Wow! So far we have 26 followers here at Smithfield America...that's amazing, especially considering it is July. For those of you who participated in last week's training on Interdisciplinary Instruction, you will notice some depth and complexity elements have been added to the questions. Do you think our responses will reflect deeper thinking? Hmmm...we'll see!
1. An underlying theme of this chapter is the importance of staff unity toward achieving a school improvement initiative. What are some ideas of ways our staff can become closer? How do you think improving staff relationships will impact our scholars? (this is our new word for students by the way:)
2. The book details many examples of ways students at A.B. Combs are given leadership responsibilities. One of our current practices is rewarding our "natural born leaders" with leadership roles. Please share any ideas you have of how we can break this cycle (pattern) and expand leadership opportunities to include more scholars on our campus.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1. Ideally, it would be awesome if we could all undergo the training of the 7 habits. The book talks about how it is life changing. We would all see first hand the power for ourselves and then bring them to our students. Since I don't think we have the funds for such, then perhaps we can do another book study on the book about the habits. Ultimately, the part in the book about the arrows being out of alignment hits home to me. We all do a lot of really great things for our students, but if we all come together with a common mission, vision, and strategy, and put it together with a common language of terms that are meaningful to our school, we may begin to see something great become even greater.
ReplyDelete2. We need to find more ways to highlight the talents of all of our students, not just the "natural born leaders". I love the idea of having "greeters" each day. What a wonderful way to begin each day and not only for the greeters, but for those being greeted as well. I find it interesting especially that the students discussed in the book who were "problems" were given opportunity to show leadership, which led to improvement in behavior.
Yes...greeters, maybe some of the ones who arrive insanely early are also wildly welcoming!? Could we also explore the idea of having student crossing guards?? (accompanied by adult volunteers of course.)
ReplyDeleteI think we can grow closer as a staff if we gather together more often, either at school or away from school...who would be up for a session of LCR (super fun dice game) before school starts? I will have it at my house :)
I really like the greeters idea. I thought the same thing when I read it in the book. I also want to use greeter leaders in my classroom this year. Teach them how to greet as students enter the room. It might take a few months before they are ready for this, but I have thought about this. There are many leader sayings in the book that would be great to post around the building and in our classroom. By having leader roles in our classroom instead of helper charts my also build leaders out of many instead of a few. Each year I look for opportunities to build leaders, this fits in with many more ideas to use.
ReplyDeleteI also think the 7 Habits book would be very good for us to read as we build our staff relationships. Our relationships are pretty good but with some fun acitvities like the CLR game night and or a book study and other ideas we can always improve and get on the same page in our culture with language, discipline, etc.from K-5th. I am looking forward to starting to build leaders this year.
I’m back from San Diego and am just now getting caught up with the great ideas that everyone has been sharing. The teachers who have been blogging seem to be on the right track and are getting on board with The Leader in Me. I love everyone’s enthusiasm.
ReplyDeleteI would love more time to meet with my team so that we could discuss what we would all like to see happening with our scholars this year. I’d also like to meet with all the teachers and staff to discuss our new leadership theme and share ideas. Any social time that we could fit in would be wonderful.
I think we can showcase our scholars with the greeter program that has already been mentioned and by having more of a variety of grade levels represented during our morning announcements. Maybe the younger students could be introduced to doing the announcements by pairing them with an older buddy.
My favorite part of chapter four came from the scholar who said that what they did was not magic. It was hard work. Then he suggested a new code of cooperation with the acronym, LEAD.
Ok, I'll try this again, we have been having trouble with our internet lately!
ReplyDeleteI love to socialize and build relationships and I would love to learn how to play LCR. I would also like to see our staff come together more often to discuss the successes of our students as well as ourselves.
I believe greeters would be a great asset to our campus. I can think of a few that would really excel in that area.
Mrs. Tellez, I agree with your last paragraph. It was very insightful for a student to realize that it was work and not Magic. I did like the acronym MAGIC, but LEAD demonstrates the foundation. Additionally, the scholars were also given ample occasions to put the principles into practice. It took 5 years before it became 2nd nature to them. I wrote in my book, "Give It Time'
I also like the Celebrating Successes section. The Hamburger Rubric is something all scholars can relate to. I believe most would strive for the 4. After all, who doesn't want a free shake and fries. :)
Unity is a very proactive offense to any divide and conquer mindset that attempts to disrupt trust and integrity in one another as stakeholders of Smithfield's success. If it builds security in the scholar at home, how much more in the school where he/she is most of the waking hours.
ReplyDeleteOur scholars need more leadership opportunities so that they can have healthier self-esteems, and a willingess to "get the job done well". Many of my second graders did not have assigned tasks in the home and their attitudes about their own responsiblity to pick up, clean up, care for, complete tasks, etc. were sadly lacking. I will have more leadership opportunities in the class, to be more helpful in the cafeteria, in the line, and in the halls. (Not rules, but healthy expectations.) We have some leadership opportunities that we can easily pass along to the scholar from the front office, the cafeteria, the kitchen, the custodians, Library, classrooms, to computer labs, Music, P. E. etc. I loved Karen's suggestion about team, and the whole faculty meeting to discuss leadership theme and network ideas.
