Learning Activity 4.2
Finding a Balance
Egocentric, narcissistic leader who devalue and diminish others will not experience lasting
success in leadership. Atha (2018) writes, “leaders who act as if followers are their personal minions to order around regardless of the respect level earned or ethical considerations for treating people fairly, cause great harm to understanding true accountable leadership for the betterment of the organization and the people they lead.” (para 6) Leaders need to hold themselves accountable in their positions too. If leaders expect their team to be held accountable, they must lead by example and be held accountable too. ‘Increased accountability also seems to enhance team performance. Team members who are held accountable rely on each other more, experience more success, and express more satisfaction with the members of their teams than those who are not held accountable” (lepsinger, 2010, p. 61).
In relation to education, I believe that there needs to be a healthy balance between autonomy and authority. In the classroom students need to learn the balance between autonomy, authority and accountability. This will create critical thinking citizens that can more effectively make good decisions later in life.
Inductive vs. Deductive
In my own experience, I can think of some examples of inductive thinking in my workplace. These include:
- A time when I observed a problem within my classroom that was very similar to a problem in a previous year, under a previous principal. I approached the current principal and discussed the problem. Instead of asking for her to come with a solution, I suggested the solution that had worked well in the past. (Observation led to a conclusion)
- One year, I had a student with extremely violent tendencies in my class. I noticed that his behaviours would escalate prior to going outside for recess. When I would notice the behaviours escalating, I would ask him to help me with jobs in the classroom instead of sending him outside. This was very helpful for him in learning to recognize when his behaviours were unacceptable and he needed some ‘cool-down’ time before carrying on with his day.
- In creating my class schedule in my first year of teaching, I had many of my language arts or math time scheduled at the end of the day. I found it very difficult to keep the students engaged during this time. Although we had several interruptions in the morning blocks, such as assemblies, physical education and library blocks, I decided to move the language arts and Math times to the morning. Even though our time was sometimes cut short due to interruptions, I found that the students were more productive in the work times in the mornings.
Examples of deductive reasoning in my workplace include:
- A current example is the belief that the word ‘bullying’ is seen far too often in our school and the students don’t actually know what it means. Each year, we conduct a survey in which there are questions about bullying. Every year, we are shocked to see the numbers of students who respond that they are experiencing bullying. A teacher suggested that he believes that the students are hearing the word far too often and because of this, they tend to think all situations of conflict are bullying, which is not true. He suggested that we cover the walls with words like ‘kindness, loving, caring, sharing, etc..’ This is a work in progress and the results (if any) will be seen on the survey that comes out later in the year.
- At a professional development session on math, the presenter discussed the necessity for hands-on manipulatives in math. She demonstrated how to use them and how to teach kids how to use them. Upon returning to school, my grade 4 team and I planned our next math unit based on our learnings about the manipulatives.
References
Atha, D. (2018). Learning activity unit 3. Course Learning Notes. Retrieved from https://create.twu.ca/ldrs501/unit-4-learning-activities/
Lepsinger, R. (2010). Closing the execution gap. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.