Have you ever wondered if you are missing connections with your students? I often find myself thinking about a past conversation with a student or a lesson that did not have the pizzaz that I thought it would with my class. As teachers, we are often required to be observed by school leaders or peers and then receive feedback. How about feedback from our students?
WE ARE ALL LEADERS
I am so excited to be taking a certified course created by Brene Brown called Dare to Lead. The premise for Dare to Lead is “Developing Brave Leaders and Courageous Cultures: A leader is anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes and has the courage to develop that potential”.
The work has been challenging, at times therapeutic, and certainly eye-opening to leadership language and behavior. The tag line for the program would almost make a great summary of a teacher, as you continue to take responsibility to find the “potential” in your students, develop “processes” and lesson plans for development, and en”courage” your students and classroom to seek and show their potential. Brene Brown would say that we are all leaders.
WE CAN USE EMPATHY
Empathy might have become a buzzword which is unfortunate. Often the new hot word being used in education becomes the dirty word versus the true buzz word that is meant to create curiosity and intrigue. I have been fortunate enough to have held empathy feedback interviews for several years with school district departments, school leaders, students, and community members.
If you think there is a problem (small or large), I recommend using the design thinking model to find an innovative solution. If you have never done design thinking, I will provide brief steps of how I have participated in this process:
- Empathize: Hold Interviews, Shadow
- Define: Person or People (user), Role, Challenges, Perception
- Ideate: Share the Ideas, Thinking, Prioritizing
- Prototype: Storyboard, Mock-ups
- Test: What Works; Doesn’t Work, Role Play, Iterate
If you would like to hear more about using design thinking, check out a conversation that I had on the Teacher’s Pep Rally Podcast with the Enso Education Institute.
Think about the relationships you have built teacher-to-student. Rely on those. You are constantly trying to create an environment that allows thoughts to exchange, and if you are not, it might be time to ask some questions to find out what has changed. You might be surprised that although there are some things you can polish or adjust to meet your students’ needs, you might have things going on with your students outside the classroom that are affecting their learning.
Check out the tips from Thought Exchange to guide you in creating some guiding questions to get that feedback from your students. Brene Brown encourages leaders to “lean into the tough conversations”. You will be happy you found ways to reset, or you might find that the story you were making up in your head about your students was not true. This…INFORMATION gives you back power.
See You Real Soon,
Erin
