Relinquishing control

After reading an article by a fourth-grade teacher on discipline, I began to reflect a bit on not only the practice from a teacher perspective, but from an administrative and leadership view as well. In the article, the teacher realizes her practice of rewards and punishment are not having the effect she desired. (It also helps that she happened to read a book by Alfie Kohn, who writes quite a bit on the subject.) Her change to a more democratic classroom that deals with discipline in a more subtle and one-on-one method has her fearful that chaos will ensue. This was not the result, as seen in her quote "A lot of the time, I just listened to these amazing students come up with solutions to problems, listened to them explain how they envisioned our classroom, how they wanted fourth grade to be."

As I think about leadership and creating an atmosphere of excellence, I realize that leaders must set the same kind of expectations and have one-on-one conversations with people in order to get results. The fourth-grade teacher used "listened" several times and I think that is the key for leaders. By listening to and then clarifying and asking questions about how current practice meets the level of expectation set, leaders can create an environment that leads to greater success. This is true whether in the classroom, the school, a district, state, or nation.