School transformation: our students are worth it | Jihad Dib | TEDxSydney

Jihad Dib was told the task was too big, the school too damaged and the community too fractured. He was told it wasn't worth the effort. In his talk, Jihad Dib outlines the way his vision of a better school, a brighter future and a stronger community, came to be.

Jihad Dib was the first person in his extended family of over 100 people to attend university. Upon completing his degree in teaching, Jihad quickly rose through the ranks to become one of the youngest High School Principals. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and is a passionate believer in the difference a great education can make to the lives of others.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Imagine a school, where things were so bad

that the principal
had a gun held to his head.

Where members of staff
suffered post-traumatic stress

as a result of a constant
violence and dysfunction.

A place where some students
saw their school

only as a conduit to a life of crime,

in order to escape generational poverty.

That was our school.

Once thriving, it had lost its way.

Enrolments were down.

Education was no longer the core business.

Visitors were greeted
with barbed wire fencing

and bars on windows.

There was an anger in the school

that simmered just beneath the surface.

A clear 'us' and 'them' mentality,

separated teachers and their students.

I'll never forget my first day there.

Within an hour,
I was dealing with a fight.

It was pretty serious
and one boy was badly hurt.

I learned then

that would not be my last sight of blood.

It's easy to give up on a place like that.

You can always blame the community.

You can always blame the kids.

You can always blame the system.

But, you can't,

because where there's a heartbeat,

there's life.

Eight years on,

and our school is almost unrecognizable.

Enrolments have almost doubled.

Gone is the barbed wire and bars.

The violence and the apathy
towards education, too.

It's been replaced
with a 'can-do' attitude

and a deep-seated belief

that our school, once a last resort,

is now a great school.

We've got a waiting list of teachers.

Our community dinner,

which started with 50 people
in attendance,

now has over 600.

Our students line up
for leadership positions.

And our boys, well, they wear
their uniform with great pride.

They want to be at this school.

Every morning the deputy principals and I
greet the students at the front gate.

We share stories, we have a laugh,
we welcome them.

We're building relationships
every single day.

My parents, born in Lebanon,
came here in 1974.

Like many migrant parents, their dream

was that their eldest son
would become a doctor.

(Laughter)

That's another story.

My father never had the chance
to finish his schooling,

and yet, he remains
as one of the greatest teachers

that I've ever met.

He drilled into us
the importance of learning.

And as for mum,

well I'll remember the floral shirt

that she bought me
for my first day of teaching.

(Laughter)

It was her way of showing her pride,

but it also showed me
she was stuck in the '70s.

(Laughter)

Thanks, mum.

Maybe it was the lucky shirt,

maybe it was the fact
that I actually started to dress myself,

but within 10 years

I was appointed as one
of the youngest principals in the state,

to Punchbowl Boys High School.

(Applause)

A school, where too many people
had given up on.

I heard all sorts of stories
before I started there.

"You're wasting your time."

"It's a dead-end school for deadbeats."

I drew the line,
when a teacher said to me,

"These kids aren't worth it."

I knew they were.

I didn't want to mark my time
as the principal,

then move on to something better.

I wanted to make our school
the 'something better'

that people were looking for.

I wanted to create a sense of belonging,

a community,

a school family.

From pretty early on,
everything became about family.

I drew on that idea
that a family has your back.

That a family wants what's best for you.

That a family is there for you.

This school had been missing a heart.

And in creating a sense of family

we not only found our heart,

but we developed our soul.

We started to remove obstacles
for the kids, so they could succeed.

If they didn't have food,
we gave them something to eat.

If they hadn't the right equipment
we found some for them.

If they didn't believe in themselves,
we built it into them.

We were there for them when they fell.

We were there for them
when they needed shoulders to stand on.

With this lens we decided
to review everything in the school,

from the things and subjects
that we were offering,

to the quality of our teaching,

even down to the food,
that we were selling in the canteen.

From that point on, being just good enough

was no longer good enough.

It takes a lot of things to make change

and these changes were underpinned -
I think - by three crucial elements.

