Welcome to Transformative Principal, where I help you stop putting out fires and start leading.
I'm your host, Jethro Jones.
You can follow me on Twitter at Jethro Jones.
Okay.
Welcome to Transformative Principal.
I am your host, Jethro Jones.
So excited to have you here today.
Today we are talking with Stan Urba.
Did I say that right?
You did?
Okay.
Stan Urba.
He is a principal in Ohio and he is currently working on his doctorate.
And as you know, I also am working on my doctorate, so.
I love it when I can talk with people who are in the middle of this process as well.
And, um, I don't think I told you Stan, uh, I have a, and a little accountability group that I'm doing with other people who are writing their dissertations, so I should invite you to that also.
Actually, you know what?
I think when we first connect to Jethro, you did actually invite me.
I am part of the group, probably not one of the more active members right now 'cause
There you are.
Yes, you.
You are in there, but you don't ever post anything, so I thought you weren't there.
So there you go.
All right,
you are correct.
I need to be, have a little more accountability, so
well.
Yeah, well, here's the thing.
Uh, the, the, there's an automatic question that goes in every week that says, what are you gonna get done towards dissertation?
And what did you get done towards dissertation?
And just having that little bit of accountability really helps.
It helps me be accountable to somebody besides myself, and it helps others be accountable to somebody besides themselves also.
So, uh, if you're working on dissertation, there'll be a link to this in the show notes on the.
On the podcast today at Transformative Principal dot org, so you can, you can join this as well if you're in the middle of working on a dissertation or at the doctoral level, or even if you're just, uh, getting ready, you can still join us and connect there.
And, and I gotta tell you, having the accountability is really helpful because it's helped me get to the point where, uh, I am, I am just about done.
And it's, it's very exciting.
Great.
Congratulations.
I wish I could say the same, but we're, we're on a rough draft of the first three chapters.
Oh, you, you will, you will get there, my friend.
Don't you worry.
That's, that's the beauty of this stuff.
You just keep going.
Eventually you get it done and, uh, and, and keep pushing forward.
You'll get it.
Um, so, uh, why don't you start by telling us a little bit about, uh, what your dissertation is in and the things that you're researching.
Sure.
Um, so my primary focus on my dissertation is principal self-efficacy.
So basically it's the power of if you believe in something or you think.
Something you're going to naturally do better at it.
And, um, a quick story that kind of got me into this, um, and I Jethro, I haven't even shared this with you actually.
Um, I started my dis, or I'm sorry, I started my doctoral program in 2014.
Yes.
man.
years ago.
But
man.
There's a story behind that though, and that's where you're gonna, you'll say, oh, wait a second.
So I started in 2014.
I was in the last semester of my coursework and, um, I had a weird thing where I just wasn't, I, what I would do is when my boys would go to bed, I would do most of my writing from 10 p 10:00 AM or 10:00 PM to 2:00 AM.
Yes.
I got to the point I couldn't complete assignments and I never, that was not me as a student.
And, uh, I started feeling sick.
I was losing weight mysteriously.
So through some blood work and a great doctor that saved my life, I had leukemia and, um.
Yik.
Yeah, it was, it was bad.
It almost took my life.
But through that process, I always was a believer in positive thinking.
And that kind of drove me to where I am today with my dissertation.
So I had to take some years off.
Um, I took some, some years off of work, but, um, when I returned, you know, I realized that that's really what I wanna study is self-efficacy.
And I transferred that into my work as a, as a principal.
Okay, so self, that's, that's a crazy story.
Congratulations on.
Beating that and, and surviving.
Uh, tell me a little bit about, um, what self-efficacy really means.
You said that it's what, if you believe in something, then you're more likely to be able to accomplish it, or something like that is what you said, but help me understand what that means day to day for a principle.
Basically, oh.
Sorry about that.
Um, uh, what that means is as a principal, is that what your question was, Jethro.
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, so, so I'll, I can give you an example actually, a very specific example.
Um, my career as a teacher, I was a band director.
Um, and that's really what I did.
So regarding curriculum.
Probably not my strongest suit.
Um, I would say I've worked hard on it on these 11 years as a school administrator, but when I go and I think about it before I go in and tackle a task that involves curriculum.
I really think about it.
I visualize I'm gonna go in there and talk to this teacher about curriculum and you know, I'm gonna be positive about it.
