What We Can Learn From Watching Ships Sink: Water on the Inside is Far More Dangerous Than All the Water on the Outside

Three years ago I accompanied my wife to the EdTEch conference in Chicago, one of the largest instructional technology conferences in the United States.  We both went to different sessions that we thought could provide professional learning and growth.  One of the afternoons while my wife was in a late afternoon training, my daughter and I went to see the ports where Chicago touched Lake Michigan, which is one of the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world. One of the signs at Lake Michigan presented facts about the number of ships that have sunk and some that are still sitting at the bottom of Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes.  I later saw a YouTube video of a ship actually being sunk on the lake to dispose of it and render it completely out of service.  I thought to myself that we can learn a lot from watching ships sink that's very applicable to leadership and life. 

 

Over 97 percent of the Earth's water can be found in the oceans.  According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there are over 332,519,000 cubic miles of water on the planet. Of this vast volume of water, NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center estimates that's enough water to fill about 352,670,000,000,000,000,000 gallon-sized milk containers!  While that’s more water than we can possibly fathom, no amount of water in any of the oceans on the outside of the ship sinks a ship.  Ships don’t sink because of the water around them. They sink because of the water that gets in them. It’s the same with organizations and leadership.  The greatest advertisement for any organization comes from those within the organization, the best endorsement and evaluation for any leader comes from those closest to them, and those within the organization are the most influential in creating the perception of success or failure of an organization. 

 

Under Genghis Khan, the Mongols would catapult the dead bodies of soldiers infected by the bubonic plague over city walls during sieges. This is one of the earliest accounts biological warfare.  A fortified city or structure was safe as long as the disease was on the outside and didn’t get to the inside.  However, disease inside of the fort was deadly and spread to infect so many that the fort couldn’t survive.  In 1346, during the siege of Caffa, the attacking Tartar Forces (subjugated by the Mongol empire under Genghis Khan), used the bodies of Mongol warriors of the Golden Horde who had died of plague, as weapons.  Disease outside of the Caffa didn’t have any impact, but once it got within it was the beginning of the end.  Many historians, suggested the soldiers of Caffa should’ve catapulted the diseased bodies out immediately and limited exposure to disease as well as sending it within the attacking force.  Leaders have known since the beginning of time how deadly and dangerous disease within an organization can be.  It’s probably a good thing for many people that the violent nature of punishment for treason has changed since medieval times when traitors were beaten, hung, beheaded, and quartered (body cut into four parts and sent to different parts of the empire to display so everyone would fear punishment for that offense). 

 

In The Art of War, Sun Tzu said “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”  Many times, the challenges/obstacles and also the positive recognitions are created by people within an organization and closest to leadership.  These are often communicated from those within to those outside of the organization.  People outside of the organization accept this information as truth or fact because they believe those within a building know what goes on better than anyone else.  There are times when we face challenges from the outside that we can’t control coming at us, but these should not be created by people within an organization.  People within the organization that create challenges and undermine either leadership or the mission of the organization are toxic and impede an organization from improvement.  

 

 

Ultimately, the most important job anyone within an organization has is to make their boss or supervisor look good.  We do this by serving our customers effectively, fulfilling the mission of the team, being loyal to your teammates and leader, communicating positively to promote the good of the team, and knowing which information is confidential and should be not communicated outside of given circles.  Ultimately, the challenges within an organization can break an organization or destroy a leader’s credibility and vision for success more than anything else.  I’ve worked for a great superintendent that I’ve learned immensely from and one of the most relevant things I’ve learned is the importance of loyalty and everyone on the team pulling in the same direction together.  This reminded me of what I learned from coaching and sports about teams that play together and support each other.  As a coach, we made it to the 4th round of the playoffs and one game away from a state championship with a regular season record where we only got in as a final seed by the luck of the draw.  How did a team that barely got in the playoffs make it that far and be so successful in almost winning a state championship....because we quit fighting against each other and undercutting each other, instead we finally played together and for each other like a family.  It’s hard to row a boat to the finish line when someone isn’t rowing in the same direction as the rest of the team and especially when they row against the leader and team.  A leader and team can’t expect to be but so successful when they have to take on their own team members as well as the other team and outside challenges.  There’s a great leadership lesson to be learned from watching a ship sink and realizing the water/toxicity inside an organization is far more dangerous than any amount of water or challenges outside of the organization. 

Stress is Necessary for Success: The Way We React and Adapt to it Makes a Huge Difference in the Outcome

During the 2020-21 Covid19 pandemic, society has experienced a lot of changes.  The educational field is no exception with adapting to moving learning to virtual and hybrid models, distancing and disinfecting requirements, quarantine protocols, etc.  This is all new to the educational field, there is no playbook for this type of situation.  Despite all the challenges, our schools have experienced a tremendous amount of success and this will change education for the good in the long run.  We have this belief because we know stress is a precursor for change and improvement.  Stress is useful to prompt a specific action, to a specific threat, or to promote alertness during a brief period of danger.  Second, it can keep you alert in during a period of danger. 

