Leadership Part 2

What makes a good leader worth following?  In my last post, we explored the classroom implications of the first five points in an article by Forbes contributor Mike Myatt: 10 Reasons Your Top Talent Will Leave You. bit.ly/leadthem  Today we will explore numbers 6-10.

6. Show your students you care about them: Take the time to get to know your students, and let them get to know you. If you have a great relationship with your students, they will be eager to follow your lead, do what you ask, and rise to your high expectations.  If you don't, they won't.   

7. Be the leader your students need: Sometimes teachers get the idea that creating a "shared environment" or providing for student-centered learning means taking a back seat or behind-the-scenes approach. Nothing could be further from the truth. Your students are going to get guidance and feedback from someone--the class clown, the drama queen, or even the bully. As the teacher, you need to be more worthy of attention and consultation than your competition. Be the leader in your classroom, and your students will look to you to meet their needs.

8. Recognize the successes and contributions of others: Celebrations of learning are powerful and meaningful to students.  Take advantage of every opportunity to recognize academic successes, but don't stop there.  Be determined to recognize the kindness, helpfulness, preparedness, and other quality traits your students exhibit as well. Also, don't forget to recognize the contributions of the other adults who help make the school day all that it can be.  If you have folks helping in your classroom, thank them in front of your students and encourage your students to do the same.  Show the students that you value the contributions of the custodians and cafeteria workers, the secretaries and your principal. Your students will take their cue from you and learn an attitude of gratitude. Challenge your students to recognize the contributions of their peers and others--either in writing or verbally. When your students recognize you as someone who appreciates others, they will appreciate you as their leader.  

9. Don't stagnate your students: I once heard a pastor say, "If you're not growing, you're dead."  This is true in many arenas of life, and school is definitely done of them.  I remember being so bored in school, and the teacher's only answer for those who finished their boring work early was to go do more boring work.  Like all people, our students want to be recognized as having the capability to do challenging and meaningful work, so it's our job to assign it to them.  Be sure that your formative assessments keep you informed as to each student's next step for learning, and strive to keep all of your students moving forward.  When you work together with your students on continuous improvement, they will count on you as a leader who will give them wings to fly.  

10. Keep your promises: Okay, so I know that unexpected and unplanned-for things come up: fire drills, assemblies, lock-ins, vomit, students getting excited and taking off with a project, students not finishing work as quickly as you had anticipated...  Sometimes you really do intend to give your students a longer recess or time in class to work on homework, but things just don't work out they way you hope.  Be honest and apologize for those times, but strive to make that the exception and not the rule.  My eighteen-year-old daughter still remembers her third grade teacher promising her and a few other kids a king-sized candy bar and never delivering, and it colors her opinion of that teacher to this day.  Let your word be good as gold, and your students will see you as a leader worth your weight in king-sized candy bars.

Here is the quote from the end of Mike Myatt's article: 

Bottom line, if leaders spent less time trying to retain people, and more time trying to understand them, care for them, invest in them, and lead them well, the retention thing would take care of itself. 

Here's my re-write for all of us teachers: Bottom line, if teachers spent more time trying to understand their students, care for them, invest in them, and lead them well, then learning, the environment, and classroom management would take care of itself. 

Changing Settings Does Not Change Leadership

What makes a good leader worth following?  Today I found an article by Forbes contributor Mike Myatt: 10 Reasons Your Top Talent Will Leave You. bit.ly/leadthem  As I read through the article, I began to realize that leadership in business is exactly like leadership in a family or leadership in a classroom.  This makes sense because when you get right down to it, leaders aren't actually leading businesses, families, or classrooms.  What they--what we--are actually leading is people. 

If you are a parent, I would encourage you to reflect on the ten points of this article as they may relate to raising your children. District leaders and principals, please reflect on how these points relate to your relationships with your staff. Teachers, let's take some time to reflect on five ways good leadership can empower our students.  We will explore the other five in a future post.

1. Unleash your students' passions. With increasing class sizes and decreasing support, addressing an individual student's passions can seem like an overwhelming charge.  Fortunately, there is plenty of commonality in passions among students: technology, sports, animals, hands-on science experiments, holidays, careers...  The list is practically limitless when you really start to think about the various units that can be linked directly or indirectly to your students' passions.  In my kindergarten classroom, most of my students were passionate about the movie Frozen when we came back from Spring Break.  It was easy enough for me to incorporate names, songs, pictures, and themes from the movie into my lessons in reading, writing, math, science, and social studies.  Similarly, I recognize my students' passion for technology, and I provide vast opportunities for students to both learn and share what they know using computers, cameras, iPads, videos, and Chrome Books.  When you recognize and spark your students' passions, they will recognize you as a leader that lights their flames.

2. Challenge your students' intellect.   Ask your students hard questions and assign them challenging and meaningful work.  Students 'know' what you think of them based on what you expect from them.  I am not saying that all students can or should be doing the same work.  A skilled teacher will modify the content, process, or product expectations for individual students while still expecting the highest order of thinking from everyone.  When you challenge your students, they will understand that you are a leader who believes in them.

3. Engage your students' creativity.  This does not mean you need to let your students sing, paint, and draw (though those things may address #1).  It means to let them help you solve problems, create a shared vision, design classroom environments, provide feedback to drive future projects, think through classroom processes and procedures to make them better, set worthy classroom goals, choose their own learning paths, and transform the classroom into our classroom.  You will be surprised how powerful the creativity of even the youngest students can be in positively altering a classroom environment; and when you honor your students' creative processes, they will honor you as their leader.

4. Develop your students' skills. On the surface, we know that we, as teachers, need to teach students the skills that they need to succeed.  We use standards and curriculum to define these skills, and we assess students' academic abilities in order to recognize their accomplishments and address their needs. We teach our subject matter well, and we are good at it.  Our students learn and show academic growth, and we celebrate their successes.  However, we do them a great disservice if that is where we stop.  There is no curriculum in life, though the lives of our students will be full of tests and trials.  These are the tests that truly matter for our students--as people, so let's remember to address life skills at least as often as we address academic skills.  I cannot begin to scratch the surface of what these skills entail, but here are a few that come to mind: goal-setting, planning, and perseverance; recovering from failure; being accountable; leadership (empowering others); appreciating diversity; healthy living; teamwork; delayed gratification.  Let's also be sure to recognize the skills and talents that students come into our classrooms with. As you find ways to develop their current strengths, while also filling in the gaps, your students will appreciate you as a leader who strives to develop them as learners and as individuals.

5. Give your students a voice.  This mandate is directly related to #1 and #3 above.  If you are honing in on your students' passions and listening to their creative ideas, they will feel heard.  Of course, there are many other ways--both big and small--that we can give our students a voice in our classroom.  One of these ways is to provide choice.  These can be simple choices such as which book to read or where to sit.  On occasion, they can be bigger choices such as which field trip to go on or which writing unit to pursue next. Another way to provide voice is to give students a tool for reflection and feedback on individual lessons, units of learning, or the classroom environment as a whole.  With older students, this can be accomplished by posting a parking lot.  Here, students can use sticky notes to provide you with feedback, share their new learning, and ask questions.  Younger students can do it orally.  When you give your students a voice, they will feel heard.  In turn, they will listen to you as their leader.