One of the most important things in my school culture is the time that the entire school spends together every Friday morning. I’d love to say I invented the idea of a morning assembly for elementary students, but I didn’t. I actually learned about it from my oldest son’s elementary principal. I remember her presenting it as a way to get students excited about school and ensure they were there on time.
I saw the idea evolve through several schools in that district. I didn’t necessarily buy into the idea at the time. They typically involved things that were usually done on the announcements, but now live and then expanded to student celebrations and a song.
When I came to my new school, one of the most urgent needs was the transformation of our school culture. They had been a campus where each team had a different school shirt, where they had never done anything with the entire school at the same time, and they were desperate to become unified.
I tried to follow the number one rule that they teach you in principal school (don’t change anything the first year!) but what could I do? They wanted this. They needed it! It became our tradition and weekly time together as a whole school. It became Eagle Shuffle.
I have heard our Eagle Shuffle referred to as a pep rally for elementary school. The thing is, I don’t think that is an accurate description. It’s really more of a “hope rally.” During Eagle Shuffle the purpose is to be together, to celebrate our successes and to saturate our students’ minds with positive feelings about education. I want them to have so much positive imprinting about school and hope for their future that it carries them all the way through graduation—from college!
Marketing agencies constantly play to children as consumers. They use bright colors, catchy jungles, and fun to sell their cereal, television shows, music, toys, and video games. Can we afford to do any less when it comes to education? I believe we must do the same thing with our students and public education if we hope to keep them as our clientele through 13 years of school. This is our product, and we only have ourselves to blame for poor marketing if nobody is buying it.
We are teaching our students who to stop and celebrate themselves and each other, we are teaching them about cultural proficiency and how to value one another. We are teaching them about grit and growth mindset and naming examples we have seen. We are teaching them there is always time to stop and sing and cheer. I need to know that when the day comes where they question whether education is worth it, they will remember their days at Degan and Eagle Shuffle and dig deep to find their grit and growth mindset and know that they can always make it a great day because it is always their choice.
Eight years ago I was exposed to a new piece of work created by superintendents across Texas who had a greater vision for public education than simple accountability based on high-stakes testing. At the time, I don’t know if I appreciated the work for all that it was worth and the enormous thought and innovation that went into this vision. It was kind of like how we sometimes take things for granted, like our freedom in America or breathing. It’s just something you have. The district leadership frequently brought this document to the forefront of our conversations and asked us to reflect on its purpose and relevance for our work.
Then the world changed. “Freedom” and “breathing” were no longer a part of our work as leaders. Every trace of the Texas Visioning Document was erased from the district and the work we did, only to be replaced with conversations driven by student and teacher performance on the state assessment. It is true that you do not always appreciate what you have until it is gone. But now, like the freedom of a democratic society or the air needed for survival, I was missing a critical part of my profession. I began a mission to find a district whose work was driven by the principles of the Visioning Document. I had to find a new source of oxygen for my career. I was thrilled to find so many districts who had not abandoned this work and quickly found a home with like purpose.
Four years later, I have been selected as a principal to represent my district to focus specifically on this document. I find myself on a new frontier, no longer to serve solely a receptacle for the information being learned from the vision of this text, but as a vehicle to take this information to others. It is a great responsibility to help spread the mission and vision of a new face of education. This plan allows for ownership, flexibility, and opportunity for learning “anywhere, anytime, any path, and any pace.” It is our moral imperative to have the grit and growth mindset needed to prepare students for a future that we can probably not accurately perceive, to stand against special interest groups that would promote learning for some, but not all, and to communicate to society about how the future of education needs to change. While it is somewhat scary facing the uncertainty, it is also exciting and a challenge I gladly accept.
You would think progress toward a goal would make the work easier. However, as I have learned with weight loss, it seems that whenever I get closest to my goal, something inevitably happens and instead of being 10 pounds from my goal, I am once again 20 pounds away. Some experts say this is because our body has a “set point” and it keeps our bodies in this range. However, I think that I subconsciously sabotage myself. Maybe I have become so comfortable being at a certain weight, living a certain lifestyle, that I’m not sure if I can “be” this new person, so I unconsciously sabotage myself out of fear.
