Tag Archives: forest green school

Ownership and Leadership

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cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by VinothChandar

When I first started teaching, I remember a student election that was quite controversial.  One of the “bad” kids decided to run for president and he was very likely to win.  This was not a kid that cared about necessarily improving the school, but wanted to prove that he could win the election because that is how little “student leadership” meant to the students.  His platform was run on the idea that he would win the election, and then do nothing.  He eventually bowed out but he had made his point. To be honest, the student council was a joke to many and this student was just proving it.

So why did the kids consider it a joke?  Most likely because student leadership in school had no real ownership over anything (at the time).  Yes they would organize dances (based on how many we would let them have and only if teachers would supervise), but other than that, there was not much the students could do.  They had no say in how things were taught in school or could they really talk about how they would want to learn.  There were a lot of active kids that would organize things, but only if they were allowed.

Without ownership, there can be no leadership.

When I came to my current school division, I remember my first principal putting me “in charge” of technology within the school.  I had heard similar sentiments before, yet when it came to decisions in my past schools, I was not asked for input.  That was a role for administrators, not for “teachers”.  Throughout the year though, I was continuously asked by my principal on my thoughts, and saw my input not only being valued, but also use for implementation.  At the end of the year, when the budget was put together, I was asked to look after the technology portion and make the decisions for purchasing.  At first I was astounded by being able to “oversee” this, and my principal simply told me, “I have hired you for your knowledge in this area and it only makes sense that you make the decisions.”  My dedication to the school rose exponentially because now if initiatives succeeded or failed in this area, it was my responsibility.

I continuously have been given leadership opportunities within Parkland School Division that are tied with the ownership over the process and results.   When I became principal, my hours were much longer, because I cared a ton about the success of the school, but I was okay with this because I loved what I was doing.  With that being said, my focus was to transfer the ownership to our school community to build leadership.

When I realized how much more job  satisfaction I had, when I was trusted to help move our school forward (in all my positions), I wanted to give as many people that same ownership that I felt and continuously develop leadership.  Not only did my staff lead our professional development, but they also defined the goals for the school.  If the goals were not achieved, it was on all of us, not just the principal.  People stepped up and did an amazing job for our school.  There was no more “passing the buck” to someone else; these was our goals, our implementation, and we all shared in the success and failures.

We often talk about developing leadership, but if people do not have the opportunity to own it, how far can they really go?

6 Ways Principals Can Connect With Students

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This killed me today…

As most of you know, that was from my brother and he is referring to my amazing little niece. I do not want her or any other kid seeing their principal in that manner.  This is in no way meant to criticize the current principal or Raine’s school, but it did spark me to think about my time as a school principal and some of the things that were extremely important to me.  ”Fostering Effective Relationships”, in my opinion,  is the most important quality outlined in the Alberta Principal Quality Standard, and those relationships are the basis of a strong and innovative school.

As schools have either started or will be starting in the next little while, I just wanted to share some ideas about practices that I thought were important as a principal.  I would in no way say that I was perfect as a principal and definitely would change some things that I did, but I am hoping that principals are looked at as more a part of schools, not the “master” of them.

