DENSI2016 – Whole-Hearted

What does the learning in this session mean to your practice? How will you apply what you’ve learned? What questions remain? Do you have examples of ways you’ve applied these concepts to your school site?

Is Your Leadership Attitude Worth Catching? (Derek McCoy)
Are you on fire for leading change in your school? Do you inspire your staff and students to press the reset button everyday and give their all with renewed effort? Do people see you as the main cheerleader and visionary of your school? They should. During this opening talk, we will strategize and share how to keep a focus on the main thing and be the leaders our schools need. Presentation Slides: http://buff.ly/29WNdcY

I attended the opening session of the Discovery Principal Summit 2016 (DENSI2016) last night. This is my second year at the conference and am already taken up by the positive spirit of the people here. Principals from all over Canada and the United States.

Our for session was by Derek McCoy @mccoyderek and I tried to capture some of the moments of his talk in my twitter feed (below). We also get a question to ponder after each session, which is a great way to reflect on our learning.

Derek said lots of positive things last night, but the main message for me was Attitude. This is what we need to convey as administrators – and it has to be one that is full of joy. We are very privileged to have the jobs that we do. We really need to remember this every day and make sure that we never (if possible) get caught up in the day to day administrivia of the job and keep in mind that our job is to bring joy to our school community.

This can mean many things. For me, it means constantly trying to think outside of the box. It means looking for the next great idea that will make the educational experience for our students that much better.

What a blessing to be in this position! To be able to affect the lives of children and the community every day – as long as we remember that our attitude – being the positive influencer in your educational community is your number one job.

Everything flows from this.

One quote that Derek used last night is the most important for me – “If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.”

Too often as administrators, I think we go for what is safe or what is politically correct. This stifles creativity and certainly takes all the joy out of education.

I want to follow what Derek calls a bias for ‘Yes’. This could change our educational system, currently tied up in so many accountability knots into something wonderful. If we had a bias towards Yes, how would that spread to your school. If this spirit spread, what would happen to our school? What might even happen to our district?

My main takeaway from last night is to keep focused on the joy of our work and living every day by saying yes first. Maybe we will get some of the absurd ideas that really make a difference