Identify, Do What Works & Share It

By Paul Ruez, M.Ed. RuezArt@gmail.com

Under a different title this was originally written in 2016 as a Book Review for my Masters in Education training at Concordia University Irvine, California.

Whether you are pursuing your passion as a solo player or are fortunate to have genuine support from students, colleagues, administrators and parents, please continue to pay it forward by identifying what works, do it and share it. Document your progress because this is solid evidence of your creative and effective proficiency which can fuel the trajectory along your career pathway.

Introduction

The Tea Party movement and others are clamoring for change in public education. Daily, members of the National Education Association receive NEA Briefs which provide reprints of newspaper articles from states ranging from Wisconsin, to Ohio, to Idaho, Indiana, Florida and others. Lately these articles report the progress of this movement to remove teachers’ ability to collectively bargain for pay, working conditions, etc.

This movement works up the emotions of people who blame government programs for our nation’s massive debt and under-performing schools. They blame and condemn those who champion workers’ rights as monopolists, communists,

unconstitutional, etc. Its leaders tell us that their way is the only way, and that compromise and negotiation are not to be considered.

They believe that the government they control has the answers. So much so that Scott Walker, Wisconsin’s newly elected republican governor was recorded saying, “’I don’t budge,’ Walker promised… He explained that he would increase pressure on state workers by threatening thousands of them with layoffs. He said he considered planting instigators in the crowd to stir up trouble.” (Milbank, 2011)

Demands for change in public education are nothing new and where this current tsunami of emotion will take us, I do not know. What I do know is that those in public education are responding to federal and state and community mandates and requests to change education in their districts and local schools. Again, this is nothing new but the heat is being turned up and today more accountability is being demanded from public education which is under-staffed and underfunded.

Changes

We earthlings often need to feel pain before we choose to make changes - be they personal or institutional. Whether it be a Tea Party, teacher layoffs, the number of high school students not graduating or graduating without basic life

skills, the pressure is on and some changes are being made… for the better. Stephen R. Covey, #1 bestselling author or the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989), in his book

The Leader in Me (2008) shines the spotlight of attention on numerous successful schools in the United States and elsewhere.

Success

Covey’s book is really an action plan based on the PIA (Plan, Implement, Assess) model that is prescribed to Concordia University education students for use in curriculum development. In his opening shot he entices us with 11 pages of testimony from parents, teachers, students, principals, superintendents, and community leaders attesting to the successes being enjoyed at schools using an integrated mix of Covey’s 8 Habits (he added one more to his original 7) and the management principles of former Regan Secretary of Commerce Howard Malcolm Baldridge.

In 1999 Covey tells us he was approached by Muriel Summers who asked him if he thought his 7 Habits could be taught to a 5 year old. Responding positively, Covey told A. B. Combs Middle School Principal Muriel Summers that he thought so and asked her to let him know if she tried. Faced with losing her North Carolina magnet school due to low enrollment Muriel and her team surveyed parents to determine what they wanted. To meet their needs her team chose to comprehensively integrate Covey’s 7 Habits into their curriculum. This devoted team took the school from near collapse to be the nation’s number one magnet school. How they and other schools are accomplishing this is detailed in this book.

Conclusion

Covey’s purpose in the book is to entice and welcome other schools to follow suit and enjoy similar success. The salesman in me believes it is possible to sell a product that has been proven to meet the needs of a target market that admittedly recognizes their need.

marketer, understands this and now presents us with the opportunity to make history as another successful school to which parents will drive the extra mile to have their children attend.

It requires enough of a ground swell at a prospective school site to get the necessary buyin to implement this plan. I have copied the pages of testimony in the book and have given them to my site’s four administrators and the principal of one of our elementary schools. As I learn more I will share more with my site, the district office and the community. The Covey and Baldridge based The Leader in Me project’s website provides numerous links to examples and resources (https://www.leaderinme.org).

Milbank, D. (2011, May 1) MILBANK: A truly unreasonable man. North County Times. Retrieved from http://www.nctime.com

Covey, S. R. (1989) 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. New York, NY: Simon & Shuster, Inc. Fireside.

Covey, S. R. (2008) 7 The Leader in Me. New York, NY: Simon & Shuster, Inc. Free Press.

Author’s Postscript:

This is important enough to repeat. Whether you are pursuing your passion as a solo player or are fortunate to have genuine support from students, colleagues, administrators and parents, please continue to pay it forward by identifying what works, do it and share it. PLEASE let me know what works for you.