Celebrating Earth Hour

My school participated in Earth Hour last Friday - our energy consumption decreased 16% :-)

The Eco Team showed The Lorax after school last month. Here's a great quote that a small difference can make a big impact:

"It is just one tiny seed.
But, it's all we really need.
It's time to change the life we lead,
Time to let it grow!!"

Leadership Qualities Teachers Want in a Principal

(from Ecology of Education, available http://ecologyofeducation.net/wsite/?p=4648)

Every year in the United States, an estimated 500,000 teachers leave their schools, with only 16% of the departures the result of retirement. The bulk of teachers leave for a variety of other reasons, including whether or not they perceive their school’s leadership to be effective.
Without strong leadership, it is much easier for good teachers to walk away, either to another school or another career. Let’s take a look at some of the leadership qualities that teachers most desire in a principal.

Builds a sense of community
Perhaps the single most important quality a principal can have is the ability to create a sense of community. Effective principals understand that the adults and children in their schools need a healthy, safe and supportive environment in order to thrive. A community-building principal works to avoid teacher isolation, negativity and resistance; instead, he or she encourages an upbeat, respectful and supportive professional environment. Positive solutions and growth are the norm, not the exception.

Knows how to hire good teachers
One of the best things a principal can do for his or her school is to hire the right teachers. In addition to making sure a candidate has a strong educational background and excellent references, principals can use behavior-based interviewing techniques to get a realistic idea of how well a candidate will perform in the classroom. Behavior-based interviewing operates on the premise that past behavior best predicts future performance. Typical questions begin with, “Tell me about a time when …” or “Describe your experience with …” and can be highly effective in determining how a candidate will handle real-life situations.

Fosters growth and professional development
When teachers are presented with a clear path to advancement they are more apt to stay at their current school. By providing in-school leadership opportunities – as well as by making professional development accessible, affordable and rewarding – principals demonstrate their commitment to helping staff members grow professionally and excel in the classroom. Also, good principals build on their teachers’ strengths, encouraging them to share knowledge, experience and skills with each other, as opposed to turning a blind eye to unhealthy competition or seniority-based inequality.

Advocates for the school to stakeholders
Nearly every educational framework policy depends on strong community involvement, so much so that the National Association of Secondary School Principals identifies community engagement as a core element of its leadership development agenda. Because a lack of resources is one of the leading catalysts for teacher attrition, principals need to be powerful advocates to their school’s stakeholders in order to gain greater access to necessary resources. Increasingly, schools understand that there is a direct connection between community and parent involvement and improved academic performance.

The primary stakeholders in any school community are families, staff, business partners and the public. Each of these categories requires different styles and approaches to engagement. For example, families may have language and cultural differences or an earlier negative experience with school officials. In order to encourage continued involvement and support, principals need to make a concerted effort to understand the priorities and preferences of the various categories of stakeholders.

Communicates Effectively
Good communication is one of the most crucial components of teacher satisfaction; the best principals will routinely examine their communication skills then apply a variety of styles through the school day. There are a few things principals can ask themselves in an ongoing effort to improve in this area:

• Who did I communicate with today, even if it was for just a brief moment?  (List every single person from kindergartener to visiting teacher.)
• Are my reasons for communicating helping lead my school through positive changes and improvements?
• Do I communicate in a way that contributes to meaningful problem solving?
• Does my communication style help to strengthen working relationships among my staff?
• What areas of communication are the most difficult for me? How can I work to improve in these areas?

Great organizations of all types require great leadership and this is especially true in education. In today’s evolving educational landscape, it is more critical than ever for principals to demonstrate to their staff, students and community that they have what it takes to guide their schools to success.

7 Habits of Highly Effective Administrators

Source:  http://www.teachthought.com/learning/7-habits-of-highly-effective-administrators/

1.  Balance management with leadership.
School administration involves both management duties and leadership opportunities.
The management side tends to be the stuff that one has to do. Leadership is the stuff that one chooses to do. It’s very important as an educational administrator (especially a rookie) to remember these two things i) to be a leader you need followers and ii) to gain followers one must complete management duties in a timely and efficient manner. Teachers will not care what you have to say about educational leadership if you don’t manage effectively.

2.  Envision the ideal, but focus on the doable.
Effective school leaders have a vision of what their “ultimate” school looks like.
This vision helps create the culture and atmosphere of the schools in which they work. But a clear path directly to this goal is rarely, if ever, discernible. Leaders must pick their way toward this goal one small step at a time, focusing on ideas and changes that can be implemented now, ones that may take a year or two and ones that may take 5 years. The ideal is never achieved because it always evolves, but it’s the incremental changes made working toward the ideal that improve learning for students.

3.  Act as a representative for the missing voice.
A big part of being an administrator is helping sort out other people’s conflicts.
Parents will come to complain about teachers, teachers about kids, kids about teachers etc. With interpersonal issues, getting one side of the story never suffices in shedding enough light on the situation, of course it’s imperative to get views from all possible sides in these matters. But in the interim, while listening to the initial report of any conflict, effective leaders try to understand the missing person’s point of view, and keep that in their mind as the discussion progresses. Adopting and, where necessary, representing the missing person’s point of view helps in keeping the discussion focused and moving toward settlement. Too readily accepting the initial complaint at face value often leads to more awkward situations later on.

