Skip to main content

The Little Things are the Real Game Changers



This year I want to focus on enhancing my pedagogical development and learning how to encourage positive change within my school. Just like my first teaching post, I entered administration excited and feeling like I could help everyone all the time. Then, reality set in and I realized that I could only affect change with the students, teachers, and parents who wanted to accept my help. My second realization is that positive change (in terms of school climate) does not necessarily mean big impressive projects or initiatives. So I asked myself, what is the backbone of change? There are so many components that make effect change effective within a school. I narrowed down three that I thought that I could work on this year.

1. Consistency. This means no surprises. Staff, students, and parents should have a general idea of what decisions will be made based on their rights, responsibilities, and agreed on school guidelines. The  school community should expect me to be equitable. 

2. Support. Students and parents should feel comfortable to come see me at any given time. I know that saying 'I have an open door policy' is cliché, but this must be the case. They need to feel heard and taken seriously. In terms of staff, the latter applies, but they also need to know their initiatives and ideas will be supported.

3. Trust. People need to know that they can trust me with the information they are sharing and that I will use help in any way that I can. It is not easy for us to trust each other, especially when it comes to area of weaknesses. It means that we will need to be vulnerable with one other and rely on each other's strengths in order for us to work through areas of difficulty.

 Now the real challenge is implementing all of this, to help change 'the game'. I guess we will see. What do you do to bring about positive change? Please share your insight with me.

Labels:

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 29, 2014 at 7:10 PM

    Hey Natasha,
    I think you are on the right track. 1) Consistency helps staff, students and the community know what you stand for. 2) Support comes in many forms and it means different things to different people. Finding out how individuals need to be supported takes time. 3) Trust is the backbone of all relationships. It's true that it takes a long time to build it and a short time to break it.
    We have been talking and living the #BetterTogether in our district this year and I think your blog fits nicely with that.
    Keep Calm and Blog On!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Makes You Credible? #SAVMP

Why should I give you a chance? Can I rely on you? Why should I trust you? Have you ever felt like those questions were/are the unsaid or unheard 'elephant in the room'? Over the past 3 and a half years I have been on a journey to build credibility with my staff and colleagues. I entered the school not only as a new addition to the staff, but new to the position. It seemed like I would never get to a place where people could trust me or feel like I was able to help support the staff effectively. I have to say that this has been a difficult blog for me to write. I am not sure if I have figured out the formula for credibility. At this stage in my career I find myself reflecting on my practices weekly and wondering what areas need to change. With all the recent changes,  my credibility is definitely on my mind. The more articles I read and the more people I spoke to, made me realize that I need to hone in on specific areas if I want to grow in terms of my leadership. I
4 comments
Read more

Bringing Parents Into The Learning Process #SAVMP

I have to confess, upon receiving this blog challenge I resorted to research. There was a lot of literature about why parents should get involved. There were also suggestions given as to how you can get parents from middle-upper  class communities involved. Gaining parent involvement in a low socioeconomic community has always been a challenge for me (and my research did not result successfully in this area). I have been very fortunate to work with an incredible staff. Our staff continually forges relationships with the students and their parents. Keeping the lines of communication open through positive feedback and social media seems to have increased parental awareness of school information and activities. It is great to have parents commenting on facebook posts of activities in the school or even ask questions about school life. This has proven to be an open door to communication. In order to further forge relationships with parents we had to get creative. We invite them ou
4 comments
Read more

Bringing About Change is Tricky Business #SAVMP

1. "It's just the kids and I." After my last post in February, I set out to make some changes because I realized that the staff did not feel empowered  and that change was necessary in order to move forward. As I searched for ways to empower the staff it became evident that some teacher's strengths were being overlooked. The methodology and pedagogy behind technology in the classroom are new to many teachers in my school.  It turns out that there are several staff members that can give digital literacy & pedagogy workshops to their colleagues. Their willingness to do so provided opportunities for staff to feel empowered and proved to be successful. Why did I bring this up? Well, it opened the lines of communication amongst staff members and enabled them to collaborate. Unit planning no longer takes place in isolation; collaboration is becoming more common place. If someone would have asked me if this kind of collaboration could occur two years ago I would have
2 comments
Read more