One of the lost opportunities in learning and life is not sharing enough about ourselves. I wear a few different hats: husband, father and assistant principal being the main three. These are the things that I wish people knew about me broken down over three blog posts, one on each of the three main hats I wear. The first, Jeff Lahey, Assistant Principal
Look for part two in the series "What I Wish People Knew About Me" focused on my life as a husband.
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“Would you want to be a student in your own class?” I’ve seen this question quite a few times. It’s a good one for sure and if you answer it honestly you can elicit some great reflection on how to improve your practice. What I’ve never seen is the follow-up question I am going to ask right now: “Would someone want to grow up to be you?”
I’m not talking about growing up to be a teacher, many will do that of their own accord or answering some other calling in their life. That would be growing up to work in the same profession as you. I’m referring to BEING you. What would your students describe your demeanor to be? How do they see you treat others? Are you easily drawn offsides or provoked into a reaction? Has anyone ever seen the lighter side of you; the one that tells jokes and realizes that just because you’re an educator you know a thing or two about enjoying life? What actions do you demonstrate that show you really are trying to make the world a better place? Do you ever act like something is beneath you? If we’re going to say things like “every kid deserves a champion” and we want all students to “enjoy thriving, productive lives in a future they create” shouldn’t kids be inspired by more than just our curriculum? Our practice should not be all that defines us. If it is, we aren’t educating the whole child. This week I had the great fortune of realizing I had made a mistake. Yes, I said I had the great fortune of realizing I had made a mistake, a significant one at that. I don’t know about you but I haven’t always been so willing to accept mistakes, particularly when others are pointing them out to me. It takes a lot to swallow your pride and own what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter if it was something you should have known better than or a mistake that happened by pure happenstance, it’s hard to know you messed up.
You have to own your mistakes though. It’s essential. It lets people know that you not only are you wiser than you were before, you’re trustworthy. The world around us has conditioned us to deflect things away from ourselves; to make sure that you protect yourself at all costs no matter the long-term repercussions. The big problem with this thinking is that if you don’t own your mistakes, your mistakes will eventually own year. This happens through either a lack of growth and learning (repeating the same basic mistake over and over again) or a compounding effect where one mistake leads to multiple others. Soon, you can’t keep up. If you will own your mistakes, and own them sooner rather than later, you’ll be amazed at the responses you get. You’ll move from the feeling of someone giving you corrective action to the people knowing you will correct your actions, with the likelihood you will never end up with that mistake again. Remember, people expect from you only what you give them. The world is not looking for people to be mistake-free despite what you hear, it’s looking for people who will grow from their mistakes. Start owning your mistakes now, otherwise, they’ll start owning you. I never was a big Twitter guy. In fact, until about 2 years ago I didn’t even have a Twitter handle. I didn’t even know what a Twitter handle was. I’m still far from an expert but I’m learning quite a bit about it. One of the biggest things that Twitter is teaching me is the power of leveraging your professional network. Twitter may be the most powerful professional learning I have had in quite awhile. It doesn’t fit any of the molds of a traditional professional learning by any stretch of the imagination, which is what I think I like about it so much. The best thing for me so far in the “Twitterverse” has been the Twitter chats I’ve partaken in. It’s amazing how many great ideas people have out there. From the Twitter chats, not only have my ideas been growing, my thought process is being stretched as well. The questions that get asked in these Twitter chats are not only thought-provoking, they’re sometimes really difficult to answer within 140 characters. I used to vehemently oppose the 140 character limit on Twitter. I thought it limited writing and killed deep thinking. I’m learning that is anything but the case. I’m learning how to be direct in my messaging while still providing insight and clarity. I could go on and on about why I’m loving my new adventure in my virtual PLN network but that’s only half the puzzle. Someone I’ve added in my PLN from one of these Twitter chats said it better than I can. Thank you @teresagross625. Yes, it’s time that we recognize these things as more than window dressing. They’re professional learning at its finest. Embedded with choice, novelty, variety, and tons of critical thinking these things are an innovative, 21st century way of growing educators. The chats I’ve been participating in include my own school districts chat, #LISDchat, the #IMMOOC chat based around George Couros’ Innovator's Mindset book and principles and #satchat.
Perhaps the best part about them is the flexibility they offer as well as giving you one of the greatest accountability systems you can have: you tweeted it and now it is out there for the world to see. It’s also been exposing me to the massive world of educators blogs where great ideas runneth over. Take it from someone who was vehemently against doing anything with Twitter. When used with purpose, like everything else, it’s an awesome tool that can truly spark your thinking, open you to a world of ideas, and allow you to grow your PLN. I’ve been reading the article pictured below (hat-tip to George Couros for tweeting it out) and it’s really been causing me to reflect quite a bit. When you read the headline, as an educator, you can’t help but feel indicted. After all, you pour your blood, sweat, and tears into your profession day in and day out in the name of helping young people maximize their own potential. The headline is slightly misleading though. It’s not an indictment of those in the profession, it’s a piece that really challenges the notions of what school should be and a little bit of an indictment on how the system is implemented. I would encourage any and everyone to read this article, I’ve linked to it HERE!! It’s a challenging read. The first point that really jumped out at me, though not first in the article, is the idea that school is an “unsuitable learning environment for many careers.” Unsuitable is a little too harsh for my tastes but I understand the idea. When I first read that subtitle I instantly had flashbacks to my own middle school years. I remember taking a class on typing.