4.  Listen and interpret.
People will usually say what they mean, but often mean more than what has actually been said.
Often they’re simply shy about “sharing everything”. A student who admits to going to bed too late can be expressing numerous things, from anxiety issues to more esoteric ailments like “screen addiction”. A teacher complaining about too much marking may be asking for help in planning or looking for ways to work more efficiently. Effective administrators pick up on this and, using communication techniques such as paraphrasing, try to elicit the full meaning of what is being communicated. It’s only after frank discussions with all necessary information available that effective feedback, and help where necessary, can be provided.

5.  Reflect constantly.
After every action, interaction and decision, the best administrators will always ask “How could that have been done better?” Whether something has gone extremely well, or the flaws in planning and/or execution were evident for all to see, a cycle of constant reflection upon their work allows these administrators to improve their practice every day.

6.  Plan for your own departure.
It’s nice to think of one’s self as indispensable, but the aim of an effective administrator should be the opposite. After all, the essence of true leadership is building capacity within an organization.
If there’s a process or procedure that’s important to the running of a school, strong administrators will ensure that they are not the only people within the building capable of completing the task.  Whether it’s something as mundane as turning off the bells for a holiday or as complex as building a timetable, building redundancy into the system is a critical part of creating a robust and sustainable leadership structure.

7. Improving student learning is our sole guiding principle.
This may seem like a truism, but nevertheless we often find ourselves asking “What’s best for ________?”.
I’ve seen this simple question work miracles, from diffusing extremely tense conversations with both teachers and parents, to kick-starting what seems like a stalled professional development conversation. Everyone in the field of education works from the premise that we’re here to help students, we all just need to be reminded once in a while.

Happy Pi Day!

March 14 is Pi Day (3.14...). I remember buying pies for my grade 9 classes to eat when I was a mathematics teacher. It is so cool that the ratio of circumference to diameter is a constant and the number goes on forever - regardless of how large or small the circle. Last fall, I accompanied my school's debate team to McGill Unviersity in Montreal. My first year department head suggested I visit the Cafe Pi on Laurent Avenue. Bought a few souvenirs for my office and had my photo taken by the owner in front of his store.

From a former student - Quadratic Formula

I received an e-mail from Tim Calford, a former student from my summer 2012 on-line Honour Specialist Mathematics course with Queen's University. I am thrilled with how he has made mathematics interesting to learn and how he connects with students. We need more teachers such as Tim who so passionate about mathematics - look at the cap and the necklace - and Pi day is this Thursday!

Andy Hargreaves' 100 Quotes/100 Days - Some Good Ones!

Andy Hargreaves, Professor of Educational Leadership at Boston College, posts a daily quote on his Twitter account. https://twitter.com/HargreavesBC

100 Quotes/100 Days #89 The quality & morale of teachers is absolutely central to the well-being of students and their learning.

#88 Without optimism & self-belief among teachers, clssrms become wastelands of boredom & routine and schools deserts of lost opportunity.

100 Quotes in 100 Days #87 #Teachers who *believe* they can make a real difference in their students lives REALLY do.

100 Quotes in 100 Days #86 High performing organizations have cultures of creativity and risk. They encourage workers to innovate and play.

100 Quotes in 100 Days #78 #Teaching is an emotional practice: it activates, colors & expresses people’s feelings.

100 Quotes in 100 days #72 Courageous leadership is not fearless ldrshp. What makes you a leader is how you deal with your fears.

100 Quotes in 100 days #66 Don't raise the bar and narrow the gap, but narrow the gap to raise the bar.

100 quotes in 100 days #63 Blame and betrayal are the emotional enemies of improvement.

100 quotes in 100 days #56 *Every* learner has special needs.

100 quotes in 100 days #54 Ed leaders must have the will at times to release ldrship to the teachers the parents and the students

100 quotes in 100 days #46 Teaching is a never-ending story. The work is never over; the job is never done.

100 quotes in 100 days #45 #Teaching is a passionate profession.

#42 We will not achieve high performance in education if we replace teachers with machines or turn teachers into machines.

100 quotes in 100 days #37 On being: Arrogance is the conjoined twin of ignorance.

100 quotes in 100 days #35 On change: Improvement is about doing something better; #innovation is about doing something new.

100 quotes/100 days #24 You cannot understand the teacher or their teaching without understanding the person the teacher is.

100 quotes in 100 days #19 #Change is easy to propose, hard to implement & especially hard to sustain.

100 quotes in 100 days #14 Trust processes as well as people.

100 quotes in 100 days #9 Too many professional development initiatives are done to teachers – not for, with or by them

100 quotes in 100 days #8 Too often, shared visions really mean, “I have a vision; you share it!”

100 quotes in 100 days #4 On data: We are the drivers, not the driven.

100quotes in 100days #3 What we want for our students we should want for our teachers: learning, challenge, support, and respect.

In Celebration of School Secretaries

Love this quote from Todd Whitaker, Professor of Educational Leadership at Indiana University:

When the principal is gone no one cares, when a teacher is gone we call a sub, when the secretary is gone we need to shut down school!

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