This week Penny asks, “What goal is so powerful that you are compelled to move toward, yet respectful of its immensity?”
I do have big goals, which include:
- To finish strong at my school, where I just have one more year to teach, helping all my students grow in English acquisition.
- To build our English department and curriculum, so it will continue as staff changes occur.
- To improve student growth of English acquisition in the elementary department. Over the years, we have seen marked improvement of those making adequate yearly progress–from about 25% to 50%. That needs to grow more!
- To hire more paraprofessionals, so we can have two adults in every literacy period.
- To hire a reading specialist.
- To assess all students in concepts of print, phonological awareness, and phonics at the beginning of each school year.
Is my goal hairy and audacious?
From what I read about BHAG and the example of Boeing bringing commercial air travel into the jet age, my goals so far aren’t easily articulated as one BHAG. It is not a vision statement that will fit on a t-shirt, for instance.
Jim Collins explains another BHAG about getting to the moon in the 1960’s: “…the goal itself—the mountain to climb—was so easy to grasp, so compelling in its own right, that it could be said one hundred different ways, yet easily understood by everyone.”
My list may be the smaller steps to reach a bigger goal. As yet, it is not easily understood by everyone. Perhaps they are the many steps to get to a BHAG that I have yet to articulate.
I need to think about this, and perhaps read Built to Last.