Personal Vision: Partnering to ensure every child is physically, emotionally and mentally prepared to reach their full potential in school.
Team Vision: The Kent School District provides early childhood programs that ensure every child is prepared to reach their full potential in school. Through partnerships with preschool providers, collaboration with families and ongoing P-12 program alignment, young children have the foundational tools they need to excel in school and reach their life goals.
Emergenetics is the merging of two ideas - our behavior emerging from our life experiences and our genetic traits. It is rooted in the concept that who you are today is the emergence of your behavior, genetic makeup and life experiences. Emergenetics provides a clear understanding of nature and nurture through the Emergentics Profile, build on four Thinking Attributes and three Behavioral Attributes that ever person exhibits.
I found my experience with Emergenetics very enlightening. Understanding my profile (outlined below) helps me understand how I approach tasks and how I must think when I am working with others.
My Emergenetics Profile revealed that my brain has a slight bias for the logical and rational thinking over the intuitive and inspired. My analytical and conceptual thinking preferences are abstract and my structural thinking is concrete, giving theorizing and speculating a slight edge over my concern for details and practical matters.
My preference for analytical thinking suggests thought processes that are theoretical, rational, and skeptical. My analytical brain is inquisitive and always wants answers, so I am likely to pursue topics until I am satisfied that I have the correct information. I prefer conclusions that are backed up with data and research. My preference for structural thinking suggests that I am good with practical details, favor the tried-and-true methods, and excel at creating clear, workable solution. My preference for conceptual thinking suggests thought processes that are theoretical, unusual and visionary. I instinctively thread each of my thinking preferences through one another; in this way my ideas are usually clear, and most likely others will understand my suggestions.
As a leader, I can make adjustments quickly and easily to match a variety of situations. I am not afraid to ask tough questions, even if doing so puts others on the spot. I have a vision for the future and I expect others to share my enthusiasm for the overall concept or goal. I want to involve others, but at times I have trouble delegating. While I like to do things "by the book," I also inherently understand the value of creativity and thinking conceptually. I am prompt and task-oriented, and I concentrate on meeting deadlines. My ability to adapt my behaviors allows me to mirror the behavior of any person I meet. This helps build rapport and promotes understanding.
P-3 Self Assessment
The P-3 Self Assessment tool is aligned to the Framework for Planning, Implementing, and Evaluating Pre-K-3rd Grade Approaches. It was designed to probe the extent to which we are already doing work related to the eight buckets within the framework.
When taking this assessment, I scored myself highest in:
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Seeking out challenging opportunities that test my skills and abilities
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Praising others for jobs well done
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Following through on my promises and commitments
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Publicly recognizing people who exemplify commitment to shared values
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Celebrating accomplishments
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Showing appreciation and support to other members of the team.
I scored myself lowest in, appealing to others to share an exciting dream of the future.
Leadership Practices Inventory
The Leadership Practices Inventory asked others with whom I work to assess my leadership skills with regards to our work together. I took their responses and compared them to my own responses and in general, they scored me higher than I did myself. I was both pleased and surprised by these results and realize that others see skills and strengths in me that I don't see. My responses, were consistent with my observers, and those who responded were somewhat consistent with each other in their responses. I believe the inconsistency resulted in the working relationship that I have with my superiors who are removed from the actual work I do, and my colleagues with whom I interact with daily. Overall my observers scored me higher than I did myself.
In reflecting on this activity, I would prioritize those practices which need my greatest attention as follows:
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Inspire a Shared Vision
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Enable Others to Act
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Model the Way.
A year from now I want each member of my team to identify a vision for our work that we have created together. The vision for our work will align with KSD's vision of "Successfully preparing all students for their futures." When our vision is completed, each member of the team will be able to articulate the vision as well as the things they do to support that vision.
Leadership
Vision
Practice
Emerginetics
