Education is not a product: mark, diploma, job, money-in that order; it is a process, a never-ending one Bel Kaufman

While completing the necessary course work, I was able to spend some time reading other books that connected to the different ELCC standards. I will include some reflection on these books.

As I began to articulate my instructional philosophy I realized that one of the great educators of my time is Eleanor Duckworth and one of the quotes that stood out to me was, The virtues involved in not knowing are the ones that really count in the long run. What you do about what you don't know is, in the final analysis, what determines what you will ultimately know (2006, pg. 68). Eleanor Duckworth cemented by beliefs that learning should be drive by ideas, experiences, questions, and passions of individual students. She reminded me the educational virtues of investigating problems and issues where the answers and processes are not always obvious. I strongly believe that for understanding of any content to happen, teachers should build their instruction around questioning, critical thinking, collaboration, personal responsibility, motivation and ownership.

Reflecting on my work around curriculum, my beliefs are grounded in teacher feed back and student reflection. According to Ted Sizer, I can tell you how to throw a javelin. I can show you movies of people throwing the javelin, and I can analyze these movie athletes, the good and the bad. All this does help you become a javelin thrower, but until you pick the instrument up and hurl it, the whole process is an abstraction. Until I can point out your failings and skills (ideally on video playback), I cannot help you very much to become a competent javelin thrower. You throw. I criticize, suggesting some possible improvements. You throw again. And again I criticize (1984, p. 106). Leaders need to provide teachers with support centered around checking for student understanding, making sure that there are clear outcomes and working hand in hand with teachers to analyze data so that achievement gaps can be closed.

The dropout rate is enormous despite our best efforts therefore as leaders and we need to begin to address the reason why.  According to Elliot Washor and Charles Mojkowski in the book Leaving Learning students drop out of high school because of the big four, Academic failure, behavior life events and disinterest (2013, p. 6). As leaders we need to have systems in place to where students can connect the content with hands on experiences, curriculum, supplemented with technology and internships are so vital for today's learning. Leaders need to widen their school vision and include all stakeholders because learning comes from inside as much as it does from outside.

Finally according to Peter Senge, Leadership in a learning organization starts with the principle of creative tension. Creative tension comes from seeing clearly where we want to be, our vision and telling the truth about where we are, our current reality As a leader having a clear vision for a school is important but equally important is assessing whether the vision is being achieved and if not what changes need to take place.