Joe Sanfelippo - Hacking Leadership: 10 Ways Great Leaders Inspire Learning That Teachers, Students, and Parents Love

Hacking Leadership

2016 by Times 10 Publications

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Published by Times 10

Cleveland, OH

hacklearningseries.com

Cover Design by Tracey Henterly

Interior Design by Steven Plummer

Editing by Ruth Arseneault

Proofreading by Jennifer Jas

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016934739

ISBN: 978-0-9861049-4-7

First Printing: June, 2016

Contents

A better way

Lead learners are visible

Start with school leaders

Connect with intentionality

Create partnership with the community

Appeal to your audience to generate support

Create schools that work for kids

Develop a team of exceptional educators

Empower teachers to control their own learning

Facilitate collective professional development

Eradicate deficit thinking

Be like water

Acknowledgements

We would both like to acknowledge that this book could not happen without the opportunity to lead given to us by the Fall Creek School District and Cantiague Elementary. To the staff, families, and kids... thank you. You are the reason we do what we do and a simple thanks does not even begin to express our gratitude. We would also like to thank all the educators (teachers, coaches, principals, superintendents, and everyone else) in our Personal Learning Network (PLN). They have pushed our thinking, expanded our perspectives, and helped us enhance our craft. Their willingness to share ideas, passions, and beliefs has been a source of inspiration for us and our work.

Joe: I would like to thank Andrea for the unwavering support through the long evenings and stress that comes with leadership. To the three crazy kids who call me dad: You are amazing and make me proud every second of every day. You are all going to be incredible leaders.

Tony: Thanks to Paul for inspiring me to be the best dad, educator, and person possible. Your strength, courage, and positivity sustain me and bring more joy than I thought possible. I love you, kid! To Feli, thank you for making my dreams come true and for loving me unconditionallyit is an honor to share my world with you! And to my family, thank you for supporting me and always making me smile!

Publishers Foreword

Would you want to work for you? Would you enjoy being a teacher or a student at your school? Do you enter the building with a smile on your face, anticipating a day of inspiration, excitement, and joy? Is there any hesitation in your answers? Be honest.

School district superintendent Joe Sanfelippo and building principal Tony Sinanis definitely answer yes to all of these questions. And they dont just tell me how much they love what they do; they proclaim it to the world on their social networks, blogs, and their popular Successful Schools podcast. Unfortunately, the authors of Hacking Leadership are more the exception than the rule when it comes to how leaders lead.

Please understand: This is not an indictment of individuals who lead. It is a statement about a system that often inhibits potentially great leaders. Most administrators, I assume, have good intentions. Unfortunately, many have become victims of a bureaucracy that makes effective leadership difficult. As policymakers and lobbyists continue their quests to standardize education, increase high stakes testing, and politicize learning, decision makers face challenges that didnt exist just twenty years ago. Todays education model promotes accountability through test scores and college and career readiness, at all costsa system that pressures some leaders into decisions that they regret.

Fortunately, there is still hope for all of our leaders, teachers, parents and, most important, our children. Hope that education can be saved from bad policy and misguided policy-makers. Hope that we can successfully navigate standardization and testing. Hope that teaching and learning can be fun again. These hopes will become reality if every school leader heeds the advice contained in this book, written by two progressive-minded leaders who understand how to create a marvelous culture of learning that all stakeholders loveno matter what seemingly impenetrable dams may stand in their way.

Hacking Leadership is the fifth book in the Hack Learning Series . Our authors are all education hackers; that is, they strive to solve problems with right-now solutions that dont require the clich five-year plan.

Education hackers are tinkerers and fixers. Like all hackers, they see solutions to problems that other people do not see. The label hacker originated in the field of technology, referring to those who circumvented or subverted systems to make innovations. Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg might be considered technologys greatest hackers. No one taught them how to build an operating system or a social network, but they saw possibilities that others couldnt see.

Like Jobs and Zuckerberg, our hackers see things through a different lens. They are specialists who love to grapple with problems that need to be turned upside down and viewed from another perspective. The fix may appear unreasonable to those plagued by the issue, but to the hacker the solution is evident, and with a little hacking it will be as clear and elegant as a gracefully-designed smartphone or a powerful social network.

Inside the Books

Each book in the series contains chapters, called Hacks, which are composed of these sections:

• The Problem: Something educators are currently wrestling with that doesnt yet have a clear-cut solution.
• The Hack: A brief description of the authors unique solution.
• What You Can Do Tomorrow: Ways you can take the basic hack and implement it right away in bare-bones form.
• Blueprint for Full Implementation: A step-by-step system for building long-term capacity.
• Overcoming Pushback: A list of possible objections you might come up against in your attempt to implement this hack and how to overcome them.
• The Hack in Action: A snapshot of an educator or group of educators who have used this hack in their work and how they did it.

I am proud to be a contributing author and publisher of the Hack Learning Series , which is changing how we view and solve problems. When you finish reading this book, you will understand how to unravel the complexities of leadership. You may see solutions to other problems that youve previously overlooked. In the end, you might even become a hacker. And thats a good thing.

Mark Barnes, Author, Publisher, Education Hacker

Introduction