Branded or Otherwise Marked?

When I think of branding I’m immediately transported back to the days on the farm when we put our mark on our animals. While these marks were designed to discourage thieves it also started me thinking about all the other reasons we made these marks. The best example for comparison comes from the mark we used to identify spayed heifers. Since we did our own spaying we developed our own mark (before all the ohhhs and aaahs it served a vital purpose) to quickly identify those heifers. Here’s the connection… branding according to Rubin (paraphrased) is to recognize the speaker or leadership based on what and how the communication is being communicated. This was the very exact thing our mark did, by visibly identifying a dovetail crop in the middle bottom of the left ear (on the right as you looked at the heifer) you instantly knew several pieces of information… Open (not pregnant), vaccinated, Ral-grow…. I know this seems like a stretch, but in my experience this is how connect learning. Students are always asking or wanting to know how the things they learn are going to be used in adult life and if you cannot help them make those connections then it’s not relevant and therefore rendered Not valuable or worth remembering.

Brand-ed leadership, to me, is a way for others to recognize a style or theory before you spend a great deal of time researching or reading more about what is being communicated. For instance, I consider myself a Constructivist and my teaching style causes me to design lessons that seek to activate prior knowledge, struggle with new concepts, scaffold understanding, and then demonstrate understanding (not necessarily a test).  Brand-ed leadership / communication lead me directly to the style and ideology… like the product branding example Band-Aid… nobody says, “I need an adhesive bandage strip” they say, “I need a Band-Aid.” There is no doubt or ambiguity about what they want or need. Good leaders begin to “brand” their style of leadership and communication so others can and will recognize exactly where they are headed. When you are known as the teacher / leader that is always focused on student achievement through relevant engagement, how do others know that? Branding… just like the example in the reading… Volvo purportedly sells safety or safest cars, not just a car manufacturer.  The Brand-ed school has really caught on in the most recent past as a way for schools to lay a foundation of desired behaviors… like the “The 7 Habits” or “The Leader in Me”, which link positive behavior to student achievement. My county is building on the PBIS model in each of the schools and each school creates what that looks like or means to them. We adopted the Phoenix as the ALC (Alternative Learning Center) Mascot, which led to ARISE… Attendance Respect Integrity Safety Excellence. In a word, this acronym addresses the most critical issues that face the students of the 5 different schools in the same building. By communicating effectively the message and modeling the attributes of these words within the word the students and stakeholders can easily recognize the goals and mission of the school.

PLNs like PD 360 and others offer the consumer a way to select interest driven professional development as it attempts to address individual needs vs. the “one size fits all” model. We had PLN opportunity on the standard opening day policies that many seasoned veterans could recite forward and backward as a way to offer other PD / CE opportunities in content specific areas. In some way PLNs are similar to some online classes in that they present the material the consumer answers a few questions you get credit… the learning or understanding may be questionable??? This gives me a great Segway into my ideal PD… First some things are just necessary whether you like it not, like washing the dishes… understanding certain policies is Not optional. That said; treat those policies like a teacher teaching a subject… It’s no secret that everyone that teaches generally teaches the subject they like the most…IE math teachers love math… does every student love math???? NOOOOOOOO, but do they have to learn math? YESSSSSSSSS. So, it goes with PD… does anyone like policy training? NOOOOOOOOOO, but does everyone need to know policy? YESSSSSSSSS.  The tricks of the trade are finding ways to make the subject interesting, authentic, and relevant. Good teachers do just that every day in the classroom and good leaders / administrators need to find a way to do that with PD. Interactive technology and PBLs are a good place to start. Example: McKinney – Vento: you could go through the state and county policy or you could assign groups to develop an action plan for newly identified students that find themselves homeless for whatever reason… this type of PD would go far beyond the minimum understanding of the PL100-77 (1987). If attendance is the dominate issue plaguing your school then just understanding the “attendance policy” does nothing to address or fix the problem, but assigning independent groups to define the problem… and submit possible solutions does multiple things… provides a better understanding of the policy (defining the problem forces you to know what the policy states), offers a variety of possible solutions because you have created multiple groups to address the same problem, and lastly you build instant ownership into the solution you implement because of how it was defined. Why would we as teachers and leaders subject ourselves the very things we do NOT like when we are the students and furthermore why would we as teachers and leaders subject our students to those same things? Are you kidding me? “Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That!”(Brand-ed)