The first was that we had
to soften the hard edge of our boys.

We had to work
that gang mentality out of them.

We wanted them
to start coming to the school,

but we wanted them to come
to school, so they could learn.

We started focusing on the good stuff,
not just the problems.

We tried to catch them
doing the right thing

and acknowledge them for that.

And do you know what?

Pretty soon their attitudes
started to change for the better.

We had more bums on seats

and a greater effort in the classroom.

Most significantly,

the boys had no excuse
no longer to succeed.

The second crucial element

was in empowering our amazing staff.

They are the heart and the soul,

that turned our vision into reality.

I didn't want staff
feeling like just being there,

as some sort of community service.

Today it's the norm for our staff

to be at school outside of regular hours,

whether they're helping the kids
with additional work,

running sports programs,

mentoring,

career guidance

or even doing some maintenance
in the school, that we can't afford.

They give the best of themselves,

the same they would want
for their own children,

because they believe in the school
and the vision that we've got.

They are resilient.

They are inspiring.

And, yep, you guessed it.

We're family.

We are not just colleagues.

The third - and I think
most critical element -

was in engaging our community.

The parents of our boys are good people

and they want what every person
wants for their own children:

the very best.

When I wanted some advice or tips,
to deal with teenage boys

we ran evening classes for them.

So successful were these classes,

that our evening lessons
have now become an institution,

and they are typified
by good will, great humor, learning,

but best of all:

the best food you are ever going to eat.

(Laughter)

The parents have become
our loudest advocates

and they have put
their complete faith in us.

So did all this tinkering and reviewing
and engaging and all that sort of stuff,

actually make a difference academically?

You tell me.

Last year 65% of our boys
went on to further education.

Compare that -

(Applause)

Compare that to just 30% eight years ago.

(Applause)

I told you our teachers were good.

The concept of family though,

is no better typified than in Sam.

Sam is a refugee from Sierra Leone,
who joined us at the age of 15.

He'd only had nine months
of formal education.

There was no mum or dad on the scene.

I knew my history enough,
not to ask any questions.

One particular day I stood at the gate.

I was stopping this drunk person
from coming into the school.

I didn't know the person.

He had no business in being in the school,

but he was insistent on coming in.

I always insisted on him staying out.

Out of nowhere,

Sam materialized beside me.

He had sensed that something was wrong

and he wanted to protect me.

He had my back.

Once the situation
resolved itself peacefully,

I actually asked Sam,

"Sam, have you ever been in a fight?"

He said that he hadn't.

At that moment,

I knew exactly what he was doing.

He was repaying us

for the kindness, compassion and love

that he'd received from his new family.

It's hard not to be moved
by something like that.

(Applause)

In softening the boys, though,
I almost lost my two deputy principals,

and they're more
like a brother and a sister to me

than a deputy.

Recently, they both handed me, together,

an envelope with their
resignation attached,

saying the school was not
what they'd signed up for

and that they needed to move on.

They had been prepared

and had in the past dealt with fights,

swearing,

carrying on and misbehaviour.

They were not prepared or even equipped

to deal with the latest problem.

They'd just come back from solving
an argument between two boys,

which in itself, is nothing unusual,

except for the fact that the two boys -

they were arguing over the choice
of hand cream to use.

(Laughter)

The deputies got me a beauty

(Laughter)

and it's good to sound
they still work for me, as well.

(Laughter)

It's the funny stories that keep us sane.

Our school was once deemed
ready for the scrap heap,

but our experience shows

that you can change the culture.

You can change the trajectory
of any organisation.

It's a truth for everyone.

If you work with your heart
and you open your arms,

others will join you.

The positivity is infectious

and superstars - well they're made up
of ordinary people.

I'd like to see
a bright future for schools,

where the simple concept of belonging

is not something that we strive for,

but, rather, something that is inherent.

Where regardless of where a school sits,

on some simplistic ranking system,

the important measure

is in the strength
of its heart and of its soul.

Thank you.

(Applause)