I think the same thing can be true with professional goals. Before becoming a principal, I worked at a place for fifteen years where I repeatedly hit a barrier preventing me from successfully achieving my goals. While I wasn’t comfortable, it had become my norm. Being in a new role in a new district, I have been able to move past that, but I am definitely in the land of the unknown, professionally.
I think my staff is experiencing the same phenomenon. There was no one that worked harder with children that this group of educators. However, no matter how hard they worked, they weren’t getting the results they wanted. The first couple of years the work was hard, but we didn’t yet see the fruits of our efforts, so that felt “normal.” However, recently, our flywheel has begun to move. The work is getting a little easier. The payoffs are starting to happen. It just gets better from here, right?
However, as we started this year, there was a huge sense of discombobulation hanging heavy in the air. I could feel it with myself and with the staff. I kept asking myself how we could feel more anxious when we have reached a place where we are getting settled in strong habits, and routines and our students are starting to make the gains we desire. How could we feel unsettled if we know what to expect? Or did we?
That was a giant realization. We don’t know what to expect. We are on the frontier of unchartered territory. We don’t know what it feels like to have our students make these kinds of gains, and we worry if we can maintain the momentum. Questions of “what happens if we can’t?” bubble just beneath the surface.
Fear is a powerful thing. Fear goes immediately to the primitive part of our brain geared for survival, the amygdala. Because our most important task as living organisms is survival, the amygdala has the ability to “hijack” our brain’s higher order thinking functions in order to protect us. Fear turns on the amygdala which urges us to “fight,” take “flight” or “freeze” even if survival is not actually at stake. However, this prehistoric part of our brain doesn’t discriminate between a saber tooth tiger or a potentially failed goal, and any of those actions sabotage forward momentum and progress. So it is imperative to keep our amygdala in check and stay in our higher thinking brain to move past the fear and continue moving forward. A challenge isn’t a saber tooth tiger; it is an opportunity to learn, grow and improve.
No one intentionally undermines their progress to an important goal, but it does happen. So how do we keep our amygdala off and prevent self-sabotage?
Be aware of your surroundings. As with any time you are entering a situation with uncertainty or potential danger, you must turn off autopilot and intentionally choose your actions. If you are on autopilot, that overprotective amygdala may steer you away from the very opportunity you need to push through. Recognize that you may feel uncomfortable, but discomfort is not life-threatening so that you can keep moving forward.
Recognize that you will be stepping out of your comfort zone and make a plan. Growth and learning occur outside your comfort zone. Plan for what you will do to increase your comfort as you face the unknown. Let go of things that don’t matter. Plan for what you will do if things don’t go as planned. Plan for what you will do
when things go right! Just be careful when you are making your plan not to over-think. Over-thinking tends to lead to anxiety and turn that amygdala on as you become overwhelmed with what to choose. Keep it simple and trust your gut.
See what you want, not what you don’t. Our brains are powerful and attract what we think about due to the “Law of Attraction.” If we want success, we have to create a mental image of the success. If we think about failure, we are unwittingly willing it to happen. It can be difficult to have a growth mindset and see yourself being successful in a situation you have never experienced. So find an example of someone being successful in the area you desire, and put yourself in their shoes to imagine accomplishing your goal.
Have grit and don’t quit. Even when it gets hard, keep that amygdala turned off. Don’t run and don’t stop. If you are not growing you are declining (more laws of nature). If you have worked this hard to get this far, you don’t want to lose even a smidge of progress. Even if it doesn’t work out with your first attempt, you will learn information you need to try again, improve, and get closer to your goal.
Give yourself some grace. Too often, our mindset is that we must be perfect. Trying to be perfect can become an excuse not to try. Perfection scares us and flips the “amygdala switch” because our brain is smart enough to know perfection is impossible, especially in a first attempt.
