August/September 2014
Goal: To align the IB community service requirements between IB partnership schools and recruit for parent board.
Action Steps: I met with CFIS coordinator, Grace Bosquez, to examine the IB Coordinator handbook community service requirements, CFIS requirements, and Raney requirements for community service. Our collaboration revealed that there were some differences in what was allowed as acceptable community service between the two schools. Grace and I worked for hours to align our community service documents, the hour requirement for students in grades seven and eight, the reflection form, and the log. When we were done, the community service requirements for both IB middle schools were seamless which is how the IB World Organization wants to see from IB partnership schools.
Action Steps: During the summer, I reached out to a parent volunteer who had expressed a willingness to take on the position of booster club president. We met informally over coffee to discuss IB and her perceptions, insights, and willingness to become more involved. Ultimately, she agreed to take on the position of Parent Booster Club president and she has been amazing. Working together, she and I developed a “tribe” that would function as our Parent Booster Board. I was at a disadvantage because none of the tribe knew me personally but were willing to align themselves with my vision for the Raney IB program based on my reputation as a teacher in the program.
Most of my time in August and September has been in building trust with the board. My average work day at the school site is twelve hours but I have also been at work for sixteen hours many, many nights in a row. I also work on the weekends. This is all in order to insure that everything I say that I will do gets done. I have also spent time with the board outside of work at various restaurant fundraisers. My focus has been on building relationships and that has definitely reaped tremendous rewards. My principal commented to me that this parent board is one of the most highly functioning board’s he has worked with. In particular is the skill set level of the board: we have an entrepreneur, certified accountant, several homemakers, two full-time employed women, and one self-employed dad. There is a varied representation of ethnicity, socio-economics, and language, which I believe gives our board an edge in decision making because there is a 360 degree perspective when we are discussing and planning projects.
In August, the board was officially voted in by a very well attended IB Meet &Greet function one week prior to the start of school. In the past this function was very formal and organized like a “Back to School Night.” The new board and I planned a BBQ and hosted outdoor icebreaker style games for parents to get to know each other and students to do the same. Our attendance was 113 families out of the 200 families registered for IB which equated to close to 300 people. This was an auspicious beginning for our board in that we planned this event in a two week window.
During the Meet & Greet, I was confronted with my first challenge. One of the board members was offended by actions of other board members and pulled me aside so that she could resign DURING the event. I was able to hear her concerns and address them in a manner that helped to quash the upheaval. This member is one of the most domineering members of the group, but also one of the hardest working and dedicated. Working with her has really helped me to develop a new skill-set for negotiating, standing my ground, and conflict resolution.
Leadership Reflection: In taking on this new job assignment, what I find most difficult working with a parent group is that often they do not have the global picture of what is happening in our school community. The parents understanding of the school culture is narrow, one-sided and primarily formed by the feedback they get from their own child. Thus it is biased and almost childish. One of my first and probably most consuming as well as ongoing tasks has been to inspire a shared vision. The IB program had been led in a manner that created a dividing line between the IB and non IB students. Pejoratives were frequently used from the IB students to describe their non IB peers and this attitude and “elitism” had seeped into the school culture polarizing students and staff. In reaching out to the parents, I began by deliberately painting a big picture of a united Raney. I told parents that IB was a program and general education was a program and that each program was essential to the success of students at our school. I also had to inspire this vision among teachers who have resented the program for years because of them perceiving IB as the golden child who was always treated better and whose students received the best of everything at the expense of other students in the school.
Over the summer, I came to realize that I would have to be clear on my philosophy of leadership. How could I model the way if I had not determined my own personal center. I reviewed my leadership practices inventory results and also attended a leadership conference in Las Vegas. I listened to a very dynamic speaker, Dr. Anthony Muhammad, and gleaned from his experiences as a leader in education. I refined my focus to address my two (according to my perspective) greatest challenges. The first was the years of animosities and negative perceptions that caused IB and the rest of the staff to be adversarial in their attitudes toward one another and the second was that I had considerable opposition from parents and students who were unhappy over the departure of the previous coordinator.
I determined that my philosophy for leadership was to be honest and trustworthy, to see any failure that I experienced as a doorway rather than a wall, to be open to feedback regardless of how it was delivered, to be in the moment as much as I could, and to give myself and the people around me grace. I decided that I needed to take the time to get to know people’s stories and that would help me appreciate and respect contributions of even the most contentious person. I realized that I would need tremendous grit to balance the coordinator job with being a full time classroom teacher at the same time.
Finally, in studying my LPI, I also discovered that my weakest area “Enabling Others to Act” was going to be an area that I would have to develop as I learned to delegate responsibilities to the various stake holders in the IB program. I am growing in this area as I learn to negotiate the desired outcome with whomever is taking on the job and then allowing them the autonomy to meet our agreed upon outcome in their own individual way. Consequently, so much is being accomplished and I am able to encourage others to develop their skill sets, take risks, make decisions, and avoid burn out.
