Becoming more effective

It’s been a good day today. It didn’t really start brilliantly – grey, drizzle, cold. This is somewhat unusual in my experience of Kosele. I had to put an extra shirt on for a while. The downside of all this rain is that it encourages mosquitoes. They seem to go into some kind of reproductive frenzy. In the last hour I am easily into double figures killing them as I work. I will definitely be asking God about them - they have eaten me alive in the last week. Still, I guess I shouldn’t complain. At least I can protect myself against malaria, unlike most of our neighbours.

I have been meaning to read Stephen Covey’s book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” for some time. I’m not really a great fan of ‘quick fix’ personal growth books and have been pleased to find that The 7 Habits doesn’t fit into this category. It is a powerful tool for change. I have been encouraged by reading it, and have started to use it in my own efforts to become more effective.

I am very excited by a companion book, also by Stephen Covey, called “The Leader in Me” which explains “How schools and parents around the world are inspiring greatness, one child at a time”. Like the 7 Habits it’s not a quick fix recipe book. I‘ve spent a very productive day gathering my thoughts about how to apply some of the insights in the book to our school in Kosele and how I might use it in the Agriculture College.

One of our biggest challenges for the coming year(s) is making sure that our school and college really do the best that they can for the children. Today I’ve been planning how to step up our efforts by making our educational activities more Rigorous, Relevant and Relational. (I will confess now that these terms have been borrowed from Dr William Daggert). One of the things that helped me in deciding to leave my job in July was an increasing sense of disillusionment with the English education system. It’s a long story but not unique to England.

In “The Leader in Me” Maria del Carmen Acena, the Guatemalan Education Minister in 2003 is quoted as saying;

“Educators are feeling enormous regret from the realisation that over the last decade so much emphasis has been placed on raising test scores that it has come at the expense of students not learning some of the most basic skills needed for everyday life. They also regret that in the process of focusing on academics they have failed to pass on to students more of a love of learning and a love of life”.

As a result of my efforts with “The Leader in Me” today I have added another page filled with quotes and exhortations to my planning pad. The pupils will be returning from half term on Monday and I have a meeting with the teachers in the afternoon. I will have to make sure I don’t resort to communicating in mission statements in the meeting! I really do want to make sure that we start the school improvement ball rolling so it starts to pick up momentum as soon as possible.

The most inspiring idea I came across in “The Leader in Me” said:

“Leadership is communicating people’s worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves.”

It’s a style of leadership that I hope we will all aspire to.