Lesson #3: Show Them

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I’ve been reflecting a lot on my first year in school leadership; the third lesson from this year is SHOW THEM.

I’ve received a lot of validation this year for the theory that modeling the outcomes and initiatives you wish to see gets the best results; from a school leadership position this practice can generate the organic growth and development we want students and staff alike to demonstrate.

1. I made a bunch of tutorial and promotional screencasts this year, and some teachers throughout the year began sharing ones they made after seeing mine. I didn’t have to pontificate about the merits of making videos; people saw what I was doing, realized the value, and took the initiative to pursue it. Awesome.

2. We had a staff workshop on UBD that didn’t go very well, but for the rest of the year I planned and published my meeting agendas using a UBD template with all of our district indicators. As we close up school this week and I prepare to move on to another district there are still teachers approaching me about UBD and writing goals for next year regarding curriculum design. A little modeling went a long way.

3. Like many districts we’re integrating Common Core standards into our curriculum, and we’re also implementing the use of school-wide rubrics to assess school learning expectations. I used my part-time status in the classroom to create a hoist of CCSS / common rubric aligned activities, and my part-time status as an administrator to promote and share them with everybody. More and more throughout the year I saw teachers using and improving the templates I created for their purposes; I saw less and less anxiety and fear surrounding both initiatives as more and more people saw easy and effective ways to integrate them. Creating resources and showing how to use them gets results.

The bottom line is the degree to which you’re visible affects people’s perception of you. More so than being physically visible in halls, classes, etc, there are ways beyond that for school leaders to be a visible part of the initiatives and desired direction of the school. If it’s clear that it’s important enough to you to model, then it becomes more important to everyone. Show them how it can be done.