Collaboration Across Home & School: H.E.L.P.F.U.L. Mindset
Now, more than ever before, showing up with a helpful mindset can be the ingredient that takes recipes for effective collaboration and communication across home, school, and community support systems from “good” to “great.”
Check out our “H.E.L.P.F.U.L. Mindset” acronym below to see if you’ve got this essential ingredient!
I’ve previously written about many of the driving factors in educator burnout, and I’ve also spoken about the significant challenges that school systems face when attempting to support students in the ways that are necessary in 2024 America, with the resources and funding that reflect the needs and costs of decades ago…
For recovering idealists like myself, having to live in this space where we are promising families and students so much, yet struggling to carry-out the promises in a consistent way through well-defined strategies that are adequately-communicated…well, it can be like being asked to run a mile and then finding out on the day of the race that you’re shoelaces have to be tied together, and the mile is now entirely uphill. In other words, it’s an exhausting and disheartening experience.
A temptation that everyone can fall for is staying “stuck at the starting line” and slipping into a mindset of simply “admiring the problem.”
Regardless of whether you are a parent, school employee, or community agency or provider, we can all fall for it.
And in doing so, it’s easy to get stuck in an unhelpful mindset that results in feeling powerless over the situation(s). When people feel powerless, we can find ourselves engaging in ways that increase hostility, defensiveness, finger-pointing, apathy, etc. These actions can become pests in your learner’s collaborative kitchen, and once in the kitchen, they can wreak all kinds of havoc on the essential ingredients for effective collaboration and communication.
At the same time though, in order to move toward identifying and implementing solutions, we can’t fall for the toxic positivity trap…
Instead we need to approach things rooted in reality, while reaching out toward the opportunities that can be born through a commitment to navigating around obstacles.
In other words, we need to identify the problem(s) in order to generate, identify, and implement possible solutions.
Need help moving from admiring the problem to generating possible solutions? Just like cooking, collaboration is an “art.” Contact GPS Education Consulting today to help you to improve your “craft.”
Identifying problems can be really uncomfortable, and many times this is where things fall apart for teams.
It takes a delicate balance between being direct, but also offering opportunities for people to “save face,” while offering grace, and volunteering our assistance whenever possible and appropriate.
It is an art… and not everyone has a side-hustle as a diplomat. One of the key actions that you can take is intentionally showing-up with a helpful mindset.
This is easier said than done, and people much smarter than me have dedicated countless pages to positive psychology, and cultivating a helpful mindset.
What I’ll offer to the topic is an acronym that offers a blend of concrete strategies, mantras, and skills to develop that can increase your chances of showing up with a H.E.L..P.F.U.L. Mindset.
Have Hard Conversations with A Soft Startup
Emphasize willingness to be part of solution
Leave behind unrealistic expectations
Pause when getting upset
Forgive the small stuff & Find the “fixers”
Understand others’ perspectives and the underlying factors at play
Locate the Incremental Progress (and Celebrate it Together)
In my next post, I’ll give some concrete steps and suggestions for carrying out each aspect of the acronym. Stay tuned : )
Best,
Evan Gallena, Ed.S., NCSP
Founder & Lead-Consultant: GPS Education Consulting L.L.C.
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Together, as one… Navigating the path to school success!
