[00:00:00] Welcome to the Principal Patterson Podcast, where leadership meets excellence in education. I'm Chanavia Patterson, and I'm here to help you navigate the nuances of becoming a high performing school leader. Each week, we'll explore essential pillars of high performing schools, from climate and culture, teaching and learning, systems and operations, and even coaching and development.
Remember, everything that happens in our schools, Is leadership created or leadership allowed. Join me as we create schools of excellence, one principal at a time.
Welcome to the Principal Patterson Podcast. I'm your host, Chanavia Patterson. Today, we're diving into a topic that I believe is absolutely essential for every school leader out there, shifting your leadership. More specifically, we're going to explore the power of [00:01:00] learning and unlearning and also relearning effective leadership practices that will help you transform your school.
You see, these practices has transformed my personal approach to school and district leadership, and I'm excited to share them with you as well. Now, I want to start with a personal story. One that took me from thinking I had it all figured out as a school leader to realizing that I had a lot more to learn.
You see, when I first stepped into the role of a school leader, I was confident. I had been a successful assistant principal, a founding assistant principal. I opened a school here in Detroit alongside my principal and we were doing our thing. We were, we were doing great. I enjoyed being an assistant principal.
We were getting student results. I was coaching teachers. [00:02:00] It was great. So I was confident. That taking on this next challenge, which was definitely a challenge and I'll get to that in a second, but I was confident in my skill set. I had the training. I had all of, I had been to all of the countless conferences.
Um, and I had an amazing leadership coach as well. I thought I was prepared for anything. But as many of you know, if you've been in my community for a while, the reality of leadership and leading a school that needed to be transformed doesn't match the theory of what we're often, um, have in our mind of how, you know, all you have to do is this one best practice or all you have to do is this one.
And it's, it's so much more than that. I was definitely ready for the academic challenges because I had been in another school with a similar demographics and the data was very similar. So I was prepared for that. Or so [00:03:00] I thought, because again, going into transforming schools, oftentimes you are taught to change the data, you know, the student results.
And I knew I was prepared to do that, but what I wasn't prepared for were the adult challenges that were going to be in the way of me getting there, as well as how the widening academic gaps that I was seeing in my school seemed to grow with every new student that enrolled. And as well, on top of those two things, The work of recruiting teachers.
Yes, even back then, 20 years ago, finding high caliber teachers was difficult. And I know many are dealing with that now, but, uh, the teacher shortage is not anything new. We were dealing with that back then as well. So, [00:04:00] these were shifts that I had to make in order to become a high performing, highly effective principal. Let me go back to my first year as a principal in Detroit. I was tasked with leading a school that was on the brink of closure. It was deemed unsafe, not a good place for students or teachers. The culture was toxic. The academics were poor. Systems were out of whack. So even with all of the training and the development and the support from my director, I was actually embarrassed.
I was embarrassed that a school was allowed to get to that point. Because I believe everything that happens in schools. Is leadership created or leadership allowed. So I was embarrassed that a school in our network had been allowed to get to that point. I was also embarrassed for the teachers that were there, especially the ones that truly wanted to be part of something [00:05:00] great.
They had gotten complacent. They were going along with status quo because that's what they were allowed to do. So it didn't take long for me to realize that What had worked in the past when I was an assistant principal wasn't necessarily going to work in this present or in the future. The strategies that had brought me success before were no longer going to cut it.
And that's when it hit me. That's when it hit me. I needed to embrace continual learning. There's never an I've arrived as a school leader. And here's where it gets real. Some of the practices and the beliefs weren't just my own. These were things that I had picked up from my district leaders, from the conferences that I was going to every summer, the leadership summits that I went to [00:06:00] faithfully.
I had to unlearn the idea that just because something had been done a certain way for so many years, That it was the right way for my school. But it wasn't just necessarily about learning more. It was about unlearning old practices and beliefs that would not serve me or my school. You see, we were often given a PD in a broad sense.
Very high level. But I needed depth and that's what was missing for me as a principal. I needed to learn what works in schools that look like mine. Schools that sit in zip codes that others would call ghetto or raggedy. Well, one thing about me, I'm not ghetto. or raggedy and was not going to lead a school with such a negative connotation.
So I had major work to do. I had to shake things up if I wanted [00:07:00] my school and my team to be a success story. Once I opened myself up to unlearning, I began to see things differently. I started to challenge the status quo. I started to question what I had always taken for granted, assuming that the people that were guiding and coaching and, leading professional development for me was accurate.
I think that's the nice way of saying it. I started to challenge the status quo. And I started to question things a little bit more. In that space of unlearning, I had made room for new ideas, new perspectives, new strategies. I began to relearn what it means to be an effective leader, even when the finish line looks very, very far away.
And I discovered that there were some approaches that I would [00:08:00] have never considered before, simply because I was not exposed to them. The transformation in my leadership and in my school was incredible. I became more adaptable, more resilient, more effective at driving the kind of healthy change that our school desperately needed.
My school became a school of excellence, a state recognized school, a place where teachers wanted to serve and parents wanted to send their children. All because I shifted how I was leading. All because I was unlearning practices that did not serve us. All because I re learned what works in broken schools.
And it starts with leadership. It starts with leadership. Everything that happens in our schools is leadership created or leadership allowed. So, why is this practice of learning, unlearning, and relearning so crucial for school [00:09:00] leaders? This is why. The field of education is, is constantly changing. The students we serve, the teachers we lead, the challenges we face, they're always evolving.
