Monday, January 28, 2013

Beliefs and Decision-Making

In several of my courses we talk about personal belief systems and how they shape the way we do our work and make decisions. The challenge is that in any school people often hold different beliefs, grounded in their own unique experiences. This leads to some pretty intense discussions about beliefs, about ethics, and about "right and wrong." I'm always looking for ways to extend the discussion and provide school leaders with tools they can use to think about the different beliefs present among their teachers, staff and community.

This week I saw an article on edutopia that was especially helpful in thinking about this issue. The article, Teacher Collaboration: When Belief Systems Collide, by Elena Aguilar, is built on Garmston & Costa's work in Cognitive Coaching where they discussed the ideologies that shape educators' decision-making. I want to share the article and hope you find it useful to think about your own personal "ideology" and how it shapes what you do and how you see the work, and motives, of others in your school and community.

As always, I'd welcome your thoughts about this topic.

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