I work in a small rural school. There are roughly two hundred students and twenty-five staff members (including faculty, staff, aides and specialists). Often I see schools and teachers that focus on their class only and although I see he power of controlling what is inside your control (as I have blogged about before.). Imagine the power (using my school's numbers as an example) if twenty-five teachers were working towards the same goals with two hundred students...
I believe we can achieve far more as a staff than we can as individual teachers. It seems easy, but viewing all students as our kids has great implications. It may be easier to only focus on the students in our classroom, but we raise the opportunity for success when we all work together. I believe we need to shift back to focusing on"soft skills." Life skills are a necessity for success in life. I also believe we could enforce these life skills more effectively if they were focused on by the whole school.
The focus on our kids was something I learned from my amazing principal in Alaska. That school was even smaller and more rural than the school I currently work in. As a staff we focused on behaviors that we expected to see from all of our students and we worked as a staff to ensure our student exhibited these behaviors. It was beneficial for the students and the staff members did not feel like a Lone Ranger.
Are kids at your school your kids or our kids? There is power in numbers and at the end of the day, a student can never have too many supporters.
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