  1. Welcome the kids when they arrive.  Wave goodbye when they leave.  - In Alberta, teachers do the majority of supervision, and it can be time consuming.  I remember seeing this as a pain because you would have to deal with discipline, cold, etc., but then I started seeing this as an opportunity to really connect with kids.  My mentor principal was adamant that him and I would be outside for supervision before and after school, because it took something off of the plate for teachers, but more importantly, it was a way to just talk and get to know students and parents.  Not only could you get to know the kids better, but you could see problems before they started and diffuse them.  I went from hating supervision to seeing this as the best part of my day; it is all about perspective.  As the kids leave, be outside again, check in on them, and say goodbye.
  2. Your first interaction with a student should be a positive one. – I never wanted kids to see my office as the place where they got in trouble but as a place where they could come, talk, and grow.  My goal as a principal was to ensure that I talked to kids and got to know them so that if they ever did end up in my office, I already had established a relationship with them.  If I didn’t know the name of a student or anything about their situation (from their mouths) I had failed that kid.  Knowing them and building a relationship with them led to an environment where that when they would show up to the office they were more worried about disappointing me, as opposed to being fearful I would be mad.  Some kids will inevitably end up in your office; how well they know you and how well you know them will have a huge influence on what happens after they leave.
  3. Talk as little as possible. –  This was probably one of the best pieces of advice that I had ever received going into administration. Carolyn Cameron had told me to never tell a kid why they were in your office, but to ask the following question: why are you here? This will not only give your information that you may have never known, but it helps to focus the child on their behaviour as opposed to how big of a jerk they are feeling you are at that point. If they can’t answer the question immediately, wait.  If it takes them longer, wait longer.  Kids are often so wound up that they may not want to say anything for a bit but keep them close.  Once you tell them to “think about it outside”, you have shown them how easily you can sever a relationship with them.  Most kids that are in your office need the exact opposite.  They need to know you will be there for them even when they have screwed up.  Eventually, stories will come out, so then follow up with, “If you were me, what would you do?”  Kids will usually go to something extreme like expulsion for pulling Suzie’s hair, which now puts you in a great position to show again, how you are an advocate for the child.  Work with them through what should happen next and follow with, “how will you fix this in the future?”  So from this, you have asked three questions and let the kid speak and taught them how to deal with their own issues.  Isn’t that what we want from our students?  Use this as much as possible.
  4. Use humour to deal with situations any chance you can.  - My mentor has always said to me, “If you wouldn’t laugh, you would cry.”  Sometimes using humour is the best way to deal with a situation.  I had a student in my office who was disrupting class and making annoying noises. Not life threatening, but something that we knew inhibited the learning of others.  So I picked him up from his classroom, asked him to bring his work, so he could hang out in my office.  As we sat there, not talking and doing separate work, I thought it would be a good time to look up “polka music” on YouTube and crank it in my office.  He hated it, but knew exactly what I was doing.  He begged me to turn it down but I told him, that I loved it, and it helped me work.  He BEGGED to go back to class but I said, “nah, it is fun with you here.”  Then it came to the point where I said, if I let you back, could you quit disrupting?  He agreed to which I told him that he was more than welcome to come back later and listen to music.  He never disrupted class again.  Not only did that happen, but him and I also had a funny story that we could share and laugh about.  The goal is to not come down with the hammer, but for a kid to really understand what they did and to get better.  Not every action needs the same reaction.
  5. Do the walk.  - Every day when I was in school, I would purposely get up and be present in every single classroom.  Sometimes it was for 30 seconds, but I made sure that the kids saw me when I wasn’t away for meetings or whatever.  It was my way of checking in with them, and them having an opportunity to check in with me.  Say hi to the kids and just see what is going on.  This does not only help to build powerful relationships with your school community, but also creates an environment where you see real teaching and learning that happens in schools.  The more you are present in the classroom as a principal, the more privy you are to see what actually happens.  My goal was to be present but invisible to teachers, but present and very visible to kids.
  6. Kids will love you if they know you love them. – The majority of educators get into teaching because they love kids.  But at some point, it seems that we are taught to keep a certain distance from students because they might not respect us.  I think that is a ridiculous idea.  To me, there are three levels from a good to great principal.  Level 1 is when they love you.  Level 2 is when they respect you.  But the pinnacle is level 3, when they love and respect you.  Imagine how much more you can get from them in their learning when you have both of those present.  This is not just for relationships with students, but in any relationship in your life.  Be open to showing kids how much you care about them.  Be their advocate.  Care about them.  Say kind and authentic things about them.  Embody to them how you would like them to treat all of those in their lives.
As many of you know, I am all about innovation in teaching and learning in schools.  It is so important, but if you can’t build strong relationships with your community, that innovation is not happening.  Refer back to the tweet at the beginning of this post.  If that is what a student says about you as the principal, can you truly be successful as a leader?

I encourage anyone to share what they do as a principal or have seen their principals do to build relationships in schools for any readers of this post. There are way more than I have listed here!

