Effective Schools: PART 2 Positive Communication - School, Home, Community

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Developing the Effective Schools Correlate: Positive Communication within the School, Home, and Community depends on how we view positive interactions through our understanding and development of compassion, forgiveness and altruism. 

As you, your peers, parents and community members discuss ideas about the core of what makes a positive professional learning network of school, home and community, please consider these questions.

As you answer these questions, analyze your uncensored ideas. You will help yourself learn your strengths and weaknesses as they relate to building positive communication.

1. Are you more or less likely to listen to a differing opinion from:

• a teacher?
• an administrator?
• a parent?
• a student?
• someone with less education than you?
• someone with more education than you?
• someone younger than you?
• someone your own age?
• someone older than you?

2. How do you react when someone in that professional learning network disagrees with you?

3. Should teachers have the locus of control in parent communications?

4. How do you analyze your own biases and stereotypes?

5. If there are disagreements within the complete communication connection, which method would be most effective when resolving conflicts that relate to learning.

6. What questions, about this topic, would you ask?

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Please consider these ideas as you qualify your own position in the positive communication connection.

What makes communications positive may flourish in an environment that focuses on the quality of relationships, not the power of individuals.

Effective Schools Correlates: PART 1 Positive Communication - School, Home, Community

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What thoughts can you express that evaluate your philosophy of the Effective School Correlate: positive communication in the professional learning network of school, home and community?

Do you agree that Positive Communication between School, Home and Community is a major correlate of effective schools?

Can a school be considered effective without a complete communication connection between school, home and community?

How do you feel when someone in that professional learning network disagrees with you?

These are some preliminary questions that teachers, parents, administration and community members should ask as they work through their positive communications within their professional learning network of school, home and community. What other concepts could be considered?

Effective Schools Correlates: A Teachers' Life for Me!

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What is the core of teaching? What will make all the ideas, activities, books and lessons fall into place in the service to the education of students?

When I was a young teacher, I yearned to have THE answer. It seemed to me that there was an elusive ingredient to being a great teacher. In my mind it was like the golden ring at the merry-go-round. If I just worked, studied, and learned enough, I could grab the golden ring of education. As often happens with young people, I doubted myself. Even though I had wonderful grades, experiences and references, I was seduced into believing that there was ONE answer...a magic key to teaching.

Why did I search for the magic key? I wanted to be the best teacher in the world. I didn't want to doubt. I wanted to KNOW.

Being young, I thought there was always something else, some magic idea out there, that I didn't know, but there wasn't. Yes, there was plenty that I didn't know, but I hadn't figured out that there was no magic bullet that can replace the effective basics that help people learn well. It took some time for me to stop looking for something that I already owned. It took some time for the competitive energy of the student to be replaced by the collaborative efforts of the teacher.

When I was a new to teaching, I had already experienced the positive impression of learning that is based on the Effective Schools research model, encompassed by the SEVEN CORRELATES OF EFFECTIVENESS. I had learned them at the knee of all the effective teachers, community members and family members who taught me.

I also knew what a good teacher looked like as they worked in the classroom. Others might agree that they have had some great teachers, good teachers and not so good teachers, while some who attended the same classes might disagree with their list. What I didn't know, what I yearned to know seemed an elusive ingredient.

Over the years, as I gathered more knowledge and experience, I learned that what I really wanted was to evaluate the effectiveness of my teaching. I discovered that the Effective Schools Research movement could serve as a core set of organizing principles for my educational philosophy.

What are the Seven Correlates of the Effective Schools Research Movement?

1. Instructional Leadership
2. Clearly Stated and Focused Mission
3. Safe and Positive Environment
4. High Expectations for ALL Students
5. Frequent Monitoring of Student Progress
6. Maximize Learning Opportunities
7. Positive Communication - School, Home, Community      

Are these ideas that people could define or describe? Are these ideas that you want to see in your school? In your teaching? In student's learning? Isn't this a support base for effective student learning? Isn't student learning what it's all about in our world?