If you're just joining in on this series, here's what's going on:
I'm using the quotes as a basis for reflection on a shift in my professional journey. You see, for 12 years I was an elementary music teacher and now I've found myself to be an assistant principal. In a time that I anticipate to be filled with much personal and professional growth, I'd like to be sure and carve out some purposeful reflection time. As an educator, I've personally benefited from purposeful reflection through blogging and I can only imagine that I'll still benefit from reflective blogging as a leader in education.
My goal is to spend some time in each post writing about the quote, about the author of the quote (when possible), and about how I see the quote and/or the background image of the quote applying to my day-to-day world.
As a gal who always credits a source, I'd like to give a shout out to a dear friend, Kara Lowery, for coming up with the name of the series. Kara is a fabulous special education teacher who specializes in working with children who have autism. Not only is she a gifted teacher; she's also terrifically punny.
Read on; enjoy!
My district has a staff development for new administrators called New Administrator Institute (NAI). NAI is led by other folks who are campus administrators and our agenda is always filled with interesting things from personality assessments to how to facilitate a courageous conversation. One of the things that I appreciate is that a consulting firm came in and gave us a DISC personality assessment. We recently had an NAI meeting and revisited our DISC assessment that we took at the beginning of the school year. Seeing where colleagues fall in the DISC assessment is so interesting to me, but what's more interesting is how we perceive ourselves and what we said when we pulled out our DISC assessment. Phrases like, "Hmm, I don't know about that," and "well, I don't think I'm like that" are murmured around the room as well as "oh this totally nailed me!" The perceptions of ourselves are more than just what we take on a standardized personality test, which brings me around to Lao Tzu's quote. Knowing the strengths and challenges of your own personality and the personalities of co workers is a big plus, there's no doubt to that; however, knowing that we change over time is also important.
We could review our NAI DISC profiles every month and chuckle at the things that the writeup really calls us out on--things that might make us uncomfortable to look in the "personality" meter. What holds more weight with me are the stories I hear of people who have taken the DISC assessment and then took it years later (maybe after children, or after getting married, or after additional years of life experience) and see that they've changed.
I'm not sure if there's a norm for how people change their DISC personality write up; if age and experience put together always push people toward one characteristic more than another. I do know that, as I look back on this post in future years, I'd like to take the assessment again and see where I score AND reflect on the changes/growth.
So, Future Stout, read this post. Follow directions. Take the DISC assessment again and chart growth (or a need for growth). Most importantly: keep growing.