Deadlines and Late Nights

I am falling asleep at the computer. I was hoping to meet a self imposed deadline to have the first three chapters done by September. I rewrote chapter 1 after Dr. Brookhart gave me some solid comments. I have chapter 3 almost done (creating a survey and interview questions has been challenging).

This is tough. But I will keep at it- thanks for your thoughts and encouragement...

Measuring The Construct in Question

Assuming that the construct of Personal Mastery or the Private Victory truly is important, how can we measure a school population's levels of these constructs?

If we can, then perhaps we can begin to put together a case for things that organizations are doing to encourage this development.

This study will try and create an instrument to measure these levels. Once we can measure the levels we can identify strong schools. Once we can identify strong schools we can examine their practice. If we discover practices that are impacting a wide-variety of school populations- then we may find something useful for our school leaders to consider. But even more important, we may find hope for children trapped in systems that are hurting their potential and sufficating their passion to learn.

Notes from the Global Summit Day 1

What a powerful day. So much has happened- so much is going to support my studies. I saw a group of students speak today and they blew me away! They were shining as they spoke of personal vision and their love of school and their dreams.

I met Sean Covey today and told him about my dissertation- he connected me with the director of research who is going to assist me as I study the effets of the Leader in Me. He told me 5 others are doing their dissertations on this topic as well. I was excited to hear that now 250 schools are Leader-in-Me schools and India is going to launch 100 schools next year! All of the high schools in Guatemala are required to use the 7 Habits!

I also ate dinner with David Langford from Langford Learning. He invented the consensusgram. His work with Quality tools is powerful and he had a diagram that represented schooling on a spectrum from external to internal motivation. I will connect with him in the future too.

I also shared the meal with Principal Solome Thomas-El. He is an inspirational speaker- one of his lines that made me laugh was when he said: "I have students that give asprin a headache." He is working on his doctorate and it is focused on Self-Efficacy. He says part of his motivation is to be a role model for children and teachers. He wants to build data folders into his school.

Over and over I felt confirmation that this research is important- we can help this profession move forward by identifying the student levels of the Private Victory in students.

Off To The Global Summit

I am going to meet school leaders who are using the Leader-in-Me framework. I can't wait to see what people are doing to develop the personal mastery levels in students...