“We each take responsibility for providing a safe learning environment where every student is valued and meets or exceeds academic standards.”
I believe that for a student to feel valued, they would have to be welcomed first. So I believe our challenge is our communication of this fact. One way to overcome this challenge is to communicate to all stakeholders what it means to “value” every student and how to make it happen. The communication of this information is critical to make it part of a common language. We all have different interpretations of what it means to value someone else, so creating a common language would be ideal.
How do our leaders know if our stakeholders feel welcomed at our schools? This is a hard question to answer if you have not explicitly taken some course of action to purposely collect evidence. Speaking to only a few people or taking a survey isn’t enough to answer the question. I conducted my own little experiment. I spent a few minutes in the front office, 3-4 times for a few days. I was looking at the interaction between office staff/administration and students. I also walked around the buildings during passing period, in order to observe the interaction between students and to find out if and how teachers were greeting students.
After gathering and interpreting my evidence, not surprising, I learned that students with limited social skills were the ones that could be more effectively welcomed. Shy students, students that spoke loudly, or students that didn’t demonstrate the best manners, were some of the students that were not welcomed in the same respectful and friendly way as other students. The adults responded in a more authoritative tone as compared to other students. Students’ response to these students was similar to bullying behaviors. In our district, many of our students don’t have positive role models who have taken the time to teach them appropriate social behaviors. Unfortunately this is true not only in our district, but throughout our nation.
As the school leader, for my future sphere of influence, I would create a common language for behaviors that would be communicated and taught as needed to all stakeholders. Many times we believe that our beliefs are shared by everyone and expect the behavior that we would use. This is not true. I once asked a student to come back to class afterschool to discuss his disrespectful behavior. To my surprise, he showed up. So I explained how some of his behaviors were disrespectful to me and to the other students in my class. I then asked him, what do others have to do to earn your respect. His response was, “They have to fear me.” I will never forget his response, because it opened my eyes and forced me to realize the importance of being explicit, building relationships with students, and doing things purposefully. That is when respect became the theme in my classroom and was reinforced on a daily basis. The student did tell me that it was different for me, since I was the teacher. After that conversation, his behavior in class did improve.
I’m out of the classroom, so my current sphere of influence, include staff, teachers and administrators. However, I do feel that I can take steps to communicate and model welcoming behaviors. Last year, district wide we all read and discussed A Culture of Hope written by Robert Barr and Emily L. Gibson. So, I plan to continue to build on this platform and integrate the 4 Pillars of Hope, which include creating a welcoming environment, into all my interactions with my colleagues.
The following are 5 things that I am willing to commit to do this semester to make my district a more welcoming place:
- I communicate a lot through email, therefore I commit to put more focus on my word choice.
- At the same time, I commit to reduce emails and visit teachers more oftern to have a face-to-face conversation.
- In the meetings and trainings I facilitate, I commit to remember and put more emphasis on the little things such as greeting everyone individually and thanking them at the end.
- When visiting with teachers, I commit to recognize their personal life, so that they know I respect them not only at a teacher, but as person with other responsibilities.
- I commit to provide voice and choice to my colleagues, so that they understand that their ideas and beliefs are welcomed and valued.