Source: www.fiec.org.uk

Developing a school culture where teachers know about each other’s passion, and the teachers know about the students’ passion is very critical. How do you accomplish this? In my opinion it begins with the school leader.

First and foremost, the school leader needs to know what each staff member is passionate about. Social media is a big help with this. For instance, becoming friends on Facebook allows you to see the posts, pictures, and videos of each other. As you see each other’s posts, then you can begin to see what each other is passionate about. In addition to social media, school leaders should spend time listening to staff. When you visit classrooms, or have informal conversations with your staff you need to be listening and asking questions.

Recently, I wanted to ensure that the staff knew about each other’s passion. I developed a team building exercise that was very simple, yet effective. Try it with your staff, and see what great things happen:

• Assemble the staff into groups (I used grade levels)
• Provide post-it notes and a large piece of paper for reporting out
• Have everyone (individually) write down as many things as they are passionate about
• Have everyone share out and make connections with each other
• Since this activity was at the beginning of the year, I then asked them to develop a grade level approach to how they would learn about their student’s passion
• Report out to the whole group

This activity went really well. Tomorrow I will blog more about the outcomes….