Goal: To align the IB community service requirements between IB partnership schools and recruit for parent board.
Action Steps: I met with CFIS coordinator, Grace Bosquez, to examine the IB Coordinator handbook community service requirements, CFIS requirements, and Raney requirements for community service. Our collaboration revealed that there were some differences in what was allowed as acceptable community service between the two schools. Grace and I worked for hours to align our community service documents, the hour requirement for students in grades seven and eight, the reflection form, and the log. When we were done, the community service requirements for both IB middle schools were seamless which is how the IB World Organization wants to see from IB partnership schools.
Action Steps: During the summer, I reached out to a parent volunteer who had expressed a willingness to take on the position of booster club president. We met informally over coffee to discuss IB and her perceptions, insights, and willingness to become more involved. Ultimately, she agreed to take on the position of Parent Booster Club president and she has been amazing. Working together, she and I developed a “tribe” that would function as our Parent Booster Board. I was at a disadvantage because none of the tribe knew me personally but were willing to align themselves with my vision for the Raney IB program based on my reputation as a teacher in the program.
Most of my time in August and September has been in building trust with the board. My average work day at the school site is twelve hours but I have also been at work for sixteen hours many, many nights in a row. I also work on the weekends. This is all in order to insure that everything I say that I will do gets done. I have also spent time with the board outside of work at various restaurant fundraisers. My focus has been on building relationships and that has definitely reaped tremendous rewards. My principal commented to me that this parent board is one of the most highly functioning board’s he has worked with. In particular is the skill set level of the board: we have an entrepreneur, certified accountant, several homemakers, two full-time employed women, and one self-employed dad. There is a varied representation of ethnicity, socio-economics, and language, which I believe gives our board an edge in decision making because there is a 360 degree perspective when we are discussing and planning projects.
In August, the board was officially voted in by a very well attended IB Meet &Greet function one week prior to the start of school. In the past this function was very formal and organized like a “Back to School Night.” The new board and I planned a BBQ and hosted outdoor icebreaker style games for parents to get to know each other and students to do the same. Our attendance was 113 families out of the 200 families registered for IB which equated to close to 300 people. This was an auspicious beginning for our board in that we planned this event in a two week window.
During the Meet & Greet, I was confronted with my first challenge. One of the board members was offended by actions of other board members and pulled me aside so that she could resign DURING the event. I was able to hear her concerns and address them in a manner that helped to quash the upheaval. This member is one of the most domineering members of the group, but also one of the hardest working and dedicated. Working with her has really helped me to develop a new skill-set for negotiating, standing my ground, and conflict resolution.
Leadership Reflection: In taking on this new job assignment, what I find most difficult working with a parent group is that often they do not have the global picture of what is happening in our school community. The parents understanding of the school culture is narrow, one-sided and primarily formed by the feedback they get from their own child. Thus it is biased and almost childish. One of my first and probably most consuming as well as ongoing tasks has been to inspire a shared vision. The IB program had been led in a manner that created a dividing line between the IB and non IB students. Pejoratives were frequently used from the IB students to describe their non IB peers and this attitude and “elitism” had seeped into the school culture polarizing students and staff. In reaching out to the parents, I began by deliberately painting a big picture of a united Raney. I told parents that IB was a program and general education was a program and that each program was essential to the success of students at our school. I also had to inspire this vision among teachers who have resented the program for years because of them perceiving IB as the golden child who was always treated better and whose students received the best of everything at the expense of other students in the school.
Over the summer, I came to realize that I would have to be clear on my philosophy of leadership. How could I model the way if I had not determined my own personal center. I reviewed my leadership practices inventory results and also attended a leadership conference in Las Vegas. I listened to a very dynamic speaker, Dr. Anthony Muhammad, and gleaned from his experiences as a leader in education. I refined my focus to address my two (according to my perspective) greatest challenges. The first was the years of animosities and negative perceptions that caused IB and the rest of the staff to be adversarial in their attitudes toward one another and the second was that I had considerable opposition from parents and students who were unhappy over the departure of the previous coordinator.
I determined that my philosophy for leadership was to be honest and trustworthy, to see any failure that I experienced as a doorway rather than a wall, to be open to feedback regardless of how it was delivered, to be in the moment as much as I could, and to give myself and the people around me grace. I decided that I needed to take the time to get to know people’s stories and that would help me appreciate and respect contributions of even the most contentious person. I realized that I would need tremendous grit to balance the coordinator job with being a full time classroom teacher at the same time.
