Engineers Improvement

I always knew I was passionate about improvement. Growing up in Chicago during the Bulls’ successive 3-peat NBA titles, I poured through books on how Phil Jackson coached the Bulls to epic heights. I delighted in those movies where the underdog figured out how to improve through grit and hard work. Whether in sports, school, or clubs, I enthusiastically sought out ways to learn and grow.

At that time, I did not see myself as an engineer. My mom was an English and Drama teacher and my dad was in sales. Though I started college on a pre-medical track, I soon recognized that wasn’t my path. I discovered and dove into the humanities, then decided to follow my mom’s footsteps as a teacher. At the time, I had a limiting either/or mindset – I was certainly not a scientist, or an engineer, but I certainly would become a humanities teacher.

It wasn’t until I got some experience under my belt that I grew out of this binary thinking. In my classes, I relished in strategically designing unit plans and systematically using data to improve student learning. As a Track & Field head coach, I loved catalyzing efforts across the team, setting audacious goals, and developing routines and systems to accelerate improvement. As an administrator, I enjoyed “situating improvement efforts within a systems-orientation,” as the Remick definition of “engineering improvement” states. 

I soon grew out of this limiting “either/or” mindset to adopt a more expansive and nuanced worldview. I could revel in the complementary beauty of engineering and the humanities. I could be passionate about growth, as I was in the Bulls heyday and always have been. I could engineer improvement in my humanities classes and across the school.  I am grateful for this more mature “both/and” perspective it’s taken years to develop. 

Now I can name what I could not before: I love the engineering and the improvement charges of serving as principal. Together, they are integral to transformational school leadership.

Erin Luby, RLP 6

National Faculty and Executive Coach, Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program
President, St. Monica Preparatory School