“Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”
– John Wooden
ENGAGE, INSPIRE, EMPOWER
For the past three years we have moved from the past to the present in support of the future! Guided by our Big 5, the Board, leadership team, teachers, staff, parents, community, and students have worked collaboratively to create engaging, inspiring, and empowering learning opportunities! The short slide show below depicts in graphics, images, and text a look at our last three years and a look into the next 100 years!
In May we’ll report our State of the District to the Board of Education and Community, we’ll also post here on the blog! Comments are always welcome.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
– African Proverb
Instructionally across the nation in our public schools we are creating a sense of urgency, a tipping point so to speak. Many argue and believe that it is time for the Industrial Age model of education to move aside for the newly forming Information Age of education. As society changes, so too shall the public schools – or will they?
For ten years now educators have been pondering the ‘Rip Van Winkle effect’ as introduced in a December 2006 Time Magazine article. The authors of that article wrote about Rip Van Winkle awakening in the 21st century after a hundred-year snooze. Just about every place Rip went baffled him. But when he finally walks into a schoolroom he feels right at home. When discussing this recently, two of my colleagues Nick Polyak and Alan Siebert and I were struck by the subtle power of the commentary, how schools in the 21st Century were still organized by and modeled on 19th Century standards and structures. If we are to leverage the power of technology to impact and change education, it’s incumbent upon us to Transform – not Reform. It is incumbent upon us to focus on the future, the students’ future, and not on our past. As school superintendents the charge rests upon our shoulders to lead for the future.
As we leaders review and study the latest research on schooling and learning and as we contemplate leadership with our communities, it’s essential that we understand both the urgency and the “why” – the purpose for innovative structural, organizational, and instructional change leadership.
What is school for? This is a question that lately I have been hearing, reading, writing, pondering, and asking others to consider. Is school for:
-preserving our democracy?
-supporting our economy?
-keeping children & young people occupied from 3-21?
-supporting our culture?
-enhancing thinking skills?
-providing young people who are career and college ready?
-increasing knowledge and numeracy and literacy skills?
-all of the above and more?!
If we know what it is for then how can we go from Good to Great. The phrase Good to Great has become a staple in leadership commentary thanks to Jim Collins and his team of researchers and leaders through their publications Built to Last, From Good to Great, Great by Design, and others.
If we are good then it’s a challenge to become great for it’s easier to become good from poor or mediocre, but great, truly great, a set-apart, a cut above the rest – this is where the challenge lies. Organizations who become great are few and far between as Collins, et al and others have reported.
Major educational “heavyweights” like John Hattie and his teams, Robert Marzano and his teams, Michael Fullan and his teams, Kouzes/Posner, and others continue to demonstrate impact/effects of behaviors and techniques on organizational culture and on leadership effectiveness and on learning. If we know all of the answers then why is it proving so challenging – for so many – to move from good to great?
Why is the nation “at risk” (from 1983 reports), why does the federal government have to intervene so that “no child is left behind” (ESEA 2002)? We have so many answers and models at our fingertips yet the prize of excellence, or complete literacy, or complete organizational culture models remains elusive to so many.
Horace Mann said, “Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery.”Can public schools truly balance the social machinery – or in modern terms – meet the needs of all people and preserve the middle class? Do the public schools exist that the economic conditions into which we are born can be mitigated through schooling?
What is the purpose of innovation?
What is the purpose of change?
So many questions that keep me and many others up at night yet also in pursuit of answers to these questions provide such great rewards that we leaders continue to lead and continue to enlist others on our mission of excellence in education. With continued vision from Boards of Education and community members, leaders, teachers, parents, students, administrators, and our entire system of public schooling, will continue to get better and better. My charge is to lead. My charge is to challenge the process and inspire others to act. Thank goodness the people with whom I work are also leaders and they are also visionaries and they are also passionate about education.
Our society is complex enough to present many challenges to people as they pass from childhood to adulthood. It is my firm belief that a strong foundation in educational preparation will support a person’s quest for success and prosperity. My philosophical foundation holds that young people are our windows to the future; working with them has given me a unique vantage point to assess their goals, needs and abilities. I have been, and I remain committed to preparing our young citizens, and those who teach and support them, for their futures – and ours.
“Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement. ”
– W. Clement Stone
Something that makes working in a school system so engaging and rewarding is that each year we get a new journey. Each year we begin a journey with new students – students for whom grade “x” is the first and only time they get to experience grade “x”. A journey with mid points and milestones and traditions and experiences. A journey part of an embedded culture with tradition and history. A journey that has a targeted end point. A journey whose bittersweet end takes place annually. A journey with milestones like “promotion” and “graduation” and entry into the military, service, job market, higher education, or a combination of all of the above.