Birthday 2010

There wasn’t balloons everyday, but my office was meant to be a safe place for students.

Continuous Learning

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Learning with Milk

After an emotionally exhausting yet exhilarating week, I  saw our students have another year of Identity Day, said goodbye to our grade 6 students, and watched the school say goodbye to me. I shed a lot of tears this last week both privately and openly with my school community and heard some of the sweetest things from my students.  Here are some of the things that were confirmed to me by our kids:

  1. Students need to continue to pursue their passions in schools. Watching Identity Day happen again, our students fully understood what the day looked like, and instead of being bored by the novelty of the day, they were more excited to further share the amazing things that they loved.  What is extremely powerful about this day is not only watching students present what they love, but watching students looking at other displays and being so inspired by what they are seeing.  When someone has the opportunity to inspire someone else with their passion, they become a leader.  If I could suggest anything from Identity Day that I would change, it would be that we do it more.  Seeing what our students achieve through personalized, passion-based learning is amazing.  For two years in a row, Identity Day has been my favourite day of the school year.  If your school is NOT doing it, they should.
  2. The smallest actions can have the biggest implications. One day I saw a young man in grade two having a terrible start to his morning.  Instead of asking him what was wrong, I just asked him if he would like to do morning announcements that day.  He immediately lit up and I have never seen him so excited.  Now this happened a good three months ago if not longer, and today in the student led farewell to me, the student said the following thing that he remembered about me: “Mr. Couros always cares about you.  One day when I was having a bad day, Mr. Couros asked me to do announcements and he really cheered me up. I love you Mr. Couros.”  I immediately sobbed!  This was something that I was not expecting but I think that too often we worry too much about what people will think or how they react when we say something nice to them, when we should just say it.This is not just for us as teachers to our students, but this is for us as people.  We need to continue to write cards, send personal emails, make kind comments, buy slurpees for our students, whatever, to show that we care.  It makes all the difference.
  3. When “discipline” needs to be done with our students, it should be with a comforting hand, not an iron fist. One student that had the opportunity to say something at my farewell has been in my office several times this year.  We have worked really hard to get him on the right track and have had some amazing conversations. Although sometimes I feel frustrated and so does he, I always end my conversations saying to him, “You know I believe and think the world of you right?”  Whatever he has done, I ensure that he knows I care.When he had the opportunity to speak today, he said, “Mr. Couros is fair.  Whenever I am in trouble, I will always think of Mr. Couros.”  What made many of us laugh at the implication that he made, I could feel that he genuinely cared about me.  You see a lot of students who are in trouble in the office, and they end up hating the person dealing with them.  The thing is, these kids need us and we need to do whatever we can to help them.  The old “kick in the pants” mentality moves them further away from someone they need.  We need to continuously show these kids, no matter what mistake, that we care about them.  There is no other option.

As I left Forest Green School today, which was an amazing community, I have many memories of an incredible two years at the school.  Moving into my new position next year, I know that the lessons that I have continuously learned from my staff, our parents, and especially our students, are lessons that I need to continue to draw upon and bring to other schools. What I have learned more than anything though in the last two years is that I need to be a learner, continuously growing and getting better for the kids I serve.  Learning can be very messy, but if you are not moving forward, there are only two other things that you can possible be doing. I choose forward.

 

Grade 6 Farewell 2011

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cc licensed flickr photo shared by gingerpig2000

Good afternoon and welcome to all parents, staff members, and most importantly Forest Green grade 6 students.  We are honoured to celebrate this day with you and not only your grade 6 year, but your entire time that you have been here at Forest Green.  As there are several staff that have been here for the whole time, it is amazing to see how you have grown in this short time.

Tonight is an opportunity to celebrate and reflect on the many years that the students have contributed to our school, while also celebrating the opportunities that they will have as they move on to the next phase of their educational career.  This is obviously an important night for the students, families and the school.  As we look to say goodbye tonight and I look at the faces of the grade 6 students, I remember back to when I was leaving my school.  I distinctly remember my principal looking at me and saying the following two words…”Get out!”

