Teach Boldly

Years ago, I was blessed to be in a position to hold seminars with groups of educators designed to discuss and build leadership skills both informally and formally, internally – for the individual and externally for the school. As we discussed leadership skills and qualities, we would talk about new tools being put in our toolboxes as leaders. This year in Teach & Serve, I have decided to talk about many of those tools.

FLEXIBILITY

If you do not have flexibility, do not become an educational leader. Period.

I cannot imagine (cue Han Solo’s voice in my head “well, I don’t know, I can imagine quite a bit”) that there is an individual who is in educational leadership who lived through the last 18 months and who would not agree with this statement. If dealing with the pandemic taught us anything, it is that flexibility is a critical component of leadership. Leaders must be able to negotiate shifting sands even as the sand drops out from under their feet. 

I have known leaders who were less than flexible, who were locked into their ways of proceeding. They were leaders who often pointed to the highway if it did not go “my way.”

Do these people still exist and, if they do, can they be effective leaders in this new environment? Were they ever effective leaders? 

Certainly leaders need to be decisive and need to stand up for what they believe. Certainly they need to put their schools on courses and steer them forward. But not in a monolithic manner and not without being open to the tides of change. Whatever those tides might bring, a leader must be flexible enough to face them. Those who are not – who are too rigid in the face of swirling seas – will be broken and swept overboard.

In high school, I had a teacher named Sister Benita Volk. While I remember the names of the majority of my high school instructors, I have a special place in my heart for those who inspired me to go into this profession, those like Sister Benita. It is a good place, I promise!

Sister Benita was my English teacher my sophomore year. I cannot tell you what she taught me in terms of content, but I can tell you that her approach with the class and with me taught me about life, about intellectual curiosity and about God. 

She was also a member of the rag-tag group of teachers and students who provided music at Mass at my Catholic high school and I was in that group, too. She was incredibly encouraging of me, and I was (and remain) a hack on the guitar. But I continue to play at Masses to this day in large part because of her.

Years later, after I had returned to my school as a teacher and administrator, Sister Benita applied to return as a teacher there, too. She had dealt with health challenges and life challenges but she was the same teacher – inspired and inspiring.

We hired her. Of course we did.

One of the most prominent awards my former school gives to its teaching staff is named after her, as it should be.

Thank you, Sister, for changing my life and the lives of so many others.

We never know the influence we have… While culture tends to promulgate the “those who can, do, those who cannot, teach” idiocy, there are hundreds of examples of brilliance and impactful teachers in reality and in pop culture. Every-other-week this year, I will share my brief reflections on Smart People Doing Smart Things be they in literature, in film, in music or in real life. Many will be teachers, but not all. Many will be fictional, but some will be real. All will be inspiring. Welcome to IntelliPop!

Years ago, I was blessed to be in a position to hold seminars with groups of educators designed to discuss and build leadership skills both informally and formally, internally – for the individual and externally for the school. As we discussed leadership skills and qualities, we would talk about new tools being put in our toolboxes as leaders. This year in Teach & Serve, I have decided to talk about many of those tools.

EMPATHY

There is a phrase about the relationship between students and teachers that I really like. “Students don’t care what you know until they know that you care.” As a person who is very involved in the hiring of educators, I would be a better assessor of a candidate’s potential success if I could develop a question that would, without a doubt, point to a teacher’s capacity for care. 

It is possible that this capacity to care and the ability to empathize with members of the professional community is more important for school leaders than it is for teachers. It is, at a minimum, equally important. 

Leaders who drift away from the ability to empathize with a teacher’s full course load and schedule and grading and challenges with the learning management system and annoyance with assigned duties and, well, you get the idea, have lost a critical piece of their credibility. Teachers need to know that their leaders not only understand the daily struggle but that they empathize with it.

Further, leaders who are empathetic with the challenges their staff faces outside of the classroom and the school are better suited to the mantle of leadership. Empathy is a tool in the box of a leader. It is also a tool of those who want to be good people. We could use more of it in our American culture. We need more of it in our schools.

Years ago, I was blessed to be in a position to hold seminars with groups of educators designed to discuss and build leadership skills both informally and formally, internally – for the individual and externally for the school. As we discussed leadership skills and qualities, we would talk about new tools being put in our toolboxes as leaders. This year in Teach & Serve, I have decided to talk about many of those tools.

ARTICULATION

I have a penchant for smart people. I like talking to them. I like reading them. I like watching them do smart things.

One of the things smart people do so very well is explain. Smart people illustrate complex issues clearly. They break down difficult questions so all can understand. They pull apart challenging concepts and make them accessible.

Good leaders are able to clearly articulate things. They explain who they are, why they are the leader and what it all means. They build understanding of their initiatives. They bring those they lead in with their clarity.   

Leaders who cannot articulate their plans, ideas, programs and philosophies are not going to be particularly successful. What good does it do to have amazing goals if one cannot articulate them in a way that makes sense?

Did you know she had a name? One of the adults in the Peanuts specials had a name!

How often have teachers felt just like Miss Othmar? We talk and we hope we are understood and it comes across to our students as a string of tuba notes making no sense.

Clearly, though, Miss Othmar makes a significant impact on Charlie Brown and the gang. They are good kids, all. They may pretend not to listen, but they hear you, Miss Othmar!We are all Miss Othmar sometimes… let us remember they do hear us!

We never know the influence we have… While culture tends to promulgate the “those who can, do, those who cannot, teach” idiocy, there are hundreds of examples of brilliance and impactful teachers in reality and in pop culture. Every-other-week this year, I will share my brief reflections on Smart People Doing Smart Things be they in literature, in film, in music or in real life. Many will be teachers, but not all. Many will be fictional, but some will be real. All will be inspiring. Welcome to IntelliPop!

Years ago, I was blessed to be in a position to hold seminars with groups of educators designed to discuss and build leadership skills both informally and formally, internally – for the individual and externally for the school. As we discussed leadership skills and qualities, we would talk about new tools being put in our toolboxes as leaders. This year in Teach & Serve, I have decided to talk about many of those tools.

COLLABORATION

As an English teacher, I am a nerd for language. I love the term “collaboration” because the roots of it are “co” and “labor.”

All too often, in my experience, leaders fall into the trap that they are the one-and-only person who can get the work done. They are the ones who carry the labor.

It could be I am looking in a mirror as I compose this post, but I do not believe I am alone in this unfortunate leaning as a leader. I have heard myself say “it would take me longer to explain this than to do it myself” or listened to the voice in my head saying “this has to be done right – you do it.”

These are problematic perspectives for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is they stifle collaboration.

Sharing in the work in all aspects from the beginning of a process to the end brings people in leadership. It invites them to share in the journey. It engages them in the labor of the school. It states, very clearly in a way that words rarely do, that the leader is sharing power and authority and that others are trusted. 

Is true collaboration time consuming? Yes. Does true collaboration need to be defined in almost each instance it is utilized? Yes. Does true collaboration carry risk? Yes.

But good leaders know when to use this tool. They know how to use this tool. Bad leaders are afraid of it.