Self-sabotage to keep oneself at their “comfort” set point is normal, but those who are successful in reaching goals, know the strategies needed to push past existing set points to establish a new equilibrium of success. Use of these strategies don’t mean the journey will be without twists and turns, but maybe at least without detours of self-sabotage. As educators, this becomes especially critical. Not only must we master this skill to ensure we reach our goals of students success in our classroom, but also if we hope to teach these skills of grit, growth mindset and grace to our students so they can navigate their own pathways after they leave us.
So a couple of weeks ago, I got a speeding ticket. I was in a hurry to pass a car, and my lane was ending. Within a few seconds, there were flashing lights behind me, and I had a ticket to pay. I pleaded “no contest” and requested deferred adjudication. If I don’t receive another citation within three months, the ticket will be dismissed. I’m trying really hard to be conscientious and stay within the speed limit at all times, but too often, I look down and low and behold, I’m going 10-15 miles over the speed limit again. Even though I seem to be going with the flow of traffic, the realization that I am speeding sends an immediate sense of panic through me.
The same thing seems to happen in my school. As we have started the school year, “go slow to go fast” has been something coming from my mouth as a leader more and more often. I remember when my own principal said those words, I would think,
It’s amazing what a little maturity and experience bring for finding a new perspective. I have definitely learned that like my speeding ticket, going too fast just puts others in danger and can eventually cause things to take more time than you hoped to save because you have to go back and redo all that you did by going fast.
Going slow at the beginning of a school year allows us to teach students exactly what they need to do to be successful and build stability for speeding up in the future. So often, we assume students know what we want them to do. If we go slow and teach them the routines we want them to do, we will actually be able to go faster as these routines become habits that our students begin to do automatically.
We must also go slow and monitor the routine, providing corrective feedback to ensure they are doing what we need them to do correctly. If we allow our students to speed up and do the routine too quickly, they may actually practice incorrectly forming bad habits. It takes way more time to break a habit and then replace it than it does to do it correctly the first time.
Finally, and most importantly, we have to make sure we are taking the time to build relationships. I often think of Rita Pierson as she says, “Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.” Well, this makes teaching quite complicated. We can’t command our students to like us, and we don’t want to waste a year of learning. It is critical to take the time to build relationships with our students. If we do, we know what makes them tick. We know how they think and how they learn. Thus, we can go much more quickly.
The concept of going slow goes with parental relationships, too. Many of the parents today did not have the schools that we try to create today. They were often “do I as I say” environments where the value for individuals was scarce. Parents who experienced “quick to label” judgments of schools that failed to meet their needs are going to filter their views of schools through their own past experiences. We can’t just complain that parents aren’t supporting us. We must go to the root cause and build the relationships that allow parents to truly trust us. When that happens, magically, parents no longer question every school decision. It takes time up front, but it allows us to go faster in the long run with our parents helping accelerate the process.
“Going slow to go fast” in schools isn’t easy. Much like my deferred adjudication for my speeding ticket, I look down and sometimes it feels like even though we are trying to go slow, we are somehow going so fast the wheels feel like they are about to come off. As leaders, we have to recognize this tendency in ourselves, and in those we lead. I think the key is, that when you recognize that feeling, you can’t just keep your foot on the accelerator. You have to make the conscious decision to slow back down. You don’t want to go fast before the vehicle is stable enough to handle it.
In these beginning weeks of school, go slow. Take time. Find the grit to hold off and build momentum. Rely on a growth mindset and take the time to create strong habits that improve each day. But most of all, always have enough grace to give yourself permission to slow down.
The concept of hope has become quite intriguing to me. My campus uses the Gallup survey with our students and one of the measures is how much “hope” our students have. Unfortunately, what we have seen is that the answer is not much. It’s not just my school, but nationally, results show our students lack hope. While I know that the world our children face is a challenge, their chances for success are minimal if they don’t have hope that they can overcome difficulties. Gallup defines the opposite of having hope as being “stuck”. Stuck means you can’t grow. If you can’t grow and improve, you become more “stuck” and even discouraged.
