Skip to main content

What's green will grow...

Image
By
I love meeting educators.  I love being inspired.  I love attending conferences.

So I was pretty excited to attend the Virginia ASCD conference last week.

I brought back numerous resources for my faculty and a fresh pack of inspiration for myself.  My learning can be summarized into four main takeaways:

 What's green will grow, whats ripe will rot.
This quote by Dave Weber sums up my feelings about professional growth.  While we would hope that all educators would be committed to lifelong learning, sadly we know that is not the case.  We can all think of someone who finds fault and makes every excuse for not moving forward.  The negativity broadcast by these individuals spreads like a rotten banana in your fruit basket.

As a young administrator, sometimes I struggle with being perceived as too "green" to be a principal.  This quote reminded me that there is nothing wrong with being green.  As long as I remain committed to growth, I will stay relevant and effective in the education field.

There is power in connection
I know I am preaching to the choir on this one (but as Annette Breaux says, "who better to preach to?") but the power of a connected educator is astonishing.  

VASCD gave participants multiple ways to connect with each other and the content being presented.  The conference had an app as well as groups on Edmodo for each keynote and session presentation.  So even though I could only attend three breakout sessions, I was able to access the documents shared from each presenter by joining their Edmodo group.  

I was pleasantly surprised to follow the "official" conference hashtag as previous state conferences required that attendees create-our-own to connect and share.  Because of this hashtag I was able to add more Virginia educators to my PLN and look forward to learning from them in the future.

We underestimate our students
There was a phenomenal selection of breakout sessions to attend.  I chose sessions that applied directly to my vision for our school and I was not disappointed.

An elementary school was successfully implementing student-led conferences each spring and had increased parent participation over 50%!  A kindergarten classroom was giving students choice in seating, workspace, and task - and they were successfully managing their time at five years old.  

Students at another elementary school had been given choice in their environment and decided on paint colors, lobbied for the addition of a LEGO wall and a magnetic geoboard in the hallway.

Wow!  As I thought back to the 300 students at CES, I was just hoping no one had any serious discipline issues!

I was underestimating their ability.  My kindergarten students are just as capable as those in other parts of Virginia.  Where else am I underestimating my students?  

 We've got to be brave!
The title of Rick Wormeli's keynote was "What We Could Do If We Were Brave Together."  He presented a multitude of things we could accomplish in education if we were brave enough to step out of our comfort zone and do what's best for kids.

Scary.

I'll take that challenge.

 Our task as educators is too important to remain comfortable with the way we have always done things.  I'm super thankful for my week of growth and pray that I can be brave enough to make the tough decisions that are needed to move my school forward.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Busy Epidemic

By
The same conversation plays out numerous times per day, with a very predictable script: “Hi! How are you?” “Doing well, just busy, how are you doing?” “I understand, I’m very busy over here too.” It’s like there is an underground competition to show that we are the busiest, most overworked professional within our spheres.   “I worked all weekend on (insert project here).” “I can’t meet today, I’m just too busy with (insert another project here).” Guess what? WE’RE ALL BUSY. It may look different for each of us, but we are all overwhelmed with to-do lists that are a mile long. Why do we feel the need to showcase that we are working ourselves to exhaustion? It's as if we have to defend the use of our time. I am a big believer that our words shape our mindset and demonstrate our belief system.  I don't want to believe in the system of "busy."  My work should speak for itself without me having to explain all of my tasks to everyon...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Principal Reads

By
There is a familiar excitement in the air and the school is filled with students and staff who are optimistic about the coming year. If you are an educator, you know the feeling well and it never gets old. I am beginning this year similar to how I have the past three - sharing a book with each class.  Scheduling time to read to each class gives me the opportunity to get to know our new students, give teachers a brief break from teaching during the exhausting first weeks of school, set the expectation for when I enter classrooms, and, most importantly, share my love of books. Literacy has been the focus in our division for a year now and we are happily kicking that into high gear at CES.  Sharing a love of books and reading aloud to students is an easy way administrators can model the importance of enjoying a good book. A few of my favorite beginning of the year reads are: Have You Filled a Bucket Today?: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids How Full is Your...
Post a Comment
Read more

#WinterBreakReads

By
Winter break gives many of us time to slow down, catch up, and recharge.  If you are like me, it also gives you time to read that ever-growing stack of books that you keep ordering!  While I probably should be cleaning, organizing, or engaging in other baby preparations, I can't resist perusing the pages of books that my PLN has recommended.  Seriously.  I am on my third book.  The Four O'Clock Faculty: A Rogue Guide to Revolutionizing Professional Developmen t by Rich Czyz has been on my wishlist for a few weeks.  So when it arrived, it naturally skipped to the front of the line as we are currently working on revamping our professional development structure for the coming year. The book did not disappoint with plenty of suggested activities you can implement tomorrow to supercharge your professional learning.  Unfortunately, we know there are schools and administrators out there who are not supportive of revolutionizing professional learning,...
Post a Comment
Read more