Collective Empowerment: Rebuilding agency to collectively reach our highest potential

Danielle Derrig • Cahn Fellow 2021

The pandemic has left educators feeling drained and defeated. Last year, while as a school community, we started the year strong with high hopes, quickly, with new policies and new waves of COVID, educators felt uncertain, yet again. As a result, we asked the question, “How can we empower our school community to reach our highest potential?” We took from the work of Fisher, Frey, Smith and Hattie in Rebuilding Agency and the work of Hawkins in Power and Force to guide our understanding of how to rebuild agency and empower our teachers. We developed a theory of action that posited: If the leader creates the organizational structures to support teachers in developing skills and strategies to be empowered, then teachers will be able to reach their highest potential, resulting in student empowerment. 

Across the year, we built mini prototypes around strategies and ideas from the aforementioned books along with other strategies to empower staff and rebuild agency. We partnered with the Mindkind Institute to pilot a program for teachers to transform themselves in order to transform others, sometimes known as the Oxygen Mask principle. Other prototypes included: mindful walks coupled with reflection, retreats and feedback cycles to promote dimensions of agency and empowerment. Each prototype has targeted aspects of the day-to-day life of a teacher in order to reach our highest potential as a school community and together, we have begun the process of rebuilding and finding balance in these new times.