CONNECTIONS: Is This Really Important?
This week’s blog post focuses on concepts from The Principled Principal, written by Anthony McConnell and ConnectEDD President, Jeff Zoul
“If everything is important, then nothing is.”
Patrick Lencioni
“Everything is important. That success is in the details.”
Steve Jobs
When I served as principal at a middle school several years ago, our leadership team was discussing time, specifically, the lack thereof and a perception that we allowed too many interruptions to instructional time during a typical school day. We were brainstorming ways to maximize instructional minutes and minimize class interruptions of any kind. It was my first year as principal and (following the practice of the previous principal) I had been making morning announcements a few minutes after the school day started and afternoon announcements a few minutes before the school day ended. After the leadership team meeting, I met with the assistant principals and our school secretary (who, as a true leader in our school, also served on the school’s leadership team) and we decided we would stop making afternoon announcements--unless it was an announcement that was extremely important.
At the next school leadership team meeting, we all shared ideas for maximizing instructional time gathered from our respective teams. I shared the idea to cease afternoon announcements, with the caveat that we would still make an announcement if it were of true import. Everyone seemed pleased and lauded the idea, which would likely save five minutes of instructional time most days. Then, one team member had an epiphany, suggesting, “Umm...shouldn’t that actually be the bar for any announcement we make at any time?” His point was that if it were important enough for the entire school to hear at a certain time, we should go ahead and make the announcement. On the other hand, if it was not truly important that the entire school hear an announcement, we probably should not waste instructional time to deliver it, whether it was in the morning, afternoon, or any other time.
This story is a simple, but real, example of something my friend and colleague Anthony McConnell and I write about in our book, The Principled Principal: 10 Principles for Leading Exemplary Schools. The first principle we examine is what we term, “The Priority Principle” and, frankly, this remains a conundrum as evidenced by the two seemingly contradictory quotes at the top of this post from two men whose leadership insights are beyond reproach. On the one hand, if everything is important, nothing is important, meaning that there can only be so many things we do that are truly important to our core work. On the other hand, if we are actually spending our most precious commodity--time--devoted to something, then that “something” ought to be important or we ought not be wasting our time doing it.
As school leaders, we obviously need to prioritize our time. What we cannot do, however, is send the message that something we are doing at our school is not important or less important than something else we do. We should prioritize how much time we devote to every important thing we do, but we should not say one is more important than the other. School safety and crisis planning is extremely important, perhaps now more than ever. Is it more important than academics? Nope, but guess what? Academics are not more important than school safety and crisis planning either. They are equally important and we must do each to the very best of our abilities as educators. Although they are both important, it is foolish to debate whether one is more important than the other. What is appropriate is prioritizing how much time we devote to each. Although school safety is every bit as important as academic learning, over the course of a full school year we need not dedicate nearly as much time to crisis planning as we do to academic learning. So many things we do in schools are like this, yet we fall into the trap of saying this is more important than that. There exists a subtle, yet important, distinction between prioritizing something’s importance versus prioritizing the time we dedicate to something that is important.
When faced with the false dilemma of devoting time in the school day to competing demands upon that time, the answer might be, “Let's do A,” or “Let’s do B.” However, if they are both important, the answer must be, “Let’s do both--and do them with 100% commitment from every staff member.” Although we may not dedicate the exact same amount of time to everything we do in schools, everything we do in schools must be considered equally important, from academic learning to innovative instructional practices, to social emotional learning, to school safety, and even to standardized testing. Yes, even that. If we are investing time in the school year to administer these assessments, we should commit to ensuring our students perform to their highest potential.
So, Lencioni and Jobs were both right. Everything we do in schools is important, yet not everything merits the same amount of time devoted to it in order for us to ensure we have given it our best. A final challenge, though: I suspect we should periodically audit how we spend our time in schools, to make sure that everything we are doing is, indeed, important. I suspect we will discover some things that, upon reflection, are not important. When that is the case--as it was with the announcements we were making at one middle school years ago--we should stop devoting a single moment to them. There are too many things we must do each day that are “all-important” to the kids we serve. Prioritizing what is important--and eliminating what is not--is another way we create a positive and productive culture in our schools.
Thanks to all educators reading this for the amazing work you are doing during these challenging times. As always, Teach and Lead with Passion...
Jeff and Jimmy
DAILY INSPIRATION EDUCATOR
(Please let us know about an inspiring educator you think we should highlight in a future newsletter by completing this brief form!)
