Human Voices Wake Us

I’ve been struggling lately with the perceived line between what administrators do and don’t do.  Tradition says they discipline, manage, make sure others know they are in charge, etc.  I love instructional leadership, but miss kids.  I don’t want to spend the rest of my career just interacting with “the bad kids.”  As an administrator I’m not supposed to be able to teach a class or have friendly relationships with teachers. But as we’re encouraged to move away from a hierarchical system to a learning community, why are these old standards still the norm?  I believe that I can still make opportunities for me to teach both teachers and students.  Someone once told me that if I missed having relationships with students that I needed to get back into teaching.  I believe I can have the best of both worlds.  I’m not sure how it will happen, but I know I can work to redefine what it means to be an administrator.  I also know if I were to go back into teaching I would be a much better one than when I left, but I would be worrying about what was going on in other classrooms and itching to guide those teachers. 

Education is all about what goes on in the classroom.  My job as an administrator is to teach the teachers so that they can be better.  But if I forget about the students or what it’s like to be in a classroom with them, then what’s the point? 

I want to have my cake and eat it too.

I’m reading Jim Collins’ Good to Great.  One section talks about the “Doom Loop.”  I believe a lot of schools are in this loop.  This is the section that made me immediately think of what I’ve seen happen in schools:

“They sought the single defining action, the grand program, the one killer innovation, the miracle moment…They would push the flywheel in one direction, then stop, change course, and throw it into yet another direction.  After years of lurching back and forth, the comparison companies filed to build sustained momentum and fell instead into what we call the doom loop.”    -(p. 178)

This is what schools call the “initiative.”  One new great program comes along and usually everyone’s expected to do it and only it.  Then, something else comes along.  This is why teachers are notorious for believing that, if they hang on long enough, it will change.  And it usually does:  “Each new …CEO brought his own new program and halted the momentum of his predecessor.”  -(p.179)

How many times has a new principal or superintendent come in and changed the focus?   I’m willing to admit that the focus might need to be changed, but what if it doesn’t?  What if things are slowly improving?

I was once a part of High Schools That Work.  One thing I heard during a conference was that teachers who are on the right track should “interview” a new principal by telling him/her:  here’s what we do, here’s what the school does.  If you’re not on board, then we won’t hire you. The teachers keep the ball rolling (with central admin support, of course).

I’ve seen many schools in the doom loop because they don’t go anywhere.  There’s no progress, no forward movement.  The focus is constantly changing and isn’t done long enough to see results.  In Good to Great, it takes some companies 10, 20, or 30 years to see results.  Granted, schools don’t have that long.  But by continually changing focus, how can anyone expect any progress?

You must have passion to inspire passion – passion about your subject and passion about the students whom you teach.  That is just the beginning of inspiring students.  What you will soon come to find out, though, is that the passion for your students will begin to trump anything else.  You will find yourself doing whatever you can to help them be successful, whether it’s designing an engaging lesson, creating non-traditional tests, or just giving them emotional support in all their endeavors.  If you truly want to inspire your students to learn, you must first allow them to inspire you.  You must be inspired by their tenacity to come to school when they have no parental support.  You must be inspired by their imagination and humor.  You must be inspired by the possible future that lies within each student.  Once you are inspired, you will stop at nothing to return the favor.  The relationship you build and the care you show will cause them to love you and the learning you give them.  Teaching is a profession that blesses you with the opportunity to become a part of others’ lives.  This is a great and noble task, and one that will seem less and less like a job and more and more like a privilege. If you want to motivate and inspire students, let them motivate and inspire you.  See them as human beings with whom you have been given the chance to make a difference in their lives.  See them as who they will be one day.  Then show them your vision.  Your greatest teaching tool in inspiring students is opening the door and letting them see the possibilities of what can be. 

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