We get to create the future in public education! We get to “shape young minds” and help support our society and our economy and our culture. We get to go on a journey each and every year with a beginning, a middle and an end. We shape our future and our outputs based upon our inputs. We have varied and specific curriculum, instruction, assessment, tools, techniques, strategies, measures, and studies. We have fun field trips and engaging parent involvement and community outreach. Our journey goes on each and every year, our teachers, support staff, and administrators are the journeymen and journeywomen at the heart of our school system. They too experience the emotional highs and lows of our journeys.
All roads begin and all roads have exits and all roads allow for experiences and decisions. As we approach “the end of the road” for our graduates and our retiring staff members, we remember that there is a beginning, a middle, and end every year for each and every one of us. The graduates will begin a new journey (in our case, in 9th grade, or high school or in 6th grade in middle school, promoted from 5th grade) as will our retirees. The many who have served us so courageously and so dedicated, who together tally hundreds of years of service, we say THANK YOU! For them, August will be different this year … there will be a new road on which they will travel. Their journey begins anew.
As we prepare to shut down our 168th school year we look to the future. We look to the new beginnings and new journeys yet to begin. We consider and prepare for our new students in grades PK-8 who start their new journeys in 107 days. We continue to look for ways to Engage, Inspire, Empower!
One of the learning adventures we’re taking part in this summer is the Future Ready Summit in Chicago. This Future Ready Summit will help pave the way for our DPS109 future! Best wishes to all for joining in our journey – and though it is bittersweet to come to the end of a school year – it’s wonderful to know we have the chance in a few short months, to begin a journey again!
“A leader must inspire or his team will expire.”
– Orrin Woodward, L.I.F.E. Living Intentionally for Excellence
As readers of the blog know, I find Twitter to be an instant and powerful source of learning and inspiration. One of the really cool and powerful things I just came upon is a tweet of a video showing the evolution of the desk from 1980-2014.
This short video resonates with me and my life’s experiences and my philosophies as a school leader as I support change for others. My aim and our District’s aim is to Engage, Inspire, Empower.
As I reflect on the video, I guess for my generation we don’t need to “keep up” with changes – we simply live and breathe change. I guess for my life’s experiences, I understand the video and the migration of “stuff” over the years. I guess I understand that no one really sends faxes anymore because we don’t have to. I guess I understand that when I want to look up a word, I add an extension to my browser and my device becomes a dictionary, for example. I guess I embrace progress and improvements in our world because I have lived in the most provocative communication, information, and transformation time in human history. I guess I like gadgets and gizmos because they allow me to learn, grow, and inspire in ways not imagined in my grandparent’s day.
I guess my maternal grandfather who emigrated to the USA in 1907 at age 15 enjoyed flying in an airplane across the USA in the 1960’s as opposed to riding a horse or driving a Model T or taking a train or a boat – all transportation options in his time – because flying from Chicago to Richmond made more sense than the other options. He did not fight progress, he embraced it. My grandfather’s life exposed him to amazing advances in transportation, technology, etc. He chose to progress and grow with the times. He did not have an airplane take him to the USA from Romania – but he did take an airplane to see his family across the country when an airplane was available. he changed with the times.
In 1980 I was 12 years old, Ronald Reagan was just elected U.S. President, and the world was in for a renewed sense of purpose, power, and jingoistic spirit. In addition, it seems that the past three and a half decades have also provided the most significant transformation of society – communication – information – education – etc. In 1983 a report from the National Commission on Excellence in Education came out and called the USA to action for our nation’s need to improve public education. Since 1983 there have been many transforms, reforms, changes, initiatives, plans, programs, progress, etc. in education. None is more disruptive or powerful in my estimation than the information explosion called the Internet.
I guess I like the fact that my children will inherit a world made better by advances in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; I guess I support my children’s educational systems changing to embrace and reflect my children’s future – not my or my grandfather’s past!
It’s time to put away the paper dictionaries and get a Chrome extension – the future is now! I guess the time is to use the resources districts like ours have – the digital age is the age in which we find ourselves – embrace the possibilities and enjoy the modern progress – Engage, Inspire, Empower.
“I realized then that you can’t be successful on your own; you need a supportive loved one and some spiritual guidance. I knew I was meant to play football, and if you know your purpose, and you’re patient, the ball will eventually bounce your way.”
– Chandler Harnish, Last Pick in the 2012 NFL Draft
An amazing leader of our time, General Colin Powell, on leadership! How would you define great leadership? Powell says: TRUST
“Create conditions of trust in an organization. Leaders take organizations past what the science in management says is possible …”
“Lt. You’ll know you are a great leader if people follow you if only out of curiosity”
Take a few moments to watch this short video clip with powerful messages about leading, leadership and success:
