Tag Archives: ilead antelope valley

Campus, Studio

The Valet Process

In an effort to keep learners and staff safe, please remember to follow these valet procedures:

  • Learners must be dropped off in the valet line in the back parking lot. They may not be dropped off in the front parking lot.
  • Pull up your vehicle as far forward as possible in the valet line.
  • Drop off at cones only and wait for a staff member to assist.
  • Learners should exit vehicles from the right side of the vehicle.
  • Drivers must remain in the vehicle.
  • Be patient and courteous.
  • Drive slowly and with caution.

Thank you for helping create a safe drop-off and pick-up experience for our learning community!

Campus, Studio

The Valet Process

In an effort to keep learners and staff safe, please remember to follow these valet procedures:

  • Learners must be dropped off in the valet line in the back parking lot. They may not be dropped off in the front parking lot.
  • Pull up your vehicle as far forward as possible in the valet line.
  • Drop off at cones only and wait for a staff member to assist.
  • Learners should exit vehicles from the right side of the vehicle.
  • Drivers must remain in the vehicle.
  • Be patient and courteous.
  • Drive slowly and with caution.

Thank you for helping create a safe drop-off and pick-up experience for our learning community!

Culture and Curriculum, Studio

Exploring iLEAD Antelope Valley Culture: Habit 1 of the 7 Habits

Last week, we introduced a vital element of iLEAD Antelope Valley’s approach to education — The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Learning and practicing the 7 Habits has been instrumental to our learners’ success living out the iLEAD Antelope Valley motto of “free to think, inspired to lead” — not to mention how it helps our staff thrive. 

This week, we’re continuing to unpack the habits with Habit #1: Be Proactive. In short, being proactive is about taking responsibility for your life. Instead of reacting to or worrying about conditions over which they have little or no control, proactive people focus their time and energy on things they can control.

In general, most of us fall into one of two categories: Either we’re reactive to situations in life, affected by factors outside of ourselves and believing we have no control over situations — or we are proactive, realizing that we are “response-able” and that we have freedom to choose our responses. A proactive individual peppers their language with “I can” and “I will,” while a reactive person falls back on “I can’t” or “if only.”

In short, proactive people focus their efforts on what Dr. Stephen Covey calls their Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about, like health or problems at work. On the flip side, reactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern — things over which they have little or no control. 

It has been amazing to see how understanding these concepts empowers iLEAD Antelope Valley learners to take charge and command over both their education and their lives. We’ve seen time and again how it trickles down to every aspect of their lives, and that is at the heart of the iLEAD Antelope Valley model: developing the whole child so that they are equipped to live with purpose and intent. 

As Dr. Covey said, “The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct, and learn from it.” When children learn to apply this in an academic setting, it can only spread to every other area of life. 

Next week, we’ll continue exploring what makes the iLEAD Antelope Valley approach to education so innovative, explaining Habit #2: Begin With the End in Mind.

For more information on the 7 Habits and other leadership resources, click here to visit the Franklin Covey website.

Campus, Studio

The Valet Process

In an effort to keep learners and staff safe, please remember to follow these valet procedures:

  • Learners must be dropped off in the valet line in the back parking lot. They may not be dropped off in the front parking lot.
  • Pull up your vehicle as far forward as possible in the valet line.
  • Drop off at cones only and wait for a staff member to assist.
  • Learners should exit vehicles from the right side of the vehicle.
  • Drivers must remain in the vehicle.
  • Be patient and courteous.
  • Drive slowly and with caution.

Thank you for helping create a safe drop-off and pick-up experience for our learning community!

Culture and Curriculum, Studio

iLEAD Antelope Valley Culture: Whole-Child Development

Here at iLEAD Antelope Valley, social-emotional learning is integral to our whole-child educational approach. 

A whole-child mind-set means that we are focused on far more than teaching to tests or holding up state standards as the be-all, end-all of education. We believe in focusing on the whole child and promoting social-emotional learning, because education is about more than test scores.

Whole-child development empowers kids to be creative, engaged citizens. With that in mind, we believe it’s our responsibility to nurture learners’ creative abilities to express themselves, understand others, and navigate complex information so they can confidently solve the problems of an ever-changing world.

So when we say we focus on “whole child” development, what do we mean? We’re talking about an approach to project-based learning that emphasizes the following deeper-learning approaches:

Mastery of Core Academic Content: Learners lay their academic foundation in subjects such as reading, writing, arts, math, and science, understanding essential principles and procedures, recalling facts, and drawing on their knowledge to complete tasks.

Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving: Our learners understand how to construct effective arguments using their critical, analytical, and creative skills. They develop the know-how to come up with solutions to complex problems.

Collaboration: Learners embrace teamwork and consider multiple viewpoints to cooperate and achieve shared goals.

Effective Communication: Learners communicate effectively in writing and oral presentations. They structure information in meaningful ways, listen to and give feedback, and construct messages for particular audiences.

Self-Directed Learning: Learners develop the ability to set goals, monitor their own progress, and reflect on their strengths and areas for improvement. They learn to see setbacks as opportunities to grow and be more adaptive.

Growth Mind-set: Learners with a growth mind-set believe in themselves. They trust their abilities and believe their hard work will pay off; they persist to overcome obstacles. In the process, they also learn from and support each other and see the relevance of their schoolwork to the real world and their own future success.

Coupled with vibrant project-based education and social-emotional learning, all these elements work together to empower kids to overcome any challenge that comes their way academically; but more than that, they build the character to succeed in the 21st century.

Culture and Curriculum, Studio

Exploring iLEAD Antelope Valley Culture: The 7 Habits

Leave a comment

At iLEAD Antelope Valley, our educational model is driven by much more than simply making sure children are good students. Rather, it’s focused on equipping them to be lifelong learners who are fully developed and prepared to lead in the 21st century.

Whether you’ve been part of the iLEAD Antelope Valley family for a while or are fairly new, you’ve most likely heard a lot of talk about “The 7 Habits” and how important they are to what we do. Stephen Covey’s best-selling The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has been deeply influential in the shaping of the iLEAD approach to project-based learning, as well as our staff development. We are constantly inspired by how we see our learners put the 7 Habits into action.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll expand on each of the habits, how they relate to learning at iLEAD Antelope Valley, and even practical ways you can incorporate them into your daily life.

To get things started, though, we wanted to take today to introduce the 7 Habits.

  • Habit 1: Be Proactive: Being proactive is about taking responsibility for your life. Proactive people focus their time and energy on things they can control instead of reacting to or worrying about conditions over which they have little or no control.
  • Habit 2: Begin With the End in Mind: At the heart of this is beginning each day, task, or project with a clear vision of one’s desired direction and destination, and then continuing by flexing proactive muscles to make things happen.
  • Habit 3: Put First Things First: This is where Habits 1 and 2 come together. It happens day in and day out, moment by moment, and deals with many of the questions addressed in the field of time management. Habit 3 is about life management, as well — your purpose, values, roles, and priorities.
  • Habit 4: Think Win-Win: This habit presents life as a cooperative arena, not a competitive one. Win-win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. A win-win approach means agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying.
  • Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then Be Understood: This habit can help transform communication. Too often, many of us can listen with the intent to reply, not to understand. We can filter everything we hear through our life experiences and our frame of reference. Consequently, we decide prematurely what the other person means before they finish communicating.
  • Habit 6: Synergize: This is the habit of creative cooperation. It’s a process of teamwork, open-mindedness, and the adventure of finding new solutions to old problems. It thrives on the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
  • Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw: Living a life in balance means taking the necessary time to renew yourself. To “sharpen the saw” means to preserve and enhance the greatest asset you have — you. It means having a balanced program for self-renewal in the four areas of life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual.

Coming up next week, we’ll dive into the first habit, Be Proactive, discussing what it looks like in practical terms and how you can make it part of your life.

Culture and Curriculum, Studio

Exploring iLEAD Antelope Valley Culture: Habit 6 of the 7 Habits

Whether in the classroom, the workplace, relationships, or life in general, learning to compromise can be an important and helpful tool. However, what if there were a way to even further enrich and strengthen our communication and interactions?

That’s what’s behind Habit #6: Synergize.

Synergy brings into focus the old adage that “two heads are better than one.” Instead of merely striking a compromise, synergy allows us to creatively collaborate with others and find new solutions to problems. The essence of synergy is to value and respect our differences, build on strengths, and compensate for weaknesses.

In iLEAD Antelope Valley culture, when learners are incorporating this habit into their lives, they’re learning to work in groups and building and reinforcing a mind-set that says, “I get along well with others — even people who are different from me.” That lays the foundation to a long-lasting collaborative approach to life in a multicultural and interdependent world. 

There are a couple of helpful steps to know if you’re in synergy:

  • You have a change of heart.
  • You feel new energy and excitement.
  • You see things in a new way.
  • You feel that the relationship has transformed.
  • You end up with an idea or a result that’s better than what either of you started with.

One of the most important keys to synergizing is learning to trust, and that trust is built through communication. 

Take, for example, these three levels of communication and the associated levels of trust: 

  • Defensive communication comes out of low-trust situations. It’s characterized by defensiveness, protectiveness, and legalistic language that prepares for the eventuality that things may go wrong, and that people may become resentful. Such communication isn’t effective and produces only win/lose or lose/lose outcomes.
  • Respectful communication is characterized by honesty, authenticity, and respect that produces a low form of win/win, a compromise where one plus one equals one-and-a-half.
  • Synergistic communication means that one plus one may equal 8, 16, or even 1,600. The situation produced is better than any originally proposed.

When we learn to see our individual differences as strengths instead of weaknesses, we are well on our way to learning to synergize. 

Join us next week as we explore the seventh and final habit: Sharpen the Saw.

For more information on the 7 Habits and other leadership resources, click here to visit the FranklinCovey website.

Culture and Curriculum, Studio

Exploring iLEAD Antelope Valley Culture: Habit 5 of the 7 Habits

Editor’s Note: This is one in a series of articles on the pillars of iLEAD Antelope Valley’s educational philosophy and approach.

They say communication is key, but if we lack understanding in our relationships and interactions, how can we ever hope to truly, clearly communicate?

This week, we’re examining Habit #5: Seek First to Understand, Then Be Understood.

Many of us often seek first to be understood; we want to get our point across. But in doing so, it’s easy to ignore the other person completely, pretend that we’re listening, selectively hear certain parts of the conversation or attentively focus on only the words being said, but miss the meaning entirely. And so, what happens is that we filter everything through our life experiences and decide what someone means before they’ve even finished.

But is that the most effective communication?

Our listening tends to fall into four categories:

  1. Ignoring: We’re not listening at all.
  2. Pretending: We may say “uh-huh, right,” but we’re not really tuned in.
  3. Selective listening: We hear part of what the person says, but the rest of the time we’re distracted.
  4. Attentive listening: We’re actively listening, paying attention but not taking our listening to the ultimate level — empathetic listening.

Dr. Stephen Covey defined empathetic listening as listening with the intent to truly understand. To really understand, we need to get inside another person’s frame of reference, and see the world from their point of view. Our listening also needs to be driven by an authentic desire to understand the other person and to build trust with them.

As part of the iLEAD Antelope Valley educational model, we encourage learners to incorporate the following practices into their communication:

  • I listen to other people’s ideas and feelings.
  • I try to see things from their viewpoints.
  • I listen to others without interrupting.
  • I am confident in voicing my ideas.
  • I look people in the eyes when talking.

When we listen with the intent to understand others, instead of simply with the intent to reply, we begin true communication and relationship-building. Seeking to understand takes kindness; seeking to be understood takes courage. Effectiveness in our communication thrives in a balance of the two.

Join us next week as we explore Habit #6: Synergize.

For more information on the 7 Habits and other leadership resources, click here to visit the FranklinCovey website.

Culture and Curriculum, Studio

Exploring iLEAD Antelope Valley Culture: Habit 4 of the 7 Habits

“In the long run, if it isn’t a win for both of us, we both lose. That’s why win-win is the only real alternative in interdependent realities.”  — Dr. Stephen Covey

This week, we’re examining Habit #4: Think Win-Win. Someone with a win-win mind-set sees life as a cooperative arena, instead of a competitive one. Win-win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions, and means agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying.

Why is this habit so vital to us at iLEAD Antelope Valley? Because none of us lives in a vacuum. Every day, we interact with other people who have their own sets of passions, motivations, and priorities. So how do we successfully navigate the world as an individual among many other individuals? 

Dr. Stephen Covey held that a person or organization approaching conflicts with a win-win attitude possesses three vital character traits:

  • Integrity: sticking with your true feelings, values, and commitments
  • Maturity: expressing your ideas and feelings with courage and consideration for the ideas and feelings of others
  • Abundance Mentality: believing there is plenty for everyone

Developing a win-win approach is also beneficial to our growth and maturity. As we seek to have win-win interactions and relationships, we develop our humility, better recognize the humanity of those around us, develop long-term perspectives, and also learn to become more assertive. 

There are four steps that can help the win-win process be truly beneficial for all involved:

  • See the problem from others’ perspectives to understand their needs and concerns
  • Identify the key issues and concerns involved
  • Determine what results could make for a fully acceptable situation
  • Identify options for how to achieve those results. 

Developing a win-win mind-set is an important step toward being a more collaborative individual, which is at the heart of what the iLEAD Antelope Valley learning model is all about. Win-win is certainly a balancing act, but when we strike that balance everyone benefits. 

Join us next week as we explore Habit #5: Seek First to Understand, Then Be Understood.

For more information on the 7 Habits and other leadership resources, click here to visit the FranklinCovey website.

Culture and Curriculum, Studio

Exploring iLEAD Antelope Valley Culture: Habit 3 of the 7 Habits

This week, we look at Habit #3: Put First Things First. This habit, which all of our learners at iLEAD Antelope Valley are learning to put into practice, is all about identifying and organizing one’s priorities. In essence, someone who puts first things first is saying, “I spend time on things that are most important. I set priorities, make a schedule, and follow a plan. I’m disciplined and organized.”

Dr. Stephen Covey said that “first things” are basically all those things that you value most in your life. So, you should manage your schedule according to your priorities to get all essential things done on time.

Skills that can be learned by putting first things first include:

  • Time management
  • Cultivating a strong work ethic, flexibility, and adaptability
  • Interpersonal skills
  • Self-management
  • Being accountable and responsible for actions and results
  • Cultivating analytical skills

An effective way to implement Habit #3, according to Covey, is breaking down activities into four quadrants of urgency and importance:

  • Quadrant 1: Urgent and important
  • Quadrant 2: Not urgent and important
  • Quadrant 3: Urgent and not important
  • Quadrant 4: Not urgent and not important

Covey suggests you become more aware of your internal drive, values, and goals. This makes it easier to say “yes” to the actions that are based on these factors. This way, values and goals are less often overruled by (non-important) urgent matters. Remember that whenever you say “yes” to one thing, you will no longer have time for something else. Time is the most valuable and least replaceable of all resources. Things that appear urgent will most likely trigger a “yes” if you are asked to help out. It’s useful to understand that saying “no” is also a legitimate option.

By identifying what’s most important to you, and where your passions lie, you can more easily learn to put first things first. 

Join us next week as we explore Habit #4: Think Win-Win.

For more information on the 7 Habits and other leadership resources, click here to visit the FranklinCovey website.