100 Posts in 100 Days
Yesterday’s post was a mini-celebration of some of the collective work of teams I work with. It felt good to pause and name some of the accomplishments.
I’m also hearing my own voice in my head. As a leader of learning, i’ve often shared this sentiment with teachers, parents, and students:
To get at the heart of learning, move beyond
“what did you do today?”
Ask: “What did you learn today?”
In that spirit, today I draw upon our Learning Lab’s norms and dispositions to elaborate on an aspect of my work that I am unlearning, relearning, rethinking, and reimagining.
In my role as Director of Teaching and Learning, I often think I have the best job in the whole school. I get to interact and work with students, teachers, and parents from age 3 through high school. I get to work with our business and operations departments to ensure systems that support teaching and learning are in place. I am privy to the work happening all over our campus, getting to literally see and hear how work in one area connects with work in another area. It’s incredible and it’s a privilege.
Some days, I also think that my role is one of the most challenging jobs in the whole school. Because I am privy to the work happening all over our campus, I see untapped potential. I see and hear great ideas that could be seeds of something even bigger if they were connected and aligned with other parts of the system. Sometimes those seeds are the progression of a learning standard or goal and how it becomes more sophisticated from year-to-year, sometimes it’s insights and curiosities that teachers working in different divisions share in common but don’t know that they have a like-minded colleague down the hall, sometimes it’s streamlining processes and procedures to be both timely and effective for everyone.
Either way, whether it’s the “best job” or a “challenging job”, what I’m thinking a lot about is my role as communicator and connector in the school. That aspect of my work is one thing I have been thinking about frequently. Here is an attempt to organize and capture some of my thoughts.
What am I unlearning and relearning?
- I’m relearning, or reinforcing, my belief that “communicator” and “connector” are some of my most important roles in the school. About a week ago, I was in a conversation with a new school leader and we were talking about delegation. I commented that as a division leader, one way to manage time and priorities was to think about the things that others in the school could do and the things only she could do. She responded by asking me, “In your experience, what are the things only you can do?” I’m so glad she asked because the uniqueness of my role demands that I be a voice and a conduit for sharing information and bringing people together.
- I’m unlearning “TWWADI”: the way we’ve always done it. Our school is a dynamic organization, as it should be. So, some systems and structures no longer serve us as well as they once did. Schedules and topics that once helped us to connect and communicate aren’t as effective now as they were when they were conceived. This leads to:
What am I rethinking and reimagining?
Communications: I’m reimagining communication systems and structures. I’m thinking about some different “buckets”. The possibilities include:
- What are the best ways for internal communication with the Teaching & Learning team? I’ve dabbled in some different processes, some in-person, some asynchronous. But I’ve been pretty inconsistent at maintaining one. I am setting this as a goal for next year, both personally, and for the benefit of our team.
- What are the best ways for internal communication with the faculty across all divisions? Each division in our school publishes their own weekly newsletter and I’m able to share information through those publications. Most often, I share a written update, but sometimes it’s a video message. I’m not sure how effective this is from a teacher perspective, though. I need to gather some feedback. I’m imagining that there are ways to improve and/or supplement this strategy. Some possibilities include better communication with teacher leaders (see next item) who can help share information or hosting Teaching and Learning office hours where teachers can drop in for conversation and information.
- I’m thinking about the array of tools available for external communication and how to leverage them in ways that showcase our work to our broader school community. Over the course of this year, we have established a unique page on our website, a blog space, and social media accounts. We are not utilizing them well, so I’d like to develop specific processes and routines to publicize the great work of our students and teachers.
Connections: I’m reimagining relationships and partnerships within the school, thinking about how they might be leveraged to strengthen communication and connections. Having a team of teachers within the Teaching and Learning department is a recent staffing decision. We are still developing and fully realizing the potential that exists when we partner together on our mutual work.
- Our formal Teaching and Learning – Academic Leadership Team conversations have been driven by need, meaning that we convene as combined group when there is specific work to be done or discussions to be had. Individual sessions have been mostly effective, but we are missing having an ongoing discussion of student learning in our school. So, next year, we will have an established time bi-monthly to connect around our observations of student learning. I imagine we’ll reflect near the end of the first semester to evaluate how well that structure is working for us.
- Our two Curriculum Coordinators were both working across all divisions the last couple of years. Being new in their positions and while we were all figuring out how to work during the pandemic, it was a way for them to build a broad understanding of the curriculum in our school. Working on the curriculum, though, benefits from developmental and subject-area expertise and experience. For the coming year, the coordinators will still work in tandem, supporting each other, but we have identified one as the point person for the Lower School and one as the point person for the Upper School. Just making this choice is already helping each of them to focus their energy and efforts and to create stronger relationships with division administrators and with teacher leaders throughout the school.
While not an exhaustive list of what I learned from our accomplishments and work this last year, these are some of the things that I am unlearning, relearning, rethinking, and reimagining for the future.