Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Layers



Schools often add things. Rarely though does adding something translate into removing or replacing previous agendas.


It leads to burnout. 


Resources, especially the energy of people, become drained when it's not balanced. I've used the picture above in presentations many times when I talk about this phenomenon of 'layering' in schools.


It takes leadership to curb this trend... and it takes monitoring by each person. It takes open communication on all fronts.




The breakdown in communication often leads to problems with overload, where layer after layer is piled on.


Schools are not particularly good at change. All too often they're not to good at communication, the open kind, the ones that foster discussion and feedback either.


Change is important and necessary. So is removing old agendas, broken programs, or directions to make way for the new.