It Doesn't Take Any Ability to Put Forth Great Effort

 

        One of the things I've always thought in any type of leadership is that it's our job to bring out the best in everyone we work with and every school/team we are blessed to be a part of.  As we were riding the other night, I was talking with my wife about the what I hoped people would say about me when I'm not on the face of this earth anymore and what I hoped I would be able to tell the Lord when it's my time.  I was reminded of Chadwick Boseman's acceptance speech when he received his most prestigious award  when he said "When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me."  What a profound mindset and attitude!  Wouldn't it be awesome to be able to be able to honestly say that?  

        I've had the blessing to work in multiple states, at multiple schools, with several teaching staffs, to teach and coach for over a decade, and so many opportunities to have a positive impact on student's and teacher's lives.  I remember at my first school as a principal when one of the teachers asked when was going to take a break because I worked late everyday, weekends, nights, and then would do paperwork late into the night so that I could devote more time to trying to improve instruction all day at school.....my response was that I'd rest when we reach our goal and we were a school of excellence that reached ALL students and made a positive impact on the lives of ALL students.  I've always thought that people that I worked with should do the same, but I know that burned them out....to which I said they didn't have the heart and drive to be able to push past weakness and endure to the end to be successful.  When your "why" is big enough, it'll get you to a level you didn't know you could reach and drive you to be successful.  The biggest part of our job is working with people and helping them to be their best.  One of the great things about being in education is that most people come to work and want to be successful and be effective at what they do.  It's our job as leaders to help them get there and be successful.  Daniel Pink said “Management isn’t about walking around and seeing if people are in their offices,” he told me. It’s about creating conditions for people to do their best work" (Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us).

        I've always thought we were doing teachers and students an injustice if we didn't have high expectations, if we didn't believe in them and that they could do more than they every thought they could, and if we didn't believe that we could help them get there and be successful.  Our "why" is what drives our motivation.  n Simon Sinek's "Start With Why", he says “A leader's job is not to do the work for others, it's to help others figure out how to do it themselves, to get things done, and to succeed beyond what they thought possible.” My "why" has always been simply to help people, for students and athletes to be better off because I was part of their life, and for schools that I was able to be a part of to improve and to continue to improve, I want to be able to look in the mirror each day of my life and know I gave each opportunity all that I had and the best that I had to offer, that every situation was left better than I found if, and that people were better off for me having been there.  I got into education to make a difference, not just a living.  If money and pay is what you're chasing, you'll never have enough of it. No matter how much you make, you're not taking any with you.  The impact you have on the lives of others carries on long past our last breath and heartbeat.  Some of us have will be able to look back and see the positive influence and impact we've had on generations to come. One of the lessons I can remember that my dad taught me was that it didn't take any ability to put forth great effort.  He always believed in giving 110% to anything you were part of work, team, family, church, etc.   In his book "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us", Daniel Pink said:  “Effort is one of the things that gives meaning to life. Effort means you care about something, that something is important to you and you are willing to work for it. It would be an impoverished existence if you were not willing to value things and commit yourself to working toward them.” 

        We have to ask ourselves certain questions as leaders:  Are we truly committed to the cause?  Did we really give everything we had to see the team be successful?  Are people better off because of our leadership?  If we left today, did we leave it better than we found it?   Did we give every single thing, there wasn't one more single thing we could've done, to see the team be successful.  If we took days off when we didn't desperately have to, if we didn't do everything to learn how to be effective at our job, if we didn't commit every bit of time needed to be successful, if we didn't improve the performance of those around us.....did we do a disservice to our opportunity for leadership?  One point Daniel Pink made was that sometimes the things we didn't do matter even more than the things we did.  As much as some leaders try to convince people of their commitment and work ethic, everyone knows a leader's commitment and impact.  In the end, we have to look ourselves in the mirror everyday and know deep down inside if we did everything we could for the students, families, communities, teachers, and staff that were depending on us for leadership.  It doesn't take any effort to put forth great effort, only internal drive and motivation!  

Quit Making Excuses, The Results are What We Will Be Judged By!

