ASCD Empower: Day 1

I attended a pre-conference at Empower18. I'm so excited to be here. It is extremely intimidating! The conference center is HUGE and there are almost 8000 people here. It's unreal. There are approximately 30 sessions going on during every time slot so it is really difficult to decide what to attend. The first day was easy, though. My school's dean of academics, J, and I had signed up for a leadership workshop. The title of the workshop is "Leading Change Together."

The main premise is that adults are capable of growth too. In fact, it's a really important time for us to grow! A good leader knows how to help adults grow and progress. Ellie and Jessica outlined the characteristics of four different types of "knowers". The way that we "know" is integral in the way we operate in the world. It is a leader's job to determine how their mentees know and to adjust their feedback, advice and support in order to facilitate their growth. I

I'm not going to get into all of the details. (You'll have to buy their book for that!) But I will talk about my biggest take-away.

One of the types of knowers is called "Socialized". These types of people are mainly focused on other people. Their self-judgement comes from what other people think of them. They feel responsible for the feelings of others. This way of knowing particularly resonated with me. But, it also worried me. Socialized knowers have a very difficult time leading. They find it hard to give feedback for fear of hurting someone else's feelings. They also feel emotionally torn when making decisions because they don't want to upset either party involved. Naturally, my identification with this type of knowing made me feel like I might not be able to handle my leadership role.

I stayed into the lunch time part of the session to talk to Ellie (thanks so much to Ellie for her amazing support.) She commended my bravery for being honest about this. She also gave me some great advice. First, this amazing video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aDXM5H-Fuw

The video describes how we have to be uncomfortable before you can grow out of your shell. Ellie confirmed that by accepting this position, I am making myself uncomfortable, I am challenging myself and feeding my motivation. It will only take time for me to break my socialized shell and develop further.

There are also some exercises that socialized knowers can try in order to challenge themselves.

1. They can participate in dialogue to to develop their own values

2. They can first share their ideas in smaller groups before sharing in larger groups

3. They can find mentors who demonstrate disagreeing without ruining relationships.

These are all things that I'm going to work on. After the session I talked to J about this. Before next year, I need to sit down alone and decide upon my own convictions about education, the direction for our school, and how to get there. I will then share these things with my direct supervisors. Finally, I have a few mentors (J and Kara) at my school and they have respectful disagreements with others regularly.

Ellie helped me see that I am doing everything I can to better myself and I'm on the right track. Woo hoo! Let's grow!