Leadership

I lead by example. I consider myself a grassroots leader. Just as grassroots policy is developed from the needs of the people, I develop curriculum in response to the needs of my students (at least I really try to!). Because I am passionate and excited about my ideas, I share them in the lunch room or in conversations with other teachers. Sometimes they try them!

I also consistently bend the rules. One example of this is how I approach the Accelerated Reading requirement the English Department enacted. The majority of the teachers felt that all students should read three books per quarter that were 1) in their ZPD and 2) were at least 150 pages long. Obviously they were referring to fiction books. I also remember how I abhorred reading as an ADD student - mainly because before I finished a paragraph I had taken several trips around the world. When I was in school, I couldn't concentrate while reading and empathized with my students who were in the same predicament. (Now I have medicine!). As far as fiction went, I told them that any book over 300 pages was worth 2 books (fair is fair).

It occurred to me one day while at the library with my class that, because of our AR requirement, the entire nonfiction section of the library was basically sitting unused. The thought occurred to me to see if there actually were AR tests for nonfiction books. Not only were there tests, there were LOTS of tests. I immediately embarked on a campaign to order as many nonfiction tests for the books our library owned as our budget would allow. By the end of that school year we had several hundred. Now we have several hundred more. Knowing that reading non-fiction is highly beneficial to students' achievement, and empathizing with my reluctant readers, I "modified" the AR rules for my class. My students were now required to read short, non-fiction books at an easily comprehensible level. I want them to be able to get through a book that was short enough and simple enough so as not to create the frustration that longer books do on ADD students. My objective was READ-TEST, READ-TEST, etc. I wanted to build a pattern of success and accomplishment. It worked. My class was reading, and some were reading up to 10 nonfiction books per quarter.I also wanted to introduce them to the many topics available in nonfiction. Many ended up liking it better than reading fiction.

Another, more current, example of "bending the rules"(much scarier) was letting my class of "school resistant" students eat snacks and listen to ipods while working (definitely risky). Both are against the rules in our agenda. Both are important to students who learn globally (most students). I chose to support my students and go to confession after. One of the advantages of displaying personal integrity and consistently producing high achieving students is that my principal has trust in me. His only concern was that it was limited to my "needy" class, and that it wasn't advertised around the rest of the school that they had those privileges. He said he understood what I was trying to do with that class.

Were I in a higher position of leadership, I would probably do the same thing. I would find a way around rules that are detrimental to students. It's fun. It's part of being creative. It's who I am. One avenue I am considering once I am finished with this program is teaching in a credential program. My number one objective would be to empower the new teachers to find ways to circumvent a restrictive curriculum without appearing to do anything wrong. I guess I would be real threat if I were in a district level position - especially Director of Curriculum. Maybe it would be a good thing. The focus in my district is how to empower students to take the test better by enlightening them about test construction techniques such as distractors, etc. I think I would concentrate on ways to teach them to think. That's what I do in my classroom. We don't study anything about how to take the test. Then they actually have the tools to understand and cope with the test. They usually score high.