This summer,
I vowed to be intentional in how I spent my time so that when the new school
year arrived, I would feel refreshed and renewed. Admittedly, the summer seemed
to fly by, but I did carve out time for my own professional learning. I read
every day, I wrote in my notebook (almost) daily, tried my hand at gardening,
spent time with my kids and just tried to get better at being me. Some days, I
killed it. And other days, well….you know. So, as I head into another school
year, I know that I need to be incredibly intentional in how I spend my time
and ensure that I focus on my own learning as an educator. It is this learning
that fuels my work: it lifts my reading spirits, fuels my writing heart and
reminds me that leading the learning of others requires that I remain a
continual learner myself.
It is this
core belief that drives my teaching, coaching and leading this year. I am even
more committed to my own professional learning to fuel my work and lead by
example. I have purposeful and tangible plans to focus on what matters most and
push the boundaries of my coaching and leading.
And I’d like to invite other instructional coaches and teacher leaders
to join me in a learning community to build collective responsibility for our
own learning. Here’s how:
I have
created a Facebook group dedicated to supporting the learning of instructional coaches and leaders, but this group runs a bit differently. Unlike your typical
instructional coaching communities that offer coaches spaces to ask questions
and share ideas, this group is solely focused on cultivating our own
professional learning. Each week, I’ll share a snippet of what I have been
working on in my own learning to deepen my coaching practice and invite you to
do the same. We might work to create our coaching visions one week, deepen our
understanding on coaching practice on another, evaluate the effectiveness of
our work and simply live as readers and writers ourselves. Since community
fosters accountability, it is my hope that this budding group of coaches and
leaders will remind us to remain lifelong learners ourselves.
I do hope
you’ll join me in this journey and invite other instructional coaches and leaders to do the same. Let’s connect together to lead by learning and sustain
our coaching spirits!
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