The year 2020 has been a year of challenges, change, perseverance and innovation. Educators have been challenged beyond their measure, yet have stepped up to the challenges presented to them thus far. Since March 2020, NYC educators have taken on their professional responsibilities with flexibility. The mindset to end the 2019-2020 school year was “united we stand for OUR children.” With this in mind, the 2020-2021 school year may be a lens to the new norm in pubic school education. Transformation is inevitable. It is clear all stakeholders within a school community are learning the changes at the same time. This is why it is imperative for school leaders to leverage all leaders within a school building, which means all personnel who make up the school community. Franklin Covey’s The Leader in Me states a philosophy that emphasizes there is a leader in every individual on a team. This leadership mindset requires these leaders to create personal goal setting for both staff and students. Through the 7 Habits principles, all leaders are encouraged to maximize their strengths and achieve their individual goals for not only personal growth, but communal growth. Keeping Covey’s principle in mind, it is more important than ever for NYC schools to leverage their teacher leaders and develop leaders within all school stakeholders. But how can schools do this? The table below states how each of the 7 habits can be performed within your school.
HABIT | How can we leverage the leader in our teachers? |
1. Be proactive | – Build a rapport among staff and students. – This will allow to plan for the future in a proactive not reactive way. This can include surveys, feedback loops, SEL advisory lessons and a focus on identity lessons to start the year off and build relationships. – Develop social networking / staff team building events for staff to help develop school culture and a strong PLC |
2. Begin with the end in mind | – Share the school’s CEP goals and instructional focus of the school year – Create a shared vision for school culture, SEL and equity goals within the school – Teachers choose a team of your interest to support your professional responsibilities to grow yourselves and the school. – Determine the expectations and traits of strong synchronous and asynchronous lessons. However, before doing so, gather the capability of your staff. – Leverage tech-savvy teachers to differentiate professional development for staff struggling with technology or looking to enhance their skills. |
3. Put first things first | – Place strong relationships in the forefront for the benefit of students – SEL is TOP priority during this time period – Trauma-informed pedagogy and school culture strategies should be implemented. An example of this would be to implement CFUs even in remote lessons geared towards gathering the mental state of the child, for example the mood meter. |
4. Think win-win | – Focus on interests not positions. Although there are formal teacher leader roles, all teachers can be a leader. Leverage the strengths of each individual teacher to build interests and initiatives with the benefit of both students and staff members. – Allow teachers to be part of a quality insurance school report to use their strengths to help build weak areas of the school, or even to enhance to enhance each individual teacher’s strengths. This allows for ownership, creativity and buy-in. |
5. Seek first to understand | – In this time of a biological pandemic and political crisis, it is important to first seek to understand the identities of staff members and students. – It is also important to educate and seek to understand implicit/explicit biases in order to develop equity PD sessions and abolitionist teaching with the best interests of student learning in mind. – This can be done with affinity groups, surveys, book clubs, equity teacher training to lead sessions on a team by team basis, as well as student and staff peer coaching. |
6. Synergize | – Leverage teacher leaders. To ensure synergy happens within the school, allow educators to be a part of the decision-making process by encouraging educators to be a part of different teams within the school helping to plan / design educational activities and curricula for students. – Every principal has a set of teachers that are reliable, however, do not depend on these teachers only. Do not fill up their plate too much. – Build teams based on the needs of the school and interests of staff members. Teacher leaders can help supervise or coach new teachers taking on a leader role. This will ensure the creation of a teacher leader academy within your own school while also increasing retention. – Train educators to lead PD sessions within the school to take the reins on initiatives and train other educators to do so as well. |
7. Sharpen the saw | – Allow for balance. Emphasize to teachers the importance of physical and mental wellness. – Invest in their personal well -being not just their “teacher” well-being. – Leverage teacher leaders to take their hobbies by creating TWT (teacher wellness time) sessions to provide balance for your educators as well as to also build a strong PLC and healthy school culture. |
REMEMBER, there is a leader in all of us. In The Leader Who Had No Title, Robin Sharma stated it best, “Victims sight problems, leaders present solutions.” Focus in on solutions to a challenge you may come across and awaken the inner leader within you no matter your role. Everyone must lead in order to build a brilliant organization. Therefore, real leadership is not about a title or what you get but rather how brilliantly you can master your strengths to lead an entire team and work towards an initiative while improving your weaknesses. Maximize your strengths and practice leaderships for the benefit of the community. As they say, “there is no ‘i’ in team.”
https://www.leaderinme.org/
https://www.nycleadershipacademy.org/workshops/
https://www.teachingmatters.org/culturally-responsive-sustaining-education/?gclid=CjwKCAjw8MD7BRArEiwAGZsrBThJm4legJeFUfcVHXSjJHCTDOoXU7sNkdO0ZkU4EjOFdnZOWu5BIRoC458QAvD_BwE
https://www.schoolreforminitiative.org/
www.teachingtolerance.org
www.casel.org
The Leader in Me by Franklin Covey
The Leader Who Had No Title by Robin Sharma
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