The word “innovation” is all over the place in the world of
education right now. We are all pushing teachers,
students, and school communities to embrace creative, novel ways “do school.”
Of course, as with any “trending” terms, I refuse to obsess
about it. There are too many
tried-and-true tactics to abandon the good stuff, just for the sake of
innovation. We’ve got to innovate, sure,
but that doesn’t mean we should be impulsive or over-the-top about it all.
With that said, innovation really is an exciting thing.
Personally, I find it thrilling; I love re-examining our traditional ways of
teaching, leading, and learning—considering how to do it better, more
efficiently, and with a bigger impact.
In that spirit, I would argue that innovation has an enemy: Complacency. And after being an educator for some
time, it really is easy to become complacent.
We evolve into relative masters of our content and then slide into a
routine in which everything is going swimmingly. Everyone seems happy. Ehe ebbs and flows of a school year are identifiable
and sensible. Everything is fine.
Right?
Which is precisely when complacency can settle in, subtle
and unnoticeable. Just. Like. That.
To stave it off, I am going to do some sniffing around this next
school year to see if there are ways I can incorporate innovative thinking into
my own professional practices. In that
spirit, here are three things I’m committing myself to do in the upcoming year in
my attempt fight off complacency.
Actively seek ways to
learn new things. I have begun to
target specific areas where I can refine and improve. As an example, it’s been ten years since I
sat down and actually administered a particular reading assessment required by
our district. I did it hundreds and
hundreds of times before going into building leadership; I speak about the data
like it’s my own; and I can use the numbers to determine a student’s reading
progress. But I haven’t actually administered
one in over a decade. Yikes. So when I identified this as an area of
potential complacency, I sought a counter action: I called our district reading specialist and
asked her to re-train me and then supervise me while I administered the test to
multiple students. Hopefully, when
school starts up again in August, I’ll be sharp as ever when using this
assessment to make decisions for students.
Grasp at unexpected
learning opportunities. This spring,
we were interviewing multiple candidates for teaching openings. Among other things, we asked candidates,
“What are some of the resources you rely upon when intervening or enriching the
literacy experience for your kids?” The
answers were full of learning opportunities for me. Often the candidates would spout out the
acronym of a particular program or resource; in those cases, I’d stop them and
ask them to explain further. I’d jot
down some ideas and then, later, snuggled on my couch with my perched laptop,
I’d search through apps, programs, and resources to see if any seemed they
could make our school more efficient and effective. I'm going to continue to do that—find new ideas and find ways to incorporate them into our daily work.
Re-boot areas that foster
complacency. Complacency is a close,
close cousin to weariness. There are
things in my job that certainly make me weary—but, alas, they must be done and
they must be done well. School safety
drills; staff evaluations; daily duties; parent-teacher conferences; IEP and
504 meetings—all of these things were exciting and fostered my full engagement
when I first started my job. Now,
though, I find myself feeling dragged down with the time and energy they
require. To combat this (unacceptable)
feeling, I plan to actively search for a “restart” button and find ways to
become better at leading each one. Can I
make our drills more efficient and streamlined?
During evaluations, how can I give feedback that will really make a
difference to staff and, therefore, their students? How can I bring back the fun and energy to
covering a standard bus or recess duty?
So. That's my goal for the upcoming year. I have three things to focus on as I work to be a better principal and leader. Call it innovation, call it evolution, call it whatever fits best. I call it choosing innovation over complacency.
