What I Have Learned in Four Years as a Principal

This is a post that I wrote for the Massachusetts School Administrators Association blog...

When I think back to what I thought I knew about school leadership and where I thought the most influential levers in school improvement lay, I almost laugh out loud.  Each principal enters the role of principal for the first time with his/her perspective of what the job entails, beliefs about how best to influence change and a set of priorities for his/her leadership agenda.  However, experience has shown me that most of us did not have a realistic or complete picture of the role of principal.

I also have gained just enough wisdom to know there is a lot I have left to figure out.  I actually wish that I could have a conversation with "Five Years from Now Me" to see how much of what I believe today will shift as time passes.  That being said, I do think that there are a few things that I have learned in my first four years as a principal that will stand the test of time.

# 1 - Perspective

I have found that a huge part of being a successful school principal is being able to consider the other person's perspective.  Whether it be an upset student, irate parent, reluctant staff member or another member of the district admin team, I have had my most successful conversations and done my best problem solving when I am able to step outside my viewpoint and consider the other perspective.  Considering the other perspective does not mean doing what everyone one else wants, however, it does mean forcing yourself to suspend your own beliefs for a period of time to understand where your conversation partner is coming from.

In my first four years I have found that one of two things will happen when I do this.  First, I may find myself thinking about something in a new way that either affects the way I decide to move forward with a decision, or changes the decision itself.  Second, I may not change my mind at all, but taking time to understand how the other person sees the situation helps me to maintain a positive relationship with that individual.  Additionally, considering their perspective can help me to understand the root of their beliefs and address those if necessary.

I have also learned in my first four years that no matter how hard I work at understanding where my conversation partner is coming from as a principal, the majority of time my conversation partner will not be giving me the same courtesy.  I have come to know that most often when you are having a conversation in the principal's office, the burden for keeping the conversation on track, respectful and inclusive of all perspectives falls at the feet of the principal.

# 2 - Patience

Change is slow.... really slow!  Sure, there are some things that I was able to quickly improve during my first year as a principal, but there were all low-level, procedural changes (parent drop off and pick up procedures, schedules, duty assignments, etc.).  But real substantive change around big issues like instructional practices, culture, morale, teacher leadership, curriculum and a comprehensive approach to social emotional learning take a long time to fully implement.

Additionally, I have learned that you can only try and make a few substantive changes at a time.  There are always more things that need to change (most not your ideas but ideas that come at you from central office, the state, parent groups, staff suggestions, etc.) than you can possibly execute successfully; therefore, I have learned that the principal has to make decisions about what should be worked on now and what needs to be put off to a later time.  Which brings us back to the section above; when you put off someone else's idea you need to first expend significant energy ensuring you understand why this idea is important to them.  Acknowledging the values and beliefs that drive their idea, help this person feel heard and gives you a chance to share the "why" behind your decision... even though most times your partner in this conversation is not going to work as hard to see things from your perspective ;)

# 3 - Almost Everything is Connected

When I was in graduate school, I remember reading Peter Senge's book The Fifth Discipline.  At the time, I remember thinking something along the lines of, "Well this is a nice little read, but I am never going to need any of this stuff when I am a principal."  Well that was a silly thought.  The longer and longer I do this job, the more connections I see and the more I can appreciate a Systems Thinking perspective.

In the very first chapter of his book Senge states the book is designed for "destroying the illusion that the world is created of separate, unrelated forces."  As I went back and re-read that chapter in preparation for this post, I now wish I had paid closer attention to it when starting as a principal.  I think of all the energy I have expended thinking about challenges and areas for growth as single problems that have no effect on one another.  Take for example my approach in the past towards staff morale, school culture, social emotional learning and academic achievement, seeing these as unrelated issues that needed to be addressed individually (more on this below).  I was naive not to see how this individual cog is a piece in the complex system that is a school.

Whether intended or not, decisions that we make seemingly in isolation have an affect on many other aspects of the school system.  Systems thinking encourages leaders to think about these interconnections before taking action.  To look for places of high leverage and applying pressure to these levers that will deliberately affect the greater system in positive ways while simultaneously looking to remove obstacles that will slow progress within the system.  The most surprising revelation for me has been how this plays out over time. I have noticed on three different occasions so far this year ways that some decisions I made three years ago are starting to affect other large aspects of our school.  In these particular cases they have been positive, but that is not because I had foresight in my choices.  Perhaps I am just lucky, or perhaps it was Divine Providence; regardless it is a reminder that nearly every decision affects more than it's isolated context and because change is slow it may take some time before that is realized.  