And if I have that thought going into it, the actual interaction with the teacher is gonna be more positive for the teacher.
Definitely.
And for me.
And more importantly, I go in there with the confidence and the attitude that, you know what?
I can help this person.
We're gonna work together and we're gonna make this happen for the best interest of our kids.
So that's just a quick example.
Um, curriculum is not my strong suit, but I'm definitely getting better at it every day.
And ironically, um, part of my current position is not curriculum directly.
But, uh, I do testing and assessment for my school district, so I, I'm already starting to build on that and really develop that positive attitude and work on it to become even better.
Yeah.
So, uh, is this, you know, essentially, excuse me, is this essentially the, like the power of positive thinking, or is it deeper than that?
I think it's both actually.
Like I said, it, it comes from personal experience first.
Um, but I think.
More importantly, it's the actual, the mindset and it's the going out and, and thinking about it.
Um, I know you've, people have heard Michael Giordano would go out and visualize shooting baskets, you know, and that positive thinking.
Um, and that translated to his, his, um, performance on the court.
So I really do think it's more, it's a mindset.
It's just everything I do, I try to tackle it with a positive attitude and thinking that there's nobody.
No way.
Something's gonna stop me from being successful and achieving what I need to get done.
And I can even use this dissertation as an example where, um, I'm maintaining a positive attitude about it, albeit, you know, 11 years now.
And, um, it's, it's helped me, I believe, both personally and professionally.
For sure.
Um, you know, so I do, uh, the, the form of coaching that I do is, uh, positive intelligence coaching.
And one of the things that, that they talk about in there is that you are significantly more likely to find success if you visualize it happening.
Beforehand than if you either don't do anything at all or if you just practice a whole bunch, it is almost as effective to visualize yourself doing it as it is to do the actual practice.
And so, you know, they, they use the, uh, the basketball example as well where they say, uh, if you, if you go out and practice and you shoot free throws all the time, then you.
You know, you can improve a certain amount.
If you visualize doing that, then you can improve very close to that same amount.
And I don't remember the exact numbers that they used, but it was, it was significant improvement and significant, uh, growth just based on visualizing or practicing.
Um, and, and what I've found when I have.
Difficult things to do that I'm not looking forward to, or that I, I struggle with.
Um, the visualization really helps in practicing it in my mind, or, or seeing the positive outcome really helps.
And so, but the question is, how does that work with things that you are not like nervous about?
Does it still help or do you not need it?
Or do you already have that confidence that you don't need to visualize it at all?
For me personally, once I get to a point where I've got something, and I know there's a lot of research on, you know, tackle the wor, the, the toughest thing first.
Uh, I've read books on that.
I think there's a lot of research out there that says, you know, tackle the toughest thing and then work your way down.
Um, there's all kinds of, of research out about that.
I, I would say to me, I just lend myself to the fact that, you know what?
I'm gonna do it.
I gotta do it.
I gotta get it done.
And you know what?
I'm gonna maintain a positive attitude.
I'm gonna work hard.
You know?
Um, the, then I, when I really get down on things, I'll go back to the point, Hey, there was a point when I almost didn't live on this earth anymore because of cancer, but I defeated it.
And when I go back and I dig down in that deep, deep soul, sometimes I have to go to, I realize, you know what?
This is nothing.
I
Yeah.
This is nothing.
Yeah.
uh, so to answer your question, I. I do think I'm, now, do I visualize every time I go in and talk to a teacher about curriculum?
No.
But if there's a more difficult teacher, you know, someone that I think that it's gonna be a, a, a more challenging conversation that might push me a little bit.
I need to be prepared.
So I do, I go in and I think about it and I visualize it before I even walk in there.
And I, and I, I'm glad you shared that about the research, you know, that it's just as good, you know, um, I think that's very important to anything you're tackling that can be difficult for you.
Yeah, so you mentioned tackling the toughest thing first.
Uh, sometimes I do that and other times I start with the smallest win that I can get, uh, to build my own confidence that I can, I can do this and, and so, you know, going.
For example, when I first became a principal, I didn't really like doing, I was in an elementary school and I didn't really like doing, uh, observations because I hadn't taught in an elementary school except as a substitute, but that doesn't really count.
And, and so I felt a little insecure about it and didn't know how I could give feedback to teachers.
And so in the beginning, I would go into teachers' classrooms that I liked and I knew, liked me.
Where it would be easy and comfortable.
