Teaching as Leadership

I've been immersed in my pre-institute work for Teach For America for the past couple days. TFA uses a "Teaching as Leadership" model to train its corps members, and the model emphasizes that teaching is like any other leadership endeavor. Setting big goals, tracking progress, constantly re-assessing your methods, working relentlessly toward the goals that you have set, effectively planning steps along the way by working backwards from your main goal, and investing multiple people in the success of your students are several concepts that TFA stresses. It has been quite striking to me that I am already really familiar with this model -- in fact, this is exactly the model I have been working under for the past 8 years in running.

I look back to my sophomore year of high school, and I remember Brandon Lewis, Mark Brandenburg, and I looking up at the school record 4x800 time that hung on the wall of the gym. We all made it a goal, right then and there, to put our names on that wall before we graduated. That certainly was a big goal. In running, tracking progress is both easy to do and paramount to success. Although there will be ups and downs along the way, generally the trend is upward if the effort is there. I know that we constantly re-assessed our methods as well during our four years together. As we gained experience, we found ourselves able to handle more mileage and harder workouts. We challenged ourselves more and more as our times got faster and faster. We always had that main goal in mind: setting a school record. Once we set the record as juniors, we set our sights on a state title -- we were never satisfied. If we would have won the state title (we ended up second), we would have wanted to win the national title, etc. We were always working backwards from our main goal(s).

Collegiate running has been a very similar process, although more refined. As a captain the past two years, I've had to test several leadership strategies via trial-and-error. Through this process, I learned what worked well and what didn't work so well. Big goals were a theme that I tried to impart on our team. Wash U hadn't made cross country nationals in a decade, and last year we made it our goal to get there. The season had many ups and downs and we probably had our least talented team in my four years here, but we ended up running in the national meet. We were all on the same page; we all had one goal.

I have already decided that the theme of my classroom is going to be my college coach's definition of success. To Coach Stiles, success is "taking advantage of your daily opportunities to the best of your ability under your given circumstances." The kids that I'll be teaching will each have their own circumstances and their own God-given abilities. Every day we are presented with opportunities -- we can either take advantage of those opportunities or let them pass. Success occurs when we take advantage of the opportunities we are given within our own context. Success looks different to different people. If running success was just based on time, then there would always be someone more successful -- there will always be someone who is able to run faster at a given distance. I want to create an atmosphere where everyone can succeed in my classroom. I want my students to understand that success isn't a fixed entity. Rather, success is something that comes to people who won't be denied in their quest to reach a goal. Just as in running, success in the classroom is a function of how much effort is expended. Success won't look the same to everyone, but it sure is rewarding when you get to taste it.

The kids in my classroom next year are every bit as capable of tasting that success as the kids who attend Center Grove. There is no reason why we can't set a class goal to have everyone improve at least 2 grade levels in English by the end of the year. There is no reason why students in my classroom can't go onto college. There is no reason why they can't succeed. They just need to be given the chance.