CEDO 565 Week 6

My definition of leadership wasn't really changed as a result of this class.  We talk a lot about leadership at our school as our school mission statement is to "prepare Christian LEADERS--one student at a time."

I'd never really thought about "teacher leadership" as a separate category before.  As I understand it, we are all called to be leaders in different areas of our life whether that's in our job, family, friendships, etc.  So my view of teacher leadership is similar to my leadership in my family, etc.  It's just with a different group of people.

My opinion of my leadership potential hasn't changed either.  But I will say that in the past 5 years or so I have matured quite a bit in my view of leadership and the responsibility that I have to be a leader in different situations.

I definitely agree with our textbook's assertion about "improving education from within."  The teachers have to be the ones to make change.  They have to see the value of the students entrusted to them, the effects that our current educational scheme has had on students, and how positive change can be made in that area.

CEDO 565 Week 5

This week we talked more about the Plan Do Check Act model.  While this model isn't exactly what we follow at my school, I still think there are some beneficial things to be learned from it.  Our school is so small that we probably spend the same amount of time and money to make a school wide change as other schools/districts spend just on the Plan and Do phases.  The model makes a lot of sense but it's just hard to scale down far enough to be useful for a school my size in every situation, especially for technology changes.

CEDO 565 Week 4

This week we finished up our change simulation.  It was an interesting experience.  I have a really hard time wrapping my head around how much red tape and "back and forth" is needed to make change in a public school district.  My school is pretty small so if we want to implement something the process is pretty simple.  If I want to try something in the area of technology, as long as I have money in my budget I can pretty much do it.  My administrators trust our teachers and we are in contact with our administrators and each other constantly.  So seeing all of the hoops that the simulation presents as necessary would just frustrate me.

Our homework this week asked us to look at important topics such as morale and climate in our schools.  I'm very blessed in both of these areas.  My school isn't perfect but we work together well and we support each other.