Empowerment. Do you feel like you hear that word a lot in education now-a-days? It's a great word...it makes me feel good to say it. In fact, it makes me feel powerful just to say the word "empowerment". Say it a few times to yourself...does your posture become better, a smile come to your face, or your head held higher? Why is that? I believe it's because anyone likes to have power over what happens to them. This idea extends to teachers and students within a school and classroom.
Let's talk about those students...
Students must be able to have the authority and ability to make decisions and create change within their school, classroom, and community. As educators, we often call this "choice and voice" in our classrooms. Giving students a voice within a classroom can take many different forms now-a-days. Socratic seminars and online forums such as Google Classroom, SeeSaw, Edmodo and Kid Blog are ways to quickly empower students to have a voice in the educational environment. My favorite way to empower students in the classroom is to allow students to choose a way to show what they know. Why have "cookie-cutter" products that all look the same? If this is new for you... start small. Think about empowering your students to have the authority to decide how they show you they understand a language arts skill like "cause and effect". Students can write a story (creating one on Storybird.com is my fav right now), create a cause/effect "T-chart", identify cause/effect in a science experiment, take a video of cause/effect in the weather around them, etc. The ideas are limitless...and often, it's us, the educators, who put the limits to our student's ideas.
Now, let's move on to teachers. How can school leaders empower teachers within a school? I'm going to say three things: Look, Listen, Let Go.
1. Look: Look for leaders on your campus! They have a personal look into the classrooms, collaborate with their team, and have the leadership skills to get it done! Teachers are on the front lines of education...what do they want to fix? How will they go about it? What's the timeline? Empower the teachers to be decision-makers.
2. Listen: Listen to the ideas of your staff...all staff. Listen to understand, not to respond (Covey said it better). I had a principal once that said she wanted every person that came with a problem to come with three possible solutions. Wow! I found that to be empowering because I knew she would value my solutions and ideas before I ever went to speak with her!
3. Let Go: Let go of the idea that you have all of the answers. Let go of the idea that it's "your" school. It takes a village...trust your tribe! We all want what is best for kids. Let teachers lead committees and/or lead meetings, and allow yourself to see things from a teacher's point of view every now and then.
Together we can move forward with a common goal, common vision, and all feel the empowerment we speak of so often.
**How crazy is it that this book just came out today, one day after I posted this blog post?