# 4 - Its More Than Just Academics

So raise your hand if you got into leadership because you believed that if you could just somehow spread the "magic" that was going on in your classroom as a teacher, then you would have the recipe for a high performing school.  Since I can't see if you hand is raised, I am going to assume some version of this truth is evident for a majority of us.  We wanted to influence a larger number of kids by leaving the classroom and improving instruction across a building.  For me that meant rigorous unit design, common instructional practices, common formative assessments, regular assessment analysis and more time on learning.  I believed, fed by a lot of what I was reading in graduate school, that I could ignore all the other "unimportant stuff" as a principal, focus on these areas and the school would soar...

Then, six months into my first job as a principal, the decision was made to close my school, reorganize the district and move me to another school; so began a lot of thinking on my part on things like staff culture, building trust, building relationships, visioning, family engagement, political strategy and a complete overhaul of operational procedures.  My eyes were quickly opened to the many roles that a school principal plays during his/her tenure: visionary, advocate, punching bag, therapist, voice of reason, friend, enemy, task master, planner, stalwart, referee, instructional leader, fixer, energizer, coach, lawyer, and many more that I have yet to experience.

Once our new school of over 650 PreK-2 students opened, it became glaringly obvious that we had missed something important in our planning and preparation.  We had failed to adequately prepare for the social and emotional needs of our students; failed to have a way to support them in being ready to learn each day.  I began to learn about the struggles that so many children face each and every day outside the walls of our schools.  I saw the ways that systems that were supposed to be there to protect children get tied up in their own bureaucracy and create roadblocks and inefficiencies that affect children.  I started to understand that the idea of "this is not the school's responsibility" was not only a naive viewpoint, it was borderline neglectful to our students.  Can we ignore this element of the school experience and just focus on academics?  Sure.  However, we do so at our own peril and this decision of non-action is likely to affect staff morale, school culture, academic achievement and more.

Now don't misinterpret what I am saying, academics, teaching and learning still represent the main purpose of schools and educational leadership.  However, I view academic success as the product of a wide variety of inputs.  Like the gears in the image above, we can get the achievement gear spinning correctly if all the other gears are malfunctioning.

What Does the Future Hold?

That is a great question.... I would love it if someone could tell me.  Like I said in the beginning, I wish I had a time traveling phone booth like Bill and Ted (sorry if that reference went right over your head), because I would love to chat with future me to see how much of what I believe now will be changed by experiences I have yet to have.  Regardless, the principalship has been one of the greatest learning experiences of my life (second only to fatherhood), and as Einstein once said, "Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death."  I look forward to the next four years of intellectual growth and where that takes me.  

Taking the Time to Observe and Learn

(This is the opening day speech that I shared with my staff this year)

So last year, my son Brady started playing football.  Now, we have tried Brady in all sorts of team sports in the past, soccer, baseball, gymnastics, etc. but nothing ever stuck.  And when I say that nothing ever stuck, I am not referring to his skills within the sport.  Rather, I am talking about the bond and connection that he felt with the sport, the team and his teammates.  He had never shown a real desire to go to the next practice, never got excited about game day and was definitely not sad to see the season end.  That all changed with football. 

I have shared before the experience I had with Brady at the end of the football season last year and how that made me feel as both his father and an educator.  Brady, on his last day of practice last year, was filled with tears at the end of the football season and as his father I couldn’t have been happier.  I was so pleased that he had made a real connection to both other adults in his coaches as well as to the kids on his team.  He felt truly as a part of a community, something that had never happened outside his family or his classroom before.  It was a huge step and I was so happy for just that.

As this football season began, I entered a little worried.  It was some of the same coaches and other new ones, some of the same kids and other new ones.  It was almost a year later.  A year for him to forget how to play the game.  A year to forget how to be a part of a team.  A year to forget about being a part of a community.  My worries grew when, at his first practice, he did not want to join a group of boys tossing a football around before the start of practice.  He was anxious, telling me that he wasn’t sure if those kids were supposed to be doing that, that he wasn’t sure if they were Mites like him.  Despite my best efforts to move him off this anxiety, and get him unstuck from his beliefs in that moment, he would not move.  I started to think to myself, well last year was nice and maybe we can get back to that point by the end of the year, but we are going to have to start over…. Then the coach blew the whistle.  Brady put on his helmet, ran out to join the group and joined right in on the first drill as if practices had never ended last fall. 

I was blown away.

As the first two weeks of the football season progressed, I dropped Brady off at practice, and picked him up after.  I asked how practice was, got the obligatory “good”, and asked if he was having fun… which he was.  That was enough for me at the time because I didn’t know any better, didn’t know any more and was unconsciously limited his potential. 

