Brendiasms

Megan Tschannen-Moran TRUST MATTERS—Leadership for Successful Schools

School improvement is often the most important and challenging task we do as school leaders. It frequently requires changing and aligning new systems to facilitate equitable opportunities for learning. Most building leaders would not argue the value of trust in this process. Although, the harder question to ask--is trust a priority in our school improvement process? Trust Matters author Megan Tschannen-Moran shares key practices of principals who not only have high expectations, but also understand “trustworthy leadership is at the heart of productive schools” (p. 14).

The author summarizes the five facets of trust as “key ingredients” needed for principals to lead successful schools. Positive change occurs when a principal models and demonstrates trust with benevolence, honesty, openness, reliability, and competence, but they cannot lead successful schools alone. Interdependent relationship exists between the principal and teacher and to expedite learning they must work together.

Tschannen-Moran uses current research to support her argument of the value of trust with school leaders. Although the reader will also find just as compelling the examples of three different principals and the level of trust they establish with their staff and the results that follow or not. Fred, Gloria, and Brenda are building principals all with good intent and more than wiling to engage in the seemingly insurmountable number and type of tasks required, but with very different outcomes.

Fred, who was well liked but consistently did not show competence, was unreliable, and would rather hand the decisions over to others. His faculty did not view him as trustworthy. Gloria was his opposite. She took on too much responsibility and was adamant exactly how the change should occur. Gloria leads the charge by taking ownership, but her tenor and tone were too assertive, and decision-making was a solo activity rather than a collaborative conversation. Staff questioned her motives and her lack of care on their perspective.  Their level of trust was almost nonexistent.

Throughout Trust Matters we also learn about principal Brenda. Her genuine care of each of her staff was consistently evident is her day-to-day routines. She expected a lot, but she gave a lot. The school improvement effort was shared in open and on-going conversations. Agreement was not always reached, but common goals lead the discussions with opportunities to learn from each other. Brenda was dependably reliable and often available. Her competence was evident in her knowledge of evidence-based research on teaching and learning. She was humble and compassionate, but not without faults. Brenda continued to learn from false steps and the strengths of others.

Leaders aspire to be like Brenda, but not without first being a bit like Fred and Gloria myself included. Actually when reading Trust Matters I continued to make a list of all the “Brendaism” I was inspired to do, or do more of. The list was long but not insurmountable and frankly I found the specific actions to be inspirational and reflective of the work of a turnaround principal. A wise and trusted colleague thought of the leadership transformation as moving away from the practices of Gloria towards the performance of a Brenda. Either way “the building of trust in schools requires time, effort, and leadership, the investment will bring lasting returns” (p. 267).

I am reluctant to put this book on my shelf, nestled with all my other favorites reads. I’ve packed it around with me the past few months and continue to read and rediscover the list of “Brendaism” I created.  I would encourage new readers to do the same.

What Teachers Do Matters--John Hattie

Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Hattie VISIBLE LEARNING FOR LITERACY—Implementing the Practices That Work Best to Accelerate Student Learning 

The star practitioners, Fisher and Frey, and the leading researcher Hattie’s collaborative work, Visible Learning for Literacy, Implementing the Practices That Work Best to accelerate Student Learning is an absolute must read for K-12 educators. Their mission and message continues to be loud and clear. What we do matters, and how we do it matters even more (Hattie, 2012).

Doing what matters requires making important and relevant choices on what works.  Moving away from what we always have done to embracing the evidence of what is to be done requires courage and conviction.

What Fisher, Frey and Hattie teach us is a skilled teacher must make the learning visible.  Teachers make the learning visible by being explicit on what is being taught, why it is important and relevant, and how students can monitor and measure their success.  An expert teacher utilizes feedback that acknowledges where their current level of performance is and implements the next steps needed to close the gap to reach mastery.  Resiliency is celebrated as students learn and navigate through mistakes, with a mindset these missteps are opportunities to grow and acquire the self-regulatory skills needed to strengthen their understanding.

Fisher, Frey, and Hattie encourage educators to be ever so mindful of this learning process with our students. This gives us an amazing opportunity as educators to be reflective of the specific effective teaching practices we implement to make the surface learning transfer to deep learning, and made meaningful as they apply and innovate in new ways. “Literacy matters” and “what teacher do matters” when they…

●      Scale learning to move from surface, to deep, to transfer, and match approaches to their students’ conceptual levels of knowledge.

●      Monitor their impact and use that information to inform instruction and intervention.

●      Reject instructional practices that harm learning.

●      Make literacy learning visible to their students, so their students can become their own teachers” (p .167).

Strengths Discovery and Action Planning

Tom Rath STRENGTHSFINDER 2.0—Now Discover Your Strengths

Do you know what your natural talents and abilities are? What about the shortcomings and lack of skills we all tend to have?  Even more important, do you know how to use these “strengths” and understand your weaknesses to your advantage?  Tom Rath, author of StrengthsFinder 2.0 assures us, “You cannot be anything you want to be—but you can be lot more of who you already are” (p.9) by developing those talents we have and leaving room for growth.

In 1998, Roth began working with Gallup scientists to start a conversation worldwide of “what’s right with people” and how they could support individual’s understanding of each person’s “potential for growth.” By knowing ones strength and their accompanying behaviors, people would have a greater understanding how to develop strategies to meet the demands of daily life, professions, friends and family.

After purchase readers are invited to participate in the Gallup poll and discover their five most dominant themes of talent in rank order. “The purpose of StrengthsFinder 2.0 is not to anoint you with strengths—it simply helps you find the areas where you have the greatest potential to develop strengths” (p. 31). There lies the key in action steps to apply your strengths to move forward in a positive direction.

I took the Gallup StrengthsFinder Poll about 10 years ago, when I was an instructional coach, and then again just recently as an elementary principal.  I was unable to locate the original order of my initial results, but when taking it for a second time; three out of the five strengths remained the same. These three areas of strengths were not the surprise, but the last two items on my list were a surprise. The fourth I agreed with. Having Focus as a leader of a school in improvement, and as a student in my doctorial studies this makes a lot of sense.

The final item on my StrengthsFinder 2.0 list is almost offensive to me. I don’t consider this to be a strength at all, but a prideful characteristic found in those needing to be recognized and celebrated. Here is the power of Roth’s book. In detail you will learn the specific characteristic of this strength, what this strength sounds like with real life examples, ideas for actions (my personal favorite), and how to work with others who demonstrate this same personality. It is not the strength that defines you, but what and how you use it for growth and understanding of your behaviors. 

StrengthsFinder gives you the opportunity to do what you do best everyday. By putting their recommendations to action with a more mindful approach to maximize your talents, this can lead you to more aligned pathway to personal and professional success.