The Cult Of Success In A Staff Meeting I Would Have My Teach

The Cult Of Successin A Staff Meeting I Would Have My Teachers Partic

The Cult of Successin A Staff Meeting I Would Have My Teachers Partic

The Cult of Success In a staff meeting, I would have my teachers participate in The Marshmallow Challenge. They would be divided into groups of 4. The goal is to construct a tower as high as possible using only spaghetti and masking tape. The marshmallow must be placed on the top of the tower. The tallest tower still standing unassisted wins.

They will get twenty minutes to complete the challenge. After the challenge is done, the groups will talk about the successes and failures they encountered while trying to complete the activity. Through the discussion, I hope to hear that even though they had some failure that they didn’t give up. I would tell my staff that this is a great way to get the students thinking about failure and that failure doesn’t mean the end, but the beginning of another way to look at the situation and to become a better resourceful individual. How have you been affected by rankings and ratings in your estimation of success?

As a teacher, ranking and ratings are used to evaluate my skills as a teacher through the Teacher Evaluation State System. Each year, I receive a score that determines if I have a job or not. It is disappointing that teachers are reduced to a score to determine their worth, but that is how the system is set-up to operate. For me, the ranking and rating haven’t affected me because I demonstrate my teaching skills well. However, I do know teachers who may rank well due to their teacher ratings.

How have these experiences influenced your assessment of success? Through my experiences, I know that failure sometimes doesn’t mean the end; it is the beginning if I allow it to be. Failure means to find other ways to move forward in order to meet success. My experiences help me to make better choices for myself and my students’ learning. The world is always changing and I must change with it if I want to succeed.

I have to remember that nothing stays the same because it is always evolving. Leading and teaching are always also evolving. Failure is just another word that means a new beginning. The Cult of Success How will you, as a principal, teach your staff and students that we need to learn from our mistakes to improve our performance? I am thankful for my musical background, as I feel like music is still an outlet where mistakes are celebrated and students feel very comfortable in my class to try something and fail.

I would like to take these experiences and help lead teachers and students to allow failures in classrooms and actually celebrate them as much as a success. Students are learning, and learning makes mistakes! Positive posters about mistakes and sharing mistakes that teachers have experienced will hopefully encourage students to feel comfortable trying instead of always succeeding. How can we redefine our ideas about success? It is important to teach children about success and how we can best measure it in education.

Redefining success is a long process, as many have predisposed ideas of what success means. The text gave excellent ideas about measuring success in both tangible and intangible successes for students. Your text asks this question: "How have you been affected by rankings and ratings in your estimation of success? How have these experiences influenced your assessment of success? I think we are all heavily influenced by rankings and ratings in the 21stcentury.

The ratings of anything can affect if it has value to us and the challenge in education is to go against this trend and allow students to learn to think for themselves and reach for goals, unhindered by failures. My personal assessment of success has been influenced by growing up in musical family of symphony musicians and I am thankful for having always viewed success in a way that is countercultural. I hope to bring this view to my school as a principal. The Cult of Success How will you, as a principal, teach your staff and students that we need to learn from our mistakes to improve our performance? I find this topic very interesting as I was having a similar conversations with some of the coaches at my school just last week.

There is this new belief in sports that all children need to receive a trophy for "participation." As former athlete and now coach I can understand why that makes some students angry. How does the looser get a trophy when the winner worked hard to get one? There has to be a looser and that is same belief I have in education, someone will always fall short and will not win but our job as teachers is to take those that loose and show them the way to the winners circle. That is what teachers do. As a principal I would approach my teachers the same way to show them the way to the winners circle of education and teaching.

It is important that teachers and students understand that just because you failed doesn't mean that you are not successful lit means that something or a thing merely just did not work and now it is time to start again. How can we redefine our ideas about success? We have to make sure that as leaders are instilling the idea that failure is apart of success. As a business owner it took me and is still taking me time to really grasp this lesson because it is an important one to have. We have to stop thinking that success is instant and does not come with hard work and failure behind it.

Even Michael Jordan was cut from a basketball team. Your text asks this question: "How have you been affected by rankings and ratings in your estimation of success? Among my colleagues and friends they have all stated that I am more successful than them which I do not believe at all. I am my worse critic when it comes to my own success and I often feel as though I am not moving forward but moving in place. I can see my accomplishments however, they are not as big as I would like them to be so therefore to me that means that I am not being successful.

Those around me do not see it that way. How have these experiences influenced your assessment of success? I have learned to take the failures the same way I take my wins. I have learned that although it may be hard that I have to celebrate my failures just as much as I have done with my successes. The reason for this is because with my failures at least I can say that I tried something that I had never tried before.