Finally, in studying my LPI, I also discovered that my weakest area “Enabling Others to Act” was going to be an area that I would have to develop as I learned to delegate responsibilities to the various stake holders in the IB program. I am growing in this area as I learn to negotiate the desired outcome with whomever is taking on the job and then allowing them the autonomy to meet our agreed upon outcome in their own individual way. Consequently, so much is being accomplished and I am able to encourage others to develop their skill sets, take risks, make decisions, and avoid burn out.
October 2014
Goal: To update the community service requirements for IBMYP and to assemble community service folders for the 200 students in the program by October 17th.
Action Steps: In coming on board as the program coordinator, I learned that the “program within a school” model is frowned upon by the IB World organization. This is true because schools that adopt this IB model often deal with exclusion, factions, and elitism within the school environs. As I understand, the IB World Organization does not grant this “partnership model” any longer. Our district was one of the last districts to receive IB authorization under this model. Elitism and divisiveness has plagued Raney’s program for years and there is an extreme lack of trust between teachers in the IB program and general education teachers. There has also been an elitism and snobbishness on the part of many parents and students within IB towards students not in the program; a veritable culture clash within the same school community. This problem has plagued the Raney IB program for a decade.
Next, I learned that the IB World Organization expects partnership programs like ours (school within a school that incorporate several schools in the same district) which include Raney, C.F.I.S., and Centennial to operate as “one school.” This is particularly true of Raney and C.F.I.S. since we both are intermediate schools. Our programs may offer differences related to the school culture and organizational structure, such as semester vs. trimester, Parent Board vs. very little parent involvement, or even field trips/science camps vs. very little extracurricular; however, the IB mission, philosophy, and pedagogy should be standardized. Very little cross-school cooperation has been achieved between C.F.I.S. and Raney. A concern with our upcoming evaluation is that the IB evaluators will see the evident disconnect and our re-certification will be jeopardized.
Upon accepting the coordinator position, I decided that the relationship between C.F.I.S. and Raney would be a top priority. With that established, I reached out to the C.F.I.S. coordinator and let her know how much I would like us to work together to create a true partnership between our two school programs. She responded very positively and we met several times in the course of the summer to discuss areas of the program that need to be updated and standardized. We both agreed to focus first on community service.
In the month of July, we three coordinators attended a training together in Austin, Texas, which I was told was a first. I took on many responsibilities and with the idea of establishing my vision of being a team player. We consulted an IB with an IB evaluator to gain understanding of the IB World Organization community service requirements. What I found was an inconsistency not only with the World organization, but across the schools, and even within Raney amongst the students. Once we were able to come to an understanding and agreement of the IBO’s requirements, the C.F.I.S. coordinator and I looked at our individual schools’ requirements. It took us a full school day to work through the requirements and to analyze, evaluate, disagree, discuss, listen, critique, and finally align our requirements. I was exhausted when we were done, but completely satisfied with our progress and our collaboration. We finally had a community service component that was consistent between the intermediate schools and seamlessly connected to the high school IBMYP program. This was a huge victory for our schools and a marvelous benefit to our students. Rather than the intermediate schools being competitors, we were allies in providing IB students with consistency in the program’s administration regardless of where they attended.
The next step was even more difficult and that was to roll out the revised and updated requirements to the IB families. I met considerable resistance from the eighth grade parents, which were sometimes downright hostile. I persisted and took the time many, many, many times to explain the motivation for updating and the process that was applied. I did that consistently for two months, and honestly sometimes I received questions that stumped me and where I agreed with the parents’ perspective of the requirements being unclear. Each time, I went back to the C.F.I.S. coordinator and clarified with her, which strengthened our community service programs, our collaboration, and the trust factor between us.
Finally, the questions began to dwindle and parents and students seemed to grasp the updated forms, revised requirements, and began to accept the necessary changes. Now that this had been accomplished, the folders for each of the students had to be assembled. I had previously ordered different colored folders for each grade level, checked and rechecked the nee documents, made over 2,000 copies of documents that would need to go into each folder. My final leadership learning experience was in pulling together a group of parents that would whole punch, collate, make labels, and then put together the folders. I organized this group of seven parents and we met October 10th and spent two hours doing together what would have taken me weeks.
Leadership Reflection: This was very difficult for me in that it was the first real test of leadership. In seeking out the C.F.I.S. coordinator, I was challenging my own skills and abilities in the area of establishing relationship when there had been bad blood in the past. Kouzes and Posner presented this leadership behavior under Challenging the Process. I was seeking to change a practice that had existed for quite some time. I did not know how my actions would be received, but I forged ahead and decided that I would not wear my feelings on my sleeve; I would keep focused on the process. As I experimented with the community service requirements, I was willing to risk failure and did have to go back and revisit the project several times. I put myself out there to over two hundred people and certainly experienced my fair share of critique. Yet, each time I was challenged, opposed, or disagreed with, I looked for the learning experience. I decided that I want to be a person who looks for the message regardless of how the messenger brings it. Consequently, my confidence to innovate and risk has increased as I am able to fail and know that it is not the end of the world but an open door to walk through to find a solution I had not previously recognized.
