Leadership and Planning (565) - Week 3

This week I really enjoyed the simulation. Our team worked well together to discuss the best strategies to move the district employees forward. We weren’t very successful at the beginning because we needed to make sure more people were aware of issues and topics in the district but we finally discovered that giving everyone a survey helped accomplish this task. After I thought about it I would have to agree that when people take surveys, regardless of the feedback that they give, they learn by simply reading the questions and options. I saw this happen when I gave teachers an assessment on online safety for students. Many teachers said that by taking the survey they were made more aware of the issues that needed to be addressed.

All of my team members were also frustrated with the three employees who would not be persuaded to complete the survey. We have all worked with people like this and the resistance to change or even receive new information is frustrating to those who truly believe that it would be in the best interest of everyone to have an open mind. It sounds like persistence will pay off and I’m anxious to see which strategy will work to help move these people forward.

The review of “Who Moved My Cheese” was a very timely and appropriate activity for me this week. As I said in my forum post I was planning to reread this book before the beginning of school because our district is undergoing some major changes. Although most changes are positive changes and are best for the district I anticipate a lot of negativity as the year begins. Our own district changes along with the changes at the state level will really require people to move out of their comfort zone and look ahead. We will need to remind people that “The quicker you let go of old cheese, the sooner you find new cheese!”

I also felt that the speaker in the Changes in Thinking – Systems Thinking video had some great points on system change. Our system is definitely changing and I hope that all of the parts of the system; administration, teachers, communities, state leaders, etc. can interact so that they are not working in isolation. We need to respect everyone’s role and purpose in education and keep in mind that everyone should have the same goal in mind to educate and prepare our students to be successful in this ever-changing world.