Gallup Survey 2015 National Results: Hope Index
As I have thought a great deal about this dilemma, I begin considering “hope” as a verb vs. “hope” as a noun.
Hope as a verb is just a wish left in the hands of fate. Hope as a noun is paired with the verb “believe”. You believe that what you desire will happen because you trust and believe that it can.
Hope as a verb causes you to hold back a little in case it doesn’t work out. Hope as a noun allows you to give it all because you KNOW it will work out.
Hope as a verb results in excuses for why it didn’t work. Hope as a noun results in facing brutal facts and making adjustments to move forward.
Hope as a verb makes you feel at mercy of the power of others. Hope as a noun gives you the power to accomplish your dreams.
I believe that being intentional in helping children develop hope is key. That is why this year, as I enter my fourth year as principal (a.k.a. Episode IV), our theme is “A New Hope.” I need to be clear that it is not “Star Wars.” Too often those attempting to make additional profit in high states testing attempt a play on words and market “STAAR Wars” products to educators. There is too much attention on this test which takes away from the focus on people. Current accountability systems are often a vacuüm for hope. I have no fear of state assessment. But “STAAR” is not what drives my school or our work with students.
On the contrary, my teachers are Jedi Master’s of Hope and work diligently to help our young padawan cultivate their hope by helping them find pathways around barriers that stand in the way of the future they wish to create for themselves. They do this using a Jedi
mindset and building relationships, taking time for conversations to set goals, analyze progress toward those goals, and create new paths to achieve those goals to prevent becoming stuck. They “feel the force” of hope and help our students to do the same.
My campus has done intense training to become a “trauma sensitive” school. Studies show one in four children are to trauma prior to the age of four. Trauma, especially ongoing trauma, can teach children at a very young age that they are stuck and have no control over their environment and thus create a mindset of “stuck”. With much preparation and new tools, we will be a beacon of hope for these students until our students can find ways around their circumstances and stockpile some hope for themselves.
Public education is certainly different from when I was in school. It is even different from when I began my career. However, we have to continue and adapt to prepare students for the world they face, which is fast-paced and constantly changing. To do this, students must believe they can be successful in a world where the media floods them with stories that drain hope. Yes, we must teach reading, writing, math, science, and social studies. However, instruction in “hope” seems to be a new necessary course.
Obviously, hope is a important component for student success. It is the precursor to other critical skills of grit and growth mindset. Without hope, there can be no grit and willingness to stick to challenging tasks. Without the grit to stick to challenging tasks, there can be no growth. Without growth and improvement, purpose is lost. Hope is not a wish or a dream, but the key to making dreams come true. Because of this, our schools have to be the source of a hope for our students, because our students are our new hope for the future.
Hitting the wall is a term often used to describe when a runner’s body just completely exhausts all of its energy while running a marathon. I must say, I am not a runner. If you see me running, you should probably run, too, as there is something chasing me! However, I have found that this term has become meaningful to me this Spring. First, I felt I hit the wall in blogging. It wasn’t that my ideas, thoughts, or opinions were lacking, I just could not find the energy to get them on paper. It was probably a combination of so much energy being expended just in the day-to-day of running a school, but also, pouring your heart and soul on paper is a bigger challenge than I imagined. Putting yourself out there completely exposed, not always knowing how your words are received can be depleting, especially for someone whose “love language” is words of affirmation. Silence kills me!
I found this video and laughed so hard while making so many connections in my life.
One of the most powerful connections was an analogy of hitting the wall in education. For three years, I have been the principal of a campus in the middle of a great transformation. Our campus was in danger of being designated “improvement required” when I walked in the door because scores on state assessments were in a free fall. As a result, my staff and I have been running a marathon at a sprinter’s pace. We have had to transform our understanding of teaching through a deeper understanding of the standards, practices that allow us to engage all learners at their levels of need, and a true comprehension of our students, many who come from backgrounds of poverty and trauma.
