Following are excerpts from my comments to the
Needham Public Schools staff upon their return to school September 2, 2014.
This morning I wish to
challenge each and every one of you with three expectations for the new school
year: Collaborate Innovate Inspire It it is my expectation as your superintendent
that you consider these simple yet challenging words and decide how you will
act on them in your role in the Needham Schools. Fortunately, in most ways this is an easy
lift for Needham’s professionals who have already established a culture of
collegiality, creativity, and excitement.
Collaborate
The community has
generously provided us with additional time to work and plan together to
improve student learning. Let’s use this
time to build relationships, converse with one another, problem-solve, review
data, share information, learn from one another, and improve practice. Examples of collaboration abound in this
district: Grade level and data teams…
Critical Friends Group… Middle school clusters…Literacy Task Force…
This coming year, take this
work to a new level; lean on each other and push one another to grow and
learn. Use the district goals, School
Improvement Plans, and your students’ learning needs to establish team goals
and guide your practice and planning with one another. By the way, if you are
truly collaborating, you are taking risks and making mistakes and that’s
OK. Harvard Business School’s Amy
Edmundson concluded that successful organizations allow professionals to work
together in an atmosphere of open dialogue, trust, problem solving,
disagreement, and failure. Without a
culture of sincere, honest, and deliberative conversation and collaboration,
learning organizations cannot flourish.
Are you asking hard
questions at faculty, grade level, or department meetings? Are you willing to listen patiently to a new
colleague, fresh out of grad school, who lacks experience but just might have
an interesting solution to a school-wide problem? How can we encourage independent and
innovative thinking within our students if we don’t allow ourselves the chance
to confront long held assumptions or past practices?
Innovate
In collaboration with
colleagues, consider new ways to address learning needs. Ask your students to tackle authentic tasks
and problems. Tap into the use of
technology to enhance and extend student learning and achievement.
Innovative and
imaginative teaching practices and programs are present in our classrooms. Interdisciplinary learning, such as the high
school’s Greater Boston Project, African-American studies, environmental
science, and the middle school’s engineering course are examples of existing
opportunities complemented by strong service learning and performing arts
programs.
Da Vinci’s Workshop, a new lab at Needham High will allow students and
staff an opportunity to “play” with technology, robotics, design, science, and
the arts.
Let’s continue to break
down the artificial silos that separate academic disciplines and departments;
let’s create even more experiences—like the new elementary STEAM program—to
allow students to explore science, technology, and the arts.
Perhaps the use of a
technology tool, like a laptop or iPad, will allow a student to personalize a
learning experience in a way that a classroom teacher can’t. There is a tradeoff, by the way, when we
integrate mobile technology tools into the classroom. Teachers give up some of their authority and
students gain more autonomy and responsibility.
That’s a little scary for the adults!
Students may do some things they should not do. But they also can become
empowered to research, collaborate, create, and communicate in ways never
before possible.
Let’s engage our students
with new approaches and fresh thinking. Do students have choice in your
classroom? Do they have a voice in their
learning? Can they show what they know
in the form of a paper or a project?
Will you encourage them to demonstrate understanding in a way that matches
their learning style?
Lets embed into our
practice, let’s make routine, the use of innovative planning and thinking
inside and outside the classroom.
Inspire
This is the most
difficult thing I can expect of you.
Collaboration and innovation set us on a path leading to engaged and
inspired young people. Without inspired and motivated students, their chances
for achievement, growth, and a purposeful and meaningful life are
diminished.
The tone you bring, the
relationships you establish, the connections you make, and the enthusiasm you
activate will make all the difference in your students’ lives and the lives of
those around them.
Think carefully about how
you will inspire, engage, and excite learning.
Consider how you can bring imaginative instruction and un-common
assessments into your classroom and school.
Think about how you will connect and develop a rapport with the shy,
reluctant, and bored student. Will you
change up your lesson plan? Tell a
personal story to develop interest?
