We come up against a regular buffer in our work: those ‘dirty words’ that schools are afraid to use. What are yours?
Often, ambition is what many schools want to stimulate and support in their students.
But I reckon 95% of Board members I’ve worked with on their schools’ strategy baulk at the word. Ironic, given each of them is likely as ambitious as you could imagine.
Ambition is the perfect word to describe so many schools’ visions of learning. But when it comes to approvals time, there is a perception that ambition is a dirty word, one that will be misunderstood by others (presumably, the unambitious) as being “ambitious at any cost”.
So ambition morphs into the meh of excellence, academic success, goal-oriented aspiration.
What a wasted opportunity to be clear and simple.
Of course, you can be ambitious while also being kind, confident, resilient, curious, honest and honorable. But doing so requires some thought, planning and support.
My own daughters’ school has been working on a fresh strategy, something that gives everyone a clear idea of where its headed, and how we can all play a role in making it happen.
It’s ended up a beautiful strategy because it works in harmony with their core values (you’ve guessed it, they’re: kindness, confidence, resilience, integrity, curiosity).
The beautiful counterpoint to those values is a strategy that involves stimulating, supporting and encouraging ambition**.**
As a parent, I love it.
As a teacher, it gives a clear indication of which decision to make in those thousands of decisions we make every day. Worksheets won’t cut it. Teacher-led monologues won’t work. Ambition needs so much more thought, planning and support.
As a school leader, it helps set expectations.
But it goes further, if you want it to.
Actress Reese Witherspoon put it this way: “Ambition isn’t a dirty word.” She was speaking about equity when she said this. For all the talk about equity, it means little unless we also encourage, support and stimulate ambition.
Maybe equity is even the wrong target. Maybe equity is merely the outcome of having worked hard on something else: at raising ambition and providing the environment where dreams convert into the reality of knowledge, skills and creative nous.
Imagine I’m in your team. If I tell you that our strategy is based largely on stimulating ambition, what would that change in your work this week? What would you stop doing? What would you start doing? What barriers would you ask the bosses to remove?
Sometimes those ‘dirty words’ that we have avoided for so long in education are precisely the words that we need. They tell us clearly what side of the fence we want everyone to be.