At the midway point for my LiA project, I am very happy to see that the project is progressing according to plan, and the hurdles we faced as a team were largely mitigated or overcame. We chose a different supplier for our catering needs altogether, ending our contract with a very irregular supplier. Our students are much less rowdy than before - and we will be gearing them up for a 'midterm' coming next week. Though it's less of a midterm exam, it's more like a progress review for everyone. 

1) What went well?

We managed to overcome the supplier problem I talked about in depth last week, since we unanimously voted to end our contract with the previous catering firm due to the issues mentioned. Thanks to our brilliant network and proactive staff, we had little trouble finding a suitable supplier. Even better, it's a kitchen run by a mother-daughter duo who moved to Selangor from the hustle and bustle of Kuala Lumpur, and we are so proud to be supporting local businesses this way. We managed to capture students' attention during class better by integrating new ways of learning like making songs, dances, or poems to memorise from the lessons taught. 

Collaborating with a local charity that delivers used or refurbished Chromebooks from private schools in Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley region (which includes all of Selangor), we got some working devices to our school with MS Office installed for our students to try out their skills. For now we still rely on our antiquated computer lab with 2000s-era devices, since these Chromebooks are rare and we can only have 1 or 2 devices per class. The kids were excellent with their skills and much more tech-savvy than thought. 

2) What could have been done differently?

The proposal I made to shorten some syllabus content was met with opposition by a lot of board members who wanted to leave them in, and elected to remove some other component instead. For instance, in my proposal, I called for Week 4's focus on teaching money management skills to be turned into a separate module altogether, since the students need time to develop a budget and maintain personal accountability for their spending - which are large asks for students from ages 13 to 15 with special need. The board felt that this can be done in a week, and we can ask parents during parent-teachers day to help with applying money management skills outside of class. I.e., leave the application part to children and their parents, while we focus on teaching the theory in class. There was some back and forth, and a compromise solution was reached much at a much later time than initially expected. 

3) What did I learn about myself when working with others? 

This week I took charge to become a leader by pushing my proposal forward to the board and had to put to work the negotiation and compromise skills I've witnessed in my team and coordinators for the past few weeks. I learned that compromise is much easier said than done - negotiation is the easy part, where both sides are hashing out their sides of the deal and lay their proposals forward. It's the compromise part, where we have to arrive at a working solution, that's difficult. As someone who naturally avoids confrontation, this was exceptionally hard for me to do. That said, I learned a lot about pushing myself to the frontiers of my skills, way beyond my comfort zone, to get something done.

4) What did I learn about leadership? 

That you will be scared when doing something that involves difficult tasks for the first time, and that's fine. Naturally, being non-confrontational, I always try to please the other party rather than confront them. But for this time, we cannot risk delays in the schedule, or risk jeopardising my teaching team. It was my responsibility to negotiate a new delivery method for the syllabus to keep everything controlled within the timeline, and I could not let my team down. After the meetings finished and we arrived at a working solution, it was cathartic to have a private team gathering where I laid out my frustrations and gave comforting advice for 'next times' together. Leadership is also equally rewarding when you bond with everyone through these moments. 

5) What do I want to develop/focus on next? 

Preparing for the midterm reviews will be my priority for the next week. We will need to hold many team meetings, decide on appropriate assessments, and prepare assessment reports for the parents. We don't intend to show the children their 'grades' - we've elected to do away with grades to avoid competition in this environment, where encouraging learning is paramount. On my end, I need to clean up some paperwork and reply to emails - I've been leaving them undone for the past few days due to my disorganisation.