Can Change Happen in Your School?

Educators work very hard.  We do our very best every day using the knowledge we have to ensure students are learning.  The trouble is - our work is quite difficult and as of yet, we have not been effective in servicing ALL students.

A study in Germany by Falko Rheinberg found that when educators are growth minded, their students progress and when the educators have a fixed mindset, the students who entered the class underachieving, left as under acheivers (2000).  The fact is that we have an enormous influence on our students and their achievement. The question is, how do we move all educators to use the influence they have towards greater student learning? 

Chip Heath and Dan Heath, authors of Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard contend that if you want change to happen, "somebody, somewhere has to start acting differently." Since Growth-Minded educators are used to growing, changing, taking risks and learning, it is our responsibility to lead our colleagues in acting differently.  The book lays out a pathway for leaders to facilitate changed behavior, even with limited resources and support.

The book is a treasure for it's simplicity, readability, and usefulness.  Their recipe for change could not be more growth-minded.  They explain that all humans have a rational brain (a small rider) which is logical.  At the same time we have an emotional brain (a large elephant) which gets whatever it wants and gets spooked easily.  Finally, they explain that the path a person is on affects his/her behavior.  Change the path and the behavior is likely to change.

Any effective leader knows that the only way to lead large groups is to nurture the leadership abilities of your colleagues.  In order to do that, you have to be willing to "grow your own" and develop the hard-working and caring people who surround you, rather than wasting time, energy and resources mining for "talent."  Use Switch to figure out how to mine for talent in your own backyard by mentoring and developing your people so that they begin to act differently.

happy reading...