Being a Fan of Student Growth

Photo by Ronny Sison on Unsplash

No one can celebrate like sports fans. All season long, they’ve been focused on the goal, tracking stats, arguing which player is the best. (The day after the basketball season is over, the pundits my husband watches are heatedly discussing the next season!) And when their team finally wins the World Series, the World Cup, or the NBA championship, the celebration is jubilant. 

Even though I don’t create quite as much noise and mess, I can feel just as much delight when I see students growing. Like when… 

• The teacher whose desk is next to mine shares that a student told her Jesus gives her peace and she wants to follow him.
• A colleague in a book discussion of Becoming a Globally Competent Teacher explains how students grew in their empathy for refugees as a result of a social studies project.
• A 6th grader giving a book talk to the class on A Wish in the Dark says, “I liked this book because Pong is courageous. Reading this book can help you wonder what is right to do, and do it.”

These stories of student growth—whether my own students or a colleague’s—encourage me, energize me, and send me back to focus even more on achieving my big dreams for students. What if these moments didn’t just happen serendipitously and individually? What if our international Christian schools fermented as much discussion around achieving our purpose statements as sports fans do around their team achieving victory? 

Teaching is hard, and to really flourish, teachers need all the encouragement we can get. Passionate purpose—like a sports fan—is one significant driver of flourishing. My deep hope is that staff at my international Christian school—and at every international Christian school—are experiencing the discussions (including celebrations) of the meaning, implications, and achievement of the school’s purpose statements that will help them flourish in terms of passionate purpose.

In my 30-plus years as a teacher, department chair, and curriculum coordinator at international Christian schools, I have experienced, used, and heard about practices that contribute to this kind of passionate purpose. Some are personal and individual; some are communal and institutional. Personal practices include prayer, conversation, expressions of gratitude, reflective blogging, and real or virtual learning communities. Communal and institutional practices include staff devotions, staff meetings, department meetings, and book discussions.

What exactly has this looked like?

1. Starting emails and meetings by thanking people for the time and attention they give to achieving the purpose statements (rather than by apologizing for taking their time).
2. Regular prayer in private, in staff devotions, and at the beginning of meetings for guidance as we seek to achieve the purpose statements.
3. Brief 5-minute devotional time at the beginning of meetings, focused on the meeting’s topic
4. Consistent times in staff and department meetings to celebrate student achievement of the purpose statements. It can be as simple as a turn-and-talk or think-pair-share about something your students learned this week.
5. Long-term staff sharing their story at meetings: what brought them to the school and what has kept them there.
6. Book discussions with other teachers where we deepen our best practices that help us achieve the purpose statements, celebrate the student growth we see as a result, and develop a collegial culture that continues such conversations beyond the meeting time itself.

What about you? What if we discussed and celebrated our international Christian school’s purpose as passionately as sports fans do their teams? How do you personally focus on and celebrate student growth? How does your school focus on and celebrate student growth? What would help you focus on and celebrate student growth even more?