Is it too late to wish someone a happy new year? It’s still January so it feels safe.
The beginning of the year is all about renewal.
We look at what we didn’t like about the previous year.
We set an intention to change our habits.
Our goal is to become a “better version of ourselves”.
(Thinking about the belated timing of this post, there’s at least a decent chance that your habit for improvement has not stuck.)
But what’s wrong with who we are right now? Why is our future self better?
I’d like to advocate for something a little different:
First, affirm who you are and everything you’ve accomplished up to this point.
Then, if you feel like improvement is necessary, by all means pursue it.
This feels relevant after facilitating professional learning with teachers and leaders.
Teachers want to improve, and they also have a reasonably deeper need for recognition and simply knowing they are valued.
Leaders want to get into classrooms, but don’t want to disappoint the people making requests of their time, even if it’s outside their job description.
The way schools are structured, with artificial schedules and conflicts created from the obstacles of the environment, create an urgecy trap that pushes out long term goals that require a deeper attention to important work.
Maybe the barrier to change, growth, improvement, etc. is the idea that we need to change in the first place.
Example: I devoted many hours looking for a digital community tool to meet the needs of educators looking for a safe space to engage in dialogue around important topics, for example the science of reading movement.
I found one tool, Luma, that seemed to check all the boxes: personalized resource spaces, a chat feature, and scheduling calendar events. Yet during our book study around Peter Afflerbach’s book, the engagement rate was much higher right here in this newsletter/blog. I am not sure why. Less clicks away? Familiarity?
Regardless, I stopped posting questions around the study in Luma and devoted my efforts here. I realize that we already have a community, and that I just needed to affirm it.
This insight begs the question:
Do we not appreciate what we already have and what we can offer to others?
The answer is a solid “yes” for me. It feels obvious. Yet based on what I am learning from colleagues around the country, it seems necessary to revisit.
Not so much looking for a solution, but rather a strategy to self-affirm what we are already doing before engaging in any kind of self-improvement.
Next are a few ideas for engaging in this work.
#1 - Take a mental step back and examine how you spend your time at the balcony level.
As leaders and teachers, we are constantly immersed in the day-to-day challenges and celebrations with students.
The attention is primarly on the kids. As it should be. But you deserve attention too.
Start by looking at your digital calendar and briefly analyzing how you spent your time. When did you devote your attention and expertise to someone in signficant need? How might your absence have led to potentially worse outcomes? No one may know, or even give you a pat on the back for “doing your job”. Yet you deserve the recognition nonetheless. We don’t need to wait for someone else to do that for us.
#2 - Write out self-affirmations.
Self-affirmations are noticing and naming the positive actions and intentions aligned with the identities we desire to embody. When we pay attention to the positives, such as decisions we make that are aligned with our beliefs and values, we are that person.
For example, I have never thought of myself as a “presenter” or “speaker”. I will often walk away from events thinking about what I could have done differently to improve the experience. But when I take a step back and look at the evidence that supports this thinking, I struggle to validate this opinion.
What I do recall are the comments of gratitude from attendees, thanking me to come and speak about our work and share with others. “Attendees appreciated the content and the experience I offered” is true based on feedback; “two people left during my workshop” has a number of reasons as to why, and likely little to do with me.
#3 - Ask “What can I do?” instead of “What needs to be done?”
Teacher leaders will often express frustration in lack of engagement in their colleagues. “It’s frustrating to see them not committed to our school initiative.”
I hear what they are saying. But they also cannot control these circumstances. A lot of mental bandwidth is spent in imagining ways to get colleagues on board which could be devoted to what one has control over in the first place.
I went into school administration for this very reason. But you don’t have to. And I think teachers would be surprised to know how much influence that actually have with their colleagues by simply embodying the behaviors and beliefs of an educator who truly values better instructional practices.
Leading from Within
I can say with confidence that my influence as a school leader is almost solely dependent on the teacher leaders within our building who commit to improvements within their locus of control and openly sharing the results of their efforts.
And if formal/positional leadership is not extending their authority to you, what can you do? Only what’s within your control.
It’s critical we affirm what’s going well, take an imaginative perspective about the influence we have on kids and colleagues, and trust that our modeling will eventually create the change that we seek.
Let others focus on improvement.
Matt, lots for us to consider in this thoughtful post.
Reading your tech u-turn (on using Luma) reminded me of the technology revolution in pedagogy I was anticipating on return to campus after the pandemic. Yet, what actually happened was that everyone, including parents and students, simply wanted to get back to normal. Ok, there were a number of 'low-hanging-tech-fruit' gains made in terms of hybrid flexibility for parent conferences and internal/external meetings and professional development etc, but certainly not the seismic shift in adoption of new ways of interacting with each other that occurred from pre-pandemic to during.
Rather than a technology revolution/disruption on coming back together, they were mere ripples, more like a slow evolution. Perhaps that's what happened with the community you've built here. Culture and community take time - similar to how we learn to appreciate nature - its 'slow pedagogy' or 'pedagogical creep'. With adults I would posit that 'andragogical creep' is even slower, as adults tend to compare and contrast the new and existing when presented with change. If there's not an immediate and substantial benefit, often firstly from a 'what's in it for me perspective, then the activation energy required to adopt the new (change) will not be invested - the barrier to un-learn and re-learn comes down.
Embracing ChatGPT with our community for example, we introduced the platform with staff and students using a range of 'selfish' activities (note: we did not phrase it like that :)) We let them play, explore, more importantly, marinate - the best ideas and deep connections occur after you've given over time for it to 'stew', to 'sleep on it'. Then we came back to them after a week or so and asked questions like, "How do you think this will affect education?", "How can this tool be used to assist us in our role?" I'm confident the fidelity of their responses was higher as a consequence of framing it through themselves first, and letting organic connections within faculty/student body occur in the subsequent days. Next for us will be parents...
The ingredients worked: Me 1st, vocation 2nd
I suppose it's similar to the gradual release of responsibility model: "I do, we do, you do".
Thanks for always triggering my thinking (be it correct or different) with your writing.
Yours
Brian
Right on. Your reminder to remember our strengths and see effort to improve not as evidence of something wrong but as evidence of something right that can be even better is timely. I really like this perspective.