There are dozens of articles on how teachers inspire and motivate students, but how can we reinvigorate the teachers? As close to the end of the school year as we are, teachers may feel overwhelmed with the high-stakes final grades and exams happening over the next two months. So, here are a few ways to keep your teachers up and at ‘em through the final bell.
The Right Tool for the Right Job: Three Times to Call Instead of Emailing
The days when people used their cellphones to call their friends and co-workers are quickly fading. These days, a quick text or email is regarded as a replacement for good ol’ fashioned conversations. For busy Division Heads, email may seem like it was invented specifically for your hectic lives, enabling the quick dissemination of information and instructions to the whole school. But email isn’t always the right communication tool to use, and it certainly shouldn’t be your only contact method. We have three instances when you should avoid using email and go for the phone instead.
Conflict Resolution in the Context of Your Parent Retention and Education Plan
Today’s parents tend to view their child’s private-independent school with a profound sense of ownership. Since they “make payments” to the institution, parents reason that their privileges should include making explicit demands on teachers, on administrators, on Trustees, and on the curriculum itself. If granted, some of the demands would alter educational and programmatic policy and practice; others would provide a de facto waiver for that parent’s own child in regard to school policies and practices.
The obvious counterweight should be added: Parents are sometimes right. The extent and difficulty of a third-grade teacher’s homework assignments may, in fact, be out of line. An upper-school history teacher’s response to one student’s tardiness may have been extreme. Your middle-school physical education courses may be ill-conceived or poorly executed. The Lower School Director may unreasonably procrastinate in returning parents’ phone calls. The Board may, in fact, be uncommunicative or secretive as a matter of habit, rather than selectively (that is, for special cause).
When Professional Development Is Useless for Your Teachers
It’s a waste of your teachers' time as well as your school's resources to provide inadequate professional development, as what happened to some unfortunate Chicago public school teachers. In a video that’s gone viral, a participant secretly recorded a full 63 seconds demonstrating this district’s take on professional development.
Four #EdTech Blogs to Bookmark
Constant, reliable technology news about what’s important and pertinent to private schools can be difficult to find, much less rely on. (That’s why you subscribed to our e-Letters!) But sometimes you can find resources that, while only tangentially related, still help you keep abreast of conversations and imagine ways to take your school into the 21st Century. Take a look at these four ed-tech blogs and see if you’re not impressed and informed by each.
Conflict Resolution: Moving From Risk and Toxicity to Predictability and Support
A positive work environment has a direct impact on your school’s ability to retain and attract highly qualified, mission-appropriate faculty and staff—the people you rely on to bring your program to life. As School Head, you know from experience how quickly the positive tone you strive to maintain can deteriorate. This is especially true when one person is frustrated with the school’s requirements or has a conflict with a colleague, and shares his/her views with increasing intensity and frequency. Minor disgruntlement can lead to full-blown toxicity, spreading quickly from individuals to small clusters and larger groups if there is no policy in place to resolve the dilemma and promote healing.
Six Questions to Answer Before Diversifying Your Middle and Upper School World Language Offerings
Global awareness and cultural literacy are themes associated with contemporary learning outcomes. While these outcomes may be achieved through enhancements in social science and English curriculums, they are manifested in world language instruction. Some school leaders seek to diversify their world language offerings. While languages such as Mandarin Chinese and Arabic may be useful languages for students to learn given their importance to global economic and political issues, adding a new language carries with it significant risk. It can negatively impact a school’s existing language program(s), schedule, and bottom line. ISM has cautioned schools to evaluate this issue before adding a new language in lower schools, and seeks here to help guide those considering it for their middle and/or secondary school.
Prep for the Test!
Private-independent school students are blessed in many ways. One of their advantages is the lack of state-mandated standardized tests that plague the public school sphere. Still, your students will serve their time filling in bubble sheets with #2 pencils when they take the SSAT or the ISEE for future private schooling, or even the SAT I & II and ACT tests for their college applications. (Side note: More students have taken the ACT than the SAT since 2012!)
School Is Five Days a Week (Except When It's Not)
There can be little doubt that most—if not all—schools east of the Mississippi River have lost required class time, thanks to a spate of winter storms and arctic vortexes determined to keep everyone at home and off the roads and playgrounds. Schools across the country are scrambling to compensate for the lost class time, but how they do it varies from place to place.
Snow, Snow, Go Away: Winter-Recess Policies
Winter has settled in with a vengeance in the Northern Hemisphere, heralded by the recent “Polar Vortex.” While the temperatures have slowly risen back to seasonal averages, the question of how to handle outdoor recess in the face of extreme cold has been raised on our Lower School Head/Division Head e-List. There are no national regulations beyond the common-sense meter, but when you’re bracing for wind chills that make the world feel colder than Mars, you know it’s time to set some ground rules for future arctic blasts.