CONNECTIONS: Creating a Culture of Empathy
“Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives.”
Oprah Winfrey
We agree with Oprah that empathy is a critical component of effective leadership--including educational leadership. Whether you are leading at the district, school, or classroom level, empathy matters. Empathy includes seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another. Our jobs as educators never get easier and, in fact, seem at times to be increasingly stressful and even overwhelming. Even in the most trying of times, however, we must remember to view our work not only from our own perspective, but also from the perspective of those with whom we work and--even more importantly--those we serve: our students.
Students today are different in many ways than the students we taught when we began our careers in education decades ago. As a result, it is even more important to be intentional about understanding the school experience through their lens. Of course, adults are different in many ways today than they were decades ago as well and the need to empathize relates to every career field--even baseball! Several years ago, we were struck by a comment from Theo Epstein, then general manager of our beloved Chicago Cubs. According to Epstein:
“It’s incumbent on us not to just sit there and say, ‘Players have changed; they don’t get it, they don’t listen, they don’t care.’ or ‘We don’t understand them.’ We have to learn the lens from which they view the world and learn the best way of communicating with them because they’ve grown up with a totally different upbringing than we did and with devices that are omnipresent.”
The ability of all staff members to empathize with others in the school with whom they interact cannot be underestimated. Let’s revisit Epstein’s quote, making two small changes: replacing “players” with “students” and substituting “teaching” for “communicating with”:
“It’s incumbent on us not to just sit there and say, ‘Students have changed; they don’t get it, they don’t listen, they don’t care.’ or ‘We don’t understand them.’ We have to learn the lens from which they view the world and learn the best way of teaching them because they’ve grown up with a totally different upbringing than we did and with devices that are omnipresent.”
In some ways, students (and baseball players) today are not unlike students (and baseball players) 10, 20, or even 50 years ago. In other ways, they are altogether different. It is incumbent upon us to not only embrace what remains the same about our learners, but also embrace how they have changed over time. Each of us will always have our own lens through which we view the world, but we must also stand in the shoes of our students and picture the classroom, school, community, and world from their lens. Devices are omnipresent not only for baseball players but for students--including those as young as preschool. We can pine for “the good ol' days” from now until the cows come home but those days: 1) Were not always so good and 2) Are gone forever.
Many things have stayed the same both in baseball and in schools over the years. During the past baseball season, players hit home runs, pitchers struck batters out, and runners stole bases--much like they did when the National League was formed in 1876. In our schools this year, students have been reading, writing, and studying history--much like they have done in our country's schools since the colonial era. At the same time, both baseball and schools are dramatically different than they were at their inception, with many of these changes due to advances in technology. In both endeavors, we are reminded how much success is based on culture, including the willingness of all adults serving in the culture to embrace change and practice empathy. These are pillars of school success. How we approach change can significantly impact how successful we will be as educators. Creating cultures in which such changes are embraced as opportunities and in which staff members learn the lens through which their students see the world while learning the best approaches for teaching them are more ways we create a positive and productive culture in our schools.
Thanks to all educators reading this for the amazing work you are doing during these challenging times. As always, Teach and Lead with Passion...
Jeff and Jimmy
DAILY INSPIRATION EDUCATOR
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COMING SOON!!
The 6 Literacy Levers: Creating a Community of Readers by Brad Gustafson (Twitter: @GustafsonBrad)
The 6 Literacy Levers will be a game changer! We cannot wait for you to read this book by one of our favorite educators and servant leaders, Dr. Brad Gustafson. If you are a leader in any capacity with a desire to promote reading and literacy in your classroom, school, or district, this book is for you! The 6 Literacy Levers is designed to empower leaders in classrooms, libraries, offices, and every space in between. It includes ideas and strategies to support educators at every level because leadership isn’t reserved solely for those who hold a specific job title. There isn’t a single reader in your school who doesn’t deserve to be seen, supported, and included. This book includes levers and cautionary advice to help you respond to practices that could damage, diminish, or exclude any of the readers you serve. Literacy leaders have a responsibility to serve on behalf of all readers and this book will help you do just that.
