Own It

Last Friday's inservice from Tara Brown has certainly invoked quite a bit of discussion. Research says that educators usually only retain about 5-10% of what they hear in professional development. With that being the case, I've been very curious about what each person took away as their 5-10%. Several of you have discussed the assistant principal greeting students. Others really liked the smiling cow picture and the story about the milk. Having heard her twice last week, I personally resonated with one simple phrase, "Own it." I'm not sure how many of you remember that part, but the idea was that before you can change your practice (she talked about not smiling at kids) you have to own the fact that you have a deficit. I likened it to the idea that an addict has to first admit that they have a problem before they can start the road to becoming clean.

While I couldn't define it at the time, "owning it" was precisely what I was having a problem with. Wether you are leading a team, a classroom or a school, you have a vision of what you would like that to be. When something falls short of that vision, it can sometimes be difficult to admit where things went wrong. In Monday's staff meeting we are going to take a look at our school accountability data from last year. There are so many things that went well, but I was having trouble owning the fact that we did not make growth. While there are some mitigating factors that truly do make things more difficult for us in that arena, at the end of the day it is what it is and we are still expected to meet that goal. I have to own that.

Here's where that can create change. "Owning it" means taking a look at what went wrong and addressing it. Just like not smiling at kids requires owning that in an effort to smile more, we have to own what we can do to change our situation. Once I made that revelation, I was immediately renewed with a sense of encouragement and enthusiasm to do something about it. It's a challenge now and I'm ready to face it. I hope that you are too.

So what can you own about your teaching that you know (but are not ready to admit) that can make you a better teacher? Write it down. Say it out loud. Own it. It can be something small or something big, but we can all be better at something that just requires a little directed effort.