Finally, I continue to Model the Way as I continue to follow through on commitments I make and to build consensus around a common set of values for running the organization. One of my great concerns regarding community service in the IB program had been that the students and parents were approaching community service from a mindset of something to get done rather than in the spirit of true giving without expecting anything in return. The philosophy of IB is to develop individuals who are globally minded, culturally sensitive and take on the responsibility for making the world a better place. Thus, the community service revisions were geared to cause students to become more reflective and thoughtful in their interactions with the community rather than looking for ways to “get their hours done.”
Educating the parents through this process has also given me plentiful opportunities to Inspire a Shared Vision. This is particularly true in painting a “big picture” of what we as stakeholders in the students’ education and character development aspire to accomplish. I found that having an honest clear vision of what I desire to accomplish helped in communicating that vision to parents and getting them to buy in to that vision. It involved lots of pathos in our dialogue and listening and preparation on my part.
Goal: To update the community service requirements for IBMYP and to assemble community service folders for the 200 students in the program by October 17th.
Action Steps: In coming on board as the program coordinator, I learned that the “program within a school” model is frowned upon by the IB World organization. This is true because schools that adopt this IB model often deal with exclusion, factions, and elitism within the school environs. As I understand, the IB World Organization does not grant this “partnership model” any longer. Our district was one of the last districts to receive IB authorization under this model. Elitism and divisiveness has plagued Raney’s program for years and there is an extreme lack of trust between teachers in the IB program and general education teachers. There has also been an elitism and snobbishness on the part of many parents and students within IB towards students not in the program; a veritable culture clash within the same school community. This problem has plagued the Raney IB program for a decade.
Next, I learned that the IB World Organization expects partnership programs like ours (school within a school that incorporate several schools in the same district) which include Raney, C.F.I.S., and Centennial to operate as “one school.” This is particularly true of Raney and C.F.I.S. since we both are intermediate schools. Our programs may offer differences related to the school culture and organizational structure, such as semester vs. trimester, Parent Board vs. very little parent involvement, or even field trips/science camps vs. very little extracurricular; however, the IB mission, philosophy, and pedagogy should be standardized. Very little cross-school cooperation has been achieved between C.F.I.S. and Raney. A concern with our upcoming evaluation is that the IB evaluators will see the evident disconnect and our re-certification will be jeopardized.
Upon accepting the coordinator position, I decided that the relationship between C.F.I.S. and Raney would be a top priority. With that established, I reached out to the C.F.I.S. coordinator and let her know how much I would like us to work together to create a true partnership between our two school programs. She responded very positively and we met several times in the course of the summer to discuss areas of the program that need to be updated and standardized. We both agreed to focus first on community service.
In the month of July, we three coordinators attended a training together in Austin, Texas, which I was told was a first. I took on many responsibilities and with the idea of establishing my vision of being a team player. We consulted an IB with an IB evaluator to gain understanding of the IB World Organization community service requirements. What I found was an inconsistency not only with the World organization, but across the schools, and even within Raney amongst the students. Once we were able to come to an understanding and agreement of the IBO’s requirements, the C.F.I.S. coordinator and I looked at our individual schools’ requirements. It took us a full school day to work through the requirements and to analyze, evaluate, disagree, discuss, listen, critique, and finally align our requirements. I was exhausted when we were done, but completely satisfied with our progress and our collaboration. We finally had a community service component that was consistent between the intermediate schools and seamlessly connected to the high school IBMYP program. This was a huge victory for our schools and a marvelous benefit to our students. Rather than the intermediate schools being competitors, we were allies in providing IB students with consistency in the program’s administration regardless of where they attended.
The next step was even more difficult and that was to roll out the revised and updated requirements to the IB families. I met considerable resistance from the eighth grade parents, which were sometimes downright hostile. I persisted and took the time many, many, many times to explain the motivation for updating and the process that was applied. I did that consistently for two months, and honestly sometimes I received questions that stumped me and where I agreed with the parents’ perspective of the requirements being unclear. Each time, I went back to the C.F.I.S. coordinator and clarified with her, which strengthened our community service programs, our collaboration, and the trust factor between us.
Finally, the questions began to dwindle and parents and students seemed to grasp the updated forms, revised requirements, and began to accept the necessary changes. Now that this had been accomplished, the folders for each of the students had to be assembled. I had previously ordered different colored folders for each grade level, checked and rechecked the nee documents, made over 2,000 copies of documents that would need to go into each folder. My final leadership learning experience was in pulling together a group of parents that would whole punch, collate, make labels, and then put together the folders. I organized this group of seven parents and we met October 10th and spent two hours doing together what would have taken me weeks.
