Leading and/or Serving ALL

"A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go, but ought to go"

-Rosalyn Carter, former first lady

This week we were blessed with the opportunity to learn together with Dr. Jose Medina from the Center for Applied Linguistics (More photos in the Connect).  His powerful work and messaging with us, has inspired our robust participation from Bethesda, South, North, Heyer, Banting, Butler, Horning, Les Paul, Student Services and Teaching and Learning and coordinators to view our leadership from the perspective of serving our community: teachers who serve learners, bringing a special and focused lens to serving out Hispanic and Dual Language Learners.

Servant leadership is not management leadership but a mission to create a more just world. The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.

The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. 

Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. 

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only think that ever has"

-Margaret Mead, cultural anthropologist

That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive....

The servant-first leader ensures the growth of the people and communities in which they belong FIRST: they become more skilled, more confident, wiser, freer, more autonomous, and are more likely to become servants themselves. Servant leaders impact the least privileged in society, or at least do not create further deprivation.

Are you or do you work with a servant leader?  The servant-leader shares power, puts the needs of others first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible to ensure that the least privileged learners becomes to most likely to succeed.

When we lead to serve for ALL (Academic Language Learners and Emergent Bilingual), we ensure the structures of our schools and programs truly serve our learners.  We ensure those charged with being the difference (teachers) in serving learners are fully served themselves in their effort to do so.  Supported Instruction and Curriculum development, collectively keeping, discarding and creating that which will ensure service to rigorous learning.  Adequate professional processing time to place student impact at the center, and the autonomy and trust in teachers to ensure that curriculum and instruction always responds to learners. 

When we lead to serve, we recognize and embrace our leadership responsibility for ALL.