BLUEPRINT FOR AWESOMENESS: Transforming Your School's Culture Through Collaboration

BLUEPRINT FOR AWESOMENESS:  

Transforming Your School’s Culture Through Collaboration

People don’t become awesome by accident. True. Simple. Powerful.  

Awesomeness is intentional.  Was it the title “Blueprint for Awesomeness” that produced a wall-to-wall crowd (partially evacuated mid-session due to fire code) in the ASCD #Empower17 opening breakout session or the unquenched thirst that educational leaders have for positive educational transformation?  I would argue, both.  Co-presenters Jennifer Brown, Alabama Teacher of the Year, and Danny Steele, Alabama Secondary Principal of the Year, made it clear: Collaboration does not happen in a vacuum.

Want to change the culture in the building?  Change the adults.  An undeniable factor on the culture and morale of the the students in a building: the adults in the building.  Toss out titles, every adult in the building needs to know, communicate, and model their why.  What professional values ground you?  What are you relentlessly committed to?  Invest the time to articulate your values and post them.  Yes, display them on your door, instructional boards, framed on the wall.  Sounds reasonable?  Reasonable, yes.  Adequate, no.  Plainly stated: It’s impossible to cultivate a culture of collaboration if it’s not an organizational core value.  Post your values, certainly.  But, every adult in the building has to own and model them for one another and their clients: students, families, and community.

Create a culture of 3Ps: Positive Peer Pressure.  Teachers can’t wait for leaders to change the culture of a campus.  They must channel their inner why(s) and realize that they can single-handedly ignite an uncontained fire of passion in a classroom, throughout a building, and across a district.  It can happen with an unwavering spirit and action steps.  It won’t happen when educators passively rely on their campus leaders to take charge. PLCs aren’t new or tech-savvy by nature but, as Danny Steele stated, they are “the heart of sustainable and fluid innovation” and student growth when they “collaborate on data.”

So [insert “Real Talk”], how does a campus leader influence positive peer pressure?  Have teachers create voluntary, cross-curricular teams, where they visit and observe other classrooms.  Toss out the proverbial titles like “Pedagogical Walks” and hit the target of the activity with a motto like “Leading by Learning.”   Make these visits informal, yet targeted, identifying practices that the observers find useful and providing immediate, relevant, and positive feedback to the teacher being observed.   Vulnerability is high in this type of culture but the payoffs are even more remarkable.  The leader’s role: be the safety net.  Foster an unmatched sense of security that staff members feel and see; remind staff that unless they are willing to fail--awesomeness is an unreachable peak.  Change the mindset of classroom observations from one of judgement to one of transformational growth.  Jennifer Brown reminds us that teachers not being fed [rich and nutritious meals, i.e. relevant PD] will not grow and simply can not anticipate or expect that their students will either.   

Walk into any session at #Empower17, down the halls of a school, or in the teacher’s lounge and you will hear common collaboration barriers for educators: Trust and Time.  Are they barriers or challenges? Is the glass help empty or full? You decide.  Leaders:  It’s time to massage that mindset, get over it, and help your staff figure out a way to collectively collaborate.  Principal Steele bluntly stated:

There is no shortcut for building trust.  It doesn’t happen through  emails, campus-wide memos, or a few fun faculty meetings sprinkled with activities.  Trust happens through building relationships and, relationships take time.

Want change?  Commit to collaboration because it’s worth it! Educators are the experts, not politicians.  Bring back the ownership of the profession to the soldiers, the technicians, the building experts--empower the teachers to empower one another.