Leadership Reflection: This was very difficult for me in that it was the first real test of leadership. In seeking out the C.F.I.S. coordinator, I was challenging my own skills and abilities in the area of establishing relationship when there had been bad blood in the past. Kouzes and Posner presented this leadership behavior under Challenging the Process. I was seeking to change a practice that had existed for quite some time. I did not know how my actions would be received, but I forged ahead and decided that I would not wear my feelings on my sleeve; I would keep focused on the process. As I experimented with the community service requirements, I was willing to risk failure and did have to go back and revisit the project several times. I put myself out there to over two hundred people and certainly experienced my fair share of critique. Yet, each time I was challenged, opposed, or disagreed with, I looked for the learning experience. I decided that I want to be a person who looks for the message regardless of how the messenger brings it. Consequently, my confidence to innovate and risk has increased as I am able to fail and know that it is not the end of the world but an open door to walk through to find a solution I had not previously recognized.
Finally, I continue to Model the Way as I continue to follow through on commitments I make and to build consensus around a common set of values for running the organization. One of my great concerns regarding community service in the IB program had been that the students and parents were approaching community service from a mindset of something to get done rather than in the spirit of true giving without expecting anything in return. The philosophy of IB is to develop individuals who are globally minded, culturally sensitive and take on the responsibility for making the world a better place. Thus, the community service revisions were geared to cause students to become more reflective and thoughtful in their interactions with the community rather than looking for ways to “get their hours done.”
Educating the parents through this process has also given me plentiful opportunities to Inspire a Shared Vision. This is particularly true in painting a “big picture” of what we as stakeholders in the students’ education and character development aspire to accomplish. I found that having an honest clear vision of what I desire to accomplish helped in communicating that vision to parents and getting them to buy in to that vision. It involved lots of pathos in our dialogue and listening and preparation on my part.
November 2014
Goal: Collect community service folders from students and read all entries, reflections, and verify hours.
Actions Steps: This month I collected 175 folders of students who earned various hours of community service. The program requirements are as follows: sixth grade a minimum of fifteen hours per year, seventh grade a minimum of twenty hours per year, and eighth grade is twenty-five hours per week.
Leadership Reflection: My reason for scrutinizing and updating the community service program requirements has been my desire to elevate community service from just another task that students need to accomplish to its rightful place as a viable link to increased academic achievement. In the University of Michigan article "What are the Benefits of Service Learning?" the author discusses how recent research indicates that service learning can:
As I read through the student reflections for each of their community service events, I was impressed with the level of insight and self-awareness demonstrated in many of the students' writing. They learned from their experiences. One student mentioned that she learned that people respond better to encouragement than from criticism so he became more patient as a result of his experience running a booth at a local festival.
One of the changes I made in the community service requirement is that students are no longer able to just help teachers in their classrooms filing papers or changing bulletin board. The student must be working face to face with others in a capacity that benefits the general public. In one student reflection I read indicated that he was volunteering in a mental health facility. Many of the students are volunteering at local senior centers, reading to seniors, preparing meals, engaging in craft making and learning at the same time that senior citizens are often a forgotten treasure in our society and has also sparked conversations in our classrooms regarding the role of the elderly and age discrimination.
Finally, I see community service as Enabling Others to Act in action. In the article "To Improve Student Achievement, Start With Service" the author asserts that students involved in any volunteer activity do better in school than those who do not participate. They also have lower incidences of negative social behaviors, like drug use and teen pregnancy, and report stronger belief in themselves and in their ability to affect positive change in their communities. As students gain experiential affirmation of their abilities and begin to recognize and identify their individual skill-sets, research shows that this translates directly into their academic performance as they are more motivated, more engaged, and more confident to make independent decisions without fear of failure.
December 2014
Goal: Meet individually with 100 students who have significant errors in their community service documents or did not meet program criteria for service; communicate community service results to parents via parent meting and email.
Action Steps: During the month of December I met individually with over 100 students to discuss their folders, draw their attention to inconsistencies and errors in their documents, and to provide feedback on their folders. I met with students after school, before school, and during my conference periods in order to achieve this goal.
Leadership Reflection: In The Huffington Post article "To Improve Student Achievement, Start With Service," author Steven Culbertson discusses the results of a 2012 Gallup Poll research study entitled A Nation Divided. In this study US Americans polled agreed that they want the achievement gap to be closed. There is an abundance of research that asserts and supports that community service or service learning is a viable link to improved student achievement. Culbertson's article provides several areas of study and analyses as to how service improves achievement. In particular, my focus involved an idea from the following quote from the article: Service-learning imparts workplace readiness skills, "By design, service-learning allows students to practice the very same skills that experts and employers identify as essential for the 21st-century workforce: the "Four C's" of critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration." (Huffington Post, 2012)
One of my primary reasons for meeting with students was to focus on the real world skill of completing their applications correctly and the critical thinking involved in negotiating a formal document carefully and thoroughly. Some of the documents contained misspellings, or repeated errors in following directions clearly written on the form itself. Students did not get secure complete information from project supervisors, wrote in pencil instead of pen, miscalculated their hours, used sloppy penmanship just to name a few of the errors I found. Although this was a huge commitment on my part, I believe that the one-to-one instruction was valuable in developing the skills necessary to complete job applications, college applications, passport applications, checking account applications and a host of other documents that require students to read and follow directions closely.