Seriously though, as the year progressed, I loved coming to visit and chatting with the grade 6 students.  Sometimes we had “pep talks” and sometimes we went for slurpees.  As principal, I have always tried to look at the mistakes made by our students and see them as opportunities to have some great conversations and help them move forward in their lives. We had SO many conversations this year :)

Looking back at your time at Forest Green and on this earth, I think of all the things that have entered your life that were never in mine.  YouTube was started in 2005, Facebook in 2004, Twitter in 2006…the iPod was invented in 2001!  During your life, some of the most amazing innovations have happened.  I am excited to think of what YOU will create in your next years and how the things that you do, will inspire and change the world.

When I think about all of my interactions with you, and what I have seen from your intelligence, your creativity, and your amazing personalities, I wonder what innovation will come out of your passions in the future.  When I was a kid, a “leader” was one person that everyone followed.  The more we look at that word, I believe that a leader is someone who can inspire people with their passion.

You have all inspired me in some way… for example, Calandra with her love for people, Shae Lynn for sharing the importance of her cultural background, Natasha with her quiet nature and kindness, Carter for his love of sports, and Jaydee for his love of Greek mythology and telling me that my name Couros in Greek represents “Evil Principal”.  I could go on about all of you, because in some way, you have inspired me to be a better principal, and more importantly a better person.

As Stephen Covey says, “Leadership is communicating a person’s value so clearly, that they see it in themselves.” I saw this in all of you every day.  Every day I was at school, you guys would ensure that you said hi, came and talked to me, or asked me about the game last night.  Tyler even stood up for me and ensured that although my three-quarter pants may not be fashionable in Canada (many call them capris or Manpris), but they were VERY fashionable in Europe.  That is good enough for me!

Everyday that I connected with you, I always walked away feeling better by myself.  Your love for life and enthusiasm inspires me.

As you get older, and take the next step, I want you to remember the following advice.  Never give up on your passions or dreams. All too often as adults we feel we may be too old to keep pursuing our dream or that we have “adult” stuff that is more important.  There is so much we can learn from kids, and especially your class on having dreams and chasing after them.  That dream is part of you and having you share a piece of it yesterday in your Identity Day presentation both humbles and inspires me.  As I take my step, it is because of your inspiration that I continue to follow my dreams and do what I love.  Making a lot of money is so distant to being happy.  Of course it would be nice to do both, but love and happiness is more important than anything.

When you leave this building today, continue to follow your dreams, continue to care about all of those around you, and live your life full of passion.  I know you will all create something and be great!

I wish you the best, and I will miss you all dearly!  Best of luck and congratulations.

 

The Elastic Band Effect

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cc licensed flickr photo shared by odolphie

Finishing off a school year, it is important to look back and reflect on some of the initiatives that have happened during the school year.  As the school decided to narrow the focus on what we do in means of using technology, I have seen some powerful progress in this area.  We have in many areas, gone past “neat” and pushed for “deep in what we are doing. Although we have done some really great things, it is important that we understand that this work and learning is messy, and we can all get better.  Having this growth mindset is essential not only for our growth as individuals and an organization, but also in our role modeling to our students that we are dedicated to lifelong learning.  As a school, it is essential that we are seen as a learning organization and we continue to grow.

Through this narrow and deepened focus, I have seen a true “elastic band” effect that has been powerful for the progress of our school and students.  There are many different areas where teachers can be innovative, but often times these people do not pull up others as they grow.  This is not limited to technology, but can be in all areas of education.

At Forest Green and Connections for Learning, in our technology integration plan, we focused our efforts mostly on Google Apps and WordPress, not only for our students, but also for our staff.  Although we still encouraged many to do innovative projects that went outside of these technologies, it was imperative that we learned this together and knew it for ourselves and our kids.  As our leaders in this area grew, the knowledge of those with less experience grew alongside with them.  As well, having a school focus, you knew that you would not have to find the “one” person that may have the answer to your problem; you were probably able to ask your partner across the hall.  Sometimes (maybe a lot) you would probably even be able to ask a student.  Learning in the same area, while still encouraging autonomy in the paths in which people arrived, helps us to all get better.  As one grows, we pull the each other up, hence the elastic band metaphor.