 “John Hattie (2015) has added further confirmation to our conclusions in his report What Works Best in Education: The Politics of Collaborative Expertise. His conclusion represents a powerful endorsement of our findings: “the greatest influence on student progression in learning is having highly expert, inspired and passionate teachers and school leaders working together to maximize the effect of their teaching on all students in their care” (p. 2).”  ― Michael Fullan, Coherence: The Right Drivers in Action for Schools, Districts, and Systems

For systemic change to take place and schools to improve significantly, there must be instructional coherence across the entire organization.  People operate within systems and do what systems allow.  If we permit and allows excuses, we'll get more of them.  If we focus on results and performance with laser-like focus, we will have a far greater potential for success.  Too many schools and leaders simply make excuses for failure, but the fact remains that they failed.  Their focus should be on doing everything in their power to be successful and not letting the things they don’t control impact their performance on the things they control.  One of the first excuses for failure is far too often to blame the kids.  We don’t control which students walk through our doors each day, it’s our job to educate them to the best of our ability.  While some people in the school may not believe it, every parent sends us the best kid they have.  They don’t have a better kid locked up at home that will make straight A’s and never misbehaves, the one we get in our classrooms is the best they have to send.  We don’t control the level of proficiency or performance level they come to us on.  It’s our job to find a way to reach them and teach them, to make at least a year’s growth in a year’s time and even more if students are coming to us below grade level proficiency to help close the achievement gap.  There’s always the excuse of more resources to which we have to ask “is it truly a lack of resources or a lack of resourcefulness?”  The truth is that the best leaders and teachers find a way to be successful.  In Hattie’s Visible Learning, the top factors that impact student learning to a positive degree the very most have nothing to do with resources and everything to do with the actions and attitudes of the adults to influence student learning significantly in a positive manner. After blaming the students, the parents are often the next to be blamed.  “If we had more parent involvement?  If our parents made the kids do their work? If they produced and raised smarter kids?”  Parents generally do the best they know how to do, we must help them be able to do more to support.  In many cases, this isn’t a factor within our control without going to great lengths or exhausting extensive resources.  Wouldn’t that extensive amount of time and resources generate far greater results if they were spent on students?  You only have a limited amount of time and resources, it’s part of instructional coherence to make sure they are spent where they can yield the most positive impacts on student learning.  Principals too often place blame on the teachers.  The truth is that most teachers are doing the very best they can and it’s the job of the principal, instructional leader, to ensure all teaching and learning is effective and help to support/build capacity when needed.  Great principals hire, train, motivate and retain great teachers.  There’s the excuse of the curriculum and standards being too tough.  It seems logical and makes sense for the instruction to be rigorous if it’s supposed to prepare graduating students to be globally competitive.  Why would you want the curriculum or standards to be easy?  There’s the excuse of needing to add more technology and/or the latest instructional ideas, but the data doesn’t support this either as having a significantly positive impact on student learning.  So we’ve tried to fix the students, the parents, the teachers, the principals, the finances and resources, and the infrastructure?  After all of this blame about what needs to be fixed, we’ve yet to solve the problem and fix what we can control.  The fact remains that assigning blame never fixed a problem.  We will all be held accountable by our results; we need to spend our time and resources of doing things that will have the most significant positive impacts on student learning.  Find a way to be successful, we all have that capacity if we want it bad enough.  The research is already out there that tells us what to do and how to do it, the doing is up to us though!  It's time to stop making excuses and find a way to get results.  In the end, the results are what we will be judged by!  

  

A Hole in the Boat is a Hole in the Whole Boat

             As we embark on the 2020-21 school year, we are facing challenges we’ve never experienced before in terms of cleaning and disinfecting schools differently, social distancing, masks, and many safety precautions.  Some of the challenges, while exacerbated, aren’t so far removed from our daily educational challenges.  Instructionally there are things we need to consider in our planning and preparation.  Assigning blame never fixed a problem and facing reality is a mindset we must accept to be able to find solutions for performance.   Our reality is that students have a gap in curriculum and standards-based instruction from last school year, probably several months at the least.  When core curriculum is broken down into a scope and sequence, then a pacing guide, to unit plans, aligned with formative assessment pieces, and then to daily lesson plan units of instruction it’s done for a reason and with a given sequencing and timing that’s designed to provide every child with a year’s worth of instruction in a calendar year’s time.  When schools were closed last spring, we know our students lost instructional units.  It’s our job as educators to fill in these gaps and try to reach students where they are and move them forward.  Neglecting to fill in these missing pieces would be an instructional injustice for children.  We also know that there’s a negative impact on student achievement with summer break, which is more than double for students from poverty.  Unfortunately, this break for students was more than double the normal amount of time.  Assuming a student was at grade level proficiency, and we know more than half our students weren’t at grade level when we closed, this still means this normal summer gap increased in magnitude and negative impact on student learning.  This gap even widens for students from poverty, which are normally the students that need the most differentiation with scaffolded instruction and multiple additional levels of intervention and support. The reality that students from poverty and student of diversity experienced the most significant negative outcomes from schools shutting down, both instructionally and mentally/physiologically, is a sad and disheartening truth that we must address.  We know the achievement gap was widened even further for students that need school, and all the supports that schools provide, the most of all subgroups of the student population.  