This book is for any educator who wants to grow as a literacy leader.
This book will empower teams to initiate conversations that will take the work deeper.
This book explores six literacy levers that will help you push the field forward while creating more enriching reading experiences for the readers you serve.
This book will equip you with actionable ideas and the research needed to activate change.
Filled with inspiring stories and practical advice and strategies, The 6 Literacy Levers is a book that will transform the literacy culture wherever you serve. We are so honored to partner with Brad on this important new book. Look for this book to be in print on or around December 1st of this year!
FEATURED BOOKS
Culturize and Live Your Excellence Action Guides by Jimmy Casas.
Our Action Guides are tools to accompany best selling books by Jimmy Casas: Culturize: Every Student. Every Day. Whatever It Takes and Live Your Excellence: Bring Your Best Self to School Every Day. These Action Guides are road maps to taking action steps based on the ideas found in Culturize and Live Your Excellence so that our schools can best serve the students of today. If you are conducting a book study group, seminar, class, or professional development event based on either book, these Action Guides will serve as a resource to help you organize your sessions and work with your group. They provide assistance to staff developers, superintendents, principals, team leaders, college professors, and other educational leaders who are working with teachers to develop their professional skills. To help you plan and organize your study sessions, the Action Guides are divided into the following six sections:
Reflections: These are short thoughts on key sections of the chapters from each book.
Critical Concepts: These are simply bullet-point summaries from each section of the books and are presented here to help you review and focus your thoughts.
Questions to Consider: These questions are designed to reinforce your understanding of critical concepts and will promote constructive conversation among those participating in the study group, workshop, or class.
Writing to Reflect: These reflective journal prompts help you consider what you have read as well as discussions in which you have engaged to independently work through essential issues, recording what you have learned and what you are thinking about in writing.
Team Activities: These activities allow you to further explore concepts and ideas found in the books by interacting with others in your study group, workshop, or course.
Putting It to Work: This section provides specific actions for applying what you have learned through your reading as well as work undertaken in the book study back in your own classroom, school, or district.
Check out more here and contact us for bulk order discounts!
CONNECTEDD’S TAKEAWAYS:
Thought for the Day: “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them." James Baldwin
Teaching Technique to Try: Levels of Questions. The Levels of Questions strategy helps students comprehend and interpret a text by requiring them to answer three types of questions about it: factual, inferential, and universal. This scaffolded approach provides an opportunity for students to master the basic ideas of a text so that they can apply this understanding and “evidence” to conversations about deeper abstract concepts or complex historical events. Because you can focus students’ attention on the level of questions most appropriate to their reading ability, this strategy can meet the needs of different learners. You can also use the Levels of Questions strategy to prepare students for a class discussion or activity, or as an assessment tool. Check out this link from Facing History and Ourselves for a step-by-step process for using this technique.
Eyes On Culture: We believe that culture is a true difference maker in any classroom, school, district, or organization. As a result, we focus much of the work we do on creating and maintaining positive and productive cultures. Culture Focus: Learning. High performing schools with strong cultures are places in which stakeholders never forget that central to the mission of any school is the idea of “learning.” As educators, we are ultimately charged with ensuring that all students learn: how to read, how to write, how to speak, how to interact with another, and a host of other competencies and skills. Obviously, we want students to love school and find joy in learning, yet we must not fail in our efforts to ensure that they do, indeed, master core competencies. At times, so much emphasis is placed on testing, that it seems almost as if we rebel against accountability for learning. Although none of us went into education because of our love of standardized tests, many of us did enter this noble profession because of our love for learning and our desire to instill that love within others. We must never, therefore, lose our focus on learning and must not make excuses when some students do not learn but, instead, take action. In cultures in which learning is foremost, learning is not limited to students, but also adults in the school. Learning-focused schools are ones in which adults in the school read books, share what they are reading, observe each other teaching, share their teaching and learning ideas with each other, attend and lead professional learning events, and connect with educators outside their own school walls to continuously grow and improve.
What are some other characteristics of a learning-focused school? Please share your thoughts about culture and hope via Twitter: @ConnectEDDBooks We would love to hear from you!