Do as I do

In my career I’ve worked as a Teacher, a Tech Director, a Principal, and various combinations of those positions. They each have their expectations and requirements, many of them unique to the job.

However, it’s more true than not that the various roles in schools can and should act in similar ways and have similar expectations. It’s the “scalability” of education: as we would hope our classrooms are run and managed, so should we run and manage our departments, our divisions, our schools.

As we expect teachers to behave and interact with students, so should we expect our principals to behave and interact with teachers. If we expect our teachers to differentiate, so should principals. If we expect our teachers to believe that all students can learn, so should principals believe about teachers. If we expect our teachers to treat students with respect and encouragement, so should principals treat teachers.

Play a game of Mad Libs in your school: take statements about teachers and students. Replace “teachers” with “principals” and “students” with “teachers.” Do the statements still hold true?

If they do, you’re doing well. If not…

Note: Mad Libs are ©2014 The Penguin Group