 

When we talk about stress and pressure a couple of stories come to mind.  Story #1: On the deserts of the Serengeti, there’s a gazelle that knows they must run faster than the greatest lion or any other animal every single day if they want to survive.  On that same desert, every day a lion has to run faster and out maneuver the fastest gazelles if they are going to eat and not starve.  Survival of the fittest is the essence and nature of our food chain, but this stress forces each animal to be at their top performance for survival.  This stress causes daily growth and constant improvements for mere survival.  Story #2:  In theory it doesn’t make sense that someone would dig a hole and pour dirt on something in order to make it grow hundreds of feet tall.  As I drive to work every day there are miles and miles of peach orchards that produce fruit shipped all over the world for human consumption.  Each one of these trees started by someone digging a hole, throwing the seed down into the hole, and pouring a mound of dirt on top of them.  This dirt, pressure and stress, is necessary for the tree to grow.  The nutrients in the dirt provides nutrients for growth and develops a strong root system so the trees can stand strong as pressures and stress increase and tests their character.  People are the same as both these stories.  Like the lion and the gazelle, stress forces us to get up running every morning and causes pressure to increase our performance to survive.  Like the trees that grow strong from being put in a hole and having dirt poured on them, the stresses we face in life help strengthen us and cause our root system to grow strong if we are going to thrive.  Pressure is necessary for increasing performance and the people that can stand strong and continually grow from stress without breaking or having a meltdown excel and rise above others.  In the world of sports, the pressure players are the ones every coach wants to have the ball with the game on the line.  The key to stress is how we react and adapt to it.  Does it make us stronger and better or does it crush us and break us down? 

Is Stress Useful?  One of the strongest arguments is that for something to change something has to change and something has to be the stimulus for that change.  Stress is useful to prompt a specific action, to a specific threat, or to promote alertness during a brief period of danger. That’s it. Any stress which doesn’t facilitate these purposes is wasted and therefore any beliefs that stress is necessary must be limited to these contexts.  Why do people that want to be successful athletes train?....because they know the stress they are putting on their bodies will strengthen them and help them improve.  There are two kinds of people in this world: those who believe they can make things happen and those who believe things happen to them.  Tim Judge, University of Florida psychologist, researched how perception and attitude impacted how we handle stress and reported that people who feel that they control the events in their lives more than the events in their life controlled them and are confident in their abilities to adapt and adjust end up doing better on nearly every important measure of work performance.  His research concluded that people with this perception of and attitude toward stress:

 

1. Sell more than other employees do
2. Give better customer service
3. Adjust better to new assignments
4. Take home an average of 50 to 150% more in annual income

Stress is a necessity in life for change and improvement; anxiety is an absolutely necessary emotion.  We all experience it daily; however, everyone reacts and adapts to it differently.  We are biologically hard-wired to increase our capacities and performance under stress for survival.  The elderly gentleman that is able to lift or move a car to free someone trapped under it and save their life is an example.  Our bodies are prepared for out brain to be able to send the signal for our bodies to produce and release great amounts of adrenaline, a super hormone, to help us be able to survive.  Our central nervous system has the capacity to fire more muscle fibers simultaneously than we’ve ever been able to fire from our conscientious mind through our stress induced survival mechanisms.  The trick to using stress to increase performance is for the individual to be able to manage anxiety and keep it within the optimal levels in order to achieve top performance.  There are a couple of things that help with managing anxiety and using stress to increase performance: 

 

# 1: Expect and Prepare for Change.  Change is a given, we will all experience.  People don’t fear change, they fear change without support or requisite preparation for success.  Mentally prepare for change and be ready to make it happen instead of it just happening to you. 

# 2: Focus on Your Freedoms, Not Your Limitations.  We’ve all heard the saying “life isn’t fair”, but wouldn’t it be better to say “life is what you make of it.”  We have the freedom to choose our actions and reactions. 

# 3: Re-write Your Script.  Be reflective and learn/grow from every situation.  Every moment is a teachable moment.  It’s only failure if you don’t learn from it and improve going forward. 

# 4: Stop Negative Self-Talk.  The more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them.  Most of our negative thoughts are just that—thoughts, not facts.  The brain has a natural threat tendency to inflate the perceived frequency or severity of an event. Positive thoughts have a tendency to produce more positive outcomes. 

# 5: Appreciate What You Have.  Gratitude is a powerful emotion.  It also lessens stress and anxiety because it reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23%.

 

Stress has the potential to increase performance if utilized and harnessed the right way.  Sometimes it takes a stressor to create the stimulus for change.  The key is how we react and adapt to stress in any situation.  Do you let it make you or break you?  The great thing is that decision is up to you. 

Failures and Dropouts: Who Really Failed, the Student and/or the School?

Statistics demonstrate that one in every four high school students drops out of school, and one student drops out of school every 26 seconds across the United States. The highest percentage of dropouts occur in urban, high-poverty areas. Dropping out means leaving high school, college, university, or another group for practical reasons, necessities, or disillusionment with the system from which the individual in question leaves. 1.2 million students drop out of high school every year, many falling into a cycle of poverty, unemployment, and violence. Sobering statistics on dropouts include: 

  

We know that far too many students drop out of school, and students from high-poverty situations drop out at the highest rate......the question is, what are we doing to fix it and help them get to graduation?  One of the obstacles many schools and districts are facing in the pandemic is student failures.  The bigger question is "Who really failed?  The school or the student?"  The goal should be to see each student be successful.  Does that mean that we just give the student a grade they didn't earn or work for?  Absolutely not, but this shift into virtual and blended learning has a learning curve for all involved, including the adults in the school.  As a former coach, many times we had to have a philosophy of "bend but don't break," "keep snapping the ball and see what happens," and "finish strong in the 4th quarter."  These would all be very applicable in this type of pandemic situation and school year.  

