Two, one of his study districts in Ontario, shares his findings and describes the four conditions for developing trust and the positive outcomes of establishing a culture of trust.  (Fullan, 2003).

Fullan 2003

Lead Like A Pirate Blog Hop. Week One: Passion

Much of Chapter One in Lead Like A Pirate by Shelley Burgess and Beth Houf (2017) resonates with me. I would like to think that my passion for children and my contribution towards providing the very best opportunities for the children in our school, shines through on a daily basis. (I hope it does!). Like Burgess and Houf,(#LeadLAP)I am passionate about collaboration. I believe that collaboration allows us the opportunity to be "stronger and better collectively than we are individually" (#LeadLAP pg 5). I have seen evidence of this in the three schools that I have worked in where collaboration has been implemented. I am convinced that teachers who collaborate; who plan together, work together with shared children in a shared space, are better together than they are as individual teachers in a single cell class. 

 Collaborative planning is distinctly different from distributed planning (You do maths and I'll do reading) and can have powerful benefits for the students. Two (or three or four... heads are better than one). One of the benefits of collaborative teaching that staff at our school have identified is proximity teaching, where teachers in the same space can see and hear the other teachers working with students. This is ongoing professional development on a daily basis for all concerned. Working closely with other adults also makes us challenge our own thinking and that of others. The children have indicated that they love the flexibility of collaboration; the ability to choose where they work and with whom they work. They also love the fact that they have input into their learning from more adults.

 One of the educationalists that I follow is George Couros author of The Innovator's Mindset. I also follow him on twitter, participated in his recent IMMOOC and I follow his weekly blog post. There is always something to reflect on or be challenged by. He also introduces me to the thinking of other respected educationalists. In a recent post of his, The Education Bat Signal, https://georgecouros.ca/blog/archives/7550, he talks about the opportunities that now exist for teachers; " It would be crazy to not take advantage of learning from the wisdom and experience of others in the same profession."   As a leader in a school where collaboration is the new normal, I love the opportunity to be part of establishing this new culture where the child is at the centre in an even more authentic way than in the past.