I attended an Administrator Academy yesterday. For those that aren't familiar with Administrator Academies, they are mandated professional development for each administrator in the state of Illinois. Every administrator in the state must attend at least one per year.
For the academy that I selected, Jim Burgett was the presenter. Jim is a former teacher, principal and superintendent. He has twice been named administrator of the year. The academy was entitled "Tools for Effective Leadership" and since this is something I've been studying in my doctoral classes I wanted to hear from a practitioner (to go along with the theory I have been studying). He certainly didn't disappoint.
While I learned a multitude of new things yesterday, I want to leave you with something that I felt was the most important and that's would be his 3-Step Guarantee to being Successful. I like simple and concise, and these certainly fit the bill. The first step is to Be Kind. Leading with compassion is not a weakness, it is a strength. It doesn't cost anything to be kind to one another. We certainly want others to treat us with kindness, but do we always treat everyone we meet with kindness? The second step is to Think Solutions. This step is so true and it's been something I've tried to focus on this year. There are so many difficulties in education at the present time. We can sit around and whine and complain or we can get together and work on solutions to make the situation better. Things go wrong and will continue to go wrong, but we need to focus our energy on fixing problems. If we work on solutions to problems we can grow as an organization (and community), no growth from whining and complaining. The third step is to Work with a Passion. What would a school system look like if everyone worked with passion? So how do you stack up against Jim's steps to being successful? It certainly gave me some food for thought.
As has been my custom this year during my blogs I want to finish by thanking someone within the school system . My thanks this blog goes out to Kevin McCleary and Kathy Walsh. These two individuals work together as coaches for the middle school scholastic bowl team. Kevin is the head coach and he reads the questions during the matches. He's is always positive with the kids. He gives as much positive reinforcement to the opposing team members as he does to his own team. If a student gets a question wrong, he tells them that it was a good try or it was a good answer and often follows up with why their question was wrong (teaching them in the process). Even though the setting is "competitive" Kevin always creates an atmosphere where both teams feel comfortable trying to answer the challenging questions. I knew that Kevin was a great classroom teacher but seeing him work with the scholastic bowl team has given me a new respect for him. Kathy isn't as involved with the students during the matches but she helps keep everyone (especially the parents) organized. My real thanks to Kathy is for her dedication to helping students find a passion for reading. She is beginning a project for a community-wide read on the book My Life in Dog Years by Gary Paulsen. It was an idea that we talked about last year and she has taken the initiative to "get the ball rolling." More to come on the community-wide read, so watch the district website as this starts to unfold. My thanks to Kevin (for his kindness) and to Kathy (for her passion) in making CCUSD#1 a better place for students and adults.
Thanks for reading
Tammy
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