Show Notes, Episode 63: Productive Disruption with Dr. Mary Hemphill

About this show: 

Ship is sinking (may 26, 2022, Ep 28)The teacher shortage is not going awayThe academic setbacks from COVID will ripple through our schools for ten yearsContinued trauma has exacerbated already challenging mental health issues among our students, their families, and even our teachers.Politics – enough said.
The only thing that’s constant is change. Organizations have this strange property in which they are always changing and yet always resisting change. The past two school years have created stress, loss, and incredible turmoil. They have also created an opportunity. Let’s be real:
The new normal is abnormal and our old systems aren’t working anymore. Instead of mourning and lamenting, what if we embraced this moment? What if we continued the work of dismantling and then rebuilding what school looks like? The last big wave of educational reform was the standards movement of the 1980’s. Like so many reforms, the promises have not been kept. So, what’s possible? What’s next? What can we do?

Notable Quotes

Guest

Instead of lamenting and mourning what we've lost, I'm wondering, can we embrace this moment?

over 54 % of today's professionals over the past two years have heightened anxiety, heightened burnout, heightened isolation and heightened loneliness

we're incubating great human beings and bringing resources that we've never thought about before into the school building. It's assessing our mental health resources. It's asking questions about support instead of asking teachers. Hey, are you OK? Saying, have you taken time to rest and recenter today

Are you scheduling yourself? And they're like, what do you mean by that? I said, well, you put your board meetings on there, you put your back to school meetings, your open houses. You put all of those things on there. Are you scheduling you?

So when you explore your inner territory as a leader, yes, you're going to uncover things. No, it's not always going to be in a nice, pretty package, but maybe what you uncover, whether it's in your research, whether it's in your reflection. Whether you simply do a staycation and, you know, tell your family, hey, listen, I have to invest in myself. But if you don't invest in yourself in the beginning, you can't reap the reward later.

 I talk a lot about nomenclature and the way that we call out certain things. So for instance, self-care has absolutely, positively become a buzzword.

Self-awareness is literally asking the questions to say, OK, what kind of leader do I want to be in my personal and professional life? And then taking time to answer that question.

I'm a human being and not a human doing.

You are the leader. You're not the assistant follower. You're the assistant principal.

 I always tell leaders that 60 % of what we do moving forward should be people centered, 40 % business center. And I think that that percentage is going to allow us to bring our students, bring our teachers, bring our community with us rather than leave them at the precipice of what's happening in education imagine.

 We're big people, inspiring little people to be able to do life well. Life looks different, so we have to employ different resources and different strategies.
We need to come together more in the school community than we are polarizing one another.

When we talk about disruption, we have to remember that this is not going to look the way that it used to.

Have the courage to take time to spend with yourself. Put yourself on your calendar.

This is not about twenty-first century leadership. This is about the impact that your leadership in the twenty first century is going to make in the twenty second century.

Frederick

People are realizing that the old ways are absolutely not going to fit into the boxes. Let's just take the box out for recycling. The box is gone

I'm still hearing about driving new curricula and introducing new, new teaching things. And just bringing all this stuff onto teachers who are just trying to survive. And I think we do need to really move from what we think our teachers need to, building those relationships, focusing on those relationships and through that understanding, having our teachers tell us what they need.

There's a really consistent theme, and that theme is that change begins within ourselves. 

we have to shift from being task focused to people focused

 Coming into this school and me seeing who you are before I see what you are. And again going back to that task focus when we're task focused. And when we're prioritizing time, we're focused on what you are. Because understanding who you are. That that takes a different, you know, I've got to be present for that. I can't be worried about those other things. My priority has to be you.

the common thread that works through all those leaders that we've talked to that have inspired us. Is an they know who they are. And they're authentic about who they are.

Having the courage to take care of yourself. I think it's harder than having the courage to take care of other people.

Links:

My email: [email protected] 

The Assistant Principal Podcast website: https://www.frederickbuskey.com/appodcast.html 

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Website: www.frederickbuskey.com

Blog: www.frederickbuskey.com/blog (reposts of the daily email)