Week 6 - Final Leadership Evaluation

One of the things that most impressed me about this class is that my definition of leadership has changed. I did not come into 565 expecting to change my view all that much, but what I see now is that leadership can come in different shapes and sizes. I see now that I can lead my building through my work in the classroom, through committee projects I'm involved with directing, as well as the way I can manage relations between staff members. I think I now view a teacher leader as someone who can effect change in a school through their work with students, other teachers, administration or community. This definition has broadened considerably from the definition I started with, and I now feel I can view myself as a leader in my building.

I think my view of my leadership potential has not changed, I've always felt that I had potential to lead within my building community. I now view myself as someone who is already one of the leaders at my school.

Finally, I do and always have agreed with our books assertion of change from within. This is why I have always worked hard to make meaningful use of time working on a variety of committees. The committees I have joined all have meaning and interest to me and we have worked hard to implement parts of our vision into the larger school community. Finally, taking part in this program has helped me to change our community from within as I relate the new experiences of this program into my teaching career.

Week 5 - 565

I was struck by one of the videos this week. I watch the one featuring the found of Ebay and Participant Pictures. His name has completely escaped me as I write and I suppose it isn't terribly important. But what struck me about the video was that he was a highly successful individual as a businessman, but it wasn't until now that he was invited to speak at TED.

They weren't so concerned about EBay and all the changes it brought. By virtue of their invitation to speak they were interested in his film company and their mission. To make films that inform the public and encourage action. I found that I had seen a lot of his films and some of them did move me to take action, whether it be action in learning more, voting a particular way, discussions with my friends, or passing on the experience to students. At the time I didn't think too much about that, but that is really cool. This guy (insert name) makes movies that make me take action. How cool would it be to have that ability? He changes people's opinions, points of view, and actions. Wait that is what I do.

How can I do it better? I need to apply his formula to my class. I want to spark my students to take action. I do this, sometimes, but I want to do it more frequently.

It took me awhile to see how this video fit into the topic of the class, which is enacting, encouraging, leading change, but now I see it. He changes people, conversations, actions with his films and I can do the same thing in my class.

Click Here to go to their social action page. I'm amazed by how many actions he is providing avenues for people to take as a result of the films his company is making. Try one.

Week 4 - 565

What a great title! I feel the real highlight of the week was the activity in class. I really felt like my group struggled. We never really got a grasp on what we were actually doing. Once we figured out how the game worked, we skipped past the part where we analyzed the problem that the game was presenting and we went to throwing darts at the wall, hoping to hit a bulls-eye, or even the board. The dynamic in the group was a bit off, and I think the time crunch and all the different jobs affected us all in different ways.

I think the real lesson is clear though, that change is hard. There is a lot to do, and you can totally fail if you don't get your act together right from the start. This is something I always struggle with, that people don't just hop on board. I feel something is so clearly right and the way to go, but I need to do a better job of slowing down, considering other points of view, and making sure their is actual evidence that this is the best road, not just my point of view.

This is a week that I can definitely take back to the real world and learn something from. That makes it a good week.

Continuous Change

In going through this weeks resources I was constantly reminded of a quote I had come across in the not so distant past. The quote said something to the effect that education is a field that is historically slow to change.

When I first read this quote I agreed and went along my merry way, but after this week that sense has been constantly on my mind. I'm wondering how a profession that deals with so many different individual kids during a year, then gets a new batch every year can at the same time be slow to change. That to me signals a big problem. It has made me nervous as my school building faces a million changes in the next month, summer, year. Can we handle it?

The question is how do you best implement change in an institution like ours? There has to be leadership. This is why I'm so nervous about my school moving through the next stage in our life, we have lacked effective leadership in our building for as long as I've been there. I like my school, but it is somewhat a mess. We are going to get our 4th principal in the last 8 years in July, and next year we will have a minimum of seven new faces on staff out of a staff of 42. He has a big job, and I'm hopeful that he understands how to work the system, leading change, and how to rebuild a fractured community. I am also hopeful that I can fulfill an earlier blog post and put myself out there as a leader in the building for change. I know I can do it, I think a lot of lessons for our future can come out of this week's materials.