The Principal's Dilemma

We are closing in on an early Spring Break this year, and marks the beginning of a very busy time with both staffing and budgeting for next year dominating the landscape.  That means pulling together with different groups and stakeholders to get input, and then--ultimately--having make some tough decisions: 

• Do we create a tight organization for the school (full classes and a happy budget) or a add another classroom (smaller class sizes and a tight budget)?
• Can we find ways to keep all of the wonderful teachers that we have?
• Can we build in the room to make sure there is space for any families moving into our community during the school year?
• Will we have enough extra funds to continue offering the wonderful field trips and extra-curricular programs that compliment the wonderful learning resources that we want to buy? 
• Can I get more SmartBoards and document cameras into the classrooms?
• Can I build in the money to release teachers from their classes to learn how to use that technology?

As you can imagine, these kinds of decisions and this time of year also seem to bring many comments like "that's why you get paid the big bucks", and "I wouldn't want your job for anything"... 

Spring is also a time when a lot of people not involved in education want to know what it is that I do everyday.  With all of that and my own principal performance appraisal underway, I am reminded of a poem that a friend posted a while back, shared with both of us by a common mentor.

So, to all of my admin friends, here is something for you to reflect upon as all of those tough decisions present themselves to you in the next few months.  Thanks to James, for posting Dave's poem (author unknown) the first time.  James is a fellow principal, fellow fly fisher and friend who has a great blog that you should check out at http://iprincipal2.blogspot.ca/.

The Principal's Dilemma

The school Principal, like all other educators, should expect to please no one. All too often he is caught on the horns of a dilemma regardless of the action he takes, or fails to take.

 ·        If he reports to school to early, he has insomnia or he must be a control freak; if he leaves school late, he is a slow worker.

·        If he attends sports events, he is over-emphasizing athletics; if he misses an event, he has no school spirit.

·        If he suspends a student, he doesn't understand children and is too hard on them; if he doesn't, he's a weak disciplinarian or too soft on kids

·        If he corrects a teacher, he's always picking on someone; if he doesn't correct teachers, he is a weak administrator.

·        If he has a friendly personality, he's a showoff; if he's quiet, he is anti-social.
If he calls a meeting, he has no regard for teacher's time; if he doesn't call meetings, he doesn't call meetings, and he doesn't believe in democratic administration.

·        If he makes quick decisions and follows up; he is an autocrat; if he is slow to make decisions, he is indecisive.

 ·        If he visits the classroom, he is being nosey; if he doesn't visit the classroom, he doesn't care what is going on.

 ·        If he buys a new car, he must be overpaid; if he doesn't buy a new car, he must be a miser.

·        If he speaks up for some new program; he's on the bandwagon; if he's cautious about change, he's living in the past.

·        If he uses the public address system, he likes to hear himself talk; if he doesn't he fails to keep his staff informed.

·        If he attends conferences of principals, he's goofing off; when he doesn't, he's unprofessional.

·        If he checks with the superintendent, he hasn't a mind of his own, if he seldom checks, he's assuming to much authority.

·        If he's young, he's got a lot to learn; if he's old he just doesn't have it any more.

 But take heart folks. Keep giving your best, for no matter what you do there are those who will always say "it isn't the school that's to blame;

it's the PRINCIPAL of the thing."

. 

My Piece(s) of the Puzzle

So, I was sitting in an in-service today, listening to someone who seems--well--just so much smarter than me.  Have you ever had that feeling?  Anyway, he was describing some models of support for learning, and connecting the dots between different pieces much faster than I was leaving me wondering if I was smart enough to be able to do this at my school...

...and then came his zinger:

When co-teaching (as the support teacher), you don't need to know the content to the same depth the same as the classroom teacher.  You just need to know what piece that you can do to help.

Wow, that was exactly what I needed!  I just need to know what my piece is, and I need to know my piece well enough to fit into whatever content there is.  As someone in a support role, I can come into a classroom with modified material, with centres, with structures or resources; I don't have to always have the whole puzzle built.  I think that this idea, of having to provide all of the answers all of the time, is one that stalls so much of our energy. 