As more schools discuss moving to a 1-1 device setting, I always caution them to ensure that they create learning plans that ensure that they will eventually need the hardware, as opposed to getting the hardware, and saying, “we need a plan”.  If schools are to go this way, especially in a time where budgets are getting cut (in all industries), it is essential that we know our learning objectives.

We have a lot of great classrooms, but we need more great schools.  By having a clear vision and creating environments in all areas, where people can push one another, while also feeling that their gifts are recognized, we can continue to get there together.

 

30 years of this?

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I recently spent two days at Trinity School in Atlanta, Georgia, learning with some very passionate educators.  As I left to head back home, this invigorating feeling came over me as I really felt empowered by many educators who wanted to get better and were taking the opportunity to grow and learn.  The message that was stated over and over again during those two days was the importance of teacher as lead learner, and if we really want to get better for our students, we need to learn alongside them.

In the morning, as I shared my keynote and we all had the chance to partake in an awesome team building activity, what I was enjoyed most by was sitting, working, and listening to educators throw around ideas of innovative opportunities that they were going to create with their students when they return for the next school year.  The open conversation, risk taking, and sense of wanting to get better was exhilarating.  I really believe that we are in the people business, and what I saw were educators collaborating and pushing each other to get better.

My staff has taught me the power of continuous learning and the process of powerful collaboration.  Connecting with so many educators in the past few years, I continue to gain a sense of energy from the ideas that I hope will impact our students.    Watching another staff hear some ideas, go with them, and create some amazing learning opportunities is an environment that we need to transfer to our students.  Seeing educators have time to collaborate, create, and learn and enjoy that opportunity only solidifies my belief that our students need this as well.  The concept of the “In-Out Box”, of simply giving an assignment to get it back to mark it is something that I knew I could not do and dreaded the thought of spending 30 years of my life partaking in.

But 30 years of this?  I can no longer imagine doing anything else!

In case you are interested, below is my presentation to Trinity School.

Collaborate. Create. Learn.
View more presentations from George Couros

Swimming Pool Ideas

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Yesterday at Forest Green School/Connections for Learning, our staff and several parents took part in our annual Education Planning process.  Based on our three-year Education Plan, we take the opportunity as a whole to take a look at our plan for our school, and discuss what is going well, what can be improved, and what do we need to do in the future.  Also very importantly, we talk about what we need to take off of our plate as well.  Some of the best advice that I have ever received is that if we are going to add something to the workload of our school, we need to be prepared to also let something go.  There are only so many minutes in the day and we need to do things well.

As we discussed the process of the day, I talked about the ideas that were shared by our students.  We ask our students the same questions as our group and their answers are highly valued.  As I referenced some of their ideas, I also talked about how they sometimes ask for things that we just aren’t able to do such as “all day recess” and adding a swimming pool inside of the school.  On an impromptu note, I encouraged the group to  share their “swimming pool ideas” with each other and not hold back.  Things that they may find unrealistic might actually just be possible.

Listening to the conversation that went on after was absolutely amazing.  Watching staff not hold back and come up with ideas such as parents leading all day workshops based on their passions with our students, staff going out to different parts of the community and sharing student learning with parents where they live, and having a Student-Led Unconference in our school were just some of the great things that I heard.

Are these ideas possible?  Absolutely.

Will they need some hard work? Definitely.

Will they be powerful? Yes.

I learned yesterday that although I do my best to get feedback from staff, I need to create more opportunities for them to really dream big.  By encouraging them to shoot for the stars, I saw their imagination and creativity take over, creating ideas that are actually very possible.  I felt a certain “release” in the room that was extremely powerful and reading through their ideas today, I was amazed by their thoughts.

As kids, we were always encouraged to dream.  Somewhere along the line into adulthood, the idea that we always need to be “realistic” and “sensible” seemingly overrides this thought.  We need to learn from our kids and not only dream big but encourage others to do so as well.