Patience and compassion are critical now more than ever for everyone in education.  When you look at data on why students drop out of high school, the alarming thing is that most reasons are preventable or workable.  Three out of the top four reasons students drop out of high school can be handled or prevented at the school level, actually all the way down to the classroom level.  As a classroom teacher, I never want to fail a student because I felt like I had failed as well.  I used to tell students that I didn't give a "0", they had an "Incomplete" until they finished it and that was up to them; or prove to me that they know the content in some way of their choosing and I'd give them credit because learning is what was really important to me.  I shifted to the latter approach as I grew and began to realize that learning was far more important than compliance of doing work.  Some of the major reasons students give for dropping out are disheartening such as "No one cared if I attended."  That's the power of human connection and relationships.  Relationships will actually help most all of the top reasons students drop out.  

We also have to help our stakeholders see the big picture in bending but not breaking, keep snapping the ball and playing another snap, and finishing strong.  The operational hurdles, just to be able to keep school open, are just as big as the instructional hurdles this school year.  When someone questions funding education, the better response would be "how can you not fund education?"  The investment in education has the potential to produce exponential gains in the return on the investment and help to alleviate or reduce many of the societal pitfalls and areas for improvement.  This is a time in our country's history where education is more important than ever.  

People Don’t Buy What You Sell, They Buy Why You Do It: What Are We Selling in 2021?

 As we enter the New Year, most people set resolutions or goals to accomplish.  This has been an annual ritual since the inception of time, yet most years the greatest percentage of people fail at most of their resolutions.   The best times to set the tone as a principal or leader is at the very beginning or after an extended break, such as Christmas.  As I reflect on potential resolutions, I go back to our purpose, mission, and vision as an organization. 

 

What is our purpose?  To provide the best possible education in a physically, mentally, and emotionally safe environment.  Our mission of “Commitment to Excellence” and our vision of “Every Student Every Day” require that students always come first in our decision-making and everything we do in school.  What is our product or what are we selling and who are our consumers?  Consumers are our students, parents, and community, but what do they buy?  Many people would say that they buy or consume the best possible education for their child.  While this statement is true to a point, I’d argue that our parents buy much more than that and something far simpler than that.  The average parent isn’t super well-versed in the latest education jargon, instructional concept, or technological advance in education.  What they buy from us is trust and confidence in the people that are working with their children and confidence from the students that the adults in the building will do every possible thing they can to help them learn and be successful. 

In talking with a good friend and colleague who sends their child to our school, they told me they planned to leave their child at the school even if their job location changed.  They didn’t speak of the push to go 1:1 or the renovations to the building or the extensive programs we offer.  Instead, he only talked about “who” was working with his child.  He had trust and confidence in the teachers and staff at the school, the coaches, the administration, and the adults in the building to prepare and care for his child.  In thinking about the decision of where we would send our own kids to school, I remember the number one reason we sent our kids to the high school they went to was because I had a profound confidence in the teachers, principal, guidance counselor, and staff at the school.  I trusted them to treat our kids like they were their own.  I had worked with many of the teachers and staff at other schools and knew how good they were instructionally and how much they went above and beyond for kids.  The principal was my former assistant principal at my first principalship and I had so much confidence in her to look after my kids that we moved our kids across a state border to send them to school in the district where I worked with people that we trusted. 

 

If I could have a couple of wishes for 2021 they’d be that students were better off because of my being there, that teachers and staff were more effective and enjoyed their work to a greater degree because of my being there, that our parents and students are confident in us to do everything we can to help students be successful, that my supervisors are confident in our abilities and performance to give us autonomy to be able to do whatever it takes to help ALL students be successful, that our students and parents are confident in us to do what's best for students and put students first, that our school is better off because I'm there, and that we always remember that every decision in our building is based on what’s best for our students and not what’s easiest for the adults in the building.  Simply put……without students, they wouldn’t need any of the adults in the building. 

 

In going back and forth with a colleague in South Carolina, we were talking about grading and how many schools have failed so many students this past fall semester.  Grading could be a whole book in itself, but what matters most is learning.  As we go into 2021, we must revisit our purpose of what we do and be able to see the bigger picture of our work.  Is our work about compliance or commitment, doing or learning?  Great schools are learning institutions, where everyone in the building is constantly building capacity and building tomorrow through learning today.   As we go into a new calendar year, we must remember who are our consumers, what are they buying, and why do they buy it?  What they are buying is trust and confidence in us to do what’s best for children because they trust the people in the building.  We don’t have the right to break this trust.  We have a responsibility to live up to the expectations of our consumers.  We have a responsibility to always do what’s best for students!

While some districts are moving to remote learning full-time or part-time to begin the new semester, we have to ask if this decision was made in doing what’s best for students or what’s most comfortable for the adults?  Almost 83% of our students chose to return on a face-to-face basis this semester.  We all know that most of our students need to be back in school, both for safety and for learning.  While a percentage of students can be served effectively through online learning, the impact of a great classroom teacher can’t be denied.  The relationships and rapport teachers have with students is critical for student success.  The responsibility of the school and district to act in parenti loco is critical for students to be safe physically, mentally, and emotionally.  I’m one that fully supports the decision of our district in returning to learning in two days with both face-to-face and online options.  I whole heartedly believe that the decisions made in how we return to school for the Spring semester and how we will navigate the Spring semester will all be made with the best interests of students at the forefront.  That’s what our parents and students are buying…..trust and confidence in us to always make this the basis of all of our decisions!