I remember being told that typing was a skill that would make or break a grown-ups professional life during my lifetime. The fastest, most accurate typer would win the day. I’ve never forgotten the moment I was told that. I reflect on it often as I currently sit here and orally dictate everything to my computer for this blog post. The whole reason that typing story stuck with me is that I was being taught a skill of the world right now with the reason why being at least 5-10 years off in my future. This is one area that schools and educators must get away from. We have to stop answering the “why do I have to learn this” question with answers like such as “so you can grow up to be successful” Educators don’t need to turn into Nostradamus. It’s not about predicting the future at all. It is about designing learning experiences that generate the same number of questions as answers. To tell someone that they need to learn something so that they can become productive down the road based on the world of today will stagnate progress, limit creativity, and keep us stuck right where we are. Remember, we don’t even know how the world we are preparing them for will even look. The article advocates apprenticeships as a model for replacing traditional college. I think there is great merit here too for K-12 educators too, particularly with regard to lesson design. One of the questions I had for myself after reading was “how can we design learning experiences with an apprentice-like format?” When you consider the characteristics of an apprenticeship, you can see the value and power in this type of learning. It also makes us really think about things like can you read critically outside of traditional literary works? Could a skill like coding be considered critical writing or even the equivalent of learning a foreign language? The other point that really stood out to me was “grades distort our perception of reality.” The opening sentence of you can get straight A’s in school but nobody gets straight A’s in life seems highly erroneous to me. First of all, every school I am aware of calculates grades based on the system of averages. “Major” grades typically carry a little more weight than “daily” grades but overall it’s a system of averages. You can do very well on the vast majority of grades, fail one and still easily make an “A” on a report card. Several other erroneous arguments follow including citing how many times Colonel Sanders got his famous chicken recipe turned down and the number of businesses a successful entrepreneur has had fail. If anything, this is not an argument as to how school trains us to fail in life, but rather a great justification for how schools of the 21st century continually ask students to come in and make corrections or improvements to work that didn’t quite make it the first time around. Schools certainly don’t train us to fail. That would be counterintuitive. I don’t know any educator that got into this industry due to their love of failure. Do schools need to improve? Yes, everyone in every industry does or they will become obsolete. There’s a lot out there on leadership. TED Talks, books, articles, top 10 lists and more are easily accessible. Leadership has evolved over time away from titles to more of a personality. Anyone can be a leader at any time and any place is more the mantra these days. It’s a great mantra. However, the one thing you don’t read or hear much about is following. In fact, I would venture to say that most people reading this would list leader and follower as antonyms. This is the notion that I really want to challenge.
The premise I have is simple: great leaders are also great followers. How can you be both? Well, it’s situational. Great leaders are so aware of their own capabilities that they also inherently have an amazing grasp on their limitations or areas where they still need development and growth. A great leader knows when it’s time to defer to someone else’s area of strength. They know when it’s time to get behind someone. They utilize their unique skill set to empower someone else’s solution. They follow and contribute to the group even if it’s not their own, original idea driving the group's focus. Great leaders don’t just empower others or follow in their footsteps, they make sure that the credit goes to the appropriate place as well. Great leaders don’t “need their name in lights” or live for a headline. They get their greatest sense of joy and satisfaction from the successes of those around them, not their own personal gains. They would rather see their team win and be a “role player” than have a superstar performance going down in defeat. You can be a leader. You can be a follower. Knowing which one to choose and when to choose it is what sets great 21st century leaders apart from the others. What does it mean to be you? Have you ever really thought about these questions as they pertain to you? Yes, I realize you live them out on a daily basis, but have you ever taken the time to process this out? I’m not talking about your height, weight, where you live, where you born. I’m talking about you at your core. How would you define a family? Do you include grandparents, great grandparents? What role does a family play in daily life? What do you define as the “correct” way to raise a child? What are you views on spirituality/religion? How do you value individualism vs. collectivism? The list could go on and on.