During the December parent meeting, I was able to notify parents that students had completed approximately 4,600 hours of community service. Thus is also important because the research on community service indicates that the more parents are involved, the more impact the service learning experience is upon the formation of the student's worldview. During the meeting, I was also able to talk with parents about the importance of students following instructions and completing documents thoughtfully and carefully. Because I have updated the program requirements, I met with students and did not asses any of the penalties that students would otherwise have encountered. Parents and students were both notified that penalties will be enforced during the next collection period without exception.
Many of these students will compete for internships and employment in the future; I believe that the skills I supported through the "life skills" mentoring will benefit them in various ways that are practical and meaningful.
Goal: Collect community service folders from students and read all entries, reflections, and verify hours.
Actions Steps: This month I collected 175 folders of students who earned various hours of community service. The program requirements are as follows: sixth grade a minimum of fifteen hours per year, seventh grade a minimum of twenty hours per year, and eighth grade is twenty-five hours per week.
Leadership Reflection: My reason for scrutinizing and updating the community service program requirements has been my desire to elevate community service from just another task that students need to accomplish to its rightful place as a viable link to increased academic achievement. In the University of Michigan article "What are the Benefits of Service Learning?" the author discusses how recent research indicates that service learning can:
- increase students' personal, interpersonal and social development (Billig 2000)
- increase motivation, student engagement, and school attendance (Billig 2000)
- and, lead to new perspectives and more "positive lifestyle choices and behavior." (Civic Literacy Project 2005)
As I read through the student reflections for each of their community service events, I was impressed with the level of insight and self-awareness demonstrated in many of the students' writing. They learned from their experiences. One student mentioned that she learned that people respond better to encouragement than from criticism so he became more patient as a result of his experience running a booth at a local festival.
One of the changes I made in the community service requirement is that students are no longer able to just help teachers in their classrooms filing papers or changing bulletin board. The student must be working face to face with others in a capacity that benefits the general public. In one student reflection I read indicated that he was volunteering in a mental health facility. Many of the students are volunteering at local senior centers, reading to seniors, preparing meals, engaging in craft making and learning at the same time that senior citizens are often a forgotten treasure in our society and has also sparked conversations in our classrooms regarding the role of the elderly and age discrimination.
Finally, I see community service as Enabling Others to Act in action. In the article "To Improve Student Achievement, Start With Service" the author asserts that students involved in any volunteer activity do better in school than those who do not participate. They also have lower incidences of negative social behaviors, like drug use and teen pregnancy, and report stronger belief in themselves and in their ability to affect positive change in their communities. As students gain experiential affirmation of their abilities and begin to recognize and identify their individual skill-sets, research shows that this translates directly into their academic performance as they are more motivated, more engaged, and more confident to make independent decisions without fear of failure.
December 2014
Goal: Meet individually with 100 students who have significant errors in their community service documents or did not meet program criteria for service; communicate community service results to parents via parent meting and email.
Action Steps: During the month of December I met individually with over 100 students to discuss their folders, draw their attention to inconsistencies and errors in their documents, and to provide feedback on their folders. I met with students after school, before school, and during my conference periods in order to achieve this goal.
Leadership Reflection: In The Huffington Post article "To Improve Student Achievement, Start With Service," author Steven Culbertson discusses the results of a 2012 Gallup Poll research study entitled A Nation Divided. In this study US Americans polled agreed that they want the achievement gap to be closed. There is an abundance of research that asserts and supports that community service or service learning is a viable link to improved student achievement. Culbertson's article provides several areas of study and analyses as to how service improves achievement. In particular, my focus involved an idea from the following quote from the article: Service-learning imparts workplace readiness skills, "By design, service-learning allows students to practice the very same skills that experts and employers identify as essential for the 21st-century workforce: the "Four C's" of critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration." (Huffington Post, 2012)
One of my primary reasons for meeting with students was to focus on the real world skill of completing their applications correctly and the critical thinking involved in negotiating a formal document carefully and thoroughly. Some of the documents contained misspellings, or repeated errors in following directions clearly written on the form itself. Students did not get secure complete information from project supervisors, wrote in pencil instead of pen, miscalculated their hours, used sloppy penmanship just to name a few of the errors I found. Although this was a huge commitment on my part, I believe that the one-to-one instruction was valuable in developing the skills necessary to complete job applications, college applications, passport applications, checking account applications and a host of other documents that require students to read and follow directions closely.