Irreplaceables: The Real Retention Crisis

As a less seasoned school administrator, I had a leadership coach share an article and research from TNTP with me about “Irreplaceables.”  "Irreplaceables" referred to the top teachers in a school and their positive impact on students and their leadership in the school is so valuable that they are nearly impossible to replace, but too often they leave because of inattention or neglect.  On average, each year they help students learn two to three additional months’ worth of math and reading compared with the average teacher, and five to six months more compared to low-performing teachers.  Teachers of this caliber not only get outstanding academic results, but also provide a more engaging learning experience for students. For example, when placed in the classroom of an Irreplaceable secondary math teacher, students are much more likely to say that their teacher cares, does not let them give up when things get difficult and makes learning enjoyable.   "Irreplaceables" influence students for life, and their talents make them invaluable assets to their schools. The problem is, their schools don’t seem to know it. 

A school leader once said “An effective teacher is worth his/her weight in gold.  Too few people really know this.”  As we were reviewing EOC and MAP data last week, I was reminded of the importance of great teachers and how profound their impact is on students.  In a week with very disappointing results from testing, there were a couple of bright spots that made us all smile at how our students performed.  One teacher had every single child in her class to meet or exceed their mid-year MAP goal of 5+ points improvement.  She had almost these same exact results in all of her classes, face-to-face and virtual.  This is despite only having 54 instructional days, with 27 of those being remote, instead of the normal 90 days in a semester.  When you hear from school after school and teacher after teacher about students scoring far below expectations and not meeting targets and some lower than ever before, how does one teacher or a couple of teaches in a school have this type of performance?……because they’re one of the “Irreplaceables!”  It doesn’t matter what challenges they might face or where their students come to them performing or what resources they might not have……they find a way to reach every student they come in contact with, they raise the bar for everyone else, and they’re the exemplar of what teachers should strive to be.  They don’t make excuses, they find a way to get results! 

I knew one of these teachers was “irreplaceable” far before she ever came to our school.  In talking with a middle school student about their favorite teacher of all time, he named her without even having to think about it.  He said she was tough and expected them to work hard every day, but she cared and tried all kinds of stuff to help him learn.  The attitude and way he perked up when he talked about the teacher let us know really quickly how much the student loved and respected the teacher.  I’ve always found it interesting that when asked about a favorite teacher, more times than not, students pick a teacher that held high expectations for them and even higher expectations for themselves in helping the student be successful.  Students don’t work for people they don’t like, but they’ll run through a brick wall for people they think care about them.  

The real retention crisis isn’t just looking at the total number of teachers that choose to leave the building each year, but the loss of truly great teachers.  Truth be told, the school probably improves when some adults choose to leave the building each year.  Statistically, schools have between a 69-73% chance of improving when an ineffective teacher leaves the building. In many cases, a beginning teacher fresh with energy and enthusiasm carries a far more positive impact on student learning than one that is negative or ineffective.  Schools only have a 8-14% chance of attaining a similar positive impact when an "irreplaceable" leaves the building.  

The article discusses ways to retain “Irreplaceables” in the school.  In most cases, simply feeling appreciated or having a principal communicate that they want them to be there is enough to keep them.  Surprisingly, money was one of the factors near the bottom of the list of why great teachers leave their school.  The adage that “people don’t leave places, they leave bosses” holds true.  One of the other top reasons they leave schools is principals not holding the line on good teaching for all and holding people accountable.  Also surprisingly, most schools have similar retention rates for "Irreplaceables" and "ineffective teachers.  Most schools also do more to encourage ineffective teachers to stay than they do to encourage them to leave.  Most schools also do far too little to try to retain their most effective and "irreplaceable" teachers.  How is it possible to improve schools when this is standard practice amongst most schools.

In this pandemic year, it’s more important than ever for principals to find a way to retain their most effective teachers.  One of the best ways I’ve learned to be a good principal is hire, train, support, and retain great teachers.  It’s one of the simplest, but most effective, ways of increasing student achievement and have a great school.  If you can retain your “Irreplaceable” teachers as you help other teachers improve, you are bound to continue to improve as a school.  As a principal, you better let your “Irreplaceables” know how much you care about keeping them in your school and how profound their impact is on students before another principal lets them know how much they’d like to have them in their school.  Hold the line on good teaching for all teachers and high expectations for all students.  It doesn’t cost a dime to do either one of these to keep your “Irreplaceables.”  Listen to your "Irreplaceables" and get their input in decision-making because they always have the students' best interest at heart, not what's easiest for the adults.  One of the best ways for a principal to take care of the students in the school is by taking care of the teachers. This is especially true with your "Irreplaceables", even though they are generally the ones that ask for the least support, make the fewest complaints or requests, and are always willing to do the most to help students....they still need to feel appreciated and respected for all they do.  What great teachers have is both a mindset and skillset for greatness in teaching; an impact on student learning that is so profound that they are impossible to replace! 

   

   

Covid Debunking of the Politics of Distraction: Just Do Your Job & Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing

As a former coach, two of my favorite sayings were “Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing” and "Do Your Job!" Very simple but they work.  Our focus was on the mission at hand and controlling the things that were within our control.  So, what’s the main thing in education?   Simply, student safety/well-being and teaching/learning.  If you do those two things well in a school, the probability of success are very high. 

As we started to get EOC scores back this week, many were very disheartening and exponentially lower than what we are used to.  This seems to be the consensus in almost every school I’ve talked with and especially with virtual/remote learning.  No matter the situation, it’s interesting to see the mission of the USDE hasn’t changed or varied with Covid.  The mission statement of the United States Department of Education is “Our mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.”  It’s great that public schools are doing everything they can to stay open safely and everything possible to meet the needs of students' safety and well-being, but at our core of what we do is “teaching and learning.”  Teaching requires learning, if a student doesn’t learn then we haven’t really taught. 

