I had the opportunity to continue my growth in Write Tools with a training on active reading. During the development we read the article Focus: The Forgotten 21st Century Skill by Douglas. R. Reeves. During my tenure in administration, I have read a few items put forth by Dr. Reeves. I had not read this article and it spoke volumes to me. We do seem to lack focus on where we are during a meeting, in the classroom, at home with the family, or during professional development. While reading the article I thought back to all the meetings and other times I was suppose to be paying attention to the speaker, but was busy watching twitter feed or checking my phone. I also began to realize how many times I watched others doing the same thing in meetings. We are suppose to be the role models for our students, but we have also started to lack in focus. As districts are trying to find new ways to improve achievement, we keep putting more and more initiatives in front of our staffs. As leaders we are lacking focus on sticking to one or two ideas and becoming the best we can at those ideas. I am fascinated by the article and plan to share with the rest of the staff. I have moved in the new direction of having one grand initiative and that would be collecting data, pre and post test to measure our students growth. I plan to in the future focus on that one person who is speaking to me. Be a better active listener to my wife and child. Make sure to give my focus to whatever is needed and role model how important focus is for education and life in general.
