PVA Academy — Lesson 01: Seeing the Essence (Self-Paced Online)
Michigan International Prep School
PVA Leadership Academy
Quarter 1 — Base Camp
Facilitated by Sherpa Leadership Group
Lesson 01 · One lesson, built three ways
Welcome to PVA Academy: Seeing the Essence
Objective: Accept the invitation of the PVA — to move from looking to seeing, and to treat empathy as a learnable leadership skill rather than a personality trait.
The same objective, the same video, the same three ideas — delivered three ways, so MIPS can see what each modality actually feels like before choosing the blend.
Best at: reaching 200+ staff on their own schedule, and a private first reflection before anyone has to speak.
25–30
Minutes
0.5
PD hours logged
5
Screens
1
Submitted reflection
Screen 1 · 3 minutes
01Before you watch
Think of one person at MIPS whose way of working you do not understand.
This answer is private. It is not shared with peers, supervisors, or your coach — the honesty of everything after this depends on that being true.
Answer the prompt to continue.
Screen 2 · 7 minutes
02Watch
Seeing the EssencePhil Quinlan · 7:00 · Captions on
Anchors
Anchors unlock after the first full play, so nobody skips the first pass.
Play the video through once to continue.
Screen 3 · 5 minutes
03The three ideas
i
Looking versus seeing
At a busy intersection, every driver carries hopes, burdens, and anxieties you cannot see — and so does every colleague in the building. Most of us look. Very few truly see.
ii
The locker-room test
Bobby Knight's players could run the offense and still could not answer what was hanging above the north side of the gym. Thirty years later his point guard was reading the finer essence of people's behavior.
iii
Understand, not change
Notice the word we do not use. The four PVA domains give you a lens on yourself first — so that you can choose how you respond instead of reacting.
What this means in a virtual school
MIPS has no hallway. Our intersection is a grid of camera tiles, a chat thread at 10pm, a message trimmed to four efficient lines. The burden a colleague is carrying does not show unless they say so — and a black tile is not a face you can read. Seeing the essence here is a deliberate act: you have to go looking for what a building would have handed you for free.
Screen 4 · 7 minutes, over 48 hours
04Field notes
Over the next two working days, notice one thing about a colleague you would normally have looked straight past — something in how they entered a meeting, worded a message, or asked a question.
Log it in three lines. No conclusions required.
What I observed
What I would have assumed before
What might be underneath it
All three lines are needed to continue.
Screen 5 · 5–8 minutes · Submitted
05Reflection
How your responses are handled. Submissions are visible to your coach only — never to peers or supervisors. Themes may appear in the quarterly leadership brief; individual answers never do, and no theme is reported from fewer than five people or from a single team.
Answer all four to submit.
Lesson 01 complete
You have started the climb.
Video watched — Seeing the EssenceRecorded
Field notes entryRecorded
Written reflection submitted to coachRecorded
Hours logged this lesson0.5
0.5 of 6 hours — Quarter 1 milestoneSCECH-eligible
Best at: cross-department mixing without travel, and practicing the online setting staff actually work in.
50
Minutes, live video
1.0
PD hours logged
12–18
Mixed departments
7:00
Video watched as pre-work
The two clips · replayed together, not the whole video
Seeing the EssenceCoach shares screen · captions on
Enough to put everyone in the same room around the same two images.
The 50 minutes
00:00 — 00:088 min
Arrival
Cameras optional, and said out loud as a real option. One question in the chat, answered in a word or two: what did you notice on your way to this call? The coach reads a few aloud without commentary. The point is made before it is explained.
00:08 — 00:168 min
The clips
Two segments replayed together rather than the whole video — the intersection at 0:35 and the locker room at 2:00. Staff watched the full seven minutes as pre-work; this is the shared reference point, not the first exposure.
00:16 — 00:3014 min
Breakouts of three
One question per room, twelve minutes, one person reporting back a theme rather than a summary. Groups are mixed across departments on purpose — a teacher, someone from support, someone from enrollment.
