I’ve never articulated my end goal or vision before. I know I have them, but I don’t normally sit down and think about them. Sometimes my end goal is to get through to the end of the day of teaching. Sometimes my end goal is to successfully get to the end of a unit with my students. However, my end goal in a larger sense has always been simply to provide a wonderful learning experience for students. If I keep this end goal in mind, my students and I will have a fantastic year learning and growing together. Aside from the goals I have with my students, I need to start thinking about a goal that goes beyond my classroom. I need to start thinking about what kind of impact I’d like to have as a teacher not only on my students, and my site, but maybe my district and, if I’m being ambitious, my city or state. I can see myself eventually participating in curriculum development and/or teacher training and mentoring programs. I’d love to take what I have learned in the classroom and share it with others. Whether that be in the form of developing curriculum that I believe would help students be successful, or supporting other teachers in the same areas. I appreciate being asked to think about my end goals because I’ve never really thought about it before. Now having them written down, I can take steps to achieve them.
In my belief statement for my leadership platform, I talk about how I believe the purpose of education is to prepare students for the real world and support them in developing certain skills: collaboration, creativity, communication and critical thinking. If this is my end goal, I now have to take those beliefs and put them into action. If my actions match my beliefs, I will be seen as a reliable professional. Further, once I take action, the results I achieve, for example helping develop a curriculum that prepares students for the real world, will determine my character as a leader. My authenticity will be established if my beliefs match my actions and produce the correct results. Therefore, having my end goal in mind gives me focus and steers me towards being seen as a reliable, authentic professional with a larger sphere of influence.
I will sit down with my colleague, Courtney, this week and describe to her the importance of having an end goal. I will explain that it provides focus and guidance in your professional life. I will tell her my recently discovered end goal and how I hope it will allow me to increase my sphere of influence. I will take the time to challenge her to think about some of her end goals, small and large as well. I will continue thinking of my end goals throughout my teaching career and take steps to develop my reliability and authenticity as a leader and increase my sphere of influence.