Educators everywhere are being challenged like no other time in our history. Everyday, as we prepare to teach, inspire, and change lives during a pandemic; something new is thrown at us or information changes. In many cases, we are recreating the school experience for our students, our parents, and ourselves because "we have never done it this way". It is stressful going into the unknown of whether we will be able to stay open and face to face or will we go remote. We could spend all day everyday playing the "what if" game. We could sit in our offices or teacher's lounge and go on and on about how hard everything is. At the end of the day though, all we are doing is complaining about so many things that are out of our control. Brian and Tim Kight would call it BCD (Blame, Complain, and Defend). Covey would call it outside your Circle of Control. Regardless of what you call it, it can suck the life out of you and at the end of the day leave you exhausted, yet no closer to solving any problems or reaching a solution because it is out of our control.
I'll be honest. At times, I want to play the game and talk Gloom and Doom but it gets me nowhere. Instead of the constant worrying about what is not in our control, let's focus on what we can control. We are rewriting the playbook for education. Teachers (especially teachers) are creating innovative ways to connect with families and students. To engage students in ways we have never imagined. Spend some time on Tik-Tok and you see teachers creating innovative ways to connect with their students and to teach their students. You see principals and their teams (I am part of a great team) trying to plan for school in 3 different ways: face to face, remote, or a hybrid. You hear of schedules that would have been unheard of twelve months ago. Then you have district leaders imagining the impossible and challenging their districts to dream it and make it happen.
From my conversations with educators, parents, and the public, there are two mindsets out there in education right now. A growth mindset that we can do anything and we will or a closed mindset that is stuck in "we have never done it this way and it can't work". Our kids cannot afford for us to not get it done. We all were challenged in the spring when almost every child in America was sent home. The ramifications for not improving on the spring on this generation of kids could having devastating consequences. Don't get me wrong, we were all thrown into a pandemic and teaching with no notice. Our kids went home in early March with no real idea that we would not see them again. Amazing things happened all across America. As hard as that was, we learned a lot and we have to do great things in 2020-2021 for our kids.
That is where our circle of control comes in. Whether it is my classroom, my building, my district, or my job or business; work on the things you can control and stop wasting time on things outside your control. All that stuff you can do nothing about only gives you ulcers. Forget it.
"You adapt. You overcome. You improvise"
-Gunny Sgt Highway, Heartbreak Ridge
Instead, take a growth mindset and think of what you would change about education and go for it. The greatest ideas or most significant changes in education happen because a teacher or leader takes a chance and breaks the mold. Do we even have a mold for the 2020-21 school year? The Innovators stopped thinking "we have never done it this way" and started thinking "Let's do it this way". And off they went. Think of Ron Clark's story of a principal telling him to stop doing things because other teacher's were getting pressured from parents to be more like him or have the same approach and offerings. What if he had said, "Ok". Instead, he moved on and now hundreds of teachers flock to the Ron Clark Academy every year to learn how they can teach like Mr. Clark. Think of Muriel Summers. Muriel attended 7 Habits of Highly Effective People training and had the courage to think outside the box and take a business leadership driven concept and try it with 5-year old students. Now her approach to teaching leadership to students is being replicated around the world. Teachers, principals and school leaders: Our kids need us more than ever to think outside the box and dream big. Principals and school leaders: our teachers and students need us more than ever to help them chase their dreams and not be the guy or gal that told Ron Clark to "tone it down". We need innovation in education more than ever and we need to transform how we view "traditional" school. Tradition is great and we need to honor our past, but what business besides education is still running their business like they did in 1990?
Innovation has no playbook. It is messy and it can be scary. Things are not going to work out perfectly every time, but don't quit. Our team has planned and planned just like districts everywhere; however, we can't control everything. That's what we do, we are educators. The alternative is to give up and say we can't do it. That is the easy way out. Like I mentioned, I have had to catch myself from throwing my hands up. If we work together, we can do this and I truly believe we are going to transform the way "traditional" education is delivered.
Keys to having a successful year:
- Focus on your Circle of Control. Forget the rest.
- Collaborate with your peers and support each other.
- Dream big, be innovative and rethink how we educate our kids.
- Throw out the play book from 2000 or 1990 and start over.
- Be okay with messy, and making mistakes.Learn from it.
- Adapt, Overcome, and Improvise when necessary.
So as educators, we can either adapt and overcome or we can fade away. If you don't adapt and overcome, someone else will and your families will choose to go elsewhere. OR you become the innovator who adapts and overcomes and other families choose you. We have to be champions for one another. In many cases, we are the only consistency in our families lives. They will look to us for guidance. If we spew Gloom and Doom, we have the power to suck the life out of our community. If we are able to adapt and overcome, we can transform our community. Let's transform our schools and transform our communities. Let's all be #Statusquodisruptors
