Encourage the Blossoming Flower

“Find the seed at the bottom of your heart and bring forth a flower” (Shigenori Kameoka)
Jim Knight recently wrote about hope and the powerful combination: high expectations + effective instruction in the classroom. Educators are passionate about their teaching and want the best for their students. As we open our classrooms for more collaboration and learning opportunities such as Learning Rounds, as teachers we learn and build capacity within each other and strengthen our instruction to be more effective. This combined with our high expectations for our students and belief in each of their unique talents allows each student to blossom into the flower that they are.
What stories do you have about how high expectations and effective instruction have allowed your students to blossom?

Appreciative Inquiry to Peak Performance

As we work through the coaching journey, I realize how important it is to make connections with people. As the coach /coachee makes connections they are able to work through a process together that can help to reach their goals at a deeper level. As you develop those relationships as a coach, you learn about strengths that the coachee has and are able to build upon the strengths to support them to get to their peak performance.

Dewitt Jones, a brilliant photographer with National Geographic made a film called “Celebrate What is Right with the World”. Through this video, he had the ability to use perspective to show the strength within an image. This can transfer to coaching as well when you build on the strengths of professionals you work with and give them the capacity for continued growth. (Soar to Your Potential, 2010)

This weekend I was fortunate to have made many connections with a great group of people. As we worked through situations, both as being the coach and coachee this quote resonated with the whole weekend “Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you will help them to become what they are capable of being.” (Goethe)

In what ways have you been impacted by someone who believed you were capable of more then you ever dreamed possible?