Cultivating A Super School

What is a Super School?

It is a school that invites the humans inside of it to show up for the world, contribute, and own who they are. It is a place where teachers, students, and leaders are inspired by a passion for learning and wellness. It is a school that teaches kids and adults that when you look into the mirror, you see your hero. It is a school where we grow the power of community through consistency, choice, modelling, and ownership. Within this community, there is an intention to use the learning that happens to develop habits that help each individual find their own space in the world that brings them real joy and fulfillment.

How do we do that?

We support the leaders on ways to find passion in their own lives and help them coach the teachers to ignite their own fire back into their teaching. The support might look like modelling our own adult learning, conversations, and focusing on strategies beyond the curriculum, such as wellness and healthy habits. Each conversation looks different and is curated to redefine why we became teachers and to own who we are and where we want to go next. We need to generate energy in order to bring joy and fulfillment back into our schools. Through this exploration, we co-create a roadmap and start with the first step. Once the first step has been taken, the focus turns to growing that mindset in order to be consistent, committed, and resilient. The goal is to have the leader plant the seed with the teacher in order to help them navigate clarity towards their own roadmap. As Olivia Butler stated, “Our lives should be about planting seeds for trees that we will never sit under.” We, as leaders, are planting the seeds with the teachers, who in turn, will ignite growth and ownership of learning to the students, who then will change the world. If we want something better than we have today, then we have to do something different now.

I recently attended a Rise Conference with quite a few different speakers and it was so inspiring and motivating to hear how they show up in the world. Their ideas spoke deeply to my notion of leaders cultivating a Super School. I have interwoven a lot of what I had learned with the work that we have been doing within our own Super School.

Developing the roadmap and curating a plan to own our learning that will spill into our lives, requires strategic planning and hard work. Leaders working with teachers closely might fail at first. It will fail before it will fly. Plan for that. However, the only true failure will come if you quit. Think of it like a plant, it is either growing or dying. It is never comfortable or stagnant. We, humans, are the same way. If we force ourselves to let go of the negative energy, what would that free up space for? If we can convince our community to let go of the negative mindset, then that leaves so much more time for taking action and steps toward change. People will see this and more and more will follow. Change the conversation. We were made to take our place in the world just the way we are and our behaviour should match that.

To begin to create each individual road map, the leader and teacher would brainstorm and dream big. They would write all of their dreams down and then choose one as the end goal. Next, they would determine three mile markers that would help them to get to their goal. Once we have developed our road map with the end goal in mind and our three mile markers to get there. We plan what we are going to do to get to the first marker. We spend time together working towards it. After this time spent together, you may have reached the first mile marker or are still on the way, however, the teacher can then be trusted to work through it with less support from the leader because it is their roadmap and they chose it. Therefore it matters to them. If the teacher gets stuck on something that isn’t working, they repeat the brainstorming process and then decide the next right step from there. The leader would do check ins with the intention of support. There are many ways to check in. This can be done through meetings and providing time for teachers to work through their roadmaps and where they are at with their journey. An example of this is to provide 3-5 minutes to walk and talk with someone on your staff sharing your journey. Then the other staff member will share their journey for 3-5 minutes. After, they can switch to another partner. This helps them to call their shot to not only you, as the leader, but their entire community. Community is power and that is what makes a Super School. They may even call their shot to their students which in turn models and inspires them on how to set goals and accomplish them. The goal of sharing our own roadmaps is to develop an AC mindset over a BC mindset. The AC mindset requires us to accept and change rather than a BC mindset which is blame and complain. This idea came to me from the Rise conference, led by Rachel Hollis. It made a lot of sense to me as I worked through ways to cultivate a Super School. After all, as leaders, we deserve exactly what we settle for. So what are you willing to settle for?

The expectations of a Super School is to live it, build it, and breathe it. The community makes a choice, stays committed, and stays consistent. As a leader, find things that energize rather than drain your community. Things like:

• focusing on adult learning rather than ‘to do’ lists in meetings in order to impact student learning
• developing healthy habits within a work community so that it fills their own joy in order to re-ignite the passion for teaching,
• exploring ways to infuse wellness and healthy habits into student’s lives to encourage them to be difference makers in the world.
• empower teachers and students through learning about and providing space for leadership
• spend time together in community
• dance, eat, and play music
• empower your students and teachers to contribute their own values to the community (ex. start up a podcast with students, students set up pop up craft stations, food carts, thank you cards, etc., recess clubs led by students, quotes around the building, teachers lead sessions that they are passionate about, and so much more)
• Stick with things rather than doing a new thing every time. This will help to smother overwhelm.
• Work alongside them and make space for conversations and connections
• Encourage your community to find five people to associate with. One friend is a cheerleader, one a mentor, one a coach, one a friend, and one a peer who understands what is going on in the trenches.

These are just a few of the things that you might want to consider as a leader. Choose one and spend time with it and when it becomes a habit, choose another. Think of what you need to change in your school to let go of so that you have more energy for tomorrow.

There will be things that get in your way. Mainly our own voices in the back of our heads telling us that this isn’t working. But there is also that feeling in your gut that keeps nagging you to continue. Trust that whisper. It is there for a reason. Worrying about what other people think and comparisons between you or the people in your community will also flare up at times. Try not to give those flames oxygen by worrying, let them go, and continue. People changing and growing will always remind others that they are stuck. Keep growing. Another thing that will frustrate you is the fact that everything takes time. All change and growth does, so just accept that now. Don’t play small. Fear will try to hijack your work. Don’t let that happen.

The main point is that in order to develop and grow we need to generate power and energy. We don’t just have energy naturally, therefore, we, as leaders, must work hard to generate it again and again. We must make sure that we generate it in ourselves through developing healthy habits and feeding our minds with information and goals. Next, we use that energy to help and support our community in the same way. The biggest power we can generate is through our community so this work is worth it, however, it may look to you. Lead yourself and others consistently and expect to work hard. That it will take time. When there is resistance, embrace it and ask better questions in order to move past it. Understand that there will be seasons and that they all will pass into a new one, over and over again. You are defined by what you do next and it is this soul work that makes a Super School.

Do the work you believe in, model what you believe, go harder, tell stories, get out of the habit loop, change your mind, and your behaviour will follow. As Rachel Hollis said, “Consistency is everything. Hope in the future depends on how much hope you have today.” She asks us, as leaders, to stand on top of our past experiences and not get buried beneath them. Instead, find a place where you stand and feel powerful. As William G.T. Shedd quotes, “A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships were made for.” Your choice on how you show up for yourself and your community is everything and it needs to happen every single day. The world is waiting for our kids to make a difference and it all starts with the people who lead them.