It is exhausting, to say the least, and a few weeks ago, I could see we were all about to hit the wall. So if our analogy of “hitting the wall” was appropriate, it aroused my curiosity to see what it is that runner’s do to avoid hitting the wall when they are likely very close to the finish line. What I found was some great advice that is more than relevant to educators in their last month of school:
1. Train-Whether a runner or an educator, proper training is essential.
Our students are continually evolving and so should we. We must learn how to become more efficient in choosing where to expend our energy so that we are always getting the most results. We cannot afford to use our precious resources on worrying about things we cannot change or on strategies or tasks that don’t get results.
2. Proper Nutrition-Hitting the wall is actually about the body and brain reaching glycogen depletion and no longer able to function effectively. Runners have now created complex formulas of when to consume which specific types of foods to have the fuel they need to finish the race. For educators, I think our nutrition is different. It is a mental nutrition of both learning and being around those who nourish our souls.
I think it is interesting in what I read about how runners also consider the need for complex carbs at a certain time while wanting simple sugars at other times. I think this true for educators. Sometimes we need to fill our brains with words of how wonderful we are and what a difference we make. Other times we need to feed on constructive criticism that helps us to contemplate how we can grow and improve, but always from people who have our best interest at heart. 3. Slow Down-I read that if a runner feels they are nearing the wall, they need to slow down to a “conversational pace” or one that they could speak with someone running next to them. How often as educators do we beginning moving so fast and become so out of breath we don’t realize we can’t carry on a conversation.
If you are so out of breath you can’t have a conversation with those around you; it’s time to slow down.
4. Have the Right Goal-I think one of the things I admire about runners is that even though there is a sea of runners, they really aren’t running against those around them. They are competing against themselves. They want to better their own time, not beat someone else. Education has often been a competitive sport. “I want my scores to be better than theirs. I can’t share my ideas because I need to beat them.” I think we can all take some insight from runners, just as their bodies and abilities are not the same, neither are our classes or background experiences. We shouldn’t focus on someone else, but simply to reflect on ourselves and work to improve and get better each day, shaving a few seconds off our time as we run through each day. 5. Mental Toughness/Positivity-Ultimately, there is still times when a runner has done all of the previous steps exactly right and still begins to hit the wall. At that time, metal toughness and positivity prevail. A runner who thinks about his aching muscles and how much time is left is doomed to fail. However, the runner who can focus on how much he has already accomplished and how close he is to his goals is more likely to recover. As educators, this time of year can be tough, but if you hyper focus on all that is not right and all that is left to be done, you too, are doomed like the runner hitting the wall. We must focus on each small accomplishment, celebrate each milestone, and remember we will accomplish whatever we set our sights on that is of value enough to have our actions align with our goals.
As we are running at breakneck speeds from April into May, I hope that each of you can focus on the goals you have to accomplish this year. Remember to slow down if you need to so that you at “conversation speed”. Maybe some extra nourishment is in order with a conversation with a trusted colleague.
We live in a world today where so many have faced traumatic events. It could be the death of a loved one, some form of abuse, significant illness, ongoing demands of poverty, or continual events where one’s safety and well-being are put under threat. Even more tragic is the number of children who are suffering the effects of ongoing stress disorder created by trauma. The effects of stress and trauma on the brain in the classroom can make instruction in the classroom challenging, not just for the traumatized child, but for all other in the classroom as well. Informed, intentional strategies must be in place for schools to overcome the negative effects of the stress created by trauma.
I have experienced trauma. My trauma was mostly at the hands of peers that bullied me relentlessly all through school. I spent a great deal of my life feeling ashamed, trying to hide my trauma behind attempts at perfection, carefully controlling my circumstances for protection, and often running if I felt anyone was getting to close to discovering the “broken me” created by my trauma. It took many failed attempts of dysfunctional coping mechanisms for me to finally realize that I could embrace these traumatic circumstances, not as the definition of who I am, but as the events that helped me evolve into the person I was meant to be. I had to realize that I could not save myself, only God’s grace could do that. But I also had to learn to forgive myself for all the mistakes I had made and recognize that there were some things that were just not my fault. These lessons did not come easily. I repeated the same mistakes many times before finally learning the skills I needed to overcome these circumstances. Luckily, it seems God is always patient in giving us plenty of practice and putting the people in our lives we need to learn to overcome. God seems to be the true origin of the concepts of “grit” and “growth mindset”.