And then later I would, you know, go into three teacher's classrooms that I liked and then go into the teacher's classroom that I was kind of dreading and you know, just doing walkthroughs and things like that that often helped as well and accomplish the easy things before we get into the hard things.
So with that, there, there are a lot of things that we do in education that don't really move the needle, but make us feel like we're doing.
We're getting these small wins, and one of those things is, uh, keeping on top of your email and, and a lot of principals spend a lot of time worrying about getting their email answered and taken care of, and I have often seen that as a procrastination tool rather than a, like getting work done.
Any, any thoughts on that with just that brief introduction?
Sure, sure.
Um, specifically about emails.
I would definitely say, um, I learned that over the years, I, I'll be the first to admit.
I think as a first year building administrator, it was tough to manage the emails.
Um, a couple things I've, I've kind of done the old schedule send, um, in my building and in my school district, I'll actually say, um, we have a thing, Hey, you know what?
After four or five o'clock.
Don't email us unless there's something really important going on a dire emergency or something.
And typically that's done with a cell phone call anyways, so that would be the first thing I would say.
I shut it down.
Um, a tip I would give to school administrators.
Um, and some of you're gonna say, I don't know how you do this.
Um, when I started my last position for the current position I'm in, I took all school email off my cell phone
Yep.
If I'm gonna be a good administrator, I need to be at a hundred percent.
My batteries need to be charged and ready to go in the morning.
And if I'm thinking about that email that my superintendent sent out at midnight till 6:00 AM am I gonna be effective The next am?
Am I gonna serve my students the best I can and my teacher's probably not.
So that email, I would encourage you, since I've done it, I think I've reclaimed part of my life back.
Truly.
Yeah.
thousand percent would, would encourage that.
Uh, as far as emails I've found, and, and we're a Google School district, I know a lot of schools are going that way now.
Uh, I use Google Calendar a thousand percent.
And like I, I will tell people that if it's not on my calendar, it doesn't exist.
So I block in times just to kind of sit down and reclaim my thoughts.
As, you know, as a, as an administrator, sometimes we need five minutes.
You know, it's okay to close that door and cry every once in a while.
It is, it's, it's, it's there and it happens.
And, um, so I would suggest scheduling those times.
And the other thing that, that actually my doctor told me, um, when I came back from my leukemia, um, spell out is that.
Take time for lunch.
Uh, I don't, nothing is more important than you eating a lunch because you need to be healthy.
You need to be a hundred percent to serve your people.
And if you're not a hundred percent, and I didn't eat my lunch and it's one 30 my stomach's ground, I'm sitting in an IEP meeting.
I'm not a hundred percent.
I'm not tuned in.
I'm thinking about I'm gonna eat that piece of pizza after the
That's right.
Yeah.
And when you have a lunch scheduled and planned and there, then you can eat healthy and make good choices with that.
You know, I, I also took school email off of my cell phone, and even though it was a district provided phone, and they're like, you need to have this.
The, the reason why you have it is so that they can call you if they need you.
And the other thing that I did is I scheduled time to check my email and I turned on an autoresponder that said I only check my email twice a day at.
8:00 AM and 2:00 PM And so if you need me between those times, then you'll just have to wait until I check my email.
And that was a great habit that I got into.
That was so, so helpful.
And now I can go all day without even thinking about my email.
And then I ended up, I ended up having a whole bunch of email, uh, at the end of the day.
But, but those kinds of little things, scheduling time on your calendar to take care of what you need to putting lunch on your calendar and.
Towards the end of my time in schools, what I did is I just went and ate lunch with the kids, uh, in the cafeteria.
I needed to be in there anyway, you know?
And so I would just go and eat with them, um, or have kids come to my office and host lunch, uh, in the office or whatever.
Um, but, but those kinds of things you, you gotta eat.
It's important.
Um, and I, I would disagree with your doctor just a little bit.
You don't need to eat so that you have the energy to serve everybody else.
You need to eat and take care of yourself because you, as a human being.
Worthy of that.
And that is first and foremost, it has nothing to do with having the energy or capacity to serve anybody else.
You personally deserve that as a human being.
And once you start thinking like that, you're like, oh yeah, I, I do need to respect myself and take care of myself and, and not sacrifice everything, not do things good for me.
Just so that I have energy to serve someone else.
