While all of the activities for session three have made lots of sense to me and I can see utilizing pieces of information here and there, the piece that resonated the strongest was Gabriel's insight and idea in Chapter 4. Just last year, I joined the Leadership Team - a group of teachers from all levels and discipline in the district - and although anyone can "join", this past fall we were characterized as administration's puppets. Members were told that we were put in place to do administration's bidding. It has taken all of my power not to engage in the quarrel as that's where all of the energy will end up going rather than on making things better for students. I feel that I will be able to start applying some of these practices and suggestions to garner more respect as a teacher leader in my building.For example, Gabriel's suggestions of redirecting questions of the dissenters and giving them other tasks to engage their time will help immensely as we plan other initiatives for the high school in particular.
And while I've been previously aware of the generational gaps in education, it had always been presented to me in terms of Millenials as students and now as parents rather than as peers, colleagues or coworkers. The Tune In article presented the information in regards to what it means to schools which was a new perspective to me. I can apply this information as a look at the mentoring program in the school district and how teachers interact with each other.
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Ann, Connecting to this week's assignment, you can also see the doubters of your leadership group as "Hems" from Who Moved My Cheese? They are throwing up roadblocks to change, and most likely as a result of fear. Rather than, like you, invest in moving forward in search of a better environment, they are choosing to fight to protect the status quo. Good luck in bringing about the necessary changes in your district and I'm sure you'll find some help from this weeks assignments.
ReplyDeleteJason - Yeah, I did make the connection between the Hems and the roadblockers - I really liked the chapter this week because it gave tips and tricks as to how to approach and deal with the Hems.
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