While recently attending NAEA’s convention in New Orleans, an art teacher from Colorado approached me after one of my sessions with an amazing story about how her art department FINALLY gained the respect for which they had been working.
You see, it all started when her art department enrolled in AOE’s class, Showing Student Growth in Art. Throughout the duration of the class, their team came up with a solid growth plan. After implementation, their administrators liked it so much, they used it as a model for the entire district to help train the CLASSROOM teachers write good SLOs! How gratifying!
Because of this ‘above and beyond’ approach, they turned the heads of the admin, and low and behold, after many denied applications in years past, the district approved the team to attend NAEA in New Orleans – all expenses paid! Coincidence? I think not.
The lesson here is not about how great AOE’s classes are (although I would be silly not to point that out) but it’s a bigger lesson in professionalism.
When you take yourself seriously enough to become a leader, find your own PD and go the extra mile, others will notice, and it pays dividends.
Don’t wait for the opportunities to come to you – pave your own way. You just never know what will come back in return.
Tell us, what have YOU done to gain the respect of your administration?
Has it been an uphill battle or do you have support?
Magazine articles and podcasts are opinions of professional education contributors and do not necessarily represent the position of the Art of Education University (AOEU) or its academic offerings. Contributors use terms in the way they are most often talked about in the scope of their educational experiences.
Article 
