Since I adopted a servant leadership mindset in my classroom, classroom life has risen in quality and community substantially. I make every effort to serve my students well. Do I sometimes miss the mark--yes, but I keep trying, and that's made a wonderful difference.
I try to create a sense of team--a sense of working together to reach common goals. I try to listen to students' concerns and take the time to understand their passions and interests. I am their coach and mentor. I know that when children feel like they're part of a team, their investment, effort, and sense of satisfaction grows.
The same is true for me. I like to be part of a team. I like to contribute to, and learn from, those around me. I like the honest give and take that's possible in a dynamic team. Yet sometimes I forget that in some teams, I don't have much voice and choice--the script is written, the directions set, and the work expected. There's little room for innovation, ideas, or me. Instead, on those teams, I'm a "do-it"--a worker in the field expected to follow the orders, and get the job done.
As Pink notes in his book, Drive, to work without autonomy, purpose, and mastery is not fulfilling, and challenges your potential. I guess the one upside of situations with little to no autonomy, purpose, and mastery is that those situations let you know what it's like to be unheard and without choice thus creating empathy for the others in your world that share that experience. It makes you want to reach out more to the children with ideas, interests, and needs--"How can I help?" you plan to ask more often, and "How can we develop our sense of team in this classroom with greater commitment and care?"
Hence, I'll cull the good from the not so good, and return to the classroom with an increased focus on team, communication, and care. I'll continue to learn when I can and how I can to do well by the children I serve and the colleagues I collaborate with.
I will also look for, and continue to engage with, collaborators who share my vision and quest to develop holistic learning programs, programs that serve students in multiple, meaningful ways, not just ways that result in sufficient standardized test scores. Yes, I want all of my students to succeed on standardized tests, and generally my students do well, but I don't equate all learning to test scores, and I don't believe in programs that make test scores more important than a meaningful, holistic, inspiring learning experience. I continue to believe that with good teamwork, we can achieve both--fine test scores and a comprehensive, dynamic, varied learning program. Perhaps I'm wrong about that, but initially my goal this year was to do both, and I must say it is a goal that's hard to achieve without team, support, goals, and clear vision.
More to learn, another turn in the twisty road of learning/teaching.
This post led to the next: Role Revision