During the December parent meeting, I was able to notify parents that students had completed approximately 4,600 hours of community service. Thus is also important because the research on community service indicates that the more parents are involved, the more impact the service learning experience is upon the formation of the student's worldview. During the meeting, I was also able to talk with parents about the importance of students following instructions and completing documents thoughtfully and carefully. Because I have updated the program requirements, I met with students and did not asses any of the penalties that students would otherwise have encountered. Parents and students were both notified that penalties will be enforced during the next collection period without exception.
Many of these students will compete for internships and employment in the future; I believe that the skills I supported through the "life skills" mentoring will benefit them in various ways that are practical and meaningful.
January/February 2015
Goal: To collect community service folders and determine if students are evaluating the forms with more care and precision and to record hours of students in Excel spreadsheet. Also to train parent volunteer to assist with this process.
Action Steps: I sent weekly email reminders regarding the collection date for the folders. Consequently, only two folders were turned in late which was a significant decrease from the first collection date.
Leadership Reflection: As I am growing in my leadership skills, I am aware of my growing confidence in others Challenging the Process and myself challenging it as well. I have become more reflective of my own actions and decision making and understanding more about my comfort zone defaults. Many activities and procedures have not gone as expected this year. As a recovering perfectionist, I am finding myself more able to look at these twists and turns less from a position of "I made a mistake" to more evaluative and less judgmental of myself AND others. This is allowing me to actually enjoy my position as coordinator more than I thought I would be able to do, and it is even allowing me to explore administration as a possible future career track.
I am learning to set goals that are more realistic, to establish deadlines and due dates for information/actions needed from others and I am able to do this without feeling uncomfortable or too pushy. I am also able to ask for help and after establishing goals for the project, allowing people to do accomplish that goal in a manner that reflects their unique skill-set. This worked beautifully with my parent volunteer. Initially, I was very skittish about sending home files with her and then I reflected on that fear and really scrutinized it. What I discovered was that my lack of trust was rooted in very resistant control issues. I talked with a mentor about my discoveries and she asked what I intended to do about it. I decided to let the folders go with my volunteer. She did a terrific job with the folders and I did NOT micromanage the results. I explained what I needed as the outcome and she made sure that I got that, yet she did some extra things that I did not ask for and found very helpful. She also made some suggestions on how I could complete my process more effectively and I found most of her recommendations very helpful and incorporated them to make the next collection period a smoother one. What I did not find helpful, I chose not to implement.
This is also translating into my classroom. I see myself taking more risks in my instruction and providing students with more freedom in selecting learning outcomes. I also am developing a keener sense of evaluating and analyzing WHY I am choosing a particular strategy over another strategy. I can actually visualize instructional outcomes in a depth that is unprecedented for me. I've always considered myself a "leader" in the classroom but I am experiencing a renaissance of my leadership in the classroom that has become more risk-taking, innovative, and student-centered. Even in my classroom, I am enabling my students to act, supporting their decisions and encouraging them to be bolder in taking on more ownership for their learning and academic decisions.
Goal: To collect community service folders and determine if students are evaluating the forms with more care and precision and to record hours of students in Excel spreadsheet. Also to train parent volunteer to assist with this process.
Action Steps: I sent weekly email reminders regarding the collection date for the folders. Consequently, only two folders were turned in late which was a significant decrease from the first collection date.
Leadership Reflection: As I am growing in my leadership skills, I am aware of my growing confidence in others Challenging the Process and myself challenging it as well. I have become more reflective of my own actions and decision making and understanding more about my comfort zone defaults. Many activities and procedures have not gone as expected this year. As a recovering perfectionist, I am finding myself more able to look at these twists and turns less from a position of "I made a mistake" to more evaluative and less judgmental of myself AND others. This is allowing me to actually enjoy my position as coordinator more than I thought I would be able to do, and it is even allowing me to explore administration as a possible future career track.
I am learning to set goals that are more realistic, to establish deadlines and due dates for information/actions needed from others and I am able to do this without feeling uncomfortable or too pushy. I am also able to ask for help and after establishing goals for the project, allowing people to do accomplish that goal in a manner that reflects their unique skill-set. This worked beautifully with my parent volunteer. Initially, I was very skittish about sending home files with her and then I reflected on that fear and really scrutinized it. What I discovered was that my lack of trust was rooted in very resistant control issues. I talked with a mentor about my discoveries and she asked what I intended to do about it. I decided to let the folders go with my volunteer. She did a terrific job with the folders and I did NOT micromanage the results. I explained what I needed as the outcome and she made sure that I got that, yet she did some extra things that I did not ask for and found very helpful. She also made some suggestions on how I could complete my process more effectively and I found most of her recommendations very helpful and incorporated them to make the next collection period a smoother one. What I did not find helpful, I chose not to implement.
