Hello October - Teaching Thoughts for Week #5

Teaching Thoughts Week 5 – Post Wedding edition

Well, our oldest daughter, KoKo, married her long-time sweetheart, Cody Larson, over the weekend. It was unforgettable and amazing. Perhaps, unforgettably amazing? But we all need about a week off after all of the planning and celebrating (I was far more involved in the latter part than the former part, though).

I heard a great quote via a podcast this morning as I was dropping my kids off at school: “If you’re leading and no one is following, you aren’t leading at all. You’re just taking a walk.”

Wow.

For some reason that resonated with another quote, this one from Alfie Kohn and his take on the old philosophical chestnut of “if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, did it make a sound?” Only Kohn applies that to teaching: if a teacher teaches a ‘good’ lesson yet his or her students don’t learn anything, is this even teaching?

I argue no. It’s not teaching. Teaching – as Kohn points out far better than I can – is learning. Just like leadership is about having others follow you, or influencing others.

How are you influencing and leading your students this week? I’d love to hear and learn from you. Inside this week’s Teaching Thoughts newsletter, you’ll find –

 Book of the Week – Permission to Screw up by Kristen Hadeed. I love this book in that it illustrates how a majority of successful people actually become successful, through trial and whole lot error! Hadeed illustrates that perfectly in here as it relates to her business Student Maid. So many times the people I have come in and talk to my class note how they became successful not because of their degree or even what they thought they’d end up doing when they were in school. Instead, they become successful because they took advantage of an incredible opportunity that came their way. The trouble is, though, that most of us don’t know that the opportunity will be an incredible one until much later. The trick, then, is what I tell my students – take advantage of every opportunity that comes your way!

 Teaching Thoughts – I highlight each of the five archetypes Carter Cast argues sabotage us from attaining meaningful and great careers. I wish I would have known this stuff 20 years ago!

 Video of the Week – Hamish Brewer – The Tattooed, Skater Principal Making Education Fun Again. In my inservice newsletter, I included a video on Brewer that focused on his last day at Fredd Lynn middle school. Now this second video focuses on the first day back. You can’t help but feel his passion and want to be a part of it. That’s the key to take away from this. Leadership is never about making someone follow you. Leadership is about making others follow you because they have to. That’s being (as Dave Ramsey says) a “Big, Bad Boss.” That inspires no one. True leadership is getting up and seeing that there are 50 people behind you, following your lead, because they are so inspired and loved that they want to follow you. That is what (again as Dave Ramsey calls it since he coined the term) being a “servant leader” is all about.

 Thoughts from Twitter - speaking of leadership and how to inspire others to buy in or follow you, the second Tweet drives this home. It’s from Brad Johnson: “If relationships are so important to student success and class management, then why do we spend almost no time training future teachers in how to develop & handle these relationships with students? Even in mentoring new teachers, it’s rarely a focus. Shouldn’t this be a priority?

It should be. And if you make relationship building a priority, you will grow into a servant leader and have kids seeing their counselors to switch in to your classes. Be that teacher. I’m willing to bet that these kinds of teachers have a lot more learning going on in their classes too (to reference Kohn’s ideas again).

 Where are they now? This week’s focus on past students who are now teachers features Brooke Anderson who is teaching down in God’s Country, Red Lake Falls.

 Bonus Content – Speaking of the Power of relationships, check out the free resource of 32 Tips for Building Better Relationships. It’s gold.