Like, if it's not one thing, it's another. If we're not willing to adapt, to grow, and evolve right alongside them, right alongside these changes. We're going to find ourselves stuck, complacent, and leading schools that are out of sync with the needs of our communities. Out of sync. By committing to continual learning, we're not just enhancing our own leadership capabilities, we're creating a culture of continual improvement within our schools.
We're modeling what it means to be a lifelong learner, as so many people put on their resume. And that's something that trickles down to everyone in our school, from our teachers to our students. [00:10:00] So I want to challenge you today. Take a moment to think about what do you need to unlearn in your leadership journey. I'm going to give you some actionable, some practical things that you can apply right away. So try to grab pen and paper, or if you're driving and listening to this, make sure you go back and re listen to it. But these are some things that I want you to do.
Did you know there is a TAG available for this episode? If you're new here, TAG stands for Take Action Guide. It is your ticket to implementing what you've learned today on the podcast. Think of it as your personal playbook for putting all of these ideas into practice. This free, downloadable resource is designed to help you implement what you've learned into your school.
Your tag, Take Action Guide, includes reflection questions, practical exercises, and planning tools [00:11:00] that are tailored to this episode. Download your Take Action Guide at PrincipalPatterson. com Forward slash tag or click the link down in the show notes. Okay. Now let's get back to the episode
The first thing I want you to do is to create a leadership audit, a leadership audit of yourself.
I want you to take time for some self reflection by doing your own personal leadership audit. Consider these questions. Are there beliefs and practices that if you're honest with yourself, you know no longer serve you or your school? What are some current leadership practices that are producing results? And what new skills or knowledge should you invest in to meet the challenges that your school is facing.
So that, those are the questions I want you to take some time to think about and audit your own leadership. What are the beliefs and [00:12:00] practices that no longer serve you or your school? What are some of the practices that are producing results? And what skills or new knowledge do you need to invest in, in order to meet some challenges that your school is facing?
So that's the first thing I want you to do is audit your own leadership. The second thing I would like for you to do in order to lead this work of learning and unlearning and relearning, you're going to have to create a culture of learning amongst your staff as well. So you can model the unlearning and relearning process with your team.
What about even suggesting ways to encourage your teachers to challenge some outdated practices? Because trust me, they're doing some outdated practices in those classrooms. You could host learning labs where teachers experiment with a new teaching method or reflect on their effectiveness. Provide some opportunities for teachers to [00:13:00] discuss what practices have they unlearned and how are they making adjustments to meet their students needs.
Because oftentimes, teachers do The same old strategies that they, that worked 20 years ago. And some of them do not work anymore specifically because we're not teaching the same type of child in this generation than we did in previous generations. So, an action you can take is in your next staff meeting or PLC where teachers come, have them share an old practice that they have moved away from and one new strategy that they've adopted.
This will be, this will add value for a lot of your new teachers that are coming in. This will also add value for some of those seasoned or veteran teachers. that are struggling with shifting some of their practices. They need to hear from their own teammates. [00:14:00] What are you unlearning? What's a new practice that you're adopting?
So that's the second thing you could do to practice this in your school. And then another one, think about organizing, um, a way for you to commit to professional development that's specifically tailored to your school's need. Now, many PDs and conferences are broad and always don't fit the unique challenges of your specific school.
So you want to look for resources or conferences or summits that have, that are relevant to your school's demographic and challenges and those that are focused on adaptive leadership or strategic innovation. A lot of the conferences that I personally like to attend have a heavy focus on strategic innovation because they're realizing we cannot facilitate the same type [00:15:00] of trainings
all the time. We need innovation right now. And then last, I want you to embrace the discomfort of change. You got to get comfortable with the discomfort that comes with making changes in your school, especially when you know they are no longer serving you. Pick one leadership practice that makes you uncomfortable to change and commit to shifting that habit for just like 30 days.
30 days. And see what happens. So remember the path to success isn't always linear. Sometimes it's about taking a step back, re evaluating, and being willing to change direction. It's about challenging the status quo, being open to growth, even when it's uncomfortable. So I want you to commit to this journey of continual learning, unlearning, and relearning together.
Let's embrace change and unlock Our full [00:16:00] potential as school leaders, because when we do, we're not just bettering ourselves. We're bettering our schools, our teachers, and more importantly, our students.
Before we wrap up, it's time to play tag. That's right. You're it. I'm talking about this episode's Take Action Guide. This free downloadable resource is designed to help you implement what you've learned today in your school. Your tag includes reflection questions, practical exercises, and planning tools that are tailored to this episode.
Remember, now that you've listened, it's your turn to take action. Download your tag at PrincipalPatterson. com forward slash tag or by clicking the link in the show notes. Let's play tag and transform our schools together. One principal at a time.
[00:17:00] Thank you for joining me today on the Principal Patterson Podcast, where we create high performing schools, one principal at a time. Before we wrap up, I have one last favor to ask. If you found value in today's episode, I'd love for you to rate and review the podcast. Your feedback not only helps me continue delivering content that serves you, but it also helps other school leaders discover this podcast.
Share the episode with your fellow principals, your leadership teams, or anyone you feel could benefit from shifting their leadership approach. Together we can elevate school leadership and create more schools of excellence. So please rate, review, subscribe, and share with your community.
