Ep #408: The Energy of a Classroom

Hello, empowered principals. Welcome to episode 408.

Welcome to The Empowered Principal® Podcast, a not so typical educational resource that will teach you how to gain control of your career and get emotionally fit to lead your school and your life with joy by refining your most powerful tool, your mind. Here’s your host certified life coach Angela Kelly.

Well, hello, my empowered leaders. Happy Tuesday. Welcome to the podcast. We’re going to dive right in today because I know that you are in the middle and the throes of class walkthroughs. You’re doing classroom walkthroughs, you’re doing teacher observations, and we’ve been having these conversations in EPC around what the observations are all about and what our walkthroughs are all about. So, a little short, sweet podcast topic to help you contemplate the purpose, the value, the intention behind your walkthroughs. And I’m going to plant a seed for you today that may inspire you into thinking a little more outside of the box when it comes to instructional leadership, your role as an instructional leader, what you’re looking for as an instructional leader, and expanding your impact as an instructional leader.

So, many principals, they are told, be seen in classrooms, do walkthroughs. We love being in the classrooms. It feels good. We feel closer to the kids and to our teachers, and we feel connected. So we very much enjoy getting to classrooms and walking through, and we love seeing when learning is happening and teachers are teaching and kids are engaged. So there is a feel-good emotion that comes for us when we are walking in classrooms.

And I was speaking with a few of my clients about this, and they were talking about what they were doing for the week. They were in their masculine energy. This is what I’m doing for the week, accomplishing for the week, checking off the boxes, getting that kind of boss energy, getting it done, right? And I asked them what specifically are you looking for in your walkthroughs? That was my first question, and it was interesting. I’m glad I asked it that way, which is not the most productive question to ask, but it was what was on my mind at the time they were speaking. But it was a great question in the end because it showed me that they were looking for very tangible evidence such as kids being on task, the quality of the centers, looking for routines, teacher engagement, student engagement. Is the teacher addressing a student or students that are not engaged? Are the centers developmentally appropriate? Are they academically appropriate?

So, there were very tangible things, and I asked them, “Well, how do you know what you’re looking for? How do you know that a teacher has established routines? How do you know that a teacher is engaged, a student is engaged, and how do you know that the centers are aligned?” You know, all of the things they were looking for. And I wasn’t asking them to put them on the hot seat. I was asking them because I genuinely wanted to understand what their mind was thinking.

So, this is a little side note, and I teach this in EPC, and I’m going to be offering a future program on the skillset of coaching teachers. That program is coming up later on. This is a little precursor to that, but I want you to be mindful. When I am coaching my principals or district leaders, when I’m coaching school leaders, I’m curious to know what’s going on in their mind. And I teach leaders how to be curious about what’s going on in the minds of their staff, of their students, of their families, not just to collect tangible evidence to check the boxes, but to go beyond that, to think deeper, to expand your understanding, your perspective, your curiosity as to the why behind people’s actions and behaviors, and the why behind what we believe we’re seeing in those classrooms.

So, stay with me here. I know this sounds deep. However, I asked them, okay, how do you know when you walk into a classroom and you see a teacher engaging in a certain behavior or a student engaging in a certain behavior or appearing to be engaged or appearing to be teaching, how do you know? Is it just through their actions, or is there something more that’s indicating to you, that’s communicating to you, that’s expressing itself to you where there feels like a knowingness when you walk into a classroom?

Now I want to, I can’t talk with you right here, but in EPC, if you were in EPC, I would ask you this. We’ve all had classrooms we walk into. We walk in and we know that there’s good things going on. And then we can walk into another classroom and we can know that there are some hiccups going on. There’s some, it’s not so smooth in that room, okay? There might be a detour happening, or there might be some bumps in the road. We’ve got a smooth sailing, this road trip’s going great, we’re on track, it’s aligned, and then we’ve got this one that’s, you know, maybe stopped and they’re at the carnival for the day. It’s kind of chaotic, okay?

So, more than just how it looks is the energy of a classroom. It’s how the classroom feels. And without saying too much more about that, I want you to contemplate for the week when you’re walking through classrooms, when you’re doing observations, there is the actions and the words that you’re observing behaviors, right? There are words, there are actions, and then there is an energy in that classroom because kids can be sitting on the carpet, crisscross applesauce, hands in their lap, and totally silent. They could look engaged and not be engaged.

Teaching and learning is not what it looks like; it’s what it actually is. And empowered principals, exceptional school leaders go beyond what it looks like and go through to what it is. They think about the energy of the classroom, how it feels, how it feels for students, how it feels for the teacher, how it feels as the leader to be in that room. There’s something more that is expressed on our campuses than just what people are doing, the actions they are taking.

And we call this sometimes in education, a dog and pony show. In our observations, people can do all of the things, check the boxes, have their objectives up on the board, be right on pacing guide, and teach that lesson on that day. They can bribe kids to play the part of student. It can look good, but does it feel good? Does it feel good to be a student? Does it feel good to be the teacher? Are people feeling good in that room, on this campus, in this staff, as a member, as a member of a classroom, as a member of the team, grade level team, department team, as a member of the staff at large, as a member of this campus, this school community, this district community?

What is the energy that is communicated to you? What does that look and feel like? I’m going to leave it at that because these conversations go much deeper, but I plant the seed with you today as you’re walking through your classrooms to consider my intention beyond checking the boxes, beyond compliance, beyond how it looks, how does it feel? And focusing on not just here’s what I want to see in your classroom, but how do we want to make it feel in your classroom for you, for them, for the greater good?

Contemplate that. Have a beautiful week. I look forward to seeing you in EPC where we teach you and we walk together to collaborate, to connect, to support one another on becoming exceptional, exceptional in our profession and exceptional in our lives. EPC is so much bigger than just checking boxes. It’s not about getting it right. It’s not about what it looks like to be a school leader. It’s about what it is, the truth of your identity, the truth of how you feel, the truth of your impact. Have a beautiful week.

Talk to you soon. Come on into EPC. I’ll see you inside. Take good care. Bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Empowered Principal® Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, please visit angelakellycoaching.com where you can sign up for weekly updates and learn more about the tools that will help you become an emotionally fit school leader.