            The pandemic has expedited our entry into integrating technology and increased the need for remote learning.  Many schools have rushed into this school year and tried to fill the instructional and technological gap with scripted programs, online and virtual scripted platforms, and boxed products in an effort to provide instruction to students virtually.  Many educational product companies should have record profits this school year as federal money and state allocations are poured into technological resources for virtual instruction.  Wouldn't it have been great to have stock in Zoom, Google, Canvas, Apple, Apex, iReady, or any of the educational technology based companies?  However, the impact on learning could actually be negative, in terms of actual versus projected growth,  without building capacity, human instructional capacity.  How do we 100% know these programs are aligned to the standards that our students will be assessed on?  How do these programs take into account rigor and relevance?  Is there a component of differentiation and personalized learning or are these a one-size-fits-all programs  for every student?  Are we using these programs as resources or stand-alone instruction?  On the surface these types of programs seem like a quick fix solution that will appease our students and parents.  Don’t misunderstand, I believe 1:1, virtual, and/or blended learning is a great thing and something that every school should do or have already done…..but as a resource for instructional facilitation to be integrated into best practice strategies that foster high student engagement.  It can also be a resource that makes classroom discourse more efficient and communication more effective with all stakeholders…..as long as it’s utilized effectively. 

           I’m a proponent of virtual and blended learning, but not stand-alone without a great teacher guiding instruction.  Technology, if  used alone without building instructional capacity with teachers to use this as an instructional resource, won’t transform education but technology in the hands of great teachers can be truly transformational.  Scripted programs of any type, that don’t address the need to truly differentiate and fill in gaps in learning like a great teacher can, do an instructional injustice for children and negate the instructional capacity of our most effective teachers to extend student growth to exponential limits.  There are some cases, at the high school level, where the differentiation is by content and can stand alone.  The K-8 standards in Reading and Math build on each other and are sequenced specifically to lead to the next level of instruction.  There’s also a transitional gap leading into high school, especially in Math instruction that is highly involved in school composite scores in most states, although the results don’t sometimes show up for years until a cohort graduates.  At the high school level, students need some of the foundational skills from an Algebra II course, that lost months of instruction, to be able to be successful in Algebra III and this leaves them with a deficit this year that would put them in a dire disadvantage if they were put into a Calculus course. Long story short, it's our job (principals and teachers) to fill these gaps and meet every student's needs.  

            In his book “Coherence: The Right Drivers in Action for Schools, Districts, and Systems” , Fullan says “John Hattie (2015) has added further confirmation to our conclusions in his report What Works Best in Education: The Politics of Collaborative Expertise. His conclusion represents a powerful endorsement of our findings: “the greatest influence on student progression in learning is having highly expert, inspired and passionate teachers and school leaders working together to maximize the effect of their teaching on all students in their care” (p. 2).”  This is completely true and exemplifies the importance of learning in organizations.  The greatest resource any school or system has is the employees (teachers, administrators, support staff, etc.) that make the most significant impact on organizational success and student achievement.  To learning organizations, building instructional capacity is a key to our success and follows a continuous cycle of improvement through human capital development.  Instructional leaders need to make the decisions of what is best for students, while ensuring that we continually build instructional capacity with our teachers to ensure we continue to grow and improve.  To attain systemic instructional coherence, leadership must “always do what’s best for the team.” This means making improving student learning a top priority and mission for the school.  Decisions must be made around what is best for students and their learning, not what's easiest for the adults in the building.  This means connecting the dots in every facet of the school so that each part complements the next part and there is a synergistic effect where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.  The key to effective implementation of technology or use of online resources comes down to the people using them.  No matter what online resource, instructional program, textbook, technology, or other resources or programs are utilized, the most effective teachers will still be the most effective teachers.  If we know there are learning gaps from school closure last year, it’s our job to meet those needs.  If there is a lack of differentiation in a scripted program, it’s our job to differentiate instruction and provide what our students need to be successful.  When teachers need support and guidance in effectively implementing technology it’s the job of the principal, as the instructional leader, to help guide this process and provide the necessary support.  When part of our students are learning virtually and other are learning face-to-face, it’s our job to meet their needs and ensure our students learn at a high level.  Regardless of how we facilitate instruction, what platform is used, what programs are implemented, what mandates may come that seem to take autonomy away from great teachers……it’s our job to find a way to be successful, our students are counting on us and our future generations are counting on us to meet the learning needs of ALL students. 

