Extreme Ownership Applications in Public Education

[pappadragon]

I am U.S. Navy (Corpsman) veteran, 20 year civilian EMT and I’m transitioning into teaching high school kids in public school. I am wanting to apply Extreme Ownership and The Dicotomy of Leadership to team building with staff and fellow teachers as well as passing these concepts on to our kids and making them better people when they roll out of here.

I’d love to see some seriously positive input and really usable information. Not interested in posts digging on public education, we all know there are serious challenges facing public school teachers and administrators. I think bringing this form of mental toughness and a Default Aggressive mentality in the approach to these challenges can only be a good thing for educators and thats only going to be good for our students.

Thanks

Douglas (PappaDragon) Rawdah

[mynewunit]

Great idea. I don't know if I have heard anyone else talk about applying Extreme Ownership in schools teacher to teacher. That would be an interesting angle. Schools are generically divided. Rarely team elements for teachers, administrators, and staff. They are divided by grade, skills, funding, pay, union designation etc. You know all of this.
First, you will have to understand the needs of all levels. Teachers make decisions based upon the requests of administrators and the response of their classes. Administrators get requirements from abstract things like regulation, school boards, external factors, and they get sent teachers problems. Being a corpsman and an EMT, I assume you understand that you "meet people where they are at". Students, teachers, administrators, are going to treat you how ever they think they should treat your role, title, threat they associate with you. They also wont be able to see beyond their own needs. "Are you hurt? Where are you hurt?" That is not the time to dispense life advice on calculating risk. My intent is not to tell you things you don't know, just to start seeing what you know layered on the task at hand.

Second, the leadership organization. Your position will determine how you will lead. See that your structure fits the relationship. If you were one of the 4th Grade teachers, start to form the team of the 4th grade teachers. If you are the math teacher, get the math teachers to start working together. My elementary school was lead by the art teacher into totally unique opportunities. She came with energy and understanding, and stepped out. She got visiting artist to come to the school, created school wide projects, and got us invited to the United Nations. Once you create your team, be the one who does the work. Bring the coffee and snacks, complete the side projects that come out of the meetings, support the others plans rather than imposing yours.

Third, breaking the rules. The way you will get this to become a part of the culture of your school is for you to take ownership of the problems of the school and show progress. My High School principal hung out at arrival and dismissal. He spoke to as many students as he could and when he wasn't speaking to students, he was seen picking up litter and cleaning benches and sidewalks. If you can latch on to the problem and significantly change it, you will become known for being the answer to problems and not the cause. If you want an example, My daughters principal is Mr Vacca. He is on YouTube. His tool is Nintendo Club, and trading cards. Every kid wants to show the principal their good works and perfect test scores, which he rewards. His most common punishment is depriving students of his time and attention.

Great Luck. I am not a member of the echelon front team, but if you want to send me a message through the forum where you are, I will let you know if I could possibly come in person and support your mission.

PS: I am laughing, thinking you may have left the floating high school (Carrier) to a land locked one.

[An]

I can't contribute much on the tactical stuff but I think the above post has it covered there. The best teachers I had in school were the ones that were able to create consistency and real connections. Especially with the kids and help them do so between themselves. The worst ones were the indifferent ones and the ones who saw kids as all annoying trouble makers. (An aside here: its very true that there are lots of places of divisions and competing priorities within school environments - there are extremely few opportunities for students to form real lasting relationships with their teachers/ administrators or each other - this is NOT a good thing, if you can convince the collective to start operating more from a "flexible plan" perspective than from a everyone for themselves one that in itself would be a great accomplishment.)

