Human Voices Wake Us

Surviving the Stresses of School Leadership by John Blaydes

 3 ideas: Resiliency, Renewal, Reflection

It basically came down to “take time for yourself.” 

Resiliency: Everything you do must align with the school’s vision.  If it doesn’t, don’t do it.  This reminds me of something in Made to Stick.  Southwest Airlines’ motto is the low cost airline.  The story is that one person went to the head honcho about serving food, which the customers would like.  Mr. Honcho asked if it would make them the low cost airline.  The answer was no, so they didn’t do it.  Your Actions>Priorities>Plan of Action>School Goals>School Vision.  Another idea: delegate, don’t dump.  GO HOME!

Renewal: “Effective leaders find joy in their jobs.”  Find something/someone that inspires you and look to it daily.  Focus on what’s right, not what’s wrong. “The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth of the hole.” -

Reflection: Make an appointment with yourself for quiet time and don’t let anyone interrupt.  Remember why you’re there. “Children are a living message to the future we’ll never see.”

Blaydes’ books:  Survival Skills for the Principalship, The Educator’s Book of Quotes

I attended the ASCD national conference last week and went to some great sessions.  I’d like to share some of the stuff I learned.

Get Organized: Time Management for School Leaders by Dr. Frank Buck

I came away from this session with 2 major ideas:

#1: Use a tickler file.  Have 31 files labled 1-31 and 12 files labeled with the months.  When something comes across your desk, put it in the appropriate file and forget about it.  Example:  registration form for upcoming conference you might go to in three months.  Registration deadline is December 11?  Put in December 5 file. (Or something like that).  When you get to work each day, pull out that file and everything you might need for the day will be there.  Also works with teachers: place tests, forms to be turned in, etc in files.  Another part of the tickler file is 3 boxes on your desk: Out, In, Pending. If anyone brings you something, he/she places it in the In box.  If you have something that needs to physically go somewhere, it goes in Out.  Stuff you need for the day?  Pending.  GENIUS!

#2: Documentation journal.  Have one notebook to record all meetings, phone conversations, etc.  Keep chronological.  Jot notes based on what happens.  Every month, add to a word document a list of things that you think could be important later and identify by date.  If something comes up later (like a parent who’s mad over something in a meeting 2 months ago) you can go to the word file and search key words to find the right date.  Then you can go to your journal to find the exact details.  Keep all  journals.

And did you know that in Outlook you can drag emails directly to the calendar icon and it will create a new appointment?  Same for tasks.

As I’ve been reading articles for my doctoral study, I’ve come across an interesting idea:  how the globalization of the economy will affect students when they become workers.  You may have noticed that I’m reading Wikinomics, which speaks about globalization.  This is fascinating stuff.  Here’s my train of thought on this: School should be a reflection of society.  We teach values and knowledge that our society finds necessary.  Curriculum changes as those people in office decide that our values have changed.  Right now state lawmakers are discussing putting technology essential knowledge and skills in the every grade level.  Of course, our personal lives are always way ahead of our school lives.  I read a statistic that only 18% of teachers blog or know someone who does.  I bet if you ask that same question to students, the percentage would be very high.  So, not only should school reflect society in regards to the use of technology, but another responsibility of school should be to prepare students for the word of work.  Businesses have been complaining for a long time that schools don’t do a good enough job with this.  And looking at how companies are outsourcing work to all parts of the world, students need to be prepared for a workforce much different than the one we were prepared for.  Hardly anyone holds down the same job for 30 years anymore.  We need to prepare students to work in a global economy, which includes being able to communicate effectively through digital tools, being able to work with a team that might not be physically present, and being able to adapt to new situations on a daily basis.   If educators keep acting like we live in a bubble that no longer exists, we will be doing our students a great disservice.