You never know…one day we might be able to get that swimming pool.  :)


cc licensed flickr photo shared by leozaza

Stories Around the World

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This year, our staff has been inspired by the Dan Pink, “What Is Your Sentence Video?”.  Today, I was blown away by our professional development idea that was developed by our Citizenship and Social Responsibility (Character Education) team.  All of our PD is developed and created by our own staff, and this is just a great example of how we are connecting it with kids.

Here is the breakdown.  Our PD team prefaced the day by showing the Dan Pink, “What is your sentence video?” to staff as a reminder of the work that we have been doing.  Then Lisa Aronyk shared the following reading of “Howard B. Wigglebottom Follows his Heart” by Howard Binkow and Susan F. Cornelison.

Then she asked questions based on the character in the story tying directly into his “sentence”.

This was an extremely inspiring idea by our staff because they are not only modeling their learning to staff, but they are also learning alongside the kids.  It is amazing that they are developing their “sentence” alongside the students.

Inspired by this idea, we have created a wiki for people to share reading stories from around the world!  This is a great way to share some fantastic stories, and have different people from different cultures have the chance to read in classrooms.  We believe that this is a great way to learn about diversity in the world.  If you are interested, please add to the wiki linked below:

Stories Around the World

Maybe Dan Pink could share a story with us as well?

New Tricks

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cc licensed flickr photo shared by JB London

I am honoured to have another one of my teachers, Norm Usiskin, guest post on my blog today.  Norm is a shining example of how you can be leader from any position in a school, and that learning is continuous as educators.  He inspires me daily by his work with kids and staff.

I was fortunate this past week to attend an inservice at my school intended for a parent audience on the subject of “Connecting and Sharing – Building Learning Communities Using Web 2.0”. This workshop was delivered by my principal, George Couros and one of my colleagues, Lesley Cameron to approximately 15 parents from our school community.

As I listened and watched as the parents were given an overview of some of the current thinking on educational reform and the initiatives involving technology that we have undertaken here at Forest Green School in Stony Plain, Alberta, I couldn’t help but sense a feeling of apprehension and uncertainty amongst some of the parents. This caused me to reflect on my own thoughts and feelings when I was presented with an opportunity at the end of the last school year that would see my teaching assignment change fairly drastically.

You see, George came to me and asked me if I would consider taking on the challenge of being a Technology Integration Facilitator at our school. No big deal I can hear some of you saying. Possibly true, but let me give you some insight into who I am. I am currently in my 27th year of teaching which to most of us makes me an “old dog”. New tricks aren’t supposed to come all that easily for people like me – and I am the first to admit that I have always liked using technology, but my knowledge of using it effectively and in ways that meet the needs of the students we face today was, at best, limited. Needless to say, I was apprehensive about my ability to fulfill this role that I knew came with high expectations from “the boss”!

Fortunately, I have always enjoyed learning new things, and I have always enjoyed collaborating with colleagues so once the year started and we had mapped out a plan for rolling out some of the initiatives we were wanting to introduce to our teachers and students (which included providing email addresses for students in grades 3 – 6, establishing blog sites for students in grades 3 – 6, introduction of the use of Google docs, a 1:1 laptop initiative in the grade 5 and 6 classes), that while overwhelmed at times by all of the minutiae of setting things up, the work with the teachers and students was fun, challenging, and invigorating. The prospect of helping our students into the world of Web 2.0 tools (not to mention the teachers) continues to make more and more sense as we progress through this year.

I have observed our students being very engaged by the opportunities to Skype in with teachers and students from around the world, to receive comments on blog posts from people both within and outside of our school community, and having everyday, all day access to information and tools that assist them in their studies. And on top of all of that, I have benefited and learned from great mentorship from George and great interaction from my colleagues and the students in our school.

I guess I am living proof that old dogs can learn new tricks – and these tricks are going to be of benefit to me and my students as I continue to travel this path. Can’t wait to see what might be around the corner!