Recently, I was given the opportunity to take day with my valued colleagues (Mike and Dana) and visit Mother Teresa Catholic Elementary School in Grande Prairie – it was an amazing experience and I highly suggest that you should click on the links below to view both of their experiences.
https://gpcsdleadershipacademy.wordpress.com/2017/03/12/1080/
https://gpcsdleadershipacademy.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/principal-shadow-a-day-at-mother-teresa/
The reason I wanted to visit Mother Teresa was twofold: First off, I knew that Henri was highly organized and I had to see how he and runs….well everything. Secondly, I wanted to learn more about the Montessori program – how it looked, how it functioned, I wanted to see if there was a difference between the Community program and Montessori program and how they interacted together.
I wasn’t sure about how the day was going to go but I did have an agenda prior to arriving – search, select and steal all of the great ideas! It was exactly what I was looking for and more!
Like most teachers/administrators I am always on the search for how people do things efficiently (teach, plan, organize, schedule, run activities, strategies to create relationships, ways to deal with situations that may and will arise – and I specifically look for the things that they do better …so I can take that and use it to make my workload more efficient. This allows me more time to work on relationships with students and staff, as well as, provide more time for my family and therefore give me balance. So, I was focused on the administrator toolbox throughout the day but continued to look for how each staff member – specifically Henri – built relationships and culture in their school.
It’s always interesting going into another building that fundamentally does the same thing as you. Structurally it may look different but everything was so familiar. However, as we progressed from prayer in the morning through our tour of the school and to informative meetings with Henri, Nicole and Cam, I was on the lookout for anything – check that – everything that I thought would be so beneficial in either a classroom or administrators toolbox.
My colleagues – Mike and Dana – provided several examples of what all three Administers delivered to us. However, some of the highlights I valued included:
- Relationship building – especially when you have more than one stream of teaching in your building
- Budgeting – it opened my eyes to what administrators need to constantly think about…..and what teachers don’t have to worry about
- Supervision strategies – structural differences cause issues that I do not have to deal with at my school.
- A little goes a long way – Help your staff, students and parents and build those relationships
- Techniques for evaluating teachers – Nicole shared everything and is super organized, Cam’s (3, 2, 1 strategy) strategy seems like something I would do.
The strategy that I found most useful in my current practice was that Henri showed us how it’s incredibly beneficial to take time right after an activity to reflect and write down the needed steps/improvements for the next time you do it. He sits down with all people involved and does this in both google drive and his administrator’s calendar. Since our line of work is very cyclical, this just makes sense! This provides a better product next time, it allows the next person stepping into that position to have a better idea about how to do the task at hand, and it helps establish a timeline on where to start next time. This strategy would be perfect at the end of a showcase in PBL (Project Based Learning).
In addition, the tour and information about Montessori and Community classes was great! It was so interesting seeing the differences between the two streams, however, we could tell that both involved amazing teachers that provided their students with outstanding learning opportunities. The tour was very informative! We could also see how Henri builds relationships with his students and teachers in their classes and during his supervision shifts.
Overall, the day was incredibly useful! Thank you to the friendly students (saw nieces, nephew, and neighbor kids), staff and especially Henri, Nicole and Cam for graciously providing us with an experience that was informative, practical and useful for all!
I would love to hear what you think,
Shawn Allison