Don't Let Setbacks Set You Back

Sometimes, in the process of moving forward, there are setbacks. Disappointment is not really all that motivating, despite what people might say. It can feel more like a weight pulling you down. So, how do you re-group and get back on track?

As a leader, we have to set the tone, so we can't focus on the disappointment. We have to stay focused on what is working and the results that we are getting. When there is so much riding on the results of state assessments, it can be difficult to see the many things that contribute to overall growth, but purposefully calling out the things that are going well can help to redirect your focus away from feeling down and energize that positive thinking again.

Don't let a set back stop you from moving forward. Find a way to refine your focus and clarify your vision. Take inspiration from others who have been knocked down and gotten back up to experience great success. 

A major aspect of being a turnaround leader is looking for the early wins. Sometimes those early wins are not the things that you can see in state assessment scores - but they will make the space for that powerful academic achievement to happen. Without the significant changes that we experienced in culture and climate, we would not be able to make any academic gains. Without the shifts in belief that we have worked so hard to establish, we would not be able to build a culture of goal-setting and data analysis. Without the relentless commitment of our staff to the vision of our turnaround plan, we would not be able to see the kind of effective collaboration, data analysis, and instructional planning that we are seeing with our teams. And so, we won't focus on the disappointments of the day, but on the day when our students will achieve on level with others across the state and the country and we will know that the hard work, tears, sleepless nights, and deep commitment have all been worth it. 

Deep Work

As a turnaround leader, your day is full of immediate priorities - most of which are not the priorities that you started off with on your to-do list. A colleague of mine referred to her need to have time in her day for the "deep work" - time that she could prioritize toward the work that needs to be done or the tasks that need to be completed. So, the question is not only about how we prioritize our time so that we can accomplish the work that needs to be done, but also, what is the work that should be prioritized?

In many principal interviews, they will give you a scenario of three (or more) situations happening simultaneously and ask you how you would react. In most of these scenarios, there is an immediate crisis in the building (think safety), a parent demanding to meet with the principal, and a call from the Superintendent that must be attended to - all happening simultaneously. That is pretty typical - but you can usually add in a pressing deadline, classroom observations, meetings, and emails requiring immediate responses.

What are the priorities of a turnaround leader?

1. Inspect what you expect. You cannot turnaround a school without knowing exactly what is happening in classrooms on a daily basis. This is the priority. Observation. Feedback. Change. Seeing results in classrooms and in student learning. If you are not available because you are in classrooms supporting instruction, that will be understood.
2. Empower your team. The work of a turnaround leader requires a strong team - that includes your leadership team, your instructional team, your support staff, your teacher leaders, and your classroom leaders. Meet regularly with these key people to make sure that the work is being pushed out and that they own the vision enough to fill in when you are unavailable. Include opportunities for practice and rehearsal in your regular meetings so that you are confident that your team has the skills necessary to handle challenges when they arise. You are the leader, but a good leader has an even better team.
3. Make time to manage. Trusting that others will follow through on tasks and assignments is important, but so is checking in to see that these tasks and assignments are meeting deadlines and expectations. Building in the time at the beginning to ensure that everyone has the same vision of the work is also important to preventing frustration and feeling like you have to take over when things don't go as planned.
4.  Build a strong community. When your community is with you, then it makes it much easier to solve problems and keep things moving forward. Take the time to learn who the parents are who can help to move your vision forward and who can have a positive influence on the greater community.
5. Base everything in results. If you are not regularly reviewing your data - individual student data, classroom data, grade level data, interim assessment data, and student work, then you cannot make mid-course corrections or celebrate your successes. 
6. Keep an open door, but know when you need to close it. There are times when you need to close your door, do the work, and make the deadline. I don't do this often, but when I need to, I know that my team has what it takes to keep everything moving.
7. Take the time to go back to 10,000 feet. You cannot move a vision forward if you are stuck in the minutia. Emails have to be answered, phone calls must be returned, and meetings must be attended, but you have got to back up and return to your vision on a regular basis - for yourself and for your team. 

Are you the one?

