High Expectations for Whom?

I was reading a book What Great Principals Do Differently by Todd Whitaker that gave me some food for thought. He said that almost all teachers, whether they are effective or not, have high expectations of students. He said that it is the same for principals concerning teachers. What separates effective teachers and principals from those who are less effective is that they also have even higher expectations for themselves.

Educators who have high expectations for themselves would constantly be learning and growing by doing such things as:

• Attending conferences, seminars, and workshops to learn and to network with others who want to do quality work
• Finding a mentor and participate in cognitive coaching
• Reading books and articles
• Keeping a reflection journal to determine what went well and what could be improved
• Participating in action research projects
• Etc.

In other words, the teacher who had high expectations would be to be the head learner in the classroom and the principal who had high expectations would be to be the head learner in the school.

Educators: Always Be Engaged With Learning

All the educators (and many times other stakeholders, too!) must stay constantly engaged with the body of knowledge about what works for Hispanic students. This knowledge can come from numerous sources:

• Membership in national and local organizations--and reading the journals and other publications from those organizations
• Subscriptions to journals specifically related to Hispanic learners
• Attendance at national and local conferences, workshops, seminars, classes
• Reading books and articles by the experts in the field and then provide "cliff notes" for others
• Collaboration with others within the school as well as outside of the school
• Mentors and networks
• A personal reflection journal
• Participation in teacher action research projects
• Writing articles for different publications
• Participation in a blog
• Visits to others classrooms and schools
• Choose an area of expertise and spend 10 minutes every day learning about that topic
• Videos and DVDs
• Participation in cognitive coaching

Some of these ideas can be divided amongst staff members. For instance, each staff member can join a different organization and then share what is learned with other staff members and stakeholders. Each teacher should develop his or her own professional development plan that is shared with the principal and other staff members. The idea is to be continually learning AND applying what is learned so students are constantly provided with the best we can give them.