You can't duct-tape your way to school success

I will admit it. I can be cheap sometimes.

I guess it comes from all those years of being a teacher. I learned how to make the most of what I had.

I remember one teacher taught me how to dumpster dive at college campuses in May for things I could use in my classroom -- Old couches, mini-fridges, book shelves, vacuum cleaners, microwaves-- I never threw out anything and I would take these bits and pieces I scavenged along the way and do my best to create an inviting and comfortable classroom for my students.

My school never had much money for sustained PD for teachers, so I pieced together a pedagogy from various books I borrowed from the professional library, snippets from conferences I was allowed to attend, handouts from various workshops, and random google searches over time.

Now, as well as this ability to make something out of random bits and pieces served me as a teacher, it has really hurt me as an administrator. You really shouldn't run a school on a pieced together ideology and a random collection of strategies.

It's the reason why so many of us are frustrated that we aren't making more progress in our schools. It's the reason why you're working really hard and not seeing the results you want to see. You're so busy taping together all the various programs, strategies, and tactics you've collected over the year, that you can't make any one of them work all that well.

The problem is, you don't need another strategy or tactic. In the same way that you aren't likely to build a new Ferrari from a random assortment of parts you've collected at the junk yard over the years, you can't build a truly successful school (one where ALL your students are thriving) with an assortment of random programs, strategies, and tactics you've collected throughout your career.

If you really want to get all your staff focused on the right work, see tangible and predictable student gains, create a healthy and thriving culture, and do so without killing yourself in the process, you need a system.

One.

I can't tell you the number of times I had a client proudly show me all the programs he's implementing, the various strategies she's adopting this year, or the stack of initiatives they're launching, as if having a LOT of stuff is akin to having a complete system.

It's not.

And, in the past, I've attempted to help them develop a system, by trying to show them how Buildership can make all those programs work better (old habits die hard).

Problem is, Buildership is not just *another* thing to add to your collection of stuff.

Buildership is a complete system.

One.

So in showing them how to leverage Buildership to make all their other *stuff* work better, I've been doing them a disservice. The truth is, you can't duct-tape your way to a truly successful school.

After all, instead of spending all this time and energy trying to piece together a broken school, shouldn't you simply build a better one?

So if you're tired of trying to duct-tape together a bunch of different strategies, and you'd just rather have one system you knew would work...

If you want a complete step-by-step blueprint, the proper tools, and the support of someone who obsesses over how to help you achieve your goals in the next 3 years...

If you would love to have a community of other Builders like you who get what you're trying to do and offer a safe place for you to fill your cup when things get hard...

Then you need to join us inside Buildership University.

We're opening up enrollment later this month. I'll put the link in the comments below.