One day last week, I dropped Brady off and then went for a run.  After finishing my run, I decided to go and watch some of his practice.  As I watched the last hour of his practice, I noticed that Brady spent about 45 minutes either holding a blocking pad or sitting out.  I started to think about why this was the case and started to develop theories in my head.  As the practice continued, the theories honed into a belief that this new mix of coaches was making some assumptions about a kid with Autism and was limiting him and his participation based upon that.  The longer I thought about it… long into that night… the more and more upset I got.  It kept me up that night.

This attitude and belief system that blamed the coaches and their ignorance of my son’s needs carried into the next day.  I approached the head coach at the start of the next practice and explained what I had seen and that, as I put it, his mother and I didn’t want Brady to be the team mascot, that he was capable of being coached and if they needed any help with better understanding him, I would be happy to help.  As I sat and watched this practice I started feeling vindicated…. Like “Ha, I told them.”  However, as the end of practice neared, I noticed the same pattern occurring where Brady was sitting off to the side as the team was practicing their plays for an upcoming scrimmage.  I started to get angry again, I thought to myself, “How could they make assumptions like this about him?”  “How could they predetermine his potential and use those predeterminations to set limits on him?”  “He is 8 years old, no one knows what he is capable of?”  And then it hit me…. Like a punch right in the chest. 

I was getting mad at them, but I was blaming the wrong person.  I started to ask myself some questions like, “What have you learned about football in order to help him be successful?”  “How many practices did you watch last year?”  “How many practices have you watched this year?”  What have you learned about the fundamentals of football in order to help Brady practice and develop those skills?”  “What have you thought about Brady’s potential to be a contributing member of the football team?”  “How much have you invested getting to know something that he has shown passion about and understanding why he is passionate about it?”  “How well have you gotten to know your own son in this area and how can you be upset with the coaches for not investing in your son the way you want them to, when you haven’t either?”

Woof!  That was a tough moment.

I spent the next set of practices watching closely; listening to advice the coaches on all three teams were giving to the players on tackling techniques, proper hand positions when blocking, proper pre-snap stance, etc.  Then I started to watch Brady in relation to what I was learning and ask him questions that were helping me get inside his understanding.  I paid close attention to how Brady was performing against the criteria the coaches were establishing and then provided him with direct feedback after practice and gave him techniques to use to monitor himself during practice.  The difference in his performance was almost instantaneous. 

Now this is a nice story of fatherhood, but what does this have to do with our school and this coming year?  This example from my life drove home a point for me; one that has been swimming around in my head since last spring.  I have been thinking a lot for the past 5 to 6 months about how we as a school can best meet the needs of our kids.  I have thought about this challenge in relation to our students’ academic success and growth as well as their social and emotional and behavioral growth.
 

Each year, we are faced with more and more complex challenges that our students and their surrounding environments present.   So how, in a sea of information, theory, best practice and research do we determine the best way to meet the needs of the students in front of us?  I argue that the best place to start is to just observe.  The second our students walk with the door at the beginning of the year, we all feel a pressure to move them towards the exit.  Whether it is pressure from the state, the district, me as the principal, parents, our own internal conscientious need to support student learning, we all feel this pressure to get to the learning.  To start teaching; for if we are not teaching, we are not teachers.

I want to ask you to resist that initial urge at the beginning of this school year.  I am challenging you all to become detectives.  To learn all that you can about your students, before you jump into teaching them.  And then I ask that you keep that curious, inquisitive, investigative attitude about your students all year.  The gold standard for a detective is the fictional character Sherlock Holmes. 

Sherlock is renowned for his inquisitive mind, attention to detail and analytic mind. One quote from Sherlock Holmes says, “It’s my business to know what other people don’t know.”  I challenge each of you to know your students in a way that no other person knows them.  Just like my experience with Brady, we need to take the time to learn before we can best teach.

This year I want us, collectively, to better know our students.  I challenge each of you to think about the information that you normally collect on your students and consider two things.  First, how can I get to know my students in a way that I have never done before?  What can I learn about them that would help me understand them as little people with wants, desires, hopes and dreams that I might be able to inspire and foster in my work with them?  Second, how can I better organize this new information along with the information I normally collect so that it is helpful to me in my decisions?  What new ways could I look at old information to better inform my work with students?  How, like Sherlock Holmes, can I know what other people don’t know?

I argue that this small emphasis on observation can and will make a significant impact on our ability to meet the needs of our students more effectively and more efficiently.  We all work so hard to best meet the needs of our students, but what if we are expending our energies in the wrong direction because we didn’t take enough time to question before jumping in?  What if a small change in the way we get to know our kids is enough to make learning stick with some of our trickiest learners and actually make our lives easier?  Can we find new ways to reach students and inspire them that we have not yet in our careers?  Can we reach students that present challenges we have never seen before?  Can we ensure each child in our school believes this school community is interested in knowing him or her as a person?  I believe we can and I believe we owe it to them.