by Don on February 4, 2009
At a recent conference, the topic was the Millennial Generation, those born after 1985, and their educational needs.
The speaker gave us a couple of old chestnuts — today’s college graduate will have five or six different jobs over the course of his/her career and the relative mastery of any field will be out of date in a decade — as proof of the need for lifelong learning among millennials. But this isn’t news for those of us in schools. We are constantly being asked to handle new assignments or assume additional duties.
And even the foundational work that we do in the classroom changes significantly from decade to decade, as the profiles of our students change and teaching techniques and curriculum evolve. In other words, the work of an independent school teacher changes rapidly and demands ongoing professional development and growth.
There are two keys for excellent teachers.
The first is curiosity. We ask our colleagues about how they handle certain topics or situations; we read about new findings in our fields and about teaching; we think about our students and how we can work more effectively with each one. Outstanding teachers are always looking for ways to improve our ability to connect with students and help them master our subjects.
Curiosity by itself isn’t enough, though. It needs to be associated with a solid liberal arts background.
What do I mean by the liberal arts? They are the academic background as well as the professional toolkit that allow an individual to identify and solve problems that possibly (probably?) didn’t even exist at the time that the liberal arts education was received.
A liberal arts education emphasizes perception, data collection, analysis, reflection, brainstorming of a wide variety of possible options, rigorous decision making, communication, collaboration, and more.
These are the qualities that the Millennials will need during their professional careers, and they are the same qualities that independent school teachers have been relying on for decades.
by Don on January 30, 2009
“To lead, you have to have a the trust of the players, and to do that you have to find a way to connect with them, to find common ground with every individual,” Messier says. “It’s a people issue, not a sports issue. The way to find that common thread is compassion. The odd threat doesn’t hurt” — Messier throws his head back and laughs a basso laugh — “but with compassion the appeal to the player is much deeper than the old hard-ass line that you’re going to get reprimanded if you don’t play well… We try to build a team, to bond, through the course of a year. And you can do that if you appeal in a compassionate way.”
—Mark Messier, former captain of the New York Rangers
who was well known for his rugged style of play,
on leadership in Sports Illustrated, 2/12/96
by Lisa on January 29, 2009
We interrupt this blog to report that there are some gremlins in the system and Don’s pages will be sporting the default WordPress uniform for a little bit while the Site Elf fixes things behind the scenes.
—Site Elf
by Don on January 27, 2009
I was at a party recently, and when the person I was speaking with found out what I do, he said, “Oh, that’s that private school near Lincoln Park.”
And I said, “It’s an independent school, actually.”
“What’s the difference?”
Here’s a stab at a brief explanation.
Think of the connotations of private.
Exclusive. Elitist. Clubby. Privileged. Restricted.
I don’t know about you, but that’s not the kind of school that I want to be associated with.
Now think of the associations with independent.
Autonomous. Self-reliant. Open. Individual. Unconstrained. (Remember: we even have a holiday that celebrates our nation’s independence!)
The qualities above are the ones that lie near the heart of independent schools. Add in a tradition of academic excellence, a commitment to the education of the whole child, and a willingness to implement new ideas and technologies as appropriate, and you have an excellent picture of the fine schools that proudly call themselves independent.
by Don on January 23, 2009
I love it when connections begin to arise between conversations that seem to have little in common. We had a meeting with our Faculty Council and the senior administrators recently, and we talked at length about the important roles that faculty leaders play in our school. We were talking about working together both to resolve quickly the day-to-day issues that routinely arise over the course of the year and to consider and plan for the school’s strategic goals and initiatives on an annual basis.
At one point in the conversation, we jokingly talked about the need for an “Ethos Officer” who would help us on the issues — little ones and big ones — that pertain to the spirit, tone and climate of the school. We weren’t talking about the military idea of a Morale Officer (though there was one funny MASH episode where Hawkeye had to serve in that capacity…), but rather someone who could help keep faculty and administration focused on the respectful and purposeful pursuit of the mission.
Today I was at a conference for heads of school, and we were talking about leadership succession in schools. But we didn’t focus on the obvious — the transitions between heads of school or board chairs —but on the more subtle and more powerful notion of faculty leadership. What do we really know about our faculty culture? How do we communicate the best elements of that culture to new faculty? How do we handle the impact on school culture of the retirement of important faculty leaders? The discussion led me back to the idea of the Ethos Officer. Who are the people at school who make spirit and culture an important part of their work? And how can we share that work appropriately?