There can be no missed
opportunities to comfort an anxious child or involve a recalcitrant student in
a lively classroom debate. Make sure you establish a classroom and school
environment that has high expectations and allows students to take chances and
build friendships. Your actions should promote character and tolerance;
curiosity and inquiry; humor and humility. Your students will remember you for
it, and they will become stronger, resilient, and inspired.
And this last point
brings me to my friend, James Hugh Powers. I invited Mr. Powers here because I
want you to know that he is one of the people who inspires me in my work, and I
am honored to know him. I wanted you to
meet him as well.
Mr. Powers is 91 years
old and a longtime Needham resident who grew up with two brothers, John and
Pete. He is a veteran of WWII and was a
dedicated public servant, working for the Massachusetts Legislature during a
long career. He served as a Town Meeting member for 60 years, and a few years
ago Powers Hall was dedicated in his honor at the Needham Town Hall.
Over the last nine years
I have been superintendent, Mr. Powers has sent me dozens and dozens of
letters, notes, and articles about education and teaching and learning. His letters are beautifully written,
eloquent, and poignant. His command of
education, history, politics, literature, and the economy is
extraordinary. He is absolutely devoted
to education and the teaching profession.
He believes the work we do is critical to the success of a vibrant
democracy and a fulfilled life.
I have come to look
forward to the notes he sends or the occasional times we spend together. He always admonishes me to make sure I am
supporting the most important ingredient in the school—the classroom
teacher! I leave my conversations with
him refreshed, enthused, knowing that he represents the best of Needham and all
of those who support our work with young people.
This past May, Mr. Powers
attended the unveiling of a new memorial in the high school lobby dedicated to
Needham residents who sacrificed their lives in war. As a Marine Corps vet who fought on Okinawa
and witnessed untold atrocities, Mr. Powers joined other Needham veterans for
the unveiling. And he also attended to
honor his older brother, Pete.
You see 70 years ago this
December, Mr. Powers’s little brother, John, then a Needham High senior, came
home from school and found his mother unconscious on the floor with a War
Department telegram laying beside her. It
turns out that Pete had been killed in the Battle of the Bulge, and a proud
family of three handsome boys lost the eldest son. Mr. Powers, stationed in the Pacific at the
time, only learned of his brother’s heroism and death much later in a painful
letter from his father.
So this past May Mr.
Powers stood at attention at the new memorial to recall those who died bravely
for our freedom. And he also touched
Pete’s engraved name and remembered his older brother. I’ll never forget the dignity, sacrifice, and
love of that moment.
In a recent letter, Mr.
Powers encouraged me to remember the essential nature of our work. He wrote:
“You have a wonderful,
promising, if mischievous and at times vexing, body of students (in the
schools) each one of whom is a bundle of possibilities. Motivate each one of them to his or her best
effort, to settle only for his or her best effort. And do not give up on a single one of them
beset by troubles. For the world out
there in which they will be plunging after graduation remains a highly
competitive, very challenging (and often) dangerous place, unsympathetic to
sounders of uncertain trumpets.”
Mr. Powers, Jim, thank
you for those salient words. Thank you
for leading a life of dedicated and inspired service to our nation and this
community. Thank you for your steadfast
support of our teachers and schools. And
thank you for your loyalty and friendship.
Folks, you are the ones
who must guide our young people in their quest for self-discovery, growth, and
meaning. Education is the answer needed to assist children to develop the
skills, mindset, imagination, and courage to tackle the most stubborn and
intractable dilemmas of today’s world.
The problems all around us require sophisticated responses, intelligent
discourse, and creative problem solvers who will collaborate and innovate to
improve lives and brighten the world.
As you leave here today
remember that we do this work with the strong support and commitment of those
around us so that, together, we can Collaborate,
Innovate, and Inspire.
Thank you for all you do
and for letting me serve as your superintendent; it is a singular honor. I hope you have a superb year.