And that's, that's one of those little lies that we tell ourselves in education, that you gotta do this for the sake of others.
And really you gotta do it for the sake of yourself, and you are worthy of that as well.
Agree.
And actually I'll tell you about a quote I have right above my head here that kind of relates to all that, and it says, don't get.
Too busy with the busy work to do the real work, and that's where your emails will catch up with you instead of being in the classrooms and, you know, visiting those teachers, coaching those teachers, um, it's very important and I try to live by that as much as I can.
Um, you know, it's okay to spend time in your office getting things done, catching up with emails, returning those phone calls, but the real.
Reason why we're in the building are for those kids and for our teachers, and serving them both.
So, um, you know, getting caught up in the busy work sometimes are those emails, but you know what?
can wait another day.
They definitely can.
Uh, and like you said, if it's a real emergency.
Then someone's gonna call you and say, there's a real emergency you need to take care of.
And if you are only relying on email to communicate real emergencies, that's a problem too.
Um, so another thing that, that I, uh, have liked in this, this, uh, dissertation accountability group is in a tool called Basecamp, um, that I have used in schools for a long time.
And the, my goal was to use Basecamp for all of our.
Internal communication and not be using email pretty much at all.
And, and taking that kind of a different approach was also beneficial for, uh, for having a different place rather than email because email just gets so cluttered so quickly and despite all the technology that we have, it still becomes just this hot mess and, and it's just ridiculous.
So.
Having a different tool for internal communication to help you talk about things and share things and, and make plans and comment on things, that is really valuable as well, because it's so easy for things to get lost in email.
Uh, what else would you add as, as tools and strategies to help us use our time and improve our self-efficacy?
Sure.
Uh, the, and as you mentioned that, that reminded me, uh, my previous school district, we don't use it in my current district.
Um, have a tool similar to that, but it's simply built into the Google Suite.
It's called Google Chat.
So it's kind of like a little text message.
And, and I know my last district, like if I wanted to message a teacher instead of email.
just say, Hey, so and so is gonna be down.
They're, they're signing in.
They'll be in your class in three minutes.
They're, they're signing back into the building.
Just little things like that.
Or, hey, instead of that email saying, come talk to me, that scares some teachers.
When a principal sends it, you know, Hey, um, come see me.
Everything's okay.
I just need to chat with you about Johnny or something.
And that's, that's a great tool.
Uh, I don't think a lot of people use Google Chat that much, um,
Well.
a convenient tool.
The real problem with Google Chat is that teachers are not sitting on their computers all the time.
Right?
And so that's what that is designed for and created by people who are sitting on their computers, wanting to have a different way to communicate with people.
Same thing with Slack.
When Slack first was introduced, we thought about using it in our school, but then we realized.
That's not how we wanna run our school.
We don't want teachers in there all the time.
And the reason we chose something like Basecamp was because Basecamp is designed to be asynchronous and not.
Uh, like a text message, respond right now.
And, and that's one of those things that you gotta really think about as you are adopting different tools and stuff, is what do we want our culture to be like?
How do we want to work effectively?
And if, if we want teachers sitting down at their computers ready to respond to a Google Chat or a Slack message, then that's the tool we should adopt, because that's what it's designed for.
But if we want teachers to.
Just know at some point they go into this system where they can asynchronously respond.
We don't put anything in there that we like need a response to right this moment, because that is definitely not what it's for.
It's designed to be asynchronous and that that helps a ton.
So you don't have to have a direct response right away and you can put a limit and say, Hey, I'm gonna leave this open for the next week.
Leave your thoughts on this proposed plan for our strategic initiatives or whatever, and then people can give their responses and talk about it and stuff, and then you can go back and look at it and see what everybody said and get their feedback and opinion and give them time to think about the things that they need to think about.
Uh, any other tools or suggestions.
When I was an elementary principal, I used Class Dojo, uh, that was more for communication with the parents.
The parents loved just being able to text message me or I could send out a text blast
Yeah.
to their phones.
'cause you know, in today's day and age, some.
People email is kind of old.
For some of them.
They don't use it anymore.
It's gotta be on a cell phone or a little message or something.
So yeah, I use that as an elementary principle that's not as popular in the older grade bands.
Um, and, uh, something I, I obviously picked up and I know your, your research is in ai.
So this is, um, you know, I use Notebook lm. Uh, that's a big thing, especially on semi doctoral research.
