Tag: principal

Two Years Abroad pt. 3 – Learning & Leading (and finding my groove)

Featured ~ Peter LeBlanc

Learning about the community and the leadership work and finding my groove as the new principal of the Canadian Section of SHAPE IS.

For Part 1 of this multi-part series, click here.

For Part 2, click here.

On July 2, we watched movers load our possessions, one by one, into a 40-foot shipping container.  The Department of National Defence took good care of us during our move. We packed nothing. We moved nothing. We loaded nothing. The Canadian moving crew was amazing.  Once packed and loaded, we spent one full week in temporary accommodations in Canada. We stayed local so that we could walk to the house, now empty, to take care of our two cats, before jumping on our flight.   I also chose to store my car instead of having it shipped overseas. 

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Two years abroad – Pt. 2 – Leading Towards (our departure)

Featured ~ Peter LeBlanc

Two years abroad – Pt. 2 – Leading Towards (our departure)

For Pt. 1 – Leading Up, please see my previous post: 

Upon reflection, coming home from work on that Thursday night in December seemed a little surreal. That morning, Kelly and I were looking forward to a laid back 2-week break. We had both been working very hard during November and December. That evening, we were thrust into the unknown. Things changed and moved quickly.  We had mountains of information to review. We began exploring what living in Belgium might look like. And, of course, we looked at one map after the other, tracing the distance from our new home to places like Paris and London and Brussels and Amsterdam!

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Two years abroad – Pt. 1 – Leading Up (to the opportunity of a lifetime)

Featured ~ Peter LeBlanc ~ 6 Comments

This is the first of a multi-post series outlining the unique experience I just completed as principal of the Canadian Section of the International School in Casteau, Belgium. This school is operated by the Canadian Department of National Defence and is part of a school campus that serves the children of military and NATO staff who work on the NATO military base there. 

I hope you enjoy it. 

Leading up (to the opportunity of a lifetime)!

I am one month home after a two-year absence. I left the town of Orangeville, Ontario to assume a school leadership role that was unique. By unique, I mean that only one other Canadian principal can claim the same job. In July 2019, I began my role as the principal of the Canadian Section of the SHAPE International School. This school is operated by the Canadian Department of National Defence for the Canadian Armed Forces. It is housed on the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe base in Casteau, Belgium. SHAPE, as it is commonly known, is one of two of NATO’s Allied Command Operations headquarters.

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Questions to ask PQP pt 1&2

~ Peter LeBlanc

Later on today, I will be speaking with candidates from OPC’s Principal Qualifications Program Parts 1 & 2 about my journey as a connected school leader. I always find it funny when I get asked because I don’t see the ‘connected’ part as a separate part of my role. I see it as integral to what I do.

The School Level Leadership pillars of the Ontario Leadership Framework talks about the importance of building relationship and of nurturing a collaborative culture. I find it critical to reach out to the education world beyond your building. If you don’t, think of the expertise your missing.

To the candidates, I’m sure you’ll have some questions for me. And I’ll be happy to answer them.  But I also have a series of questions for you as you think about school leadership as a possible next step in your teaching career. There is really no order of importance or perceived insight to these questions. This is the result of a 30-minute ‘brain dump’. Others may choose to add questions in the comments. You may choose to reflect on them publicly there as well. I look forward to meeting with you today.

Peter

Food for thought

What will the critical skills be in the world for which we are preparing our students?

Whose world are we preparing students for?

What technology do you think people are using?

Are you technically proficient?

Are you prepared to be an agent of change?

Can technology have a positive impact on student learning? If so, how?

Can technology have a positive impact on your work? If so, how?

If you’re looking to be a lead learner, are you connecting yourself to a world of learners?

What about the Ontario Leadership Framework? What pillar(s) might connecting be able to enhance?

What tools would you expect staff to be able to use?

What tools would expect students to be able to use? What tools do they use?

What’s different about the world in which we live now in comparison to the world in which you lived when you where in school? What’s different about your classroom, both physically and pedagogically, and the one you were in as a student?

FFTF enters the blogsphere

~ Peter LeBlanc

For several years now, I’ve been forwarding an item on a weekly basis to school and Board colleagues entitled the ‘Food For Thought Friday’ (known from here on in as the FFTF). This artefact is often an article, a video or a blog that is intended to cause the reader to think about their own educational practice or to start a conversation.

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of blogging and, in my ‘other life’, have managed a non-educational blog for years. Yet, the idea of putting myself ‘out there’ in education has always been intimidating to me. What finally pushed me over the edge was a subtle word of ‘encouragement’ from a senior administrator with my own school board in a very brief F2F conversation last week about Canadian administrators one should follow on Twitter. I also look at some of the classes in my own school with students blogging about their learning and feel a little embarrassed that the students are fine to put their learning ‘out there’ but that the principal has cold feet. That doesn’t wrk any longer.

The FFTF will now be part of a weekly blog post. If that’s all I do for the time being, so be it. If all it means is starting a larger conversation for a few people, I’m happy with that. If, at a future point, the blog becomes a place for added transparency in my practice, that’ll work too.

This also opens the weekly FFTF up to ‘the world’. Feel free to comment and discuss at your leisure.

Peter

December 6th, 2013 FFTF: I was discussing the uses of Twitter as a tool to learn and connect professionally. This is part of the same conversation referred to above that finally pushed me to get the FFTF onto a blog (almost one full year after my initial commitment to do so). The Superintendent and I agreed that one of the first things needed for a successful venture into the Twitterverse was to have appropriate people along for the journey. I was funny how as a school and a system leader, we both had George Couros at the top of our list of people to follow. George’s post entitled “Our Thinking has to Change” challenges some outdated perspectives on our role as teachers, particularly as it applies to current and emerging technologies that we use with our students. It also highlights the importance of our relationships with students and how that must adapt to encompass the tools of our ever-changing world.

http://georgecouros.ca/blog/archives/4278

Happy FFTF, everybody.