It’s interesting to hear the “Politics of Distractions” used as excuses or reasons for the lack of academic performance: Distraction 1: Appease the parents, Distraction 2: Fix the infrastructure, Distraction 3: Fix the students, Distraction 4: Fix the schools, Distraction 5: Fix the teachers.  These have been used interchangeably across the years.  It’s important to note that none of these have anything to do with Covid but have been used repeatedly, many times when results weren’t what was desired….ever since the inception of our educational system and especially since the increased accountability measures since NCLB and RttT.  Let's debunk the myths.  Distraction #1….we had smaller class sizes and more individualized instruction than every before.  Distraction #2….with many programs used, like SC Virtual, curricula was supposedly laid out and aligned.  Distraction #3….students aren’t the variable, the adults in the building are….and we knew our students were behind from last Spring, the question is “what were we going to do about it?”  Distraction #4….there was more federal and state money poured into education this year than probably every before in history.  Distraction #5….teachers have had professional development since before they reported to work this school year and it’s been ongoing ever since.  We really don’t have any legitimate “Politics of Distractions” when you analyze each one.  In some ways, we got each of these answered that we’ve always asked for over the years but rarely gotten....and the results were not what a supporter of these politics of distractions would've thought.   

 

The final question becomes “Where do we go from here?  How to we adjust and modify?  The final scores from this semester, the autopsy in many cases, are done and in the books.  At this point, we aren’t able to change them.  However, we do have the opportunity and responsibility to adapt and adjust going forward.  We have an obligation to adjust because what we did this past semester, in terms of teaching and learning, simply isn’t good enough and we left more kids behind than ever before.  One of the most alarming statistics is that the kids hurt the most by school shutdowns and time out of school were primarily students that were already performing significantly below grade level, minority students, and students from high-poverty/low socioeconomic situations.  For as disappointed as we were with test scores in some areas this week, there were some high achievers and some grades/subjects that did fairly well.  One of the best things was that I didn’t hear our staff make many excuses.  Instead, when we met with most teachers they had already analyzed what went well and what didn’t as well as were working on a plan to increase student achievement in the Spring.  Even thought he results weren't what we wanted, the mentality and attitude to start working immediately on a solution and as a team to improve is what I was glad to see.  That's one of the things that we control in this pandemic situation.  Tony Dungy said “You can’t always control circumstances.  However, you can always control your attitude, approach, and response.”  The great John Wooden said “Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”  The positive in this is that our staff is focused on what “we” can do to get better and improve instead of lingering with excuses or wallowing in our frustration.  It all goes back to "just do your job" and “keep the main thing the main thing!”  Don’t let Covid, time restraints, schedules, learning platforms or anything else distract or take away from our focus on student achievement as we move forward this Spring.  

The Will to Win - Rediscovery of Excellence in Teaching and Learning

Many people use the cliché “The Will to Win”, where the more applicable phrase is probably “The Will to Prepare to Win”.  Preparation is key in anything you do successful in life.  Winning is often the by-product of preparation, organization, and hard work.  We know that when people have to persevere and endure, they are more vested and dedicated to doing whatever it takes to be successful.  However, sometimes it's necessary to make adjustments on the fly.  I don’t give a lot of credit or validity to some of the things I often read on Facebook or social media, but a post from a colleague on a Principals Facebook group said a lot and really hits home about what educators are doing during the pandemic to make sure their students are successful.  Below is the post: 

I’m truly blessed to see this with teachers every single day, working diligently and reinventing the way they educate to try to meet the needs of ALL students.  Education is truly a noble profession and one where professionals make a difference, not just a living.  In the pandemic and all of the changes that have had to take place in 2020, the commitment of teachers and principals to make sure their students are safe and get a quality education has never waivered.  While the K-12 educational world was primarily brick and mortar prior to the pandemic, we've rediscovered excellence in teaching and learning through virtual, online, hybrid, and other models to do whatever it takes to give ALL children the best education we possibly can.  No matter the challenges we may face, we'll reinvent or rediscover ways to reach students.  That's "The Will to Win", that's the heart of an educator!  

A Cause Beyond One's Self

While it’s been a busy couple of weeks, it’s also been an important couple of weeks.  We have been diligent at trying to make contacts with all students, both virtual and hybrid on their “remote learning” days.  We are reminded that while we put a high priority on instructional leadership and student learning, we also serve “A Cause Beyond One’s Self” in making sure that all students are “okay” and safe.  The pandemic has been stressful for everyone and we know that stress affects human behavior in ways that a non-stressful situation wouldn't.  We also know that everyone has a different capacity for handling stress and different coping mechanisms.  We’ve seen child abuse numbers plummet during the pandemic, but we know child abuse or maltreatment has not ceased.  Unfortunately, this decrease is most likely a function of reporting without schools being able to “watch out for” our students total safety and well-being on the same level as we normally would with the contact time reduction with students. 

 

Some statistics about the pandemic and it’s impact on families and children that are alarming.  Unemployment rates in the United States accelerated from 3.5% (5.7 million individuals) in the months preceding the pandemic to 4.4% (7.1 million), 14.7% (23.1 million), and 13.1% (21.0 million) in March, April, and May, respectively (Department of Labor, 2020a, 2020b, 2020c). The April 2020 unemployment rate represents the largest 1-month increase and highest rate of unemployment in the United States since 1948, when official records were first maintained (Department of Labor, 2020a).  In 2018, approximately 3.5 million children were involved in child maltreatment investigations in the United States, with nearly 700,000 children determined to be substantiated victims of maltreatment (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2020). As the majority of maltreated children are victimized by a parent (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2020), child maltreatment represents a pathological relationship occurring within the family that significantly deviates from expected and accepted child rearing standards (Cicchetti & Toth, 2005).  The numbers since March 2020 have drastically dropped from previous years. 

