Don't Bring All That Baggage From School Into Your Winter Break
As you prepare to break in the coming weeks, don't long for it as a break from the myriad of poorly articulated tasks and goals that have been thrown at you, or an escape from uncooperative colleagues. These beliefs form part of a self-narrative, the proverbial baggage, which will haunt you over the break. Sure, you can ignore it for the first part of the break, but as the break speeds to an end the anxiety will build, robbing you of the sorely needed refreshment your spirit needs. Sometimes to change this self-narrative of what isn’t working, we just need to spend some time with colleagues reflecting on what is working.
Use these remaining weeks to come together as a team, reaffirm your commitment to support each other, and address the elephants in the room that are preventing you from realizing your Moral Purpose as a teaching team. The last couple of months have been a tough slog and much of what we had hoped to accomplish by now we may feel has not materialized. But this isn't new. Even during ordinary times very little in the way of the transformative goals we set gets done before the mid-year breaks.
You might actually be more on track for achieving your goals than you realize, but you won't get this sorely needed vote of confidence unless you come together as a team and answer these 3 questions:
What are we doing well as a team that we want to continue doing when we return from the break?
What obstacles do we need to overcome so that we can devote more time to working interdependently to achieve our shared goals?
When we return from the break, what should be our primary focus as a team?
This is an excellent time for reflection. Making these 3 questions the focus of your next meeting will not only offer a welcome break from the routines feeding negative self-narratives but give team members a chance to be heard. This latter benefit may not seem obvious, but many teachers develop false assumptions over the course of the school year that their voice doesn’t matter. These assumptions feed a belief that they have no control over events impacting student learning, and ultimately they disengage from the team.
It is possible that as a Middle Leader you feel this way. This is all the more reason to engage your team with these questions. Not only will it give you a chance to engage in constructive dialog about teaching and learning, but it will also hone your leadership skills. Below are the 3 skills you should be consciously developing when facilitating this dialog:
Meeting Facilitation Skills: Make dialog more purposeful and ensure equity
Communication Skills: Actively Listen and Paraphrase key points that are surfaced
Consensus Building: Make sure every meeting ends with an agreement on actions to be taken
Based on what you learn from this dialog, you will be able to go into the Winter Break more spirited and hopefully excited about what the new year will bring.
Michael Iannini is an education management consultant that is recognized by the Council of International Schools as an expert in Strategic Planning, Governance, Human Resource Management, and Leadership Development. He is the author of Hidden in Plain Sight: Realizing the Full Potential of Middle Leaders, and supports a network of over 250 private schools in Asia for the Association of China and Mongolia International Schools and Search Associates. You can learn more about Michael and his work by visiting www.pdacademia.com and www.middleleader.com.