We spend too much of our energy worrying about what we can't do, and not enough time sharing what we can do.  Take out primary reading groups, for example.  We have divided our grade 2s, 3s, and 4s into levelled reading groups.  The strongest students are in larger groups, and the struggling readers are in the smallest groups.  Each group has a different teacher, and each group is given different instruction and focus depending on the strength of each group.  In my case, my initial contribution was time:  I agreed to lead one of the groups which added another teacher to the mix, increasing the number of groups while decreasing the number of students per group. 4 months into this approach, teachers are sharing their pieces--learning ideas and structures that are working--in a way that is leading us towards our next step in the learning process:  writing.  And, while we struggled a bit when we started our reading groups as we searched for the "program" that we were all going to use, we learned that by supporting each other we could build that plan together, with each of us contributing our own set of talents.  So, as we approach a new look at supporting writing I think that we will be much more comfortable looking around and comparing each others strengths instead of trying to find a standard one-size-fits-all program.

A collaborative approach affords us the opportunity to each bring our own "pieces" of expertise to the table, instead of stalling the process until we have the whole puzzle solved.  My teachers do good work everyday, and I believe that "the answers" are present in our staff meetings to most questions that we can pose.  New jargon and gimmicks, new shiny packaged ways of doing things work far better when they rely on the expertise in the room over trying to re-teach and re-tool every few years to the latest trend.

You just need to know what your piece is.

Of Moose and Men

Thank you National Geographic.

What started out as a 10-year-old boy's birthday party movie-night sleepover was bridged by a NG Special on Alaskan Moose into a metaphor for a simpler, more direct life. 

I was watching the moose special on TV, and the boys were supposed to be down the hall getting ready to watch the current comic book hero action movie.  Somehow, one made their way down the hall, followed by another, and then another.  Eventually, they were all there, crowding into my space, taking up perfectly good space on my couch, chez lounging during my quiet time.  

I pushed back.

I tried to redirect them back to their space.  To where they belonged.

I was was getting irritated...

And then the weirdest notion hit me...right...between...the...eyes.

They were into it!  They were into it just like I have been my whole life.  Since my early childhood, I have always loved watching documentaries about wildlife--especially North American wildlife.  It was sort of one of those things that I did with my dad, and here they were, interested, intrigued and watching it with me.  It was pretty cool and I was feeling great, until I realized that the seasons were changing and our characters were heading towards the rut.

Did I mention that it was two days after Valentine's Day dance?

Crap.  We were going to have to talk about sex, and as events turned towards the rut the questions began to leak out.  

"What does it mean to leave his presence?"

He pees into a scrape and the girls show their interest by rolling in it.

"What is estrus?"

It's when the girl moose wants a boyfriend.

"Why is he sniffing her butt?"

It means he likes her.

"Why is he protecting some of the girls and chasing others away?"

He is selecting the girls that are into him the most.

"Are they married?"

Nope, he is just picking his girlfriend.

"You mean moose have girlfriends before they get married?"

Sure.

"Cool!"

As the talk heated up, I did what any good male would do when it comes time to talk about feelings:  I used my quick wit to insert some self-deprecating humour to deflect some of the attention from the natural scenes to something less "natural".

I likened them to the moose, thinking that this would throw them off.

Hey guys, wouldn't it be way easier to live like a moose?  All you'd have to do to get a girlfriend would be kick up some dirt, pee in it and wait for the first girl to come and sit in your scrap.  Then, you sniff her butt and voila, a girlfriend!  

"Whoa, that's cool!  Can I just say something?  Seriously, this would be so much easier for us guys"

You mean picking your girlfriend by peeing in the dirt?

"Yes, it would really make things way easier for us guys than all of the things that we have to go through."

Wow, straight from the mouths of babes.  Maybe they are right.  Maybe this was just a metaphor for all of the crazy rules and artificial customs that we have governing our lives?  Could things be simpler?  Could we actually just say and do what we are feeling without worrying about social conventions?  Without worrying about what everyone else thinks?  I don't know.  What I do know, however, is that we lose something very pure and honest when we lose our innocense.  It's not just the creativity, that belief that we can do anything.  It's not just the raw emotion we feel, and express, with the world around us.  Somehow, as we grow older and (let) life and experience replace Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, we take more and more of the energy used to see the world with wonder and divert it into defining ourselves.  We go from chasing rainbows to chasing careers.  We go from being friendly to everyone to only being friends with the right people.  We stop believing that we can do anything and start building boxes that show, exactly, what we can do. And then, to disguise that fact that we are selling ourselves short, we decorate those boxes with jewels, fancy vacations, designer clothes, and $7 coffees.  