 

What does history tell us about child abuse and maltreatment during times of crisis in our county?  Although not equivalent with the COVID-19 global pandemic, indicators of poor economic health during prior economic crises such as the Great Depression (Elder, Nguyen, & Caspi, 1985) and the Great Recession have been associated with increased child abuse (Schneider, Waldfogel, & Brooks-Gunn, 2017; Brooks-Gunn, Schneider, & Waldfogel, 2013; Schenck-Fontaine & Gassman-Pines, 2020; Schenck-Fontaine, Gassman-Pines, Gibson-Davis, & Ananat, 2017), but this association can be complex (Millett, Lanier, & Drake, 2011). These historical data support concerns of increased child abuse during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Associations between unemployment and increased child abuse have been reported even when the national economy is relatively healthy. In a recent systematic review of prospective longitudinal studies, Conrad-Hiebner and Byram (2020) identified parental job loss as a primary factor contributing to future psychological maltreatment and physical abuse. Prenatal unemployment has additionally been linked with later child welfare involvement during the elementary school years (Baldwin, Biehal, Allgar, Cusworth, & Pickett, 2020). In a 2010 report to the U.S. Congress based on the Fourth National Incident Study of Child Abuse and Neglect, children of unemployed parents were reported to be twice as likely to experience abuse compared with children of employed parents (Sedlak et al., 2010).

 

In times like these, the well-being of children is paramount, critical, and should be a calling or passion for anyone in the educational field.  Child maltreatment is a significant public health concern associated with impairments in psychological, behavioral, and physiological functioning across the lifespan.  Every single adult employee that works in a school, in any capacity, should be dedicated to the well-being of our children.  If we are ever going to err, it should be on the side of helping students.  In every decision we make, it should be based on what’s best for students.  Without students, you wouldn’t need principals, teachers, support staff, coaches, etc.  In everything we do in education, there’s a calling and “A Cause Beyond One’s Self” that we are responsible for and privileged to be able to make. 

How We Think About The Impact of What We Do: We Know Quality When We See It

Everything we do in education is about building capacity.  We know that for systemic growth to take place, systemic limitations must be eliminated or restructured to increase efficiency and productivity while constantly increasing the human capital capacity of people within the building.  This is done by either hiring better people or making the ones you have better.  Reflection is one of the most important processes for improving effectiveness and growing our human capital capacity.  Now take all of the educational jargon out of that and what we are really talking about is “Quality”.

 

When we think about it, we all spend about 15,000 hours of our lives in school (not including education past high school) and we are taught by more than 50 different teachers and far more than a dozen administrators.  When asked to remember the best teachers/principals or the ones that had the most positive impact, we normally can only name a select few or remember only a handful of the many we had over our school years.  The vast majority of teachers and principals are erased from our memory or not encoded into long-term memory.  Why is it that some teachers and principals succeed in remaining in our memory for years or even decades, whereas others fade into oblivion or disappear after a very short period of time?  It’s not that they taught a specific subject or were all in a certain grade level.  The memories that last are of the educators that had the most significant impact on our learning and students as individuals. 

 

What is it that makes teachers great?  Todd Whitaker’s research identifies 17 things that great teachers do differently than good teachers, but he actually expanded it to 20 things in subsequent versions.  John Hattie conducted over 1500 meta-analyses that quantified 252 different teacher actions with a corresponding effect size on student learning.  North Carolina New Schools Project and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation identified 5 instructional practices that should be utilized for a Common Instructional Framework that has the most profound impact on student performance.  There’s High Impact Instruction, 10 Strategies, that have been research-based and proven to have the greatest impact on student success in relationship to teaching practices.  Marzano has countless amounts of research on the Art and Science of Teaching.  Atlantic Research Partners did an entire series on the “Power of Teaching: The Science of the Art” and broke down every part of teaching practices into subgroups and distinct factors of each part.  The research that attempts to quantify and qualify teaching practice into what makes teachers great or what the great teachers do differently is endless.

 

What I’ve learned in 20+ years of educational practice is that educators tend to overcomplicate many things.  As a coach, I knew a great player when I saw them play.  Nobody knows or needs to know Michael Jordan's 40 yard dash time or bench press or vertical, but everyone knew who was taking the last shot when the game was on the line.  When I first started as an assistant principal, I remember telling my principal that while I may not be able to completely describe or define what good teaching is, “I know it when I see it.”  This morning, my superintendent shared a book with me by John Guaspari titled “I Know It When I See It: A Modern Fable About Quality.”  Of course I didn’t even make it to lunch duty without the book to read.  The book was about quality and made some great points that we’ve always known, but we often let get cloudy in all of the research and latest educational innovations.    Guaspari (1985) said

 

I’d like to leave you with one piece of advice, he continued.  My hope is that I might be able to spare you some of the pain that we went through.  Above all, listen to what your customers are telling you about Quality.  Your customers are in a perfect position to tell you about Quality, because that's all they’re really buying.  They’re not buying a product.  They’re buying your assurances that their expectations for that product will be met.

