Expand life opportunities for all youth

I read this goal "expand life opportunities for all youth" on the Stupski Foundation website.  I shared it with my principal and colleagues.  We had been talking about our school's mission and vision statement.  One of my wise teacher friends said that we are expanding the size of the frame around our students' view of the world.  I drew a cartoon of this image of a growing frame and maybe I will add it here. 

I meet a professor last summer who teaches at "We the People" teacher institutes. ("We the People" is an excellent history and civics curriculum for 5th, 8th and 12 graders.   Students get excited about public speaking and current issues too from "We the People." I think that is an amazing result.  This professor said that one of life's greatest pleasures is getting together with friends over dinner and talking about ideas and issues.  She is right.  We want our students to see that gathering together and talking about ideas is fun.

A High School Principal's Insights

I interviewed a principal that I had worked for. He had great insight gained from 35 years in the field.  The article I wrote after the interview was published in 2004.  I recently found the notes I took. 

How did you become a teacher? 

I didn’t plan to become a teacher. Both my parents had been teachers and my wife was a teacher so maybe I tried to avoid becoming one.  I wanted to go into banking or public administration.  In college I had a football scholarship and I majored in history and political science. I got an M.A. in history.  

A friend of mine had gotten a job teaching and coaching football.  He asked me if I could help him coach.   The feedback I got from the kids---the spontaneity of it----was great. I was trying to share my love of the sport and my philosophy on hard work and commitment and they responded to it. They bought it!  I hadn’t ever experienced that before.  It was exhilarating. 

So I changed directions and got a teaching credential.  My first teaching job was a “new teacher” kind of assignment; teaching six different classes and moving to six different rooms.  I was just happy to have a job. 

What is your philosophy of teaching? 

When I first started teaching, I though I was just imparting knowledge.  My philosophy has changed since then.  I thought about the question:  What do I really want kids to walk away knowing?  They wouldn’t retain all the subject matter.  It may sound simplistic, but I wanted them to be able to think.  I wanted them to be able to separate fact from opinion.  I didn’t want my students to see the past as static or judge the past by the present.  In class, we re-created the past; we did a lot of simulations; we used primary sources.  We reenacted the trial of Dred Scott, the treason trial of Robert E. Lee and the McCarthy trials.

My mantra to vice principals and principals:  we are teachers.  There is a natural tendency to think vice principals are patrolmen.  We are not patrolmen but teachers.  Kids make mistakes and we try to teach and train them to do what is important.  Mistakes are part of growing up.  The educational system is not a penal system.  Teaching should be fun and kids should have fun at school.  It is a balance to put it altogether.  I can’t do it by myself.  I need the staff .

I was a Socratic teacher and I think I am a Socratic administrator.  I think on questions and come up with more questions.  When people start giving me answers I get suspicious. 

How did you become a principal?

I became a principal because I wanted to challenge myself as a teacher and coach.  I thought to myself:  Where would I have the most impact on the students and the system? 

It was a tough decision to become a principal because my wife and I were raising a young family. I wanted to work with the bigger picture than just the picture inside my classroom and as a coach on the field.  I wondered if I could make an impact by using my teaching philosophy.  Principals are teachers first.

What are you most happy about and most proud of? 

The “buck stops” with the person in charge.  We are like a large business here; we have 2,100 kids and 80 staff members.   I’m happy with the staff we have hired.  They put kids first and kids’ success first. 

I didn’t want this high school to be a place where kids come to watch teachers work.   We keep reflecting on the philosophy we’ve adopted:   “Every student is an active learner.” I can walk away; we have a philosophy in place. We believe in the philosophy.

We were getting feedback from students.  They were saying: “We don’t have to read because the teacher will tell us what we need to know.”  We have worked really hard to become knowledgeable in reading comprehension strategies.  Secondary teachers are not, by training, reading teachers.  We have taught the students strategies to take control of their own learning.  There is a unified note taking system, a unified essay system, bibliography and citation system.  Kids aren’t coming to school to watch teachers work.

Kids are great at search and retrieval.  They’ll find it, but they won’t see the larger picture.   I say, don’t give them search and retrieval questions but more analytical questions.

Kids can hit every target that you make if they know what the target is and it doesn’t move on them.   Tell them:  This is the target.  This is what I want you to know.  Don’t pull the rug out from under them and change the target without telling them. 

What are you most disappointed about? 

I don’t want to live my life by looking backwards. 

What do you think of current educational events?  What do you think of the No Child Left Behind Act?

Assessment is important but you don’t get the calf fatter by weighing it more often.

You have to learn to assess what you are expecting students to learn.  You can test facts but then you’re just teaching facts.  What do you want to assess?    I see three concentric circles.  In the outer circle are “things that are nice to know.” Cultural literacy facts like George Washington was the 1^st president.  The assessment for “things that are nice to know” is usually a multiple choice test.  In the middle circle are concepts and facts that are “important to know.”  Concepts like civil rights, power and citizenship.  The corresponding test for this is to have students create or recreate the concept.  

The 3^rd circle is the core.  This is what is enduring and what is crucial that you want you kids to walk away with and remember 15 years from now. A teacher knows you can’t assess topics in the third circle with multiple choice questions and search and retrieval questions.

The current testing is assessing the outside layer “nice to know” knowledge. That is so foreign to me.  I’m looking at the core circle.  For that we need multiple forms of assessment.

What are your future plans?  

First I’m going to sit back and reflect. I’m going to think about:  How can I have more control of my time and have the biggest impact?  I never felt like the person who says they can’t wait to retire.  It was in January of this year that I starting questioning myself:  Do I have enough energy for this?  A high school principal has to be everything to everybody.  I need to support my music, curricular (English, Foreign Language, etc.) and athletic programs.

I can’t sit in my office and do all that.  I have to be out there.  It takes a toll on your family life.  I thought:  Can I continue to have the impact that I want without wearing myself out? 

I want to have more control of my time instead of having time control me.

This is a six or seven day a week job.  There haven’t been that many Sundays that I haven’t come in to do paper work.  If I don’t come in I pay the price all week.  