Over the weekend I was reading an article about Google and their Project Aristotle, a study conducted to assess the skills necessary to reach success at Google based on significant data regarding hiring, firing and promotions in the company. “Project Aristotle shows that the best teams at Google exhibit a range of soft skills: equality, generosity, curiosity toward the ideas of your teammates, empathy, and emotional intelligence. And topping the list: emotional safety. No bullying. To succeed, each and every team member must feel confident speaking up and making mistakes. They must know they are being heard.” The question to ponder is how do we help to foster this environment for our students and faculty so that everyone feels the emotional safety to take risks, step out of comfort zones, and feel heard? How do we ensure that every student feels safe to explore, create and innovate at HHS?
Better By Design
Advocacy and fostering student voice is such a critical part of the school and the students felt heard and supported by the faculty and their peers. Attached to this email is an article titled “Better By Design. Students blend empathy and experimentation to impact environment through design thinking.” The article is a fairly quick read discussing design thinking and its connection to student voice. The article is also a nice fit with the redesign we are engaged in for Vision of a Graduate.
Growth Culture
A colleague sent me an interesting article about the difference between a performance culture and a growth culture and I thought I would share it with you. “A performance culture asks, “How much energy can we mobilize?” and the answer is only a finite amount. A growth culture asks, “How much energy can we liberate?” and the answer is infinite.” Every day we are contributing to the culture of the school and individual classrooms and it takes hard work and a willingness to be vulnerable in the face of new challenges that propel us forward.
What is the Narrative of Your Classroom?
As educators begin week two and continue to craft the narrative of the classroom I wanted to include a short video from a 4th grade teacher who is introducing himself to the parents/guardians and students. While the expectation is definitely not to create a video, although anyone is welcome to do so, it is important to start thinking about how educators will tell the story of their classrooms. What messages do educators want to share about the priorities and learning experiences students can expect and how do educators plan to break down the walls so that parents/guardians have a better sense of what their students are experiencing in and out of the classroom?
Principal Bottomley's Blog 