 

The boss went on to say “Your customers may not have all the hard business facts.  They may not be aware of your specs and your standards and your inspection reports.  But just because they may not speak with a lot of precision, don’t assume that what they have to say doesn’t have a lot of value.  They may not be able to give you a precise definition of Quality, but one thing is for certain – they know it when they see it! (p. 79-80)

 

As a beginning administrator, I couldn’t give a specific definition of great teaching but I knew it when I saw it.  As a student, I knew it when I saw it.  And as a seasoned principal, I still know it when I see it.  Our teachers can't define what makes a great principal, but they know it when they see it. Don’t overcomplicate education and make things more difficult than they have to be, we all know Quality when we see it!

The Principal as Leader in a Culture of Change: The Importance of Emotional Intelligence

           We all know the role of the principal has shifted over the past two decades.  Principals were considered building level management and trained in the principles of transformational leadership.  The new norm over the past decade has shifted to the principal as the instructional leader of the school.  The past two years have shifted this again to the principal as the instructional leader of the building….in a culture of change, which has a tremendous human capital component of leadership.  Simon Sinek said that “leadership is a choice” and “leadership isn’t about authority, it’s about influence; not being in charge, but taking care of those in our charge.”  More now than ever in leadership, taking care of employees, with the patience of Job, is critical to organizational success. 

          Fullan (2001) says “My point is that the principal of the future has to be much more attuned to the big picture, and much more sophisticated at conceptual thinking, and transforming the organization through people and teams. This, too, was my conclusion when I examined successful leadership for businesses and in school system.”  While I’m always excited and love the instructional leadership component of being a principal, I realize that one of the most important things we can do as principals right now is work on our culture in the school with a focus on taking care of our teachers and staff, and our teachers/staff taking care of our kids, with administration and teachers having patience and compassion for parents/community showing signs of stress.  Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee (2002) claim that emotionally intelligent leaders and emotionally intelligent organizations are essential in complex times. 

          We took a step back and put some of our instructional plans on hold this year, or adjusted to fit the needs of the situation we are in this school year.  Last year our middle school professional development series was called “High Impact Instruction” and looked at the factors that had the most positive significant impact on student learning.  These included clear learning targets, instructional pacing, explicit teaching/questioning, data motivated instruction, cumulative daily review, classroom discourse, literacy across the curriculum, multiple exposures/differentiation, formative assessment, and reflective practice….with building collective efficacy as the foundation of all we do.  We made the decision to not add new professional development or instructional practices or book studies or anything else that might put more on our staff.  We adjusted out professional development for 2020-21 to “High Impact Instruction: In The Virtual World” to not add anything new but provide support in moving to hybrid and virtual learning this year.  Teaching online and in a hybrid model is stressful for students, teachers, parents, etc.  Our job as administrators should be to make it easier for teachers to do their job well. 

          Fullan says “sustained improvement of schools is not possible unless the whole system is moving forward”. This commitment to the social environment is precisely what the best principals will do in 2020-21 in realizing this supports and enables instructional capacity throughout the school.  People operate within systems and do what systems allow them to do.  While we will continue to build instructional capacity, it requires the right culture and mechanisms of support from both an instructional and emotional standpoint.  Many instructional leaders are heavily focused on numbers and data, instructional practices, and moving test scores…….but for significant learning to take place at a high level this school year we must focus on our teachers and students' emotional health to ensure we are taking as many things off of them as possible, providing as much support as possible, and doing everything we can to help them be able to do their jobs well!  If there's one things principals must do this school year to be successful.....it's take care of your people!  

It Doesn't Take Any Ability to Put Forth Great Effort

 

        One of the things I've always thought in any type of leadership is that it's our job to bring out the best in everyone we work with and every school/team we are blessed to be a part of.  As we were riding the other night, I was talking with my wife about the what I hoped people would say about me when I'm not on the face of this earth anymore and what I hoped I would be able to tell the Lord when it's my time.  I was reminded of Chadwick Boseman's acceptance speech when he received his most prestigious award  when he said "When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me."  What a profound mindset and attitude!  Wouldn't it be awesome to be able to be able to honestly say that?  

        I've had the blessing to work in multiple states, at multiple schools, with several teaching staffs, to teach and coach for over a decade, and so many opportunities to have a positive impact on student's and teacher's lives.  I remember at my first school as a principal when one of the teachers asked when was going to take a break because I worked late everyday, weekends, nights, and then would do paperwork late into the night so that I could devote more time to trying to improve instruction all day at school.....my response was that I'd rest when we reach our goal and we were a school of excellence that reached ALL students and made a positive impact on the lives of ALL students.  I've always thought that people that I worked with should do the same, but I know that burned them out....to which I said they didn't have the heart and drive to be able to push past weakness and endure to the end to be successful.  When your "why" is big enough, it'll get you to a level you didn't know you could reach and drive you to be successful.  The biggest part of our job is working with people and helping them to be their best.  One of the great things about being in education is that most people come to work and want to be successful and be effective at what they do.  It's our job as leaders to help them get there and be successful.  Daniel Pink said “Management isn’t about walking around and seeing if people are in their offices,” he told me. It’s about creating conditions for people to do their best work" (Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us).

