Spotlight
on Literacy
Winter Conference Countdown
by Rebecca McKay
Director, Literacy and Professional Development
Coming Full Circle
Two years ago during the fall of 2007, I sat with a team of teachers after a lesson observation. These teachers from a first year Cornerstone cohort of schools watched students and teachers at work in an established Cornerstone School. This networking experience of exchanging ideas and watching colleagues teach is the essence of the Cornerstone philosophy of spreading good work and taking excellent instruction to the next level.
At the lesson’s end, Cornerstone Literacy Fellow Wendy Seger asked three teachers from Mary Lynch School,
“So what did you see in this lesson? What is different about these classrooms at Harris Elementary School and the Harris children?”
The answer came in one word: disposition. Wendy and I looked at each other thinking how lucky we were to be sitting at the table with Sue Chapell and teachers from Mary Lynch School who had just observed lessons in the Harris lab classrooms. Taken by the whole process and the determined look on the faces of the Lynch team, I saw first-hand what...
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Eye
on Leadership
A Whole Lotta Networking Goin’ On
by Edna Varner
Director of Leadership Development
Dictionary definition: Network(n) -- an association of individuals having a common interest, formed to provide mutual assistance and helpful information.
Since our northern colleagues keep telling us they have developed an appreciation of “southern” as a second language, we thought we would use it to describe what we are seeing more often in both Springfield and Muscogee County—“a whole lotta networking goin’ on!”
Collaboration among teachers within a school and among teachers and principals across schools is a powerful way to spread best practices throughout a district and effectively impact the achievement of all students. We have said this for years, but don’t just take our word for it:
“Successful leaders have a nose for opportunity and a knack for knowing whom to tap to get things done,” write French business professors Herminia Ibarra and Mark Hunter in the Harvard Business Review. Successful leaders, they say, are effective at three types of networking: operational networking (building close, positive working relationships with those who are vital to getting the job done), personal networking (cultivating personal relationships outside the organization that can help achieve the internal vision), and strategic networking (This involves reaching out to those inside and outside the organization to build support for long-range priorities and strategies. What differentiates a leader from a manager, they say, is the ability to figure out where to go and to enlist the people and groups necessary to get there.)
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