If you would like to continue receiving email communications from the HOPE Foundation regarding professional development opportunities, news, and strategies please click here.

     
 
What's Working in Schools
US $3.00
From the Failure Is Not an Option® Courageous Leadership Academy
HOPE Foundation
Issue 10
 November 20, 2008
 
     
 
 
Commentaries on Leadership:
What It Means to Me to Be a Teacher
by Dennis Sparks
 

Classroom
"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 ultimately begin."
- Phil Schlechty

 

I believe

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.

What you can do now

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  

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.

 
   
In This Issue
 
 
 
Failure Is Not an Option®
Attend a Failure Is Not an Option Event
 Event Schedule
Savannah Savannah, GA
12/9 - 12/12/08
100 SEATS LEFT!
REGISTER NOW
Carefree Carefree
(Phoenix), AZ
1/20 - 1/23/09
Orlando Orlando, FL
2/18 - 2/20/09
Cleveland Cleveland, OH
5/12 - 5/14/09
Philadelphia Philadelphia, PA
6/24 - 6/26/09
Myrtle Beach Myrtle Beach, SC
7/15 - 7/17/09
New Orleans New Orleans, LA
7/28 - 7/30/09
Toronto Toronto, ON
8/18 - 8/21/09
Charlotte Charlotte, NC
9/23 - 9/25/09
Atlanta Atlanta, GA
10/28 - 10/30/09
Austin Austin, TX
11/18 - 11/20/09
 Register & More Info
To register, or for more information, click here.
 
     
     
 

Courageous Leaders Maintain Constancy and Clarity of Purpose
by Alan Blankstein

 
Sometime in the 1970s, advertisers must have quietly signed a pact: All products should now and henceforth be deemed “new and improved”! Educators, like most of us, gleefully bought the “latest” and most “improved” lawnmower, car, and soap. As a profession, we also adopted this same regrettable concept—creating, consuming, and abandoning the latest educational fad every few years.
"I believe that if leaders are to successfully sustain their commitment and energy through the unrelenting challenges they face, it is essential that their work each day be energized and guided by their deepest purposes."
- Dennis Sparks
 
But the educator who purchases a quick and convenient “initiative du jour” is buying a mirage. Most of these new initiatives are later deemed ineffective and evaporate—or worse, they are kept indefinitely without further evaluation. In the latter case, the educational “bookshelf” is filled with a confusing array of possible ways to proceed. This approach is disjointed at best, and demoralizing for an already overburdened staff. Read more
 
 
Alan Blankstein  

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.
 
     
     
 
Generating Buy-in for School Change
by Cathy Owens
 
Teachers

“The buy-in conversation is a candid, critical, and courageous conversation about what we, all teachers as a team, can do to design a teaching and learning culture that yields increased performance for teachers as well as students.”

 
As I travel across North America, the feedback I hear from teachers is always the same: “Our schools don’t need outside experts to come in and fix our problems. As teachers working here everyday, we are the first responders, and we can offer the best practical decisions.” Most of the problems schools face are best solved by the teachers who deal with them head-on everyday. Teachers’ daily experiences foster an up-close insider view that positions them to most quickly and creatively determine the right solutions.
 

Teachers also tell me that while they don’t feel they need an outside expert, they do need a facilitator, coach, or leader to help them create a structure and culture where proposed solutions can be tested and implemented by all staff, not just those willing and eager to embrace change. Changing school culture starts with conversation to generate buy-in across the entire 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.

The Principal’s Role in Generating Buy-In for Change

The principal must be willing to place all the high-stakes issues on the table for discussion and encourage teachers, as lead stakeholders, to speak up about why things are the way they are, how things can change, what solutions are possible, and what steps might be made in order to turn possibilities into reality. Read more

 
 
Cathy Owens Cathy R. Owens, NBCT, is Director of Educational Partnerships for TeachFirst, Inc. (www.teachfirst.com). Formerly Director of Learning for the National Staff Development Council (NSDC.org), as well as Director of Professional Development and Teacher Networks for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS.org), Cathy is a well-regarded expert in professional learning for school administrators, staff developers, and teacher leaders. A consummate speaker and author, she is a regular presenter at professional conferences and writes articles for leading education journals.
   
Failure Is Not an Option® 3
Failure Is Not an Option 3
 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

Next month, the HOPE Foundation will be releasing Effective Assessment for Effective Learning, a collaborative effort involving renowned researchers and practitioners in our field. This series 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

 
     
 
Where There Is HOPE, Failure Is Not an Option®
 
 
Copyright © 2008 by The HOPE Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved.
 
 

HOPE Foundation
1252 N. Loesch Rd.
PO Box 906
Bloomington, IN 47402-0906
800.627.0232
www.hopefoundation.org