AP Insight - February 2012
Vol. 4, Issue 3
In a recent presentation on the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS), Ten Instructional Changes: The School Leader’s Role, someone asked me which of the 10 changes is the most important. I responded, “They are all critical. You cannot implement any one of them in isolation. However, the most important change facing school leaders is not on the list of 10 schoolwide instructional changes. The most important change that we need to make is between our ears. We need to change the mind-sets—the attitudes, beliefs, and expectations—of our entire staff.”
Here’s the bottom line: our mind-set is our own individual operating system. Our mind-sets literally drive our behavior. If we believe that through work and effort, all our students can reach high levels of achievement, that mind-set focuses and directs what we do to ensure student success.
Given the choice, I would choose a staff and a school with a growth mind-set over a school with a more knowledgeable staff. Why? Because the changes we face in implementing the CCSS will require a complete retraining of our entire teaching staff. Today, it is not as much about what we know as about what we will learn. In this rapidly changing environment, a school and a school leader with the right mind-set will be unstoppable.
In this issue of AP Insight, we will explore our mind-sets on failure and success, focus and vision, leading and learning, and relationships with parents.
The NASSP Store is offering AP Insight readers a 20% discount on the book, Breaking Ranks: The Comprehensive Framework for School Improvement. Use promotion code AP0212 by March 23, 2012, to receive your discount (applies to online orders only).
Mel Riddile
NASSP Associate Director of High School Services
Mind-Sets: Vision
What are your teachers thinking when they look at their students? Are they teaching the course to the students? Or are they teaching the students the course?
Trainer Laura Goodrich is always Seeing Red Cars. Goodrich’s metaphor is that if you buy your dream car and it happens to be red, suddenly you see red cars everywhere you look. Why? Because you're focusing on red cars. "You get more of whatever you focus on!" says Goodrich.
Seeing Red Cars has two important messages for school leaders:
1. We get more of what we focus on. Why? Because we are "teleological" beings—we move toward and become like that which we think about and focus on. The problem is that most school leaders don't have a clear vision of what they do want, in part because they spend so much time putting out fires in the present that they don't have time to think about the future.
2. Most people spend more time focusing on what they don't want as opposed to what they do want. Don't believe me. Check it out for yourself. Begin asking people about "what they want." Most will immediately begin telling you what they don't want, which is a clear sign that they are in a "stuck state."
Action Step: As a school leader, try talking with your staff about what you do want and the things that you can control. Develop your vision for every aspect of your school, from the cafeteria and hallways to classroom instruction. If you can't picture it, you won't see it.
Mind-Sets: Success and Failure
There has been a lot of chatter lately about how we should embrace failure. In the last issue of AP Insight, I highlighted the article, "Why Do Some People Learn Faster?” from Wired Magazine. The author, Jonah Lehrer, explains that “people learn how to get it right by getting it wrong again and again.” He’s right. People who learn from mistakes learn faster, and the research supports that.
However, this does not in any way mean that we should encourage and embrace failure. Why? In education, there is no failure. There is only feedback. As Ken Blanchard once wrote, “Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” If we have employed a standards-based instructional approach founded not upon sorting students for success, but rather on helping each student achieve mastery, the only way for a student to fail is to quit or give up. It is not a question of will they learn, but a question of when will they learn. Now that is a growth mind-set.
The Teaching Channel has a great video that illustrates my point. Math teacher, Leah Alcala, engages students by using a “bell ringer” math problem at the beginning of every class. The students complete the problem on an index card and turn in the card. It is here that Alcala gets creative. Instead of storing the cards so that she can grade them, she scans through each card and picks her “favorite no,” as in her favorite wrong answer. Using a document camera, Alcala then displays her favorite wrong answer and conducts a “think-pair-share” activity. For the next few minutes, the students analyze the thinking that led to the wrong answer. In Alcala’s classroom, there is no failure, only feedback!
This is a great "bell ringer," or "do now" activity that requires a document camera, LCD projector, and index cards.
