| |
|
|
| |
|
What's
Working in Schools |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
| Please help us continue bringing you this publication and other forms of professional development |
If you enjoy reading What's Working in Schools, please make a donation to help continue its publication and the HOPE Foundation's ability to offer professional development services to educators across North America and beyond. No contribution is too small; and all donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. Please click here to help, or read more information below.
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
| |
| Commentaries on Leadership: |
Cultivate Empathy, Caring, and Cooperation |
by Dennis Sparks |
| |
 |
“Take time out of the curriculum to teach students to manage their emotions and to practice empathy, caring, and cooperation—and their academic achievement could improve in the bargain ”
— Debra Viadero, citing research on social and emotional learning
|
|
|
|
I believe that teachers will be successful in nurturing students’ empathy, caring, and cooperation to the extent those qualities are intentionally nurtured in them through the school cultures in which they work. Empathy, caring, and cooperation among adults are essential ingredients in productive school cultures, which in turn contribute to student achievement. The intentional development of these qualities—I think of it as “reculturing”—is one of leaders’ most important responsibilities. It requires that leaders change what they believe, understand, and do each day so that they truly embody empathy, caring, and cooperation. In no other area is it more essential that leaders begin by changing themselves.
Prepare an “I believe” statement about the importance of empathy, caring, and cooperation in productive school cultures. After writing your statement, share it with colleagues to better understand your own views and those of others. To promote learning and to counter the debate and defensiveness that often occur when individuals advocate the “truth” of their points of view, I encourage you to offer your belief in the spirit of mutual inquiry with a genuine openness to being influenced by others.
|
| |
| |
|
 |
|
Dennis Sparks is emeritus executive director of the National Staff Development Council (nsdc.org) and serves as a "thinking partner" to leadership teams of education organizations. He is the author of the best-selling book Leading For Results (corwinpress.com), and his Leading Through Learning essays are co-published by NSDC and Phi Delta Kappa International (pdkintl.org/publications/leading.htm). He can be reached at dennis.sparks@comcast.net. |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
| Courageous Leadership for School Success Events |
|
|
| Featured Event: |
 |
Advanced Institute
Carefree (Phoenix), AZ
1/20 - 1/23 |
The Advanced Institute is especially designed for learning communities and teams with prior knowledge of the Failure Is Not an Option® process. Teams in attendance will learn advanced strategies to apply data, effectively build collaborative teams, and develop systems for improving teaching and learning.
|
| |
| Presentations by: |
- Dennis Sparks (tentative)
- Tom Guskey
- Alan Blankstein
- Al Bertani
- Deborah Wortham
|
| |
| Register Today! |
There are still seats available; register today to be a part of this one-of-kind event using the faxable registration form:
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
| Betting on Me: |
| A Childhood Memory from HOPE's Founder |
by Alan Blankstein |
| |
|
| |
As I lay in the hospital in the South Bronx with my eye bandaged up, I finally had a chance to reflect on my short 10 years of life. Once in a great while, if you're lucky, your whole world is shattered and all the assumptions you had about life are up for grabs. This was my moment - and it gave me a chance to reconstruct the world of anger and despair I had come to know and, in a sense, to thrive in. Read more |
| |
| |
Alan Blankstein is Founder and President of the HOPE Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that is dedicated to supporting educational leaders over time in creating school cultures where failure is not an option for any student. Alan is author of the best-selling book Failure Is Not an Option®: Six Principles That Guide Student Achievement in High-Performing Schools, which has been awarded "Book of the Year" by the National Staff Development Council. Currently, Alan is Senior Editor along with Paul Houston of the eight-volume The Soul of Educational Leadership series. |
|
|
|
| Shaping America's Future |
| |
 |
| |
The HOPE Foundation is bringing together visionaries in the field of education for a monumental forum committed to Shaping America's Future. To coincide with the upcoming changes in the White House, luminaries from around the country will gather in Washington, DC on February 4-5, 2009 to create a new vision of what an American education should look like in the 21st century. Through this meeting of the minds, leaders from major administrative associations in the field, along with heads of school board and superintendent organizations, will determine how best to ensure every child receives the quality education they deserve. The event will conclude with a press conference unveiling the group's findings and recommendations to implement an action plan whereby 'Failure is not an Option' for any child. Shaping America’s Future forum has the support and co-sponsorship of organizations including: the American Association of School Administrators, Sage Publications, McCune Magazine and the National School Boards Association. |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
The Leadership Difference
at High Performing Schools
by Clete Bulach
|
| |
“Changing school culture starts with conversation to generate buy-in across the entire teaching staff—including those who may be afraid of change or not yet equipped for it—and that conversation starts with the principal, the school’s lead change agent, facilitator, and coach."
- Cathy Owens |
|
| |
| I wholeheartedly agree with Cathy Owens. The principal is the school’s coach and leader and must involve all school constituents if positive change is to occur. When principals have a clear vision of the type of school culture they want to create, they will be more effective in reducing resistance to school reform and likelier to succeed in creating a caring learning community.
