Happy Final Monday in August 2015. Many of you are busily preparing for your opening staff meeting or are well into the new year. After meeting with several building and district administrators during the month of August. Two topics were common during our conversations, consistency and quality decision making. As you embark on a new year , these two qualities would be great focus areas. Read more

Welcome to a hot, humid Monday Moanin in  August 2015. It  feels like a new school year is right around the corner? What a great time to begin reflecting on your work and practice.  As I prepared for this blog, I thought what would I need to be considering to get the year off to a positive and productive start. Listed below are a few suggestions for you to consider using at the beginning of a new year. Give them a try or use them as a prompt to consider other strategies or areas to focus your attention. Here they are:

• Plan for your vision or passion. Write a list of three things that are most important and make it a priority to get them done.
• Implement daily huddles or checkins with your administrative team. They need to be a part of your culture, everyday.
• Focus your efforts and those of your staff on the 3 L’s for students. Lockers, Lunch, and Lost. No matter what grade level K-12. Learners in some form or another have anxiety over one of the L’s. Help them out!
• Remember that leadership is much more about who you are than what you do. Lead!
• This is a great time to get guidance from someone you trust.

I hope that things are  progressing well as you prepare or if you have already started a new year.  Hopefully some of these will help you out. Have a great week and keep finding the good stuff.

Welcome to the first Monday Moanin of August 2015. For many of you , August signals that a new school year is coming fast. For most educators, the summer break is typically used to learn new instructional skills, attend classes, and to enhance content knowledge. This August as you start your preparation try beginning with the student in mind. Focus on being learner centered and have that drive your focus. With the help  of my PLN, I have provided five learner centered posts listed below.  I hope that they assist you as you begin the work of opening a new year. They are:

“Our students are someone else’s heart & soul- be gentle, handle with care & treat them with respect.” Tony Sinanis 

“Teaching goal for 2015-2016: Help my students believe in themselves as much as I believe in them.” Jeff  Charbonneau

” No significant learning can occur without a significant relationship.” James Comer

” If students know you care, they’ll run through a wall for you. If students don’t think you care they’ll build a wall between you.” @BluntEducator

“Students work hardest for teachers they like and respect. When I’m asked, ” How do I get the students to like and respect me?” my immediate response is, ” Like and respect them first.”  Debbie Silver

Hopefully these posts  and bolded words will help you with your focus for 2015-16.

Have a great week and keep finding the good stuff.

 

Happy Summer July 2015 Monday Moanin to all of you.

For the past several weeks many of my mentees have been preparing for interviews. Through the process of conducting mock interviews and planning meetings I wondered, could I answer all of the questions and challenges of the interview process? My last interview was over thirteen years ago and you may share a similar time frame. It got me thinking, why not self assess and take inventory of your performance by preparing for an interview? When I reflect on my preparation for past interviews, many things come to mind. I think of the deep internal audit I conducted of my strengths and weaknesses. I reflected on my philosophy and vision. I defined the difference between a manager and an instructional leader. I focused on what was good instruction and the importance of building a culture of readiness among staff to handle the changes and challenges of educating learners in the 21st Century. Read more

Happy July 2015 to all of you. Recently I have started to read The Habitudes Series , by Tim Elmore. His vision is that there are images that form leadership habits and attitudes. I have just completed the first two books in the series. Below are five of my favorite quotes taken from them. Refer to them often this week and let them guide your practice.

• “Leaders must make sure their emotional tank is full before they lead others. Never lead out of need.”
• “Authentic leaders author their own life; they don’t pose as someone else.”
• ” The iceberg represents your leadership. The 10% above the water is your skill. The 90% below the water is your character. It’s what below the surface that sinks the ship.”
• “Good leaders don’t depend on their position to get the job done. They leverage personal power, not positional power, with people.”
• Leadership is not about your power but your empowerment of others.”

Thanks to Tim Elmore for the Habitudes. I wish all of you a great week and keep finding the good stuff.