The good news is that today, I can look at my past and embrace it, not because of pride in who I was, but a celebration that God’s forgiveness is great. His blessings are abundant. I recognize that there are circumstances in my life that could have only happened as a result of God’s intervention, including meeting my husband when were born hundred of miles apart, a recent move during the most difficult time for home sales that worked in our favor for both the purchase of a new home and the sale of the old, and my being hired in a larger district as a first-year principal. God is so good.
I can see standing on this side how that the events of my past can be used to help others. It seems that when you have experienced trauma, it gives you a sixth sense to recognize trauma in others. It erases all judgment of those who are broken by trauma and fills you with compassion and a desire to hold their hand as they, too, move toward healing. I think this type of compassion is needed for any educator these days.
This type of compassion is needed for any educator these days. Even if teachers haven’t experienced trauma themselves, they have to be prepared to recognize it within others. Educators today have to realize that those who have been often traumatized behave badly, and it isn’t meant to be a personal attack on others.
What can educators do:
Practice not taking negative behavior personally. This is so hard when we invest so much emotionally in students. However, it is critical to realize that bad behavior is about the other person, not ourselves. Sometimes a traumatized person just cannot carry any more load, and they fling the ugliness at others. It is a cry for help, not a statement of their value of the person they direct their negativity.
Be supportive. Misbehavior is tied to a missing skill. Identify the missing skill: self-confidence, coping strategies, language- and find opportunities to teach a replacement behavior.
Provide positive reinforcement. Traumatized people need lots of positive reinforcement for the things they do correctly. They need to be immersed in a world of good. Find the things that are right in their world and celebrate them. They need to hear the good things 10-15 more times than they hear the corrections.
Learn about trauma. There are starting to be some great resources out there to help educators become informed. Read about it. Find out what works. If nothing else, you will see you are not alone.
Love unconditionally. Unconditional love can be a challenge, but this is what a person who has ongoing trauma needs more than anything. Unconditional love doesn’t mean a lack of expectation. This isn’t about excuses. It’s about loving someone despite their lack of achieving our expectations, resetting, and starting again.
Those with ongoing stress from unbearable circumstances only begin to heal when they feel the safety of unconditional love and support. When that happens, the brain can learn.
Being the principal of a Title I school with fifty-two percent of our students coming from impoverished backgrounds has been a challenge, to say the least. Three years ago, we began our journey making sure all teachers clearly understood the learning standards. We expanded the second year to include some quality training in small group instruction, higher level thinking strategies, and writing. This third year we have really worked on understanding our students, especially those who come from backgrounds that may be very different from our own. It has become clear that relationships are key, and to develop relationships and give feedback in ways that are meaningful, you must truly understand the one that you are giving the feedback.
As we have entered the second semester of our third year, I have been amazed at the progress I have seen in such a short time. Teachers and staff are teaching our students skills at deep levels. Not only are they able to apply it in the context of the classroom, but the students are also starting to be able to transfer their learning into abstract testing situations. It was looking at our last round of data that got me pondering.
Yes, all the things we have intentionally worked on as a school are important. But I have to admit that there was something present that allowed these initiatives to be successful. At their core, the staff members in my building exemplify the characteristics of strong learners.
Curiosity and Desire to Learn- Teachers who are learners continually assess their current situation and the factors that impact it. They ask questions like “why?” and “what if?” to help them make sense of their world. They are not satisfied with someone else’s definitions for understanding, but must experience them for themselves. Their classrooms are an experiment of trial and error to find what works.
Grit in the Face of a Challenge- Teachers who are learners recognize that failure is a part of learning. Even when you have a path of steady growth, there is eventually a plateau or even a dip in progress. Teachers who are masters of learners accept this as a part of the growth process. When faced with a challenge to their progress, these teachers persist, taking risks to find new ways to overcome the challenge rather than accept defeat.
