A habit of the new school

This in-service was like no other that I have had in the last 21 years. We had a guest speaker covering the Seven Habits and the book “the Leader In Me”. It was strange to see the principal actively involved in the in-service just like the rest of us. As she likes to say, she is a “teacher’s principal”.

The Sephen Covy book is the focus of this year’s school. The seven habits will be what we will live by and teach the students about. It seems very straightforward and something I am not used to because my old school system never wanted the students to “win-win” of “understand first”. They were all about the test scores at all cost. Here we are about the whole child and everything is about moving them along the path of leadership.

As I have heard over and over, “It’s a God thing”. I do believe it is – or it has been. I believe I am here for a reason and I have to hand all my problems and issues over to God. He will take care of it if I just let me do His thing. I have always thought that but now I truly BELIEVE it.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People deals with first being BE PROACTIVE vs. REACTIVE. We experience private victories but we need to get to public victories. We need to shift our thinking from the SEE to DO to GET, or Behavior to Results. Everything we do is a Choice and we all choose to respond in a way. It is all choice. Every day we deal with the circle of Concern and the Circle of Influence. One, we have a choice and the other we have no choice. We learned “What can I do?”

The Second habit we will work with is “Begin with the end in mind”. Know where you are going, not where you want to start. In a sense, start with you own obit. How do you want people to remember you? Do what you need to do to get to that remembrance. “Mental creation precedes physical creation.” How many times do we begin teaching something and the kids never know where we are going or what you want them to know. Tell them up front what they need then show them how to get there.

Some great quotes from yesterday second Habit were “I want to be the kind of person my already thinks I am.”, My Mission Statement is “Nothing Less”. MY own became “Live, teach, coach in Love”. That’s me, I love what I do – my family, my job, and my pastime.

Today we will learn Habit Three, to “Put first things first” followed by “Win-Win” and “Seek to understand then to be understood”. It should be another great day in a private school as opposed to the public school system.

By the way, we began with a pray and had one before we had lunch too. They provided lunch instead of making us leave to pay for our own lunch. How nice was that?