This inspiring email from Bob Brennan, Assistant Principle of King’s Fork Middle School in Suffolk, Virginia, stands as further evidence that the principles of Extreme Leadership are alive and well in our country’s (and the world’s) best teachers and education administrators. Leaders like Bob will–soon, I hope–change the world of our children’s classrooms for the better:
“Greater Than Yourself is a concept that I’ve practiced for years. I’m hopeful that my fellow administrators are as excited as I am about the possibilities [of GTY]. We spend so much time trying to devise methods to improve our students’ test scores — I can’t help but think that truly investing in the success of our teachers will help them view their students as bundles of positive potential and not just conduits of testing data; if our children are encouraged to be greater, then morale, self-image, behavior, and test scores should improve! The thing I miss most about my time as a classroom teacher is the personal, positive impact I could make with my kids. After reading your book, I’m seeing now that I can still have a far-reaching impact on lives — I’ll just do it through the people that I invest in one at a time. I haven’t settled on my GTY project yet, but I have two 6th grade teachers I’m praying about. Thanks for writing and inspiring and reminding me what is so very good about teaching.”
And thank you, Bob, for being what is so very good about teaching.
I am also an educator and find it refreshing to see other people in education that realize we need to do more than just raise the bar on test scores. There is so much that tests don’t tell us about a child’s potential and it can be hard to find the time to help light that “fire in the belly” in a child, but I love watching those series of moments (not just in children) when it seems that you can actually start to see the person you are interacting with begin to believe that their life can be more full than what they initially thought. Thanks for your posts.
I am also an educator and find it refreshing to see other people in education that realize we need to do more than just raise the bar on test scores. There is so much that tests don’t tell us about a child’s potential and it can be hard to find the time to help light that “fire in the belly” in a child, but I love watching those series of moments (not just in children) when it seems that you can actually start to see the person you are interacting with begin to believe that their life can be more full than what they initially thought. Thanks for your posts.