Can you think of the one person who was pivotal in supporting you, believing in you, or influencing you in the trajectory of your life? Mine was Gloria Carroll. She was my 7th grade Social Studies teacher and she was the first person to really see me and believe in me. What I mean is that she really saw my potential and encouraged me to see it as well. I have had many teachers - and many were good teachers - but, Mrs. Carroll ranks at the top all of these years later because she took an active role in believing in me. She talked with me, she listened to me, she encouraged me to dream, she encouraged me to challenge myself academically, and she set the bar for my success high and expected that I would reach it.

When I reflect on the most meaningful teachers in my life, they all have similar characteristics: they pushed me, they encouraged me, they supported me, and they believed in me. The teachers who I remember the clearest had high standards, they could articulate what excellence looked like/sounded like, they gave explicit feedback, and they challenged my thinking about myself, the content, and/or the world around me.

As a principal, this is what I want for my students. Teachers who see them for their possibilities and not defined by their neighborhood or their [perceived]family background. Teachers who have the same high expectations for their students that they have for their own children. Teachers who know that high standards and academic success rarely exist in a worksheet that reduces thinking down to a few sentences or sound bites. Teachers who encourage creative and divergent thinking and who actually listen to student thinking - always challenging them to go further, do more, expand their thinking.Teachers who believe that the next President, the next Steve Jobs, the next Olympic athlete, or the next award-winning author is sitting right in front of them - waiting to hear those words that will change the trajectory of their life forever. "To me, you are not a challenge, you are an opportunity."

Watch this video. Don't say to yourself, "I will watch it later." Watch it now. And ask yourself if you are the one for someone in your classroom. Are you the one person who makes a difference in the lives of the children you serve? Are you the teacher that will still be the one in thirty years (or more)?  Are you helping your students see themselves as the next President, award-winning author, or creative genius? 

Teachers are powerful. They directly influence the future. Be that teacher who dares to believe, who dares to have high expectations, and who sees the future sitting in front of them each day in their classroom. And be that teacher who is brave enough to tell your students all that they can be. No matter what.

Math Matters

When I was in school, math was about right or wrong: correct or incorrect. If you struggled with figuring it out or had to think about the problem differently, it was discouraged. I have a vastly different understanding and appreciation for mathematics now that I am on the other side of the whiteboard. But, our instructional practices haven't caught up to the purpose of higher standards. The rationale behind higher standards is to move mathematics away from a purely procedural study into a study of questioning, problem-solving, testing hypotheses, and failing forward.

The majority of our metrics in our receivership status focus on mathematics - so math has been on my mind a considerable amount lately.

The purpose of higher standards in mathematics is to bring back the joy and curiosity that should live in problem solving - to inspire the next generation of thinkers, to build confidence in reasoning skills, and to develop young people who can use logic and have a deep understanding of the world around them. Too often, instruction focuses on teaching children to excel at ritual compliance - rather than to excel at thinking, questioning, and problem solving.

So, what would it take to have more of our mathematics classrooms look like what Dan Meyer describes? As we have tried to increase the level of rigor in our classrooms and promote more thinking and problem solving, we may have actually gotten farther away from the actual intent of the standards. Even as we have tried to increase the conceptual understanding of mathematics, we continue to apply procedural approaches and often miss the opportunities for deeper learning. We have to structure our instruction and our questioning to encourage our students to take risks, to think deeply, and to productively struggle. That means that we, as educators, have to do the math to think about how our students might see the challenges that they are facing.

If we are still approaching the teaching of mathematics as a procedural study, we will only produce students who see the procedure of the problems. Even the explanation of thinking can become a procedure if that is the way it is presented. In order for our students to achieve the higher standards, we have to provide them with strong foundational skills and plenty of modeling and practice with thinking about thinking. It is critical for students to understand that it's okay to struggle and to revise their thinking as part of how they make meaning of the problem or task. That struggle is part of what will make our future engineers, computer programmers, or video game designers successful. Building excitement and conceptual understanding about math begins in our elementary classrooms where we can make math fun and show our students that they have the support they need to learn and grow. Giving our children the chance to experience math, rather than just doing practice problems and worksheets, will give them the best chance to gain the skills that they need to not only meet the higher standards, but also to make connections to anything that they wish to pursue in their future.