The question of “what does it mean to be you” is one of the greatest starting points for building relationships centered on trust and understanding that I have ever been asked or asked of others. It’s a great starting place for those of you looking for a way in with that student, co-worker, parent or administrator you’ve been struggling to find a relationship with. Ask it, listen to their response and be prepared with your own. It builds a great shared understanding, it’s just not the only piece to the puzzle. You see, when someone shares what it means to be them, there are a few possible outcomes. You could realize that you have a lot in common with this other person. You could see a totally different perspective. You could also realize that someone has a totally different values and beliefs system than anything you would ever want to wrap your head around. The second, and maybe most important question in fostering a relationship built on trust is: “How will you respond to someone whose definitions and core values seem to fly in the face of what defines you?” First and foremost don’t have a knee-jerk reaction. Be committed to finding a positive outcome from this experience. Be humorously curious and avoid a “how could you think that way” attitude. Also, be subtle. When working through conflicting points of view you don’t want to draw attention to yourself or the other(s) involved. Particularly with students, you’ve got to remember that their life experiences have shaped their core values. Walking hand-in-hand with that is the fact that children often don’t choose all of their life experiences. Parents, grandparents or even a series of unfortunate circumstances can have a profound impact on how a child views him or herself. Relationships based on trust take work. A part of that work is being reflective with yourself. Take some time to consider what it means to be you and how you will respond to working with someone who doesn’t quite come from the same mold. If you’ll dedicate the time, you’ll see the fruits of your labor. While sitting at church my pastor said something that I found highly profound. “The teachings of Jesus” he said “are not meant to educate us, they’re meant to transform us.” I think it’s a powerful perspective.. It not only made me think about my personal life but my professional life as well. Are we trying to educate students or giving them opportunities to experience genuine transformation?
In my school district, our vision statement is “All of our students enjoy thriving, productive lives in a future they create.” If we are truly going to achieve that we have to stop trying to educate kids with what we want them to know. While our learning has to be rooted in the prescribed standards it doesn’t have to begin and end there. We have to give students learning experiences that will allow for a genuine transformation and understanding. Relationships are the foundation upon which education is built. I would even dare to say that there may not be a more people oriented business than being an educator. As I returned back to work this week I was reflecting on last year, thinking about those students that I know I really need to build relationships. As I was reflecting I began to think about all the times we talk about building relationships. While it’s great we talk about it so much I feel like we’ve begun to see this as somewhat of a one-way street.
If we focus on relationships as something we build with kids only we will miss the mark. As an educator, some of the greatest moments in my career centered around times where kids invested in me, made me feel safe, made me feel like I was valued. Building relationships is a two way street. If we spend all of our time investing in the kids but we don’t allow them to invest in us our relationships will never fully materialize. Doing this will require us to be vulnerable. We may have to share things or exhibit certain behaviors that we’ve played close to the vest for a long time. It will require us to admit that we don’t have all the answers and that we can learn so much from our students. It means that sometimes we need a little help to make it through the class, lesson day or whatever is in front of us and our students can provide just that. The bottom line is that if we look at relationships as something that educators pour into students we will miss that the reciprocal of this is also necessary. Without the reciprocal, you’ll find yourself stuck in very superficial, if not artificial relationships that will likely end up doing more harm than good. You can read a lot on the topic of leadership. There are so many choices; books, magazines podcasts and the lists just go on. There’s an unspoken sentiment that underlies much of what you can consume regarding leadership: don’t isolate leadership as a position or title. Start acting on your leadership abilities right now. You see, you already are a leader. You always were and likely always will be. Leadership exists, in some capacity, in everything we do in life, both professionally and individually. The question is not do you want to be a leader, the question is how are you already leading? Are you leading from seat 1A or from seat 52E? It’s a reference to the choices of seats you have when flying a commercial airline. Seat 1A is a first class seat at the front of the plane. The seat lies flat so you can sleep, there’s a window and nobody next to you so you can easily access the isle. It’s got everything you need to be as comfortable as you can at 40,000 feet. Seat 52E has none of that. You’re in the middle section of the plane. There’s people on both sides of you, you have no aisle access, your seat doesn’t recline and you’re all the way at the back. You can hear the noise from the galley and all the opening and closing of the lavatory doors. You can see everything happening in front of you. The analogy is not meant to be a cheap shot at people who fly in first class. It’s supposed to illustrate the qualities of effective leadership. In seat 1A you can be isolated from all that is going on around you. Nobody really knows that you’re a part of the flight at all with the exception of a few individuals. On the opposite end, in seat 52E you likely boarded last, everyone on the plane had a chance to see you and you them as you walked to your seat. In flight, you can see everything in front of you. You know everything that is going on because you can see it and hear it. You’ve got people on both sides of you, often a great chance to strike up a conversation and get to know some really cool people. We often look at leadership the way we view seats on an airplane. Most of us are stuck in coach, looking toward first class and think about how nice it would be to be there, if only a chance would come our way. We want to lead but we feel like the opportunity never comes our way. Each day in life is like a flight, you take off, you journey to a destination and then you land. The truth is, the ride in seat 52E might be the best way to bring out our own leadership abilities and opportunities. Thoughts, reflections, challenges? I'd love to hear what you think. Just comment below.
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January 2020
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