Leadership School

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Our Children Get Education, Not Education

At educational conferences on school improvement, meetings and workshops everywhere, educators condemned the debilitating effects of the current obsession with testing. Education should be about bringing out the best in children – helping them develop their mind, body, and soul. Education comes from the Latin word educare, which means “bring”, which is related to educere, which means “bring out,” “bring up what is inside,” and “bring up potential,” and ducere, which means “to lead.” The test comes from the Latin word testum, which refers to the lid of a clay vessel, clay vessel or earthen pot. So, I conclude that the current state of education is more accurate “testucation”, a process in which “testucators” try to provide information or “testucate” their “testuees” to store information in pots with a lid.

Research shows that 85% of the information spent by their testucator on the testuee to prepare for the test is forgotten shortly after the test, and therefore is not useful for the testuee and, thus, for the community. It is not surprising that educators, everywhere the test is everywhere, are frustrated, exhausted and quit their jobs. Not only are they unable to realize their dreams of educating students, but they are also reduced to playing the role of robots providing useless information to children who are bored out of their minds.

It doesn’t have to be like this. If the teacher works collaboratively to educate students through inquiry-based transdisciplinary teaching and projects, students will excel in examinations and, more importantly, as students. By creating connections across disciplines, the teacher provides a context that allows students to understand and remember what they are learning because it fits in and expands what they know. Children like that kind of learning. They are natural inventors.

In addition, when teachers collaborate with each other, … Continue reading >>>

by Warren Cobb — January 27, 2020 in Educators

Executive Training: Increase Student Achievement and Avoid High Leadership Turnover with Head Training

Executive coaching for school leaders increases student achievement and learning by helping school leaders become more successful, implementing change in their schools and lasting long enough to ensure that constructive change actually occurs. Without forward movement, the school will retreat. Given the state of many schools, withdrawing is a disaster. In any school, no matter how good it is, change is very important for learning, which is a matter of school home.

School CEOs – principals, directors, executive directors – have complex jobs and many demands.

In the end, they are responsible for all aspects of school operations. From student achievement and curriculum to finance and facilities, the principal is responsible. That’s where the responsibility stops, regardless of school resources or practicality of purpose.

It’s no surprise that the average tenure of a private school head is 4.5 years. Public school principal tenure is about the same – 5 years for elementary school principals, 4.5 years for middle school principals and 3.5 years for high school principals.

One doesn’t need to be an organizational rocket scientist to know that :

A leader’s first year on the job is mostly about learning the culture and operations, building relationships, and determining what and how to change.
In the second year, school leaders might have ideas to make some changes. In the best-case scenario, the faculty joins to make changes at the end of the second year.
In the third year, change begins to take place.
In year four, if the change is going well – which is rare – real progress begins.

The data show that most school leaders are on their way out the door when real change is just beginning.

This cycle is repeated thousands and thousands of times at the expense of students and learning.

It doesn’t need to … Continue reading >>>

by Warren Cobb — January 16, 2020 in Adult Education