00:30 — 00:4414 min
Whole group
Themes come back. The coach connects each one to a domain and names the vocabulary as it surfaces — this is the first time most staff hear a scale name attached to something they said themselves.
00:44 — 00:506 min
Close
Each person types one sentence in the chat: what they will watch for this week. The coach saves nothing and quotes no one.
Facilitator notes
Do not ask for cameras on. This lesson is partly about not reading a black tile as disengagement — requiring cameras contradicts it in the first two minutes.
Silence after a question is normal here, and it lands differently online. Count to ten before filling it.
If someone names a colleague, redirect once to behavior and role. If it happens again, close the thread and follow up privately.
Leaders and their own direct reports are not placed in the same breakout room during Quarter 1.
Discussion questions — one per breakout room, then surfaced to the whole group
In an online school, what is our version of the busy intersection — the place where we look every day without really seeing?
When a colleague's message reads as short, cold, or abrupt, what do you usually assume? What else could be true?
Phil says empathy does not mean carrying someone else's baggage. Where is that line for you, in your role, in a week that is already full?
Which of the four domains do you find hardest to read in other people when you only meet them on a screen?
Best at: physical observation, real trust-building, and the team conversation that only happens in a room.
90
Minutes, in person
1.5
PD hours logged
20–30
Mixed roles per room
1
Opens Live Lab 1
Why this one cannot go online
The observation walk is the single part of Lesson 01 that cannot be replicated on a screen — you have to be standing in a room to fail a test about it. That is why Lesson 01 opens Live Lab 1 rather than living only in the platform.
The 90 minutes
0 — 2020 min
The observation walk
Staff arrive and are asked nothing. After eight minutes of ordinary milling and coffee, the coach hands out a half-sheet with eight questions about the room they are standing in. It is Bobby Knight's test, run live, and nearly everyone does poorly. Then the locker-room segment plays, and the exercise they just failed has a name.
20 — 3515 min
The full video and the frame
All seven minutes, watched together — a shared viewing carries weight a private one does not. Then a short frame from the coach: the four domains on a single slide, the language of more pronounced and less pronounced, and the promise that no score in this room is a verdict on anyone.
35 — 6530 min
Table conversation
Tables of four to five, seated deliberately: mixed roles, no supervisor with a direct report. Thirty minutes on the discussion questions, with the coach circulating rather than presenting. Each table lands on one sentence it is willing to say out loud to the room.
65 — 9025 min
Room share and close
Tables report. The coach maps what is said onto the four domains in real time on a visible board, so the room watches its own conversation become a framework. The lesson closes with the commitment card — one behavior to watch for before the next Live Lab — which staff keep. Nothing is collected.
Watched together at minute 20
Seeing the EssenceFull 7:00 · projected · captions on
The half-sheet, handed out at minute eight
What do you see?
Answer from memory. Do not look around the room.
How many windows are in this room?
What is written on the far wall?
Who arrived first?
Which door did most people come through?
What is on the table by the entrance?
Prepared for this room, on the day
Prepared for this room, on the day
Prepared for this room, on the day
Materials and setup
Half-sheet observation quiz, one per person, printed.
Commitment cards — staff keep these; nothing is collected.
A visible board or easel for the live domain map.
A room the group has not met in before. Familiarity defeats the opening exercise.
Prepare one detail in the room deliberately, as Knight did with the lights.
Discussion questions — for table conversation, then the room
You just failed a test about a room you were standing in. What does that suggest about what you might be missing in a conversation, a classroom, or a family phone call?
Phil says his players knew the offense and still could not see the gym. Where in your work are you technically strong and observationally thin?
Tell your table about a time someone read you wrong. What would they have needed to notice to get you right?
The word we are not using is change. What makes understanding yourself harder than changing something about yourself?
If everyone at this table got 1% better at seeing the essence of the people we serve, what would our families notice first?
MIPS (PVA) Leadership Academy — Lesson 01Sherpa Leadership Group LLCPondera® Virtual Advisor is a product of Pondera Technologies, LLC
