School Culture Reflects What We Celebrate, Ignore, and Anticipate

Update for Mar 2-6

This weekend, Alton Darby Elementary hosted our annual Family Fun Day.  This was another new experience for me in my first year with this community.  My understanding is that this has been a tradition for at least 10 years.  In fact, one family has volunteered to help organize the event each of the last 10 years.

The event was a lot of fun and it was a great opportunity for the community to come together.  It also made me reflect on some of the thoughts and ideas I’ve been reading about in a book called School Culture Rewired: How to Define, Assess, and Transform It by Steve Gruenert and Todd Whitaker.

The combination of my experience with Family Fun Day this weekend and one line from the book really made me reflect on our school’s culture:

“Culture conveys to its members what they ought to celebrate, ignore, and anticipate.” (Gruenert & Whitaker, 2015)

Celebrate -- What are the traditions, the moments, and the events we look forward to each year?  Why are they important to the community?  Family Fun Day reminds me that we need to look forward to fun throughout the year.  What we did for International Dot Day was an amazing way to celebrate a budding collaboration with our closest neighbor, Darby Creek Elementary.  What’s important to the culture of our community is what we celebrate.

Ignore -- This is a turbulent time for public education.  There are many positive changes taking place as well as a lot distractions that potentially take our focus off of the important work we do for kids.  It’s a challenge to ignore what doesn’t matter to the work we do. But our culture reflects what we choose to put our focus on.  So shouldn’t we focus on what matters and ignore the rest?

Anticipate -- What excites kids so that they can’t wait to come to school?  What increases engagement among teachers, parents and students?  Our Kids’ EdCamps, while a ton of work, have been the moments this year that parents bring up the most when I ask about how they think the school year has gone so far.  How can we continue to connect teachers’ passions to students’ interests?

A school’s culture is so important to its success. Therefore, it’s important that we celebrate what we feel represents what we stand for, ignore what distracts us from the work we do for kids, and anticipate what’s possible for our learning community.

Articles Worth Reading

"Questioning the Data" http://connectedprincipals.com/archives/11230

“5 Videos on Making Flipped Video Lessons” http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2015/02/5-videos-on-making-flipped-video-lessons.html?spref=tw

“Emergent Workplaces: Learning in the Networked Worker” http://idreflections.blogspot.com/2015/02/emergent-workplaces-learning-in.html?spref=tw

“Learning LittleBits” http://wp.me/pKlio-1RG via @jackiegerstein

Upcoming Dates

Mar 2

Beef O’Brady’s Spirit Night, 5-9pm

Mar 3

PARCC Math -  3rd, 4th, and 5th Grade

Building Improvement Team meeting, 8am
Last day to enter data into Progress Reports (midnight)

Mar 4

PARCC Math - 3rd, 4th, and 5th Grade

Spring Flower Sale Begins

Special Ed Team meeting, 12:30

Mar 5

Admin meeting (Herb), 8am

Mar 6

BAC meeting, 8am

Mar 9

PTO Meeting, 7pm

Mar 10

4th Grade Social Studies State Assessment

5th Grade Science State Assessment

Mar 11

ADE/DCR Staff Meeting, 3:35pm

Mar 14

EdCamp Columbus -- Clark Hall, Gahanna-Lincoln High School

Mar 16

Last Day for Spring Flower Sale Orders

Mar 17

Admin Meeting (Herb), 9:30

Teacher Steering Committee Meeting, 3:40

Mar 19

Class/Group/Staff Pictures

Admin Meeting (Herb), 8am

Mar 20

Spring Flower Sale Money due

Mar 22-27

Spring Break

Share it.

“I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.”

This is a quote from Maya Angelou and even though she may have intended it for something completely different, it made me think about how important it is for educators to share their skills and ideas with others.

Much of the work we are doing in schools in Ohio this year is to satisfy new mandates and new initiatives. Many of us are finding it hard to stay innovative and to be willing to take on new ideas because we are busy with the minutiae or we are tired from being busy with the minutiae.

However, I don't think any of that is going away anytime soon. So, instead of continuing to complain about it, we need to move on and find more sources of inspiration and innovation. That's where sharing becomes so important.

We need to be sharing our ideas, lessons, books we read, thoughts we have - anything that is important to us because it spurs further thinking and ideas in others. There are so many ways for educators to easily share their ideas - Twitter, Google+, blogging...it's all there, we just need to access it.

And don't let your own ideas stop you. When I first got connected through Twitter and started blogging, I was reluctant to share because I thought, "Who is going to think this is a good idea?". I realized that I needed to change my mindset to, "I hope this helps someone get an idea that will help kids." That shift in thinking helped me realize that it was important for me to add my voice to the collective conversation.

I love this quote from George Couros about realizing we are the experts. I think it speaks to the importance of sharing our knowledge with others:

When we look at change, we have to realize everything we need is often already within our own organization.  We just have to figure out how to unleash this talent. Isn’t this the culture we want in our classrooms?  It has to be modeled from the top and the way that we view every individual part of our organization.

So, make it a point to start sharing more of your ideas with others. If you haven't connected on a social media platform yet, get connected. If you have accounts, start using them.

I need your ideas to help me continue to grow as a teacher.