            The two best ways principals can improve schools are (1) hire great teachers and (2) make the ones they have better, great principals do both.  Principals, as instructional leaders, need to remember that the most important part of continued school improvement and sustained gains in student achievement requires improving the instructional capacities of our teachers.  This is done both individually and collectively as we create a professional learning community where teachers collaboratively support each other and create a culture of collective efficacy where they believe they will positively impact learning for ALL students in the school.  We need to embrace the opportunities that we have as educators to work with children and impact future generations and create a safe, supportive, engaging, and fun learning environment.  We are lucky that students and parents choose us for their education.  Without students, they wouldn’t need teachers, principals, or schools.  It should’ve always been about students and their learning, never about what’s easiest for the adults in the building!  Let’s remember who our customers are and focus on service with gratitude in creating an engaging and fun learning environment for ALL students!  As we build instructional capacity and instructional coherence, we are all in this together and we increase the potential to increase student achievement and improve our schools as we develop human capital and improve instructional capacity.  

Prioritizing Instructional Leadership: Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing!

"Many principals say their priority is instructional leadership, but everyone in the building knows your priorities by where you spend your time and how effective you are by the impact you have on improving student learning." - McLaurin (2020) The Principal's Playbook on Instructional Leadership: 23 Things that Matter Most for Improving Student Achievement  

As we end the 2^nd week of the 2020-21 school year and enjoy a long Labor Day weekend, we are releasing a series of videos and posts on FB and the school website to help our student, parents, and community understand the shift in the way we facilitate education.  To me, this has been a fun and exciting opportunity to make a fundamental shift in instructional facilitation.  This is the fun and enjoyable part of the job in seeing everyone in the school grow professionally and work together for the singular purpose of providing the best possible education in the safest possible learning environment.  School should be somewhere teachers and students want to come; it should be where learning is both fun and engaging.  For many people, this has been a scary and stressful process, but it all depends on your mindset and perception of our reality.  I have truly enjoyed this part of the process so far and am extremely proud of how well teachers have adapted to teach students through blended and virtual learning.  We’ve called it “The Digital Era of Instructional Innovation.” This is a time where people look to instructional leadership for both innovation and support/guidance. It’s our job, as principals, to provide that instructional leadership for our schools. 

While most principals know there is a priority on instructional leadership, it is often overshadowed by school managerial demands. It is essential that school leaders learn to manage prioritizing instructional leadership as well as the managerial facets of the job. The heart of the role of the principal is student safety and teaching/learning. The main thing in every school should be student learning and instructional leaders at all levels keep that as the focus.  Instructional leadership takes a commitment, in terms of time and focus, from the principal.  Effective principals know how to ensure the managerial and operational facets of the school support the teaching and learning process and protect instructional time. Principals, as instructional leaders, should spend a minimum of 50% and target of 75% of their time devoted to improving student achievement through improving and supporting effective teaching and learning practices.  This means not just spending time on instruction, but spending time that improves instruction.  True instructional leaders put learning in the forefront and emphasize the need to prioritize learning for all.

Principals must be able to shift gears quickly and complete tasks in a compartmentalized way throughout the day, always keeping teaching and learning at the forefront. Principals need to make distinctions about what is more important and what is less important to prioritize the things that matter most to improving student achievement. Oftentimes, it is difficult to prioritize or filter through all of the fragmented situations that arise daily in making the school run effectively.  The role of the principal, as the instructional leader, is to make sure that the ship gets to the right destination, not just manage the ship to make sure it runs effectively.  Every school principal operates within the same time constraints. The most effective principals, in terms of improving student academic achievement, are instructional leaders and place instructional leadership as their top priority.

 Instructional leaders understand which practices yield the highest gains in student achievement and work for fidelity of best practice instruction across the entire school. Many principals give lip service in calling themselves instructional leaders, but everyone in the building knows what your priorities are by where you spend your time, more importantly the impact that time and effort has on improving student learning. 

“Leadership and management must coincide; leadership makes sure that the ship gets to the right place; management makes sure that the ship (crew and cargo) is well run” (Day, Harris, Hadfield, Tolley, & Beresford, 2000, pp. 38-39).