EducationPlus

EducationPlus
St. Louis Regional Professional Development Center

Monday, February 25, 2013

Building Positive Relationships


We often hear that building relationships is the key to success in all facets of life. In education this is vividly clear. When we develop sincere relationships with our student we find that attendance improves, inappropriate behaviors decline, and achievement scores rise.

However, as a society, we tend to focus on what; “ is wrong”, “ is broken”, or “has failed”. This only leads to a decline in your school’s climate. But how do we combat this cultural norm? One way is to adopt the Whale Done! philosophy.
In short, Ken Blanchard reminds us that it is important to focus on the positive facet of relationships, teamwork, and edification. Therefore it is imperative that we must move...

From:
      The GOTcha Mentality
     Catching people doing things wrong!
To:
      Whale Done!
     Catching people doing things right.

Whale Done! focuses on the power of positive relationships and there are three keys to make this happen:
         Building Trust,
         Accentuating the Positive, and
         Redirecting Energy when Mistakes Are Made
So the next time you want to redirect a student, staff member, or another colleague, try using the Whale Done! approach. It just might surprise you!

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

The Snow Day: A double-edged sword



As we prepare for the first Snow Day of the school year, I approach tomorrow with anticipation, and at the same time hesitation. Yes, school administrators and teachers alike look forward to and enjoy Snow Days. My family (my wife and three sons) will be home enjoying the day off from school. On the other hand I will drive into school and spend a quiet day working in my office. Now, it’s not all that bad as I will be able to take care of “spring cleaning” with the stacks of papers that need to filed, planning for upcoming Professional Development activities, thinking about Common Core, preparing for our School Improvement Plan writing day, and or finalizing the details for our upcoming Parent Book Discussion focused on Linda Perlstein’s Not Much Just Chillin’: the hidden lives of middle schoolers.

The downside is that we’ve now added one more day to the end of the school year. Although for now that is far off into the distant future and my school (and my personal) family is not thinking of that right now. They are all pondering how they will spend the next 24 hours free from responsibility with the opportunity to explore their recreational options.

Share your thoughts on “Snow Days”...

Monday, February 18, 2013

Why did it take so long?


I am amazed that with the amount of technology we have at our finger tips, that it took me this long to make the leap into the 21st century with several forward thinking tools. I am jumping into the deep end of the pool and I am ready to make a splash. After attending my first METC conference and participating in my first #MOedchat, I am ready to dive in!!!! Thanks for the encouragement and helping me launch my Blog.

I look forward to learning from my colleagues and sharing my own thoughts as we travel down this road we call the "educational highway".   I am really excited about this new venture and how it will help me become a better leader in my school and district.