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.