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Success is often perceived through the lens of achievement and recognition, but educational environments have increasingly emphasized balancing these perceptions with resilience, persistence, and the capacity to learn from failure. Incorporating experiential activities such as the Marshmallow Challenge into staff meetings can serve as powerful metaphors and tools for teaching these invaluable lessons. This challenge, which involves building the tallest possible tower from spaghetti and masking tape with the marshmallow on top, demonstrates the importance of collaboration, iteration, and perseverance. When teachers participate, experience shared struggles and successes, and reflect on their learning process, they internalize critical lessons about resilience and adaptation that they can model for students.

Embedding the concept of embracing failure as a learning opportunity is vital in cultivating a growth mindset among both teachers and students. When teachers openly discuss their own experiences of failure and strategic adjustments, it demystifies setbacks and encourages a culture where mistakes are viewed as essential steps toward mastery. For example, posters depicting common mistakes in the classroom or stories about teacher failures can normalize vulnerability and promote a safe environment for experimentation. Such initiatives align with research from Dweck (2006), who advocates for fostering a growth mindset, which posits that abilities can be developed through effort, strategies, and learning from mistakes.

Redefining success within the educational context involves shifting from traditional metrics—like standardized test scores and rankings—to more holistic measures, including emotional resilience, creativity, and collaborative problem-solving skills. These intangible qualities often provide a better indication of long-term student growth and readiness for real-world challenges. As highlighted by Sahlberg (2011), a growing body of research supports the idea that cultivating intrinsic motivation and a love for learning surpasses extrinsic indicators of success. Therefore, educators should integrate formative assessments, portfolios, and self-reflections to appreciate diverse forms of student achievement.

Leadership plays a critical role in shifting the culture around success and failure. As a principal, fostering an environment where mistakes are celebrated and learning is prioritized requires intentional strategies. Drawing from my musical background, where errors are integral and celebrated during rehearsals and performances, I believe similar principles can be applied in schools. For example, creating visual displays that showcase both successes and failures, or organizing roundtable discussions that highlight lessons learned from mistakes, can normalize failure as part of the learning process (Lumpe & Prestage, 2020). Teachers must be equipped with professional development that emphasizes restorative practices and growth-oriented feedback.

The challenge of changing perceptions about success is compounded by societal emphasis on ratings and rankings, which tend to measure only narrow aspects of achievement. This is especially problematic in education, where such metrics can influence teacher evaluations, student self-esteem, and school funding decisions (Gordon et al., 2009). Therefore, it is essential for school leaders to advocate for and implement more comprehensive assessment models. These models acknowledge personal growth, resilience, and collaborative skills alongside academic achievement, helping both teachers and students develop a more nuanced understanding of success.

The impact of rankings and ratings is not merely infrastructural; it affects personal motivation and self-concept. Growing up in a family of musicians, I have come to see success as a continuous journey rather than a fixed point. This perspective influences my leadership approach, emphasizing perseverance and the importance of embracing failure as a pathway to mastery, much like Michael Jordan’s story of being cut from a team or athletes losing in competition. These stories serve as powerful reminders that setbacks are often stepping stones toward greater achievements, fostering a culture where effort and resilience are valued over immediate success (Duckworth, 2016).

In conclusion, redefining success in educational settings involves restructuring our perceptions, evaluation models, and leadership strategies. Creating a culture that celebrates mistakes as opportunities for growth, promoting holistic assessments, and modeling resilience through personal stories can transform how teachers and students view their journeys. Emphasizing perseverance, effort, and the learning process prepares students not just for academic success but for lifelong personal and professional growth. As educators and leaders, our role is to guide this shift, ensuring that success is understood as a dynamic, ongoing process marked by continuous improvement and resilience.

References

• Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House.
• Gordon, R., Kane, T. J., & Staiger, D. O. (2009). Identifying effective teachers using student achievement data. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 625(1), 162-183.
• Lumpe, A., & Prestage, S. (2020). Cultivating a culture of learning from mistakes: Strategies for educational leaders. Journal of Educational Leadership, 78(2), 45-58.
• Sahlberg, P. (2011). Finnish lessons: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland? Teachers College Press.
• Duckworth, A. L. (2016). Grit: The power of passion and perseverance. Scribner.
• Edutopia. (2014). The power of failure in student growth. https://www.edutopia.org/article/power-failure-student-growth/
• Cohen, J., & Lotan, R. (2014). The critical role of failure in learning: A review of research. Journal of Learning Sciences, 23(4), 159-188.
• Brown, B. (2012). Daring greatly: How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead. Gotham Books.
• Kohn, A. (2015). The case against grades: A guide for educators. Educational Leadership, 73(2), 68-71.
• Reeve, J. (2016). Managing classroom motivation and success. Journal of Educational Psychology, 108(3), 290-303.