An award winning discussion

It was the tale of two discussions. The same group of people participated in each of the two discussions. They both took place during relatively the same time period. They both centered on school improvement. Yet, in the end, they were both vastly different.

In the first, a few months ago, a group of staff members were gathered to discuss the problems/issues the school is currently facing and how we can work to solve them. Issue after issue surfaced as weeks of frustration came tumbling out. Solutions were proposed only to be met by other problems to be solved. Unfortunately, in the end, there were more problems than solutions. Most walked away (or at least I did) feeling that the work to do to get to where we needed to be would be insurmountable.

Then, this morning, at the ripe hour of 7 a.m., the same group of staff members met. A warm breakfast was served. The only prompt for this discussion was- what has been done at the school to foster improvement? Everybody brainstormed what they remembered as having happened and then we all shared. For a good hour we discussed everything from RTI to PBS. After the meeting I walked away feeling on top of the world. I knew we were still not perfect, yet I believed perfection was obtainable. The problems still exist, but somehow I knew that together we could master those problems.

I venture to say that our classrooms can be like these two discussions were. One day, nothing seems to go right, and the next, nothing seems to go wrong. What makes the difference? I think that all of us prepared ahead of time before we spoke in the second meeting. We methodically thought about what points we wanted to address. The vision in the discussion was a little different- instead of a 'problem solving' discussion, it was a 'solution' discussion. We focused on the positive, on what had already worked, instead of focusing on what needed to be solved.