So much information to process from great people at NASSP Ignite 2013. Even though one session I selected was not what I thought it would be (was good, just not what I was looking for) and one that I had planned on attending was too packed to get into (should have arrived earlier), I have taken several things away from today's sessions. Rather than try to do this in paragraph form, I'm going to list some bullet points below.
- For a leader, 'yes' is more powerful than 'no' but not always easier. It encourages those in your organization to take risks and be creative. It also gives ownership to those with the ideas. Isn't that what we want if we are going to move forward?
- We need to find ways to communicate to parents that we believe their child is special. How do we DO things to convey this to parents on an individual basis?
- Day 1 of any school year is the day when our students are most engaged and excited. Yet, we tend to spend the day droning over policies, procedures, rules, etc. How can we use their heightened engagement on that day to set the stage for a great school year? Are there things we can do through 'shock and awe' in each classroom to show students our passion for them and for our content?
- I believe our school is a special place. How do I share that with others?
- As administrators, we have a strong tendency to use phrases like "That's the school policy" when explaining/defending decisions. What if school policy is not what is best for kids in a specific situation? How can we work to ensure that school policy and what is best for kids are aligned? Shouldn't that be our goal.
- We face many decisions and problems daily in schools. As an administrator, one of our jobs is to deal with those issues. But, are we always the smartest person in the building? I know I'm not in many situations. Teachers (and students) may have better solutions than we have. Do we trust them enough to implement their solutions?
Those points are from sessions I was able to attend. However, through the power of Twitter and the use of #nassp13, I 'virtually' attended multiple sessions. I have never been more convinced that Twitter is the most valuable tool for my personal professional development than I am after today. While attending a session on leadership, I learned the following things via tweets from colleagues attending other sessions - especially from the session on grading by Rick Wormeli. What the tweets I saw did for me was reaffirm that we are headed the right direction with our grading policies at MHS. That is not to say we are where we need to be, but our philosophy is sound. The trick is going to be refining our procedures so that they align well with our beliefs. How do we keep our grading focus on student learning and not adult convenience? One of the struggles is that no 'one size fits all' grading policy is going to motivate all students. I believe that ours helps many students with motivation, but we need to constantly evaluate it - and probably differentiate it based on student needs - in order to continue the growth of our school. A new phrase that resonated with me is "Grades are communication, not compensation." That is certainly a mindset shift - even the term 'earning a grade' implies compensation instead of communication.
I encourage each reader to check out tweets from the conference at #nassp13. There are a lot of good people with great ideas posting there.
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