"When you were made a leader, you weren't given a crown; you were given the responsibility to bring out the best in others."
-Jack Welch
I spent my first year as a Vice Principal at St Benedict, Ottawa Catholic School Board. I am privileged to work with an incredible leadership team and staff. My first year being out of the classroom and part of a larger and diverse community took some adjustments.
As an educator, I immersed myself in students' identities, building relationships, empathy, understanding perspectives, self-awareness, social awareness, and connecting students to community action-taking. Those who know me know that my learning journey is based on risk-taking, creative problem solving and action-taking.
I am basing my reflections for this blog on the Life of a Project, which I always used when designing for creative problem-solving with students.
I am referencing the Life of a Project because our learning journeys have highs and lows. This reflection is based on my leadership teaching experiences as a conduit to the vice principalship.
Throughout the journey as an educator and a leader, I needed to be proactive and intentional in persevering for improvement and communication, engaging with staff, students, parents/guardians and the community with strategic objectives to drive change.
These intentions start by being an active listener. Active listening is the key, and I am still working on this strategy as a vice principal. Listening is a hard skill! As I always reference from the classroom, the one doing the talking is the one doing the learning. I need to step back and ask questions for clarity for informing all actions and decisions. I have learned that listening is paying attention to emotions, intentions and perspectives. Listening is a hard skill because of the why and how you make someone feel afterwards.
The intention of collaboration and interpersonal relationships are key to building capacity and a community. That was day one of my classroom to unpack, connect, learn about each other, build perspectives and understand identity. In leadership, the purpose of collaboration is learning through an environment of trust and teamwork than just being directive. Pausing and taking time to think about whose voices and perspectives are being presented and whose voices and perspectives are missing when making decisions with a team. I continue to reflect and learn, how can I help and support each other all year? How to recognize and celebrate successes and failures, address issues constructively and timely, and make it clear that all school community members are valued and respected?
Another intention is innovation that is a key to my learning journey. I need to continue to innovate and try new things. This could involve implementing new teaching strategies, educators inquiries, adopting new technologies, collecting data, rethinking school procedures, or launching new programs and initiatives. The main connection, just like the classroom with the students, is identifying the Why. I am learning the Why by having teams interested in tackling projects and being collective learners along the way. The purpose to implement innovation and work with each other is to make connections about students' learning. This insight brings thinking about, how are we co-learning about students' progress? How are we collecting data to avoid making assumptions and see what the data means and our next steps?
It would be important to also refrain from exhausting ourselves in the doings rather than the learning. In the classroom, the students were co-designers and co-assessors; we had a balanced working and co-learning environment. As a school leader, I am learning to invest in our community by providing clear challenges or goals and creating the conditions to learn. I look forward to living the process of empowering through confidence, trust to problem solve, to achieve and celebrate the needed results this year. Like the Life of a Project, we need to readjust during the process. We need to know or co-learn the subject matter and focus on the process and our attention on the actions as a team.
In the classroom, I always used the intention based on our Hearts, mind/brain and hands/actions. The mind is about knowing the purpose, our heart/hearts is the impact we want to make, and the hand/hands are the actions that align with our purpose and desired impact. These intentions also align with the leadership purpose. How can we impact the school community with the heart, mind and hand intention?
The 3Ys were also key for thinking and actions from Project Zero. When we take action, could we relate to the 3Ys? How does this matter to me, the people around me and the community?
Many thinking routines and thinking models could be applied in leadership too, from the https://www.i-thinktogether.org/tools. The Pro Pro Model, Ladder of Inference and Causal Model would guide our thinking for iteration, ideation and fresh outcomes. As a community, how can we implement these thinking models for decision-making?
I enjoyed learning alongside many educators and connected with them during the teacher performance appraisal. We co-designed and began with the end in mind. We co-planned and co-created together, reflecting during the process by regular check-ins and visits. The TPA (teacher performance appraisal) shouldn't be a one time visit. It is the flow of growth back and forth of learning. We focused on the growth and the transformation of learning by talking to students and their learning.
Time spent in the classroom affects the leadership process. I think I am learning to be a better vice principal because of the impactful moments I spent as an educator learning about deep learning, social-emotional learning of students' voices, authentic assessment as and for learning, gradeless assessment, project-based learning, implementing thinking models and connecting to the community. Good teaching experiences can lead to understanding the why and how of learning. One of the leaders who was my principal and now a superintendent always said," Great teachers make great principals."
A learning journey is the Life of a Project, one step forward, three steps back, and never a straightforward journey. It is to come together collaboratively and build understanding toward the school vision and system improvement. How are we developing leaders through this process so they move on and build capacity? How are we modeling learning? Are we learning alongside the students and the educators?
Lots to unpack for learning, unlearning and relearning. The development with the students and the staff is not just academics but also connecting community well-being.
As leaders, how are we finding the balance between what we want to do and what we have to do?
What is instructional leadership? How do we clearly model the process and consider all voices?
So many experienced leaders do an outstanding job by implementing practices that will increase students’ learning. I will continue to learn alongside the leadership team at the school and my many great mentors from the Ottawa Catholic School board and online. It is exciting to be on this leadership journey because leadership is a journey, not a destination.
