Hi Friends,
May is here, and it’s Friday! And I hope you are all looking forward to Teacher Appreciation Week next week. Literally every single day needs to be “teacher appreciation day” in its own way, so we always look forward to this dedicated week that encourages each and every one of us to stop and truly acknowledge the importance of the work you do every day.
This week’s celebration comes from Regional Director Alyssa Robinson. During her tenure at Little Sprouts, Alyssa has watched many new schools come into their own, growing from new developments into an established staple of their community, bustling with learning, laughter, and love. Little Sprouts Medford is no different, and the growth the school has experienced has left her inspired:
I want to acknowledge our Little Sprouts Medford Team. I recently attended and facilitated a team building meeting in Medford, and it was so exciting to see them come together, work together, and move forward as a cohesive team.
We started the meeting with a game of “Do you know this about me?” We learned so many things about each other: pets (a lot of people have multiple dogs in Medford!), children, languages, the fact that an employee has played basketball for years, 3 people are going to Hawaii this year, and an employee who just misses her Mom. It was beautiful; sometimes, it can be easy to relate to one another as simply coworkers. Exchanging these small personal tidbits allowed us to relate to one another as human beings. This evolved into a sort of “speed dating” game, where we each took turns explaining our passion for early education in 30 seconds or less. This further served to illustrate that while we are all unique, our motivation and common goals remain the same.
We then started a brainstorming session: where have we succeeded? Where could we improve? The key to discussions such as these is honesty, and as the teachers shared ideas and collaborated, you could tell they were approaching the conversation very truthfully. Little Sprouts Medford has been evolving and growing ever since its inception, but the team doesn’t want to stop now. Below is a list of commitments they aligned to in order to continue the school’s development:
TEAMWORK – coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, working together is success.
- I pledge to be understanding
- I pledge to get to know my co-workers
- I pledge to keep smiling
- I pledge to help my team with whatever needs to be done
- I pledge to communicate with our team
- I pledge to listen before responding
It goes without saying – this was an amazing session. I thank the team for their commitment to supporting the school, each other, the children, and families. I can’t wait to see more of the amazing things that are coming out of Medford!
New schools always go through a sort of “growing pains” – it is a very real and very normal part of the process. Schools often start by being overstaffed, with fewer children. Before you know it, the school is filled to the brim with children, and staff find themselves adjusting to the whiplash of working within a fully enrolled school. Dealing with this process is similar to the mindset needed to be a teacher in general: patience, dedication, motivation, and compassion are all essential. Thank you, Little Sprouts Medford, for dedicating yourselves to demonstrating these qualities daily – it takes the Little Sprouts brand of Real Passion to do so!