This is also translating into my classroom. I see myself taking more risks in my instruction and providing students with more freedom in selecting learning outcomes. I also am developing a keener sense of evaluating and analyzing WHY I am choosing a particular strategy over another strategy. I can actually visualize instructional outcomes in a depth that is unprecedented for me. I've always considered myself a "leader" in the classroom but I am experiencing a renaissance of my leadership in the classroom that has become more risk-taking, innovative, and student-centered. Even in my classroom, I am enabling my students to act, supporting their decisions and encouraging them to be bolder in taking on more ownership for their learning and academic decisions.
March 2015
Goal: Attend a category 1 IBMYP Coordinator's training.
Action Steps: I kept my goal simple this time because I have many, many demands raining down on me from the program and from my teaching responsibilities to the program. I attended a conference in Pitttsburgh, PA.
Leadership Reflection: This training was invaluable. I met many coordinators, principals, and even a school district superintendent from school all over the country. My heart was encouraged by these wonderful professionals who listened to the challenges I experience as a full time coordinator and full time teacher in the IBMYP. They were in awe of what I am balancing and coll-headed manner in which I have approached the challenges over the course of the year. In my position, I do not often find my heart encouraged by the parents I work with, the teachers, or the administration. I feel more like a pack mule. Two major take aways from this conference was that our community service program is effective and is providing relevance and international-mindedness in our students and that it is important for me to encourage my own heart.
Goal: Attend a category 1 IBMYP Coordinator's training.
Action Steps: I kept my goal simple this time because I have many, many demands raining down on me from the program and from my teaching responsibilities to the program. I attended a conference in Pitttsburgh, PA.
Leadership Reflection: This training was invaluable. I met many coordinators, principals, and even a school district superintendent from school all over the country. My heart was encouraged by these wonderful professionals who listened to the challenges I experience as a full time coordinator and full time teacher in the IBMYP. They were in awe of what I am balancing and coll-headed manner in which I have approached the challenges over the course of the year. In my position, I do not often find my heart encouraged by the parents I work with, the teachers, or the administration. I feel more like a pack mule. Two major take aways from this conference was that our community service program is effective and is providing relevance and international-mindedness in our students and that it is important for me to encourage my own heart.
April 2015
Goal: Plan for 8th grade promotion dinner recognition.
Action Steps: I will collect the 8th grade folders by the April 20th deadline and review them for trimester three hours and enter into database. I will double check all student hours for accuracy and order community service student pins for 8th grade promotion dinner recognition.
Leadership Reflection: I understand that the community service component of the program adds another level of rigor to the students' experience in the program. It requires them to come out of their comfort zones in ways that even as adults we may avoid. As a leader, I am excited that in June I am able to recognize students for their hard work, effort, and determination. Dr. Carol Dweck calls this developing a growth mindset when students are encouraged not for their good grades or because they are smart, but for their effort, hard work, and determination. She asserts that this type of praise and encouragement develops a resilience and love of learning that is the basis of great accomplishment.
Kouzes and Posner go on further to say that "encouraging the heart" is a mainstay of exceptional leaders. It is important to me to value the individual achievements of the students while at the same time to build a spirit of community versus competition within the student population. In order to do this, I am going to eliminate the recognition of students who only exceeded the community service goals by 25% or above. I am going to recognize all students who completed their twenty-five hours with a service pin for the year and they will be recognized at the promotion banquet.
Goal: Plan for 8th grade promotion dinner recognition.
Action Steps: I will collect the 8th grade folders by the April 20th deadline and review them for trimester three hours and enter into database. I will double check all student hours for accuracy and order community service student pins for 8th grade promotion dinner recognition.
Leadership Reflection: I understand that the community service component of the program adds another level of rigor to the students' experience in the program. It requires them to come out of their comfort zones in ways that even as adults we may avoid. As a leader, I am excited that in June I am able to recognize students for their hard work, effort, and determination. Dr. Carol Dweck calls this developing a growth mindset when students are encouraged not for their good grades or because they are smart, but for their effort, hard work, and determination. She asserts that this type of praise and encouragement develops a resilience and love of learning that is the basis of great accomplishment.
Kouzes and Posner go on further to say that "encouraging the heart" is a mainstay of exceptional leaders. It is important to me to value the individual achievements of the students while at the same time to build a spirit of community versus competition within the student population. In order to do this, I am going to eliminate the recognition of students who only exceeded the community service goals by 25% or above. I am going to recognize all students who completed their twenty-five hours with a service pin for the year and they will be recognized at the promotion banquet.