Category Archives: Reality

“A Great Teacher” is what I want to be…

14 Friday May 2021

Posted by in Actions, Authentic, Character, Culture, Education, Educational Leadership, Effective, Encouragement, Engagement, Heart, Inspiration, Leader, Leadership, Legacy, Memories, Passion, Purpose, Reality, Reflection, Servant, Sincerity, Teacher Appreciation, Teachers, Value

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Do you ever wonder if you make a connection with your students? What will they remember about you? With teaching being as much about classroom psychology as it is knowing your subject matter, how students remember us lasts forever in their minds. In a previous blog Memories so thick…, I mentioned the idea of how educators/leaders can create an atmosphere where students make memories, but today, I wanted to take a different look at the same idea.

One of many joys I have as an educator is being able to adjunct teach at the college level. One of my running statements is that I try to “positively corrupt” future educators on how the educational world actually is. It’s harder than you think, by the way. And then there are those current teachers who are working on an advanced degree in education… more than anything else, I try to convey to them the much-needed characteristic of being a servant-leader.

With saying all of that, I have to be minded of the educator I am as well. In my own mind, I think I know what type of educator I am. However, the students throughout my career are the ones who can testify as to what type of educator I actually was.

I love how movie snippets that can say exactly what you are wanting to say, and I have one for us. I highly encourage you to watch the Emperor’s Club with Kevin Kline, if you have never seen it. I believe it should be required of all educators. There is one scene near the end of the movie that sends a message for the type of educator I hope I am and the type of educator I want to be. The message sent is what I wish all teachers/leaders in education would strive to become and be. Not only for themselves but for their students as well. I believe this one clip to be so powerful; I show it at the end of each semester to the class of future educators in hopes they will understand the passion I have for teaching and educational leadership.

Please take 2 minutes and 4 seconds to watch what I am talking about… Maybe get a tissue ready?

Emperors Club – “A Great Teacher” Clip

Here it is in print…

“A great teacher has little external history to record. His life goes over into other lives. These men are pillars in the intimate structure of our schools. They are more essential than its stones or beams, and they will continue to be a kindling force and a revealing power in our lives.” 

This is about as good as it gets for me. This is the type of teacher I hope I am. This is the type of teacher I want to be. I have been very fortunate to have some teachers and mentors like this and they have had an ever lasting influence in one way or another on my life. This is the type of teacher education needs, now more than ever. As we begin to wrap of this school year, make an effort to be this type of teacher. 

Go be a great educator and leader today… Our future needs it…

Remember… Think Leadership and Be For Others…

©2021 J Clay Norton

Want more Leadership Thoughts? Follow me on…

Twitter @thebookchamber

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Illusions of Perception… Are They Reality?

23 Friday Apr 2021

Posted by in Decisions, Illusions, Leader, Leadership, Perceptions, Reality

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Art… “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” it is said. Take any picture in an art museum; what I see and how it makes me feel could be totally different from what you think. Survey a group of ten people; you are likely to get ten different opinions.

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Perception… is it our own reality? Or, is there really an illusion taking place? Our senses tricked to think another way? I would even say it could cause separation anxiety from ourselves, causing us to ask, “What am I supposed to think?”

I’m going somewhere with this… hang in there with me.

Is leadership an illusion of our perceptions? What determines the reality of our perceptions?

I was reading an article the other day, and it referenced the following psychological demonstration from the work of S.E. Asch as an example of how we view leaders.

Read this slowly…

“If I describe a man as warm, intelligent, ambitious, and thoughtful, you get one kind of picture of him. But if I describe another person as cold, ambitious, thoughtful, and intelligent, you probably get a picture of a very different sort of man. Yet I have merely changed one word and the order of a couple of others. The kind of preparation that one adjective gives for those that follow is tremendously effective in determining what meaning will be given to them. The term “thoughtful” may mean thoughtful of others or perhaps rational when it is applied to a warm person toward whom we have already accepted a positive orientation. But as applied to a cold man the same term may mean brooding, calculating, plotting. We must learn to be aware of the degree to which one set of observations about a man may lead us to erroneous conclusions about his other behavior.”¹

I hope that made sense. Just think, change a word and the order, and we have two completely different people… based on nothing more than our perception. I believe this to be our reality as we view those in leadership.

As I read the above example, I have come to a conclusion… leaders and their leadership are perceived only on the notion of what our perception of them is at any given time. More about the effects when we have a stake in the decision as it is made. And that is why leadership is so difficult. That is not to say there are bad “leaders” out there because I genuinely believe they are. However, how we recognize and understand leadership takes on only our perception.

Abracadabra, hocus pocus… what you see is really not there or is it? An illusion of whose reality? It depends solely on you and your perceptions. The climate and culture of any organization are collectively shaped by experiences and interpretation.

Quality leadership that sets leaders apart is the ability to understand different perceptions. What we determine about leaders becomes their perception, which becomes a reality for them.

¹ Asch, S. E. (1946). Forming impressions of personality. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41(3), 258–290.

Go be a great educator and leader today… Our future needs it…

Remember… Think Leadership and Be For Others…

©2021 J Clay Norton

Want more Leadership Thoughts? Follow me on…

Twitter @thebookchamber

Want to share this leadership thought with others? Click on one of the social media sharing buttons below and help spread the good…