Every week at the end of Flag, I close with these words: “Have a great week, and be your best!”
I was inspired in part to start doing this several years ago after learning that long-time Head of School Robin Clements (1976–97) offered a similar injunction during his tenure. Indeed, if you talk with alumni from his era one of the first things they will often mention is his trademark “do your best,” a phrase that inspired them to achieve their dreams and reach beyond themselves not only as children but long after they moved on from Hillbrook’s campus.
Following up last year’s successful school-year theme “be curious,” this year our theme is “be your best.” Once again, as a community we will explore and examine the meaning behind one of the school’s four core values.
As I write this, faculty and staff are hard at work putting everything in order for the first day of school next Wednesday. Bulletin boards are being decorated, desks are being arranged, iPads are being charged, and the entire campus is being fine-tuned to ensure that we will be at our best when your children set foot on campus next week.
Preparation goes well beyond just what is visible, of course. The faculty just completed an intensive week of professional development where we have focused on creating conditions to ensure we are all able to perform at the highest possible level in the year ahead. As a school, we have increasingly established ourselves as a leader in elementary education, placing ourselves at the leading edge of programmatic improvements in key areas, including math, English/Language arts, science, technology, digital citizenship, and social emotional learning. In addition, our Resident Teacher Program, which enters its second year with a new cohort of residents joining last year’s talented residents, has enabled us to build a co-teaching model that strengthens our ability to help each child reach their highest individual potential and challenges both lead and resident teachers to reflect and learn from each other each day in the classroom.
As part of the school-wide focus on “be your best,” our faculty, staff and administration is looking to really deepen and extend the work we have launched these past few years. The unifying theme of this past week was collaboration, as we strive to create an adult learning community that models the spirit of risk-taking, inquiry, problem solving, and cooperation we expect of our students in the classroom. We revisited our communication norms (assume goodwill, come from your own experience, practice a growth mindset, suspend judgement, avoid avoidance, don’t triangulate), and talked extensively about the structures, the support, and the mindsets we need in order to work together in sustained and meaningful ways. A highlight of the week for me included a session with Improv Wisdom author Patricia Ryan Madson who challenged us to remember that “everything is an offer” and to use “yes, and” instead of “yes, but” in our daily speech (see “Everything is an Offer” from February 2013 for more details about Patricia and her powerful work).
Looking at the year ahead, we have intentionally developed new structures that we believe will support our faculty’s continuing efforts to be their best. Three of our experienced teachers—4th grade teacher Kate Hammond, middle school math teacher Shushan Sadjadi, and librarian Kelly Scholten—will be serving as part-time instructional coaches in the coming year. Kate will be the Lower School literacy coach, while Shushan and Kelly will serve as the Middle School and Lower School technology coach respectively. These new roles grew out of our recent English/Language Arts and Technology audits, which helped us recognize that the most effective professional development is ongoing, focused on the classroom, and occurs during the teacher’s workday. One successful model for this is to have teachers work collaboratively with a coach in a classroom, allowing them to reflect and grow in real time—not disconnected from authentic interactions with students. Much like a coach for a professional athlete looking to perfect their game, instructional coaches at Hillbrook will guide and support our teachers, offering an opportunity for continual reflection and growth.
Another piece of this intentional support structure is prioritizing scheduled collaborative time for our faculty, both during the school day and as part of an increased number of Wednesday early dismissals. Over the last few years, we have found that early dismissals provide invaluable time for faculty learning and collaboration—visits by outside experts who can provide extended professional development trainings, curricular planning at both the grade and departmental level, and focused time for shared reviews of student work and conversations about how to best support each student. Schools are busy places. Prioritized and scheduled collaboration time is something that often gets pushed to the side. We recognize, however, and educational research affirms that our ability to support each student in reaching their highest individual potential is dependant on the faculty’s ability to reflect regularly and with colleagues about best practices in teaching and student performance.
As part of being our best, I have also asked two senior administrators to take on expanded roles, allowing them to focus on critical areas in the school’s operations. Tesha Poe will be the Associate Head of School for Institutional Advancement. In this new role, Tesha will have primary oversight of a broad range of key operational areas, including enrollment, advancement, marketing, tuition assistance, community involvement and support, inclusivity and diversity, the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) conference and speaker series, and summer and after-school programs. Among the driving forces behind the creation of her role are our efforts to strengthen our work with various constituent groups, including parents and alumni, recommendations from the 2012–13 Inclusivity Audit, and the launch of the CTE.
Don Orth will be the Director of Technology & Strategic Partnerships. In his new role, Don will build upon the excellent work he has already done these past few years to develop partnerships with other educational leaders, including CommonSense Media, Bretford Furniture, Co., and Apple. These partnerships have been at the core of innovative initiatives that have directly impacted the classroom experience, including the 1-to-1 iPad program, the iLab, and the creation of a new digital citizenship curriculum. Don’s organization this past summer of our CTE iPad Schools 2.0 conference—an event that brought more than 70 educators together to think about how to integrate iPads in meaningful ways into school—is a prime example of how his work helps to place Hillbrook at the leading edge of best practices in elementary education.
All of these innovations and initiatives are focused on one thing—meeting our vision as a school: “to inspire students to achieve their dreams and reach beyond themselves to make a difference in the world.” In a time of rapid change and increasing complexity, it is critical that all members of a community—adults and students—embrace their role as lifelong learners. As Eric Hoffer beautifully wrote 40 years ago, “In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”
In only a few days, we—Hillbrook’s faculty, staff and administration—will come together to welcome your children into a new school year. One of my favorite moments of the year is when I look out at the sea of smiling children’s faces right before I greet people at the opening of that first Flag. I find myself pausing to reflect upon all of the work that has made this moment possible, and holding on for just a brief second to the enormous sense of anticipation and potential that exists for all of us. And, just 15 or 20 minutes later, after we have said the Pledge of Allegiance, “cha, cha, cha’d” our way through Happy Birthday, heard a few announcements, and laughed along with the year’s first joke tellers, I will smile at everyone and say, yet again, “Have a great week, and be your best.”
It is going to be a great year. Maybe even the best one yet.