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There is a sea-change happening in the realm of educational leadership. I feel that Cohort 21 is a big part of that change. Sarah McKibbon’s article in ASCD’s publications is entitled “Following Lincoln’s Lead<\/a>“, and it resonates with many of the actions that I, and others, are taking in their schools towards a more open form of leadership. In her article, Sarah McKibbon writes that “After eating breakfast, catching up on news, and signing documents, Lincoln would throw open the doors to his home at around 10:00 each morning. Senators, farmers, fans, and foes all shuffled in for a word with the president.” It is a given that running the country, particularly during Lincoln’s presidency, was a complex and all encompassing affair; unfortunately, it can be this way for educational leaders as well. However, Lincoln made the time and used his team around him effectively, and today’s leaders must do the same. Schools are an integral part of human interaction and humanity: teaching values, behaviours and character that should be reinforced.<\/p>\n To understand what values, behaviours and character that I believe in, I reference the article “Character as the aim of Education<\/a>” as my foundation – it has been given to my entire staff by our principal a few years ago, and I am using it as the foundation of our advisory program. This article lays out what many educators believe: that education is more than just surpassing your classmates, but more about surpassing yourself. The article lays out 4 elements of character: Civic, Moral, Performance and Intellectual character, and challenges educators, and leaders to set up experiences to build these 4 elements of character.<\/p>\n Lincoln sought our public opinion, much to the dismay of his Secretary of State Seward. “Through this vigorous pursuit of public opinion, Lincoln practiced active leadership accessibility. As leadership expert\u00a0Colleen Kettenhofen<\/a>\u00a0explains, active accessibility occurs when leaders go out of their way to seek out and engage employees in meaningful conversations about their challenges, needs, and perspectives.” I believe that we, as leaders, must be active in engaging those that we work with (teachers, students, staff, parents and community stakeholders). One of the ways to do this is to leverage social media. In his blog, Connected Principals<\/a>, George Couros cites the merits of how Connected Principalships positively impact teacher capacity and student learning. His blog HERE<\/a>\u00a0outlines why educational leaders can\/should be connected. Among the key points are:<\/p>\n Why is being involved in social media worth the time for administrators?<\/strong><\/p>\n So where does Cohort 21 fit into this? I believe that my work, and the work of everyone in the Cohort last year and this coming year, serves as an answer to George’s question. We are putting ourselves out there, shoulder-to-shoulder with our students, we are connecting, and we are showing what we know. These are the key ingredients to establishing informal leadership – we are becoming hubs within our own schools, and in the wider CIS Ontario community. And as a result, we are helping build capacity behind the changes that are happening in education – this sea change for transparency, distributed leadership, and improvements in student learning. George Couros goes on to answer this question:<\/p>\n How will administrators being connected improve opportunities\/learning for students?<\/strong><\/p>\n In making our selves more connected, and intellectually vulnerable, we can also empathize with our students, of whom we are asking to do the same things. In McKibbon’s article she writes that “As \u201cLincoln used observation and dialogue to stay in touch with reality,\u201d principals can gain valuable insight by becoming more active participants in learning.” So, get tweeting, get blogging and get LinkedIn to build networks of learning and practice, and become a student of life-long learning.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is a sea-change happening in the realm of educational leadership. I feel that Cohort 21 is a big part of that change. Sarah McKibbon’s article in ASCD’s publications is entitled “Following Lincoln’s Lead“, and it resonates with many of the actions that I, and others, are taking in their schools towards a more open…\n
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