Significant Career Lesson From an Executive Director at Los Angeles Coalition for Excellent Public Schools
Joni's most significant career lesson is the importance of maintaining "a learner mindset," adapting to challenges, and learning from both successes and failures. This adaptability, crucial in early teaching where "students are not widgets," has proven essential throughout Joni's career, informing both classroom practices and advocacy campaign strategies.
Adaptability, Problem-Solving, Resilience, Flexibility, Executive Leadership
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Joni Angel
Executive Director
Los Angeles Coalition for Excellent Public Schools
University of Michigan 2003
Harvard Kennedy School, Master in Public Policy, 2010. Pace University, Master in the Science of Teaching, 2005.
Ethnic & Related Studies
Education, Government & Public Sector
Strategic Management and Executive
Honors Student
Video Highlights
1. Embrace a learner mindset and adapt to challenges.
2. Develop adaptability and flexibility in your approach.
3. Learn from successes and failures to improve future strategies.
Transcript
What is one lesson that you have learned that has proven significant in your career?
The biggest thing has been maintaining a learner mindset as I go through my work. This was particularly important to me as a young teacher.
There are lots of failures for teachers at the beginning. Teaching is really hard, and when you have a classroom full of students, they're not widgets. They're real people with real feelings and real brains that all work in different ways.
Being able to adapt and change how you do something based on the feedback you're getting is really important. So, that kind of adaptability is something that I've learned again and again in my career.
As I said in an earlier question, I'm a pretty planned, linear kind of thinker. So, being able to use my plans and recognize where something is going wrong, then be flexible, adapt, and learn from the situation and change has been really important.
That's something that also comes up in advocacy work. When you execute an advocacy campaign, you need to be able to see what's worked here, what hasn't, and how are we going to make a change for the future, either later on in this particular campaign or when we do our next campaign.
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