        I've always thought we were doing teachers and students an injustice if we didn't have high expectations, if we didn't believe in them and that they could do more than they every thought they could, and if we didn't believe that we could help them get there and be successful.  Our "why" is what drives our motivation.  n Simon Sinek's "Start With Why", he says “A leader's job is not to do the work for others, it's to help others figure out how to do it themselves, to get things done, and to succeed beyond what they thought possible.” My "why" has always been simply to help people, for students and athletes to be better off because I was part of their life, and for schools that I was able to be a part of to improve and to continue to improve, I want to be able to look in the mirror each day of my life and know I gave each opportunity all that I had and the best that I had to offer, that every situation was left better than I found if, and that people were better off for me having been there.  I got into education to make a difference, not just a living.  If money and pay is what you're chasing, you'll never have enough of it. No matter how much you make, you're not taking any with you.  The impact you have on the lives of others carries on long past our last breath and heartbeat.  Some of us have will be able to look back and see the positive influence and impact we've had on generations to come. One of the lessons I can remember that my dad taught me was that it didn't take any ability to put forth great effort.  He always believed in giving 110% to anything you were part of work, team, family, church, etc.   In his book "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us", Daniel Pink said:  “Effort is one of the things that gives meaning to life. Effort means you care about something, that something is important to you and you are willing to work for it. It would be an impoverished existence if you were not willing to value things and commit yourself to working toward them.” 

        We have to ask ourselves certain questions as leaders:  Are we truly committed to the cause?  Did we really give everything we had to see the team be successful?  Are people better off because of our leadership?  If we left today, did we leave it better than we found it?   Did we give every single thing, there wasn't one more single thing we could've done, to see the team be successful.  If we took days off when we didn't desperately have to, if we didn't do everything to learn how to be effective at our job, if we didn't commit every bit of time needed to be successful, if we didn't improve the performance of those around us.....did we do a disservice to our opportunity for leadership?  One point Daniel Pink made was that sometimes the things we didn't do matter even more than the things we did.  As much as some leaders try to convince people of their commitment and work ethic, everyone knows a leader's commitment and impact.  In the end, we have to look ourselves in the mirror everyday and know deep down inside if we did everything we could for the students, families, communities, teachers, and staff that were depending on us for leadership.  It doesn't take any effort to put forth great effort, only internal drive and motivation!  

Quit Making Excuses, The Results are What We Will Be Judged By!

 “John Hattie (2015) has added further confirmation to our conclusions in his report What Works Best in Education: The Politics of Collaborative Expertise. His conclusion represents a powerful endorsement of our findings: “the greatest influence on student progression in learning is having highly expert, inspired and passionate teachers and school leaders working together to maximize the effect of their teaching on all students in their care” (p. 2).”  ― Michael Fullan, Coherence: The Right Drivers in Action for Schools, Districts, and Systems

For systemic change to take place and schools to improve significantly, there must be instructional coherence across the entire organization.  People operate within systems and do what systems allow.  If we permit and allows excuses, we'll get more of them.  If we focus on results and performance with laser-like focus, we will have a far greater potential for success.  Too many schools and leaders simply make excuses for failure, but the fact remains that they failed.  Their focus should be on doing everything in their power to be successful and not letting the things they don’t control impact their performance on the things they control.  One of the first excuses for failure is far too often to blame the kids.  We don’t control which students walk through our doors each day, it’s our job to educate them to the best of our ability.  While some people in the school may not believe it, every parent sends us the best kid they have.  They don’t have a better kid locked up at home that will make straight A’s and never misbehaves, the one we get in our classrooms is the best they have to send.  We don’t control the level of proficiency or performance level they come to us on.  It’s our job to find a way to reach them and teach them, to make at least a year’s growth in a year’s time and even more if students are coming to us below grade level proficiency to help close the achievement gap.  There’s always the excuse of more resources to which we have to ask “is it truly a lack of resources or a lack of resourcefulness?”  The truth is that the best leaders and teachers find a way to be successful.  In Hattie’s Visible Learning, the top factors that impact student learning to a positive degree the very most have nothing to do with resources and everything to do with the actions and attitudes of the adults to influence student learning significantly in a positive manner. After blaming the students, the parents are often the next to be blamed.  “If we had more parent involvement?  If our parents made the kids do their work? If they produced and raised smarter kids?”  Parents generally do the best they know how to do, we must help them be able to do more to support.  In many cases, this isn’t a factor within our control without going to great lengths or exhausting extensive resources.  Wouldn’t that extensive amount of time and resources generate far greater results if they were spent on students?  You only have a limited amount of time and resources, it’s part of instructional coherence to make sure they are spent where they can yield the most positive impacts on student learning.  Principals too often place blame on the teachers.  The truth is that most teachers are doing the very best they can and it’s the job of the principal, instructional leader, to ensure all teaching and learning is effective and help to support/build capacity when needed.  Great principals hire, train, motivate and retain great teachers.  There’s the excuse of the curriculum and standards being too tough.  It seems logical and makes sense for the instruction to be rigorous if it’s supposed to prepare graduating students to be globally competitive.  Why would you want the curriculum or standards to be easy?  There’s the excuse of needing to add more technology and/or the latest instructional ideas, but the data doesn’t support this either as having a significantly positive impact on student learning.  So we’ve tried to fix the students, the parents, the teachers, the principals, the finances and resources, and the infrastructure?  After all of this blame about what needs to be fixed, we’ve yet to solve the problem and fix what we can control.  The fact remains that assigning blame never fixed a problem.  We will all be held accountable by our results; we need to spend our time and resources of doing things that will have the most significant positive impacts on student learning.  Find a way to be successful, we all have that capacity if we want it bad enough.  The research is already out there that tells us what to do and how to do it, the doing is up to us though!  It's time to stop making excuses and find a way to get results.  In the end, the results are what we will be judged by!