Have you noticed that kids never answer ethical dilemma-type questions with "it's complicated"?  They just tell you what they think based on what is right or wrong.  The answer to the question of why that becomes so hard for adults consistently eludes me, but is probably why life as a grown up is filled with so much stress and anxiety.  As a boy, my uncertainty revolved around being pulled away from the wonders of the world to do the things that "needed to get done".  As an adult, the uncertainty centres around being happy enough with myself with what I have done.

Why do we move from moose to men?  Can we move back?

I guess it's hard to think outside of the box, when you are the box.

Burning Nuggets

I have a tradition of posting something following my own professional development moments.  It’s my way of paying it forward.

This time, instead of blogging about those salient details that were most meaningful to me—my burning nuggets, if you will—I have a list of some more over-arching PD points.  A PD to-do list, if you will:

Don't Give Your Power Away

I learned this a long time ago.  Never take up an audience's time with information and activities that you don't believe in yourself.

A presenter this weekend gave us an excerpt from a book to read.  She really loved the author, and believed that he made a clear point in this piece of his writing.  The problem was that it was a 7-point critique of 7 things that were not included in the reading package, leaving me to guess as to how valid I felt his critique was (or could be).  Next, she asked us to read this article using a particular reading strategy that, in her words, "did not work well at all with this particular reading".  Needless to say, I was not instilled with confidence in the reading, the reading strategy or the presenter.  Too bad;  she really knew her content area well.

Table Talk is Good

The one thing that was cemented into my thinking this weekend was the importance of table talk. While I disagreed with some of the speaker's methods of content delivery, I did appreciate her good questions to the group and the time that she allowed for table talk.  My colleagues contributed to my learning immensely.

Choice is Good, Informed Choice is Better

This is my critique of my own work. I am part of the planning committee for this last PD weekend.  We offered all of our colleague three choices for topics of study, and around those choices, we planned the logistics of room and session sizes.  We started off the first day with hour-long mini sessions, giving the group access to all topics and speakers, and ended with a round table discussion where we posed questions to the presenters. 

The issue was that this exposure to content and presenter changed people's minds around what they wanted to learn (also, to be fair, the choices were made months ago).

The problem was that we had built a rigid programme structure that didn't allow for movement, and while it is easy to say that people chose their session, they did so a long time ago with much less information than they had after the first night.  We built a structure that was inflexible and that favoured organizational needs over learner needs, and I hope that the conference feedback is honest enough to point that out.

Social Time is Important

There is an importance to unstructured social time among colleagues that is very real, and unfortunately very minimized.  It never ceases to amaze me when you get a few administrators together, how quickly the social talk turns to work talk.  I am not talking about over-stressed, A-type personality talk, but about supportive "what would you do with this issue", "you should talk to so-and-so" and "how would you tackle this problem" talk.  It is exactly this type of connecting time that builds the networks and friendships that anchor our professional practice during turbulent times.

Be Prepared For Your Class

Be prepared for your class, or at least have them prepared for you.  This one goes out to the first presenter of the day who always has the toughest gig.  While most of us arrived on time, we had to rush out of our schools to do so and we needed some time to breathe.  Some of us couldn't pack the day away quickly and rushed to get to the sessions late.  Others, just needed some time to collect themselves and to get from "problem-solver" mode to "learner" mode.  Now, it's easy to say that we are all professionals and should have been ready to learn, but after driving for 90 minutes and having just enough time to check in and grab a quick lunch, what I needed was some big questions, led by a facilitator, to discuss with my peers.  I did not need, nor appreciate, 60 minutes of seated, intellectual listening and I left disappointed that I was not able to absorb more from a presenter with top-notch ideas and knowledge to share.

As a leader, you need to be able to predict your audience's needs, or at the very least to read their reaction so that you can re-energize the room with a varied approach.  As a teacher, I always knew that there would be days when I had to reign in the class' energy just like there would be days when I had to be the energy for the class.  I guess what it boils down to, ultimately, is that the facilitator (teacher, leader, etc.) is there to lead the learning, and not simply to fill the vessels.

Now, don't take this the wrong way; I did have some excellent professional growth this weekend. I appreciated all of the time that the guest speakers put into preparing and presenting their workshops, I appreciated all of the time that the organizing committee put into planning the event, and I appreciated the enthusiasm that my colleagues tackled their own professional growth with.

Until next time...