Creating a “high performing” school is an organizational approach to school reform that creates a distinctly different school culture and climate than can be found in existing schools. Based on my experience and research, I have determined that there are four types of school cultures:
- The laissez-faire school culture—the under performing school (2-5%)
- The traditional school culture—the low performing school (60-75%)
- The enlightened traditional school culture—the above average performing school (10-15%)
- The high performing school (2-5%)
These four types are described in detail in Creating a Culture for High Performing Schools (Bulach, Lunenburg, & Potter, 2008).
The laissez-faire school has a very loose organizational and control structure, low student achievement, and a high failure and dropout rate. The traditional school culture has a strong emphasis on control and a top down organizational structure. Read more |
| |
| |
 |
|
Cletus R. Bulach, Ed.D., is Associate Professor Emeritus at the University of West Georgia, CEO of the Professional Development and Assessment Center in Villa Rica, GA, and lead author of Creating a Culture for High Performing Schools (2008), published by Rowman and Littlefield Education (www.rowmaneducation.com). Contact Clete at cbulach@comcast.net or visit his website at www.westga.edu/~cbulach. |
|
|
|
|
New DVD set!
Order by December 31 and
Save $100 |
|
Effective Assessment for
Effective Learning: |
Seven Instructional Principles for Guiding Student Achievement
Featuring: Jay McTighe, Carol Ann Tomlinson, Alan Blankstein, Ken O'Connor, Larry Bell, Michael Fullan, Linda Darling-Hammond, Ernest Morrell and school practitioners from two high-performing school districts
Available in January 2009! The newest video from the highly acclaimed Failure Is Not an Option® series, Effective Assessment for Effective Learning is a collaborative effort that demonstrates how schools in two high-performing, diverse school districts use well-designed classroom assessments and grading practices to provide specific, personalized and timely information to guide both teaching and learning. Read more |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
Correction: Quotation from bell hooks |
The author and publisher thank reader Meenakshi Khanna for pointing out that the quotation at the beginning of Dennis Sparks’s November 20, 2008 column (“What It Means to Me to Be a Teacher”) should be attributed to bell hooks rather than Phil Schlecty. The original source was Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (New York: Routledge, 1994). With apologies both to hooks and to Schlecty, here now is a corrected version of the November 20 column. |
|
| Commentaries on Leadership: |
What It Means to Me to Be a Teacher |
by Dennis Sparks |
| |
"To teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin."
- bell hooks |
|
|
|
I believe that the purpose of teaching is to provide students with new habits of mind and behavior that unleash their potential and to create the new generation of informed and engaged world citizens. Ensuring such learning is far more demanding and complex than simply “covering the material.” As a teacher, my job is completed only when my students have learned what I intended, and perhaps some other important things as well. Although my work focuses on the learning of educators rather than K-12 students, I nonetheless think of myself as a teacher, a teacher of adults, not as a presenter or a trainer.
Because on any given day my teaching can take many forms, it is always to some extent improvisational, guided by a deep respect for and responsiveness to the experiences and inner lives of those I teach and by professional judgment cultivated through ongoing learning and reflection. Because my teaching has an overarching moral purpose—to improve the life chances of all K-12 students through skillful school leadership—I continuously seek ways to improve my effectiveness. Because I believe in the power of teaching and learning to solve many important human problems, I want leaders to see themselves first and foremost as teachers who attend to both the hearts and minds of those they lead.
Prepare an “I believe” statement about the purpose of teaching. After writing your statement, share it with colleagues to better understand your own views and those of others. To promote learning and to counter the debate and defensiveness that often occur when individuals advocate the “truth” of their points of view, I encourage you to offer your belief in the spirit of mutual inquiry with a genuine openness to being influenced by others. |
| |
| |
|
|
|
Dennis Sparks is emeritus executive director of the National Staff Development Council (nsdc.org) and serves as a "thinking partner" to leadership teams of education organizations. He is the author of the best-selling book Leading For Results (corwinpress.com), and his Leading Through Learning essays are co-published by NSDC and Phi Delta Kappa International (pdkintl.org/publications/leading.htm). He can be reached at dennis.sparks@comcast.net. |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
| Please help us continue bringing you this publication and other forms of professional development |
A donation to HOPE advances the mission of developing courageous leaders who collaboratively re-shape the culture of school communities to enhance student achievement and improve the lives of all children. The mission of the HOPE (Harnessing Optimism Potential through Education) Foundation is to develop and support educational leaders over time at a district-wide or state-wide level to sustain student achievement, especially for low-performing students.
Your donation will go towards furthering the mission of HOPE through programming for administrators and teachers who are working in trying circumstances throughout North America and parts of Africa and succeeding with students who would otherwise likely fail. No contribution is too small; and all donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
Please click here to help.
In advance, thank you for your contribution and continued readership.
Jeni Coffey
HOPE Foundation
The HOPE Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Federal ID Number: 35-176-1642 |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
Where There
Is HOPE, Failure Is Not an Option® |
|
|
| |
Copyright © 2008 by The
HOPE Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved. |
|
