The Gateway Community Charter Schools have an interesting way of setting the larger context for their 500 teachers, support people, and administrators at the beginning of each academic year. Every fall, just before school starts, CEO Cindy Petersen gathers together all her staff to identify a central overarching focus or theme that will carry them through the academic year and beyond.
Over previous years, for example, they adopted the phrases “be brave” and “ignite positive change” as their pole stars to guide what they do. This year, they embraced the theme of “Ubuntu” which in Bantu roughly means, “Humanity toward others”, or “I am because we are”, both of which express the common bond of humanity we share with one another. Each theme, as such, illuminates a fundamental value of their community of schools that is meant to be expressed in every facet of their work.
In speaking with Christine McCormick, the Director of Special Education at Gateway Schools, it is clear that these overarching themes actually do, in fact, permeate the day-to-day culture of their schools. The principle of ubuntu, for example, was translated into an “Our Shine” assignment wherein senior administrators were tasked with creating specific ways they could help three colleagues “shine” in their professional responsibilities to help students learn. The invitation to “be brave”, on the other hand, has been expressed in a teacher’s willingness to go out on a limb to propose some new piece of educational technology as a solution to a learning problem.
The more cynical amongst us might say that this kind of thing is just rhetorical window-dressing, and that what matters most are the time and money resources available to make good things happen with kids. While I would agree that structural considerations are central and necessary to sustaining great schools, I would also say that teachers, administrators, parents and the students themselves need good reasons to commit themselves to a deeper and richer version of education. We need touchstones that will resonate for us, particularly when the going gets tough. And, I would also propose that we need these touchstones before any talk of implementation and delivery. It is these clarion calls to purpose, after all, that will ultimately define what that implementation and deliver will look like.
Gateway Community Schools have developed their own powerful way to address questions of purpose before strategies of delivery — that is, by asking “why before how”. While there are many different ways for a staff to identify what matters most in the education of our children, the point is precisely that we must do this first in order to give ourselves context and direction for everything else we do.
Dr. Ted Spear has over 25 years of teaching and administrative experience in public and independent schools. In July, 2019 he published a book about the future of education entitled, Education Reimagined: The Schools Our Children Need. He is an engaging speaker who invites parents and educators to change the way we think about schools.