Uh, you just drop in the articles and instead of it like chat, GPT just goes out there and pulls stuff.
The notebook lm you drop your 15 articles or your 15 journals and it will help you, you know, with some ideas.
Like I use it for some brainstorming on one particular subsection in my literature review.
Um, that's very beneficial.
And you know, we're, we're using Gemini.
Um, in, in our schools now to generate some emails.
Um, now there's a lot more that I could do on my end to learn more about it, but there's some great stuff you can use.
Um, we use it minimally chat, GPT, to kind of respond for some things or create maybe a, a letter to go out.
But, um, there's so much you could do at chat GBT and it saves so much time.
For sure.
And, and my big push on my, uh, dissertation is really talking about should you even be doing those things in the first place.
You know, if it's great that AI can do it faster, but should you even be doing it to begin with.
And that's really the, the question that is essential and, and something that people are not asking enough of.
And you know, I, you mentioned the, the communication with parents and being a parent not involved in the school system now, uh, it's a totally different experience.
And it's really fascinating to see how much email I get, how, how not useful almost all of it is.
And, and especially in my, uh, doctoral program, I get probably five to 10 emails a day from different university.
Uh.
Communications that mean absolutely nothing to me.
I'm a virtual student and, and you know, it, it, my school's in St. Louis and they'll have tornado warnings and I'm like, I'm sorry that you're experiencing that, but that does not need to come to me because I'm not anywhere near there.
And, and it's been so fascinating to see, uh, from the other side what my inbox looks like with.
Four kids in public school and, and all the stuff that I'm getting from their teachers.
And these are middle and high school kids, so it's not like this is elementary, these are, these are kids who were making their own way almost.
And, and it's just really fascinating.
It's something that I, I didn't understand before.
Uh, and, and it's been really interesting to see that.
I will say, um.
Truth be told, many people don't read our emails.
Let's be honest, even
Yeah.
Yep.
Um, and, and so something I was doing, I even did it with my staff once or twice, but they were, they're pretty much on top of it.
I would just put in my little newsletter, I'd send out on page three.
you read this reply with da, da, da
Yeah.
I gave out some gift cards.
I even did that with parents a couple times and it did increase our, our readability on the newsletters and stuff.
But yeah, I agree with you totally.
I'm a, I'm an online student virtually, uh, where I'm, where I'm working on my dissertation and, uh, I get emails every day about this street is closed down or this, this
Yeah.
closed.
I don't even, I don't even read my college email anymore, to be honest with you.
Same way the parents don't really read emails and the kids definitely don't.
I know that for a fact.
For sure.
And, uh, yeah, I, I don't read that either.
I only.
I only wait for specific information that I'm looking for, and the rest of it, it just, it just doesn't matter.
So, uh, all right.
This has been a great conversation, Stan.
I, I love connecting with people and hearing what they're doing and what's, what's working.
So my last question is, what is one thing that a principal can do this week to be a Transformative Principal like you?
I would say probably the most important thing I would do is get in the classrooms more.
And I know that seems like a general, a general statement, but, um, that's really where the nuts and bolts of what we do every day.
And like I said, don't let the.
Busy things get in your way to do the real work.
And the real work is being in those classrooms, engaging or interacting with those students, interacting with those teachers.
And I think the more the students and the teachers see you in the classrooms, the more they're gonna be willing to move mountains with you and for you if it's ever needed.
So that's probably the biggest thing I would, I would suggest that and always look for something to be more efficient.
And we kind of talked about a few things today about that as well.
Yeah.
Good stuff.
Stan, this has been great chatting with you.
Thank you so much for your time.
Is there, uh, a way you would like people to connect with you if that's, if that's something they want to do?
I.
Absolutely.
I'll give you my email address and it's stan, STAN, koterba, K-O-T-E-R-B-A.
That is one word, STAN.
K-O-T-E-R-B a@gmail.com.
That's my personal Gmail that unlike my work email is on my phone twenty four seven and I'll be more than happy to talk with any of you, help you out as a young administrator.
You, you gotta find somebody to, to get a hold of that's been there, done that so they can kind of coach through it.
If you need someone like that, I'll be more than happy to help you with that.
Time management, self-efficacy.
Please reach out.
For sure.
Very good stuff.
Thank you so much, Stan, for being part of Transformative Principal.
Great to have you on the show today.
Thank you, Jethro.
It's been my pleasure.