Back on Track

For those of you checking back from time to time to see progress, I apologize for the long absence. I have a tendency to want to come up with the perfect post and that inhibits my writing. A lot of exciting things have been happening at Guernsey-Sunrise schools these past few months. In the next few posts I will discuss what has been a great year and look forward to an outstanding future.

21st Century skills

(This article appears in the February 13 edition of the Guernsey Gazette)
For those of you familiar with Guernsey-Sunrise schools in the area of technology, you know that the district has done a great job of providing its students and staff with up-to-date technology. Today I would like to focus not on the hardware and software, but on the skills that our students will need to succeed as they enter the workforce today and in the decades to come.

According to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, schools of today are not preparing our students well for the world in which they will live. A survey of business leaders said much the same thing and a Department of Commerce and Labor report stated that jobs in this century will require new ways of thinking. Our students will live and work in a world that is flattening at a rapidly accelerating pace. In his book, “The World is Flat,” Thomas Friedman writes of the many “flattening” influences that have occurred to bring us the world of today; the World-Wide web, off-shoring of labor, uploading and open-source software, and the proliferation of personal digital and virtual devices.

Technology is rapidly changing the way we interact in the world. According to an article by Willard Daggett, it took almost 35 years for the telephone, 26 years for television and 16 years for personal computers to achieve a 25 percent penetration rate in American homes. PDAs took three years. According to Bill Gates, technology capacity is doubling every nine months. We are seeing technological advances happening so quickly and it is our students who will have the most need to adjust to these changes. If we are to provide our students with the ability to compete, not only in Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain region, but also in the worldwide marketplace, we must provide them with the skills to do so.

Not only will students have to master the basic core academic subjects, but additional 21st century skills as well. These include 21st century content including global awareness, financial and civic literacy, and health awareness; higher level learning and thinking skills, such as critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, innovation, and collaboration; and information and communications technology literacy, including the ability to use technology to learn and work.

At Guernsey-Sunrise schools, we are looking at ways to present and help students master the technological and other skills necessary to succeed in a global community. We must collaborate to create a common vision that includes these skills, assess where we, and then develop a plan to help students achieve these skills. We look forward to the challenge of creating an outstanding 21st century education for all students.

Using strengths to enhance learning

In a recent post on strengths, I was asked how discovering one’s strengths could help students learn better. That is a very good question and one that goes to the heart of what we’re trying to do at Guernsey-Sunrise schools. Our focus in this philosophy is to help all those we can discover their strengths and develop them to achieve excellence in what they do. Staff members that understand their own strengths will enhance their ability and skills to help students learn. By focusing on developing their strengths, teachers become even better at delivering instruction. An understanding of strengths also gives teachers another tool to get to know their students better and therefore, differentiate instruction. By differentiating instruction, teachers provide students with varying learning styles a way to better understand the material presented.

Eventually, many students will be surveyed in order to learn their strengths. This will help them not only have a better understanding of the things they do well, it will give them a positive approach to the differences among them. In addition, resources will be available to discover study tips and learning environments that best help each student learn.

Expanding on Strengths

The day after the Strengths in-service at Guernsey-Sunrise, a group of administrators gathered to learn more about using strengths to lead. Although the presentation was similar, I found that I gained a better understanding of strengths even though I have been involved and studying them for a few years. I find that I understand mine even better and I get new ideas on how to work with others to use their strengths to excel.

It is interesting to see the way people view different strengths. It always give me a fresh perspective to see the subtle differences in viewpoints that others have. I think we can learn a lot from listening to others and trying to see things through their eyes. When we are able to keep an open mind, I feel we learn a lot more. That certainly doesn't mean that we are continually changing our mind or values, but it does mean we are always willing to learn something new and let our ways of thinking evolve to a higher level.

Strengths

Today, I would like to write a bit about strengths and using them to excel at what we do.

On January 8, Guernsey-Sunrise teachers will participate in a staff development opportunity on using strengths to get better and helping students succeed by using strengths. All staff has taken the StrengthsFinder assessment from Gallup to determine their top five signature themes. Knowing these themes, each individual can then work to develop them into strengths.

I have found that by focusing on strengths and managing "non-talents," we become better at what we do. Even in areas of non-talent, I have found that focusing on a strength to work in the non-talent area helps me to perform better in that non-talent area. For example, a non-organized person (or a person without Discipline as a theme) might use one of their other strengths to become better organized. For instance, I've got competition as a theme. Persons with Competition as a theme tend to compare themselves to others and have a desire to win.
By putting themselves in a competition, whether real or imagined, to have the best organized system, those persons have managed a non-talent and gotten something done that might otherwise not have been done.

Everyone has strengths. If we look positively at each person as having those individual talents and strengths, and accept the fact that each person is unique, more and better work gets done. Parents and teachers can help their students excel in their strength areas and learn to help them manage their non-talents. As we continue to look for ways to increase the success of our students and staff, we will expand on the idea of working with strengths and include students in the discussion.