Discipline that Restores – Thought on HC 1 Leader´s Post 7.1

HC 1 Leader Post 7.1

Thank you, Jessica, for giving me a view of your workplace. I believe this is the first time I am responding to one of your posts.

You mentioned that one way you establish common ground at your workplace is to have good communication, holding people accountable, and making sure everyone is maximizing their strength. Lepsinger (2010) also suggests creating collective objectives to establish common ground (p. 179). Making sure that people are working for the same goals creates clarity. You also mentioned how the MVV is clearly stated and placed in areas where everyone can see them. I think that is still an area we can grow at our school. Although we often speak about our mission, our vision, and our values, we do not have them displayed in too many areas of the school. One way we establish a common ground at our school is offering every month training. These are times where we sit together of our or more and learn together about a particular topic or relevant issue that concerns us all. By learning together, we create a common ground.

You also addressed how conflicts are resolved in your organization and suggested how your institution would benefit from educating staff member more on conflict resolution. What we have done in the past few years is working with a particular material that I would also recommend to you. About three years ago we started to use the restorative discipline material from Claassen and Claassen (2008). Although they initially wrote it for a school environment, I believe it applies to any setting. They use very clear steps to follow. Conflict is not a problem but an opportunity for growth. Usually, when there is conflict, people are getting hurt, the goal is to restore those relationships. The starting point for Claassen and Claassen’s (2008) material is what they call the respect agreement. Not much different than what Lepsinger (2010) says about having a common objective. What we do at the beginning of every year, is write out a respect agreement between people in all areas or departments at our school. I do it with my leadership team, my teacher coordinators do it with their teachers, and the teachers do it with their students. We make ourselves accountable to each other before we start working each year. When anyone breaks that agreement, we remind ourselves about the respect agreement. If that does not work, we set up a meeting, etc. As a conflict does not get resolved and escalates there are particular steps to take. What we seek is to restore the relationship between people.

Blessings,

Reference

Claassen, R., & Claassen, R. (2008). Discipline that restores: Strategies to create respect, cooperation, and responsibility in the classroom. Ron and Roxanne Claassen.

Lepsinger, R. (2010). Closing the execution gap: How great leaders and their companies get results. John Wiley & Sons.

Strategic Planning – Evaluating our Festival de la Familia

Although we have had a very successful Festival de la Familia this year, we decided to do a thorough review because were detecting complaints from parents. We discovered that the festival gives parents from the lower grades a different experience than parents from middle school and high school. Our Festival de la Familia is a whole day festival primarily carried out by parents and students with the support from teachers. Each class has a stand where they sell food and organize games for children. The food and the game prices are all donated by the parents. It starts at 9 am and goes until 5 pm. Through the day groups can sing and play instruments, we have a pet show, and in the afternoon, people can sign up to compete in different sports. We charge a minimal amount for every activity. All funds that are raised this day go to support a school project that directly helps students.

During the review process, we did not follow the Strengths, Weaknesses. Opportunities and Threat Analysis (SWOT). We reviewed the positives and the negatives of the event among different groups, the leadership team, faculty, parents, and students. We asked more general perspectives from all the groups and possible solutions to any difficulties they identified. We collected all the information and placed it into a shared document. We have yet to sit down and review all the gathered information and find possible changes that could be implemented in the future.

I see that this process we did to evaluate our Festival de la Familia is standard for our school. We could improve in being more specific in identifying in the first place the opportunities and threats among the different groups. We also did not summarize each opportunity and threat to our festival. And, we did not identify possible outcomes and what could go wrong. We could go more in-depth with each group and use their knowledge and ideas to find solutions.

William R. King (1978) suggests that strategic planning requires attention to the organizational mission (as cited in Atha, 2018). I believe we did follow this principle as we mentioned the overall mission of the festival before and during the discussion and planning.

This review process is an example of how we generally work with strategic planning throughout the school. It shows how we can improve all strategic plans we make in the future.

Reference

Atha, D. (2018). Week 4 Post 4.5.  Course Learning Notes. Retrieved from https://create.twu.ca/ldrs501/week-4-post-4-5/

Learning Activity 4.4

Our values are shaped by how we see ourselves and the world around us – our worldview. We all have a worldview, as inarticulate as we might express it (Wolters, 2005, loc. 63). Our worldview has to do with our convictions (Wolters, 2005, loc. 51). As a result, each person values are an extension of who they are and what they believe to be true. This is also why it is very difficult for many to dialogue about and discuss value differences. How do I sit and work side by side with someone that has a different worldview and consequently different values?

Below are my values (in bold) and four coworkers’ values (in parentheses).

I would say that by looking at the results, one could say that there are more commonalities than differences between us all. We seem to all agree that students’ individual development and competing with others are of low importance for us all.

We might not all be quite as sure of how important it is for the school to prepare students for their career. At Gutenberg, we want our school to help students acquire skills which will help them find a job. Although there are other skills that have a higher priority, it is important for the school to be relevant and prepare students for their future jobs. The school is in the process of building three shops for professional training – mechanical, air-conditioning, and cooking.

There are two values that were quite in opposite rankings, developing intellectual potential and developing students’ emotional stability. For two people these were most important and for others, they were ranked as next to least important. For some, the school is there to prepare students academically while for others is has a more social and cooperative role.

Yet, overall, I appreciate the commonalities I see in the results and knowing that at least we know what we do not want for our school.

Reference

Wolters, A. M. (2005). In Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview [Kindle version] (Second ed., Loc. 1-1582). Retrieved from www.amazon.com

Response to “Post 4.1 Chances to make a difference” 

Retrieved from https://create.twu.ca/robtegelberg/2018/10/26/post-4-1-chances-to-make-a-difference/

Hi Rob! I believe this is the first time I am responding to one of your posts. I am glad I have the chance to get a glimpse of your school. After reading this post, I would not mind getting more information about your school.

It seems to be a great school with a positive administration who understands the vision and a principal who is very transparent and encouraging with her evaluation. I cannot say I have been this way all the time. I leave most of the teacher evaluations of my teacher coordinators. In Paraguay, all private schools have teacher coordinators who work between the teachers and the principal. Something we did not have when I taught in the US.

In the US, the Christian school that I worked at also struggled to create a blue ocean in a red ocean. The school never did go the path of being missional, although I would have liked it. Your school seems to have found that path and appears to be making a difference. Currently, I do work at a school whose mission is to be missional. The vast majority of our students come from non-Christian families, and a significant number are a low income, the reason why we offer scholarships to 60% of them.

I believe the role of Christian school cannot be to the only cater to Christian families. A book that has been very significant to me is Wolters (2005) Creation Regained. As Christians, one is called to regain in creation what has been lost through the fall. Not just to regain but to also renew, heal, and restore. Christ himself said that He did not come for the healthy, but the sick (Mark 2:17). I see education sometimes as an excuse to bring people back into a personal relationship with God. Yes, we want to bring excellence in academics, sports, etc. But, that is not the end, our goal is to transform people through Christ.

Blessings,

Reference

Wolters, A. M. (2005). Creation Regained: Biblical basics for a reformational worldview. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.