Growth Mindset to Continue to Improve- Often, once we as educators learn a strategy that works, we cling to it, even when it is no longer effective. Teachers who are learners recognize that the goal is to perfect the craft of creating learners, not a strategy. Teacher Learners are continually reflecting on their practice and learning so that they keep up with the needs of their students. They know that the need to learn is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of strength in that they recognize the power of continually evolving.
I think no matter the circumstances: whether students come from affluent, middle-class, or poverty backgrounds, to grow children into learners, you have to possess those characteristics. When you have these traits of a learner yourself, and you understand your students you can instill these same qualities in them. How can you help another person achieve this level of learning if you haven’t experienced it yourself? It really does “take one to grow one”!
This past week, after continuing to speak following a sore throat, I managed to lose my voice. It started off that I just sounded funny, but by the end of the day, all I could do was whisper. As I tried to continue my normal day I began to notice how incredibly difficult it was to communicate. Physically, I felt the strain in my muscles as I tried to produce audible sounds. Sometimes I would try to write things down, but I could never write fast enough to carry on a conversation with someone who was speaking with me. There was so much I couldn’t explain. Sometimes, I had to rely on others who knew me best to expand on my ideas. It was definitely frustrating to feel that as a leader, I had lost my ability to communicate effectively with my staff, my students, and my community.
Although exasperated, as I spent my afternoon noticing how others responded to my whisper. It was funny how as they worked to hear my soft words, their faces would show such intensity as they listened. I would find they often whispered back to me. It seemed funny to have such quiet conversations when I was the only one who couldn’t talk. Not only were the conversations quieter, but they were also slower. As I had to work to get even breathy words to come out, their pace would slow as well, as if to give me time to regain some strength. I had never considered these things before, but it made me think about how leadership can be done be done in a manner that is screaming, but truly effective leaders often lead with a whisper.
Whispering leadership, like the act of vocal whispering, requires a whole different set of muscles. It requires incorporation of other nuances if it is to be accurately understood.
Rather than shouting demands of compliance, a leader whispers a suggestion of best practice to let others own the practice. This kind of leader puts in a framework of expectations without mandating each step. It requires helping others discover how “best practices” fit within their current skillset and have ownership as they assimilate the ideas into their beliefs and philosophy rather than just “following the leaders rules”.
Whispering leaders talk less. When one must whisper, the physical act is exhausting, so you use less words when you do have a message to share.Instead of using words to tell others what to do, effective leaders whisper desired behavior through their actions. The old adage “actions speak louder than words” is so important. People are much likely to “do as you do” rather than “do as you say”. When you model the expectation, others can see how it works. Visual models are powerful learning tools. Not to mention, if you are only telling someone what to do, it creates a perfect opportunity for sabotage as their implementation is the only barometer of success.
Whispering leaders listen more and watch for the reactions of the ones they are communicating. They have to be perceptive to those you are trying to communicate with to see if they understood your intended message. Since the focus is on others to own ideas as their own, it is critical to watch the implementation. If the message is not clear, provide additional clarity. Give feedback on implementation and help the practice grow. The minute someone feels success in a new way of doing things, that alone is self-motivating to continue the practice.
I’ve worked for leaders in the past who had to literally and figuratively “shout” their authority. Let’s face it, if you have to “yell your leadership” to make your point, something is wrong. Whether it is with your ideas or your relationships with those you lead, this type of leadership merely creates compliant workers rather than engaged followers. People who are simply obedient to leadership are likely to demonstrate compliance only when monitored, walk away when given the opportunity, or in worse case scenarios, outwardly rebel if they go long enough without having their needs for autonomy met.
Whispering leadership makes the growth of the organization about those you are trying to lead, rather than the leader. It takes grit, grace, and growth mindset to have the patience to lead with a whisper than rush to accomplish things more quickly with a shout. However, because it also takes more intense listening to hear a whisper, the ideas are less likely to be forgotten. Whispering leadership is how you grow an organization and create a legacy that will stand the test of time.
“To transform schools successfully, we need to navigate the difficult space between letting go of old strategies and grabbing on to new ones.” Robert John Meehan
This quote struck me this week. It is true to have a real transformation in schools, we must master this balance of old and new strategies. This dual mastery is especially critical if we are to escape the constraints of a dysfunctional standardized testing cycle. We must find that optimum point of where critical elements of instruction intersect to have the most effect on student learning -“the sweet spot.”
As I began teaching twenty-five years ago, we ushered in the beginning of the demanding, rigorous, standardized testing era. The tests at that time were increasingly more complex than anything we had seen before. They were tied to accountability and a school’s performance on these tests was publicized for the world to see.
No worries. Teachers were smart. If the world said these tests were important, we could figure out ways to ensure students were successful. I remember as a young, fifth-grade math teacher using a strategy that could assist even a struggling reader to determine the correct operation to use to solve the word problem. In reading, we could pinpoint the critical information the students needed to answer the questions, even if they didn’t have the stamina to read the entire lengthy passage. I don’t think it was that we were trying to shortcut student learning. We could essentially teach our students to follow a set routine of steps in a strategy, and they could be successful. We were designing learning according to what society valued. What was being communicated was that “tests” and “following instructions” were what was important.
Over time, when have seen the shortfalls of this focus. Society has adjusted their perspective and decided tests based on this limited thinking were not important. We have realized that many students were crippled with no ability to solve a problem when they are not given a specific strategy or procedure. We unwittingly created dependent students who struggled to approach problems with creativity. As a result, tests have systematically been recreated to make those strategies from twenty-five years ago almost impossible to use. Words formally used as triggers are now embedded as distractors to see if students understand what they are doing. Tests are now designed to force higher level thinking. They don’t rely on one set strategy that the teacher can say, “just follow these steps.” It just won’t work. Regurgitation of facts or actions is essentially useless. To pass the “new generation” of high stakes assessments, our students must be proficient readers, mathematicians, communicators, and creative problem solvers.
Is this a bad thing? I don’t think so. Is it needed for our students to prepare for the future they face? Absolutely! Is it easy? No way. Essentially, it requires teachers and students to
“unlearn” everything they relied on in the past. Everything that worked and deemed them a success previously is now ineffective to achieve the new bar.
For those teachers in elementary schools today, it’s like being told you have to quit a bad habit, but you will continue to be judged on performance. I liken it to giving up caffeine. Imagine you have been a heavy coffee or coke drinker. Now you are giving up all caffeine cold turkey. You know you need to do this for your health, but you still have to perform at high levels despite the fact that your body might be going through some withdrawal and experiencing caffeine headaches. Finding that balance of teaching students at authentic levels with high problem-solving and performing triage for gaps between the newer test versions and previous ones take talent, practice, and hard work.
Effectively teaching students at high levels with meaningful, real-life problem-solving while performing triage for gaps between the newer test versions and previous ones doesn’t happen overnight. Measures that previously determined students, teachers, and schools were high performers have been revised and now deem them lacking. It is not the people who have changed. It is the tests. It is the expectations. Even businesses acknowledge that systematic change takes three to five years. There is often an implementation dip after starting new methods. I would think that when you add young children to the mix, it can take a little longer. With that, we must be careful not to misinterpret or abuse test results. We are comparing apples to oranges. These new tests are definitely not like any test you took in school. It’s not in anyone’s best interest to make assumptions or broad generalizations, especially not the student.
This year is my third year as a principal. I have been amazed at how fast positive change in instruction is taking hold on my campus. I am blessed with a team of educators who know why they do what they do. They understand what we need to do to prepare our students. They have the grit to persist even when traveling this difficult road. We are starting to see glimmers of this new way of thinking in our students while putting in extensive work to overcome gaps created by previous approaches. They live in that sweet spot.
Yesterday, I read a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”
These words were written in a paper Dr. King wrote in 1947. Maybe this change in values of education represents the next swing of the teaching pendulum. Or maybe it has just taken us 70 years to find the sweet spot.
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