Giving scholars an active role in creating, planning, and organizing school events will help them feel valued while they are learning to be leaders. Here are some categories to get us started in thinking of ways to involve our scholars...add to the list and let's see how many ideas we can come up with...start with #7...palease!!!
ReplyDelete1. Assemblies- have scholars introduce our guests, direct classes to seats etc...
2.Communication- announcements & bulletin boards
3.Special Days- carnival, career day, grandparents day, Red Ribbon week, book fair, chili cook-off, etc...
4.Green-Team- help with all things environmental, recycling etc.
5.Charities- Pennies for patients, United Way, Pink Day, Red Day
6.Hosts& Greeters (also, I've always thought there was a need for someone to be on "duty" near the big gym in the morning to escort kindergartners to the cafeteria...operation cut the cord, we could call it:)
We could accept "applications" and hold interviews to fill these positions.
7. Board of Directions
ReplyDeleteThese scholars could help parents find their child's classroom on the special days mentioned above. An example would be on the days that dads visit our school and aren't sure who their child's teracher is or where the classroom is located.
8. I need an umbrella of grace: Would a peer group of student leaders be able to help direct and encourage some students who have behavioral challenges? Could they direct the correction with an adult facilitator present? Yes, I recognize this might have some challenges, but I wonder about the positive influence of peers.
ReplyDelete9. Library Leaders
ReplyDeleteAssist in shelving books, checking books in or out, holding book study groups, assisting with Kindergarten classes
I am finally back in Texas. What excellent ideas everyone has posted. Mr. Bicknell is certainly a "leader of leaders." I posted an idea on Chapter 3 today for everyone's opinion. I also emailed everyone about a funding opportunity through Sonic. I suggested that we could write a project to purchase the 7 Habits books for all of us. After going to the website it looks like the funding has to be used for projects that would directly effect and benefit our scholars. However, that doesn't mean each of you couldn't come up with a project for your classroom. It is worth a try.
ReplyDeleteI have questions for those of you who attended the Interdisciplinary Instruction Workshop at Walker Creek. If you were choosing which program/culture to initiate at Smithfield would you choose the 7 Habits or the Interdisciplinary Instruction that incorporates Depth and Complexity, Scholarly Behaviors, and Multiple Intelligences? I can see connections between the two choices. Could we align all 4 ideas and practices?
Susan I'm so glad you brought up the Interdisciplinary instruction, because the entire training I found myself wondering the same thing. How will these two new approaches fit in with what we already do? Learning the Interdisciplinary theories during the training while checking on this blog in the evening, I could feel my brain already becoming a bit overwhelmed. By the end of the week I decided the Interdisciplinary Instruction is all about how to get our scholars “thinking” differently and the 7 Habits is all about how to get our scholars “behaving” differently. So together, they really make a lot of sense. I think the key to our success will be baby steps for both… neither is a magic bullet:)!!
ReplyDeleteAlso, we have ordered the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People for the staff and will be having a book study during the year for anyone interested! The study is tentatively set for Wednesday afternoons…more details to come!
Awesome, Shawn! I am happy to hear that we will have an opportunity to read the 7 Habits book. Sign me up! I am looking forward to that book study. I've been a witness to Interdisciplinary Instruction at work and I can tell you that it really does work. It is totally overwhelming changing the way you think and learning all the philosophies and how they relate, in order that you can teach them and also lead by example. Like the little boy said "It's not magic. It's hard work." It can befuddle and overwhelm the brain, but it is worth the effort for ourselves, our scholars and our school. I also think that if we buy into the philosophy that "if we treat all [scholars] as if they are gifted, and you look at them through the lens (Scholars see things from different perspectives. A Scholarly Behavior and Habit 5)of being gifted in at least some aspect (Multiple Intelligences), they will rise to the level of expectation." (p70) It's a Win-Win situation!
ReplyDeleteSign me up for LCR game time Shawn, sounds great- lets set a date.
ReplyDeleteI am thinking there are always your key 6 leaders in each grade of kids who do most of the jobs, so expanding the list to different areas will help tap the resources of the kids (scholars) we normally wouldn't use.
I love the assembly leader ideas, also, the scholars can help with our programs we already have in place, they come up with better ideas for success than we do.
I think the Greeter idea is so powerful, it should start on day one, this is how we are doing it this year whether in 1st grade or for the school.
I am really getting excited about this new opportunity to make our school even better. I love the acronym for MAGIC. It ties right into my own personal beliefs. I wish it would happen by magic; but yes, it does take hard work. I would like the opportunity for our staff to be trained in the 7 habits. The time together would be so uplifting. I think sharing with our Smithfield staff would help us to make this program ours. The book talks about how each school made this program fit their school. Time together would help us share ideas about how to make this program not just a change in the organizational chart but a change in philosophy. I love what the book says about 1) teachers modeling the habits, and 2) students being given the opportunity to practice the leadership principles. I want to know how to do this. Help me.
ReplyDeleteI know it is so hard not to select the natural born leader to run errands and take something to the office (because it might not get there otherwise); but maybe we could pair that natural born leader with a student who is not by nature a leader. I like what the book says about rewarding students for demonstrating leadership, not just academic achievement.I want all students to have the opportunity to be a leader in my music classroom and in their music programs.
I really want more student input this year. I hope I am willing to share the power.