Sunday, October 16, 2011

Vision & Mission

Part of the profressional standards for school administrators is to articulate vision and mission. I turned this in for an assignment earlier this year, and thought I would up the ante with a wider audience...

1. A clear and commonly accepted vision/mission will drive school culture. I recently heard victory defined as the accomplishment of a specific task. Too often, I find there is an inability to define what we as educators are trying to accomplish. If we as a school community can create a universally accepted vision of the school, we can work together to achieve it. If we go into each day as fifty individuals somewhat working toward an ambiguous goal, achievement becomes blurry. I firmly believe that strong interpersonal leadership at the administrative level can harness the energy and organization needed to bring all stakeholders together to create this common mission.

2. Curriculum and instruction must be perpetually improved and updated. As our clientele evolves, so to must our approach to teaching and working with them. School cannot be the place associated with outdated technology and expectations. A student should not think of school as the the only other place besides Grandma's that still has and uses VCR's. We must work tirelessly to find cost effective and logistically efficient ways to modernize our delivery of education. If we don't, then we will render ourselves irrelevant in our own students' lives. Today's student has influences coming at them 24/7 from a variety of sources. Schools need to plug themselves into this network to compete with all the forces that exist. We're not going to get there by sticking to nostalgic notions of the way "things ought/used to be done."

3. Leadership is about building relationships with all stakeholders. Leaders who don't build those interpersonal relationships probably aren't leading anyone. Like coaches, we need to get to know our players as people if we expect them to grow under our watch. By reaching out to students, parents, residents, and other staff members to build these relationships, we will achieve a level of collegiality and collaboration that will foster the results we are looking for. If we don't have the partnerships, results will stagnate.

4. Education and self-improvement are life-long endeavors. Complacency produces mediocrity. We as educators should always be working on something new. Whether its reading a new book, mastering a new technology for implementation in the classroom, or sprucing up a unit that has never been one of our stronger ones, the pursuit of constant growth will always keep us fresh and current. And by living the life long learner mission, we will model the behaviors and traits we hope to bequeath our students.

If the entire school community remains in constant pursuit of an agreed upon vision by employing cutting edge methods and techniques delivered by a connected staff universally engaged in self improvement, student learning will skyrocket. With the right leadership, this can happen.