By empowering teachers to develop a positive culture in their institutions, Executive Course for Education Leaders (ExCEL) consultant Dr. Edizon Fermin delivered a talk to selected senior high school teachers and administration all over the country during the third day of the workshop, Friday afternoon at Finster Auditorium.

Fermin highlighted the acronym ‘CHANGE’ in his talk for the teachers to desire in their institutions: Choose growth scenarios, Hinge plans on the QRS (quality, relevance, sustainability) criteria, Accommodate failure, Network with right collaborators, Gain mastery of your ‘brand’, and Engage all sectors of the school.

In choosing growth scenarios, Fermin stressed on not comparing one’s institution to another, but instead, look into one’s school and decide to improve upon themselves.

“Never compare yourselves unnecessarily with another institution. They will never be your yardstick. And neither can you tell yourself that your yardstick is rooted in accreditation… Remember, even those mechanisms are biased in their own ways.

“What you really need to look into is your own ecosystem as schools, and decide for yourselves, which growth pattern will be useful?” Fermin said.

Fermin introduced how as leaders and innovators, they should embrace a culture of positivity and happiness within their system.

“After all, this is the 21st century, where leadership and leading schools is about embracing all imaginable tensions, emotions, and they lead you toward articulating alternatives. But those alternatives can only be maximize if you change the cultures within your system.

“And those cultures become very positive, then you yield an important habit of happiness, marked by intuitiveness, nobleness, and more importantly, greatness,” he stressed.

During the group insights discussion, Norjannah M. Tomanong, acting school principal of the SMD Foundation, shared how she realized the importance of learning from each other, not competing.

“We’re not here to compete against each other.. Kung sino ang may best approaches, who is the best school… But we get to listen, we get to get inputs from other schools ano ba best practices nila, strategies nila, and apply them in our own school with the permission of other school heads,” she said.

ExCEL is a four-day training and workshop for senior high school teachers and administrators in several regions across the country from November 21-24, conducted by the Private Education Assistance Committee (PEAC), along with Department of Education (DepEd).

With the aim to train SHS teachers and admin in their running of the curriculum in accordance to DepEd policies, the ExCEL course included a three-day training and workshop, with the final day for Instructional Leadership headed by Dr. Gina Montalan, Academic Vice President of AdDU.