NEW RELEASE!
Permission to be Great: Increasing Engagement In Your School by Dan Butler (Twitter: @danpbutler)
Now Available! Educator burnout is threatening the well-being of our society. In addition to negatively impacting the social, emotional, and academic growth of the students we serve and the quality of our educational system overall, it also comes with financial consequences for our nation as a whole. Many 21st century educators are becoming increasingly stressed trying to meet the countless demands upon them, demands that promote burnout and jeopardize workforce retention. Emotional exhaustion, negativity, and teacher attrition have reached alarming levels, threatening quality instruction and, ultimately, student achievement. Many factors contribute to job burnout. The primary causes are mismatches between people and their work environment. These mismatches include:
Work overload;
Lack of autonomy;
Insufficient encouragement, recognition, or appreciation;
Lack of positive relationships;
Fairness; and
Value conflicts between the individual and the organization.
The greater the mismatch between each area of the school setting and the educator, the greater the risk of educator burnout. Although the negative consequences of burnout are overwhelming and very real, it does not have to be this way. With intentional approaches and relatively simple tactics, educators can extinguish burnout and increase engagement in their school settings. In Permission to be Great, Dan Butler articulates success stories, proven leadership practices, engagement enhancers, and reflective questions to lead your school or district toward positive change. This book provides practical and specific ideas for combating burnout behaviors and, instead, initiating higher levels of energy, involvement, and efficacy among educators in our schools. Now that we know the truth about burnout, it is time to embark on the path toward authentic engagement; our educators--and our students--deserve it!
FEATURED BOOK!
Daily Inspiration for Educators: Positive Thoughts for Every Day of the Year by Jimmy Casas.
Most of the daily thoughts contained herein are variations on the “Thoughts for the Day” Casas has shared over the past years. Others are sayings found elsewhere, some of which are hundreds of years old and others found only recently. The goal of this volume is that in some small way, these daily thoughts will provide hope, validation, and inspiration to some of the most inspiring people in the world: hard working education professionals. Serving as a professional educator is so important that we must commit to doing whatever it takes to ensure that every child achieves success each and every day we serve. It is noble work, indeed. But it is difficult work with many daily challenges and disappointments. Daily Inspiration for Educators can serve as a resource that motivates and inspires educators during times of joy as well as when things get tough--as we know they will periodically in a profession as important and challenging as ours. Check out more here!
CONNECTEDD’S TAKEAWAYS:
Thought for the Day: “Big breakthroughs happen when what is suddenly possible meets what is desperately necessary." Thomas Friedman
Teaching Technique to Try: Found Poems. A “found poem” is one that is created using only words, phrases, or quotations that have been selected and rearranged from another text. To create found poems, students must choose language that is particularly meaningful or interesting to them and organize the language around a theme or message. Writing found poems is a structured way to have students review material and synthesize their learning. Check out this link from Facing History and Ourselves for a step-by-step process for using this technique.
Eyes On Culture: We believe that culture is a true difference maker in any classroom, school, district, or organization. As a result, we focus much of the work we do on creating and maintaining positive and productive cultures. Culture Focus: Equity. High performing schools with strong cultures are places in which adults work intentionally to create equitable experiences for both staff and students. Although “equity” is suddenly a hot topic in our society as a whole these days, it is one that has been on the forefront of many educators’ minds for many years now. It can be defined in different ways, but at its essence, “equity” is simply: Giving each child what they need to succeed. We would expand that definition to include: Giving each staff member what they need to succeed. There are times when it may make sense to treat people “equally,” yet there are many more occasions when it is not equality we are after in serving our students and staff, but individualizing what we provide based on individual needs. As but one small (and perhaps rather mundane) example, consider our homework practices. Should we give every child in a class the exact same math problems to work on outside of class regardless of their current level of proficiency? If it is “equality” we are after, in this case, the answer would be, “Yes.” But a much more effective (and respectful) practice would be to take an “equitable” approach, assigning homework based solely on the needs of each student. Maybe some students need more practice than others. Perhaps some students need practice in one while other classmates need more practice in another area. Equity can seem like a huge concept to tackle at times. Yet, it also can include the daily actions we take for granted. In schools with high performing cultures, adults work to create equitable opportunities for learning and growing, ensuring that each student--and staff member--is able to move from where they are today to where they need to be next in order to succeed.
Please share your thoughts about culture via Twitter: @ConnectEDDBooks We would love to hear from you!