This five minute video also demonstrates the following:
- Creating a low-threat classroom environment
- Low-cost strategies
- Formative assessment
- Check for understanding
- Whole-class instruction
- Questioning strategies
- Guided practice
- Differentiation
- Teach and reteach
- Higher-order thinking (analyze, evaluate, metacognition)
Mind-Sets: Leader or Learner?
In the old days, school leaders needed to know all the answers. In those days, leading schools was about organization and management. Today, leading schools, while continuing to demand management skills, now puts a premium on instructional leadership. Leading a community of adult and student learners requires a lead learner. Today, the lead learner is the learning leader.
In a recent Ignite! Newsletter article, Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller, authors of “Great Leaders Grow: Becoming a Leader for Life,” point out that a “leader's capacity to grow determines the capacity to lead.”
Key takeaways for school leaders:
- “Growth is what separates living things from dying things.”
- “Growth brings energy, vitality, life, and challenge. Without growth, we’re just going through the motions.”
- "If you're not continually growing and developing your skills, you run the risk of becoming stagnant. Once you are stagnant—or even perceived as stagnant—your influence erodes."
- “The decision to grow makes the difference. And it’s not a short-term decision. The best leaders make a conscious decision to grow throughout their career and their life. This single decision is a game changer for leaders.”
Mind-Sets: Focus
New reports find that multitaskers are “lousy at everything that’s necessary for multitasking.” Multitasking is really shorthand for multidistracted: dividing attention over a number of tasks without really attending to any one of those tasks with sufficient focus. Focus is power! Divide your focus and lose your power!
Multitasking causes emotional and health problems including:
- Stress
- Loss of creativity
- Inability to problem-solve
- Slower thinking
Mind-Sets: Parents
New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman recently called attention to the huge role that parents play in classroom success in his op-ed: “How About Better Parents?” He writes, “There’s no question that a great teacher can make a huge difference in a student’s achievement, and we need to recruit, train, and reward more such teachers. But here’s what some new studies are also showing: we need better parents. Parents more focused on their children’s education can also make a huge difference in a student’s achievement."
As an example of recent research, Friedman cites the work of Andreas Schleicher, who oversees the exams for the OECD. The PISA team went to the parents of 5,000 students in 20 countries and interviewed them “about how they raised their kids and then compared that with the test results” for each of those years, Schleicher explained. The PISA team recently published the three main findings of its study.
NASSP News
Assistant Principal of the Year Finalists
NASSP and school furniture manufacturer Virco Inc. are proud to announce the three finalists for the 2012 NASSP/Virco National Assistant Principal of the Year award program: Sean Burke of McMinnville (OR) High School, Maureen Cohen of Grafton (MA) High School, and Denise Khaalid of South Pointe High School in Rock Hill, SC. Visit www.nassp.org/APOY to read more about the award and the three finalists.
iPad Training for School Leaders
On March 19, 2012, in Reston, VA, discover how an iPad can help you become a more effective school leader. The iPad Workshop for School Leaders will cover the most valuable functions for educators, including: observations, evaluations, data collection, IEP checklists, research, news, and more. Or, if you're already an iPad user, sign up for the Advanced iPad Workshop for School Leaders, March 29 or 30, 2012. Registration includes an iPad, or you can bring your own.
NEW Breaking Ranks Leadership Training
Join your colleagues in Reston, VA, on April 23–24, 2012, for the latest K–12 training based on Breaking Ranks: The Comprehensive Framework for School Improvement.
Common Core School Leaders Webinar Series
Combining College Board's deep understanding of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) with NASSP's extensive history in principal development and school improvement, the two organizations have launched an online community and webinar series to highlight the issues that K–12 school leaders will need to consider during the CCSS transition. Visit edWeb to join the community and register for the free webinars. Upcoming topics include: School Leadership Role on March 14 and Changing School Culture and Climate on March 28. Past webinars are archived online.