If you can provide kids with a flexibl but dependable structure that's half the battle won. Otherwise they literally have no idea how to talk to eachother or anyone else. They don't understand long term relationships. They don;t understand how to get through any periods of adversity or argument. They have no platform on which to build their lives. And they do not enjoy their studies either. They don't focus. They don;t know HOW to focus or how to start and stop. There's no ability to create their own structure in their own lives. Everything is a mess. Add to that social media and you've officially messed up an entire generation.
Key: flexible structure. And pay attention - what are their skills. Everyone is better at something than others. Nurture that. They do need to know math. Math is not a scary monster. But if you come up with consistent easy to understand lesson plans and test EXACTLY what you taught, then you can teach algebra to grade 2s. And they'll love it. That is the real challenge. And they spread that idea to everyone else as well. You test what you taught. You do not test interpretations or opinions of what you taught. People build self-esteem by mastering skills. Its exciting, unless you really mess up the delivery.
You can teach anything as long as you follow that: structure + creativity + enthusiasm for subject + appropriate testing = everyone gets A's and everyone loves your class. Now someone is going to say something about arty stuff, so I'll just jump ahead: no one is going to compose the next great masterpiece if they don't know how to play the instrument. You need to develop skills in order to get the stuff in your head into reality. Creativity without structure = not happening.
Aim for the whole class to get A's. NOT by dumbing down the curriculum but by teaching well! Lessons must be logical, challenging, engaging and tests must be based 100% on what you just taught. Stay away from grey areas or interpretative questions that make zero sense. Confusion is not "creativity" or "active learning". They're "active" if their looking at you with interest when you speak in the classroom. If they don't know what you expect, they cannot fullfill your expectations. Cue depressed, anxious adults. A good teacher should be a resource for their students well past their grade. I try to keep in touch with my good teacher forever basically. It provides continuity, and valuable long term relationships.
In HS especially, they are learning life skills not just math. So its very important to get it right. They need to know how to learn, how to build rapport with their profs, how to pick good profs and what a good adult looks like. Its not ok to teach kids that there is no way for them to understand expectations and how to fullfill them, and how to study effectively. So you have to show them how to break up curriculum in a positive way. What works, what doesn't and WHY. So that when they go to college (and it costs a lot MORE), they're not just now staring to figure out how to break down a 1000 page essay then night before.



PS. Dr Peterson is a little too anecdotal for me but if you can sort through the verbose stuff he's ok. I could write you a whole thesis on why he needs to get away from inflammatory statements and just get to the point already. He's a little too good at creating controversy and a little too bad at solving it. Most of the scientists he quotes are also SUPER old. You don't really need all that stuff, common sense is more useful than Freud. But I do like his story idea. Think Peterson but with like 50% more structure, and 30% less feminist bs. No its not important that he's against the nonsense, its important that he's spending 90% of his time focusing on it. Instead of drawing attention to all the nonFeminazis and thinking hey, maybe we can learn something from them. Focus most of your attention on the people doing it right, rather than on criticising the mistakes of those doing it wrong. This will probably be extra helpful when discussing anything with admin ppl (it will be an uphill battle - be prepared for lots and lots of frustration). Stay as far away as humanly possible from gender arguments. Lots of men are stupid, lots of women are stupid - lets move on before we all die of self-inflicted depression.
Do not use Peterson style classroom teaching. Use clear lessons, clear expectations ---> confidence is based on accomplishments, not how well ur students can read ur mind regarding test questions or their ability to suffer through hrs of anecdotes that have no point. I don't care what your personal interpretation of a century old tale is. I promise you I can come up with a better analysis or just a different one that's just as technically sound. Your interpretations are based on your experiences - and now we're debating. It might be a fun debate topic, but its you're not teaching, you're debating and that's a different class. (And debate should also be based on FACTS not just interpretations of stories) Focus. Focus is important.
That's my advice based on what works well in most classes I've attended. My highest level of education was as a university graduate.

[mynewunit]

I see your point on Dr Peterson's ambiguous teaching style, with his layers of qualifications on all of his statements. Saying he shouldn't cite Freud is like saying engineers shouldn't cite Newton. That is the building blocks of psychology.
I think the topic de jour aspect of his work is a result of the response more than the product of his words. Obviously I don't waste a minute of my day thinking about most of the topics he gays asked about. I try to work on my flaws, and set forth the path that leads me to the most meaningful life I can create.
I think Jordan's work is weaving thoughts. As he creates the link he ties 2 thoughts together. The more thoughts connected the more whole the cloth it forms and the more usable it is.

Obviously his work is accessible but sometimes not useful. The complexities of the mother son relationship has lots of story based analogs, but it doesn't Chang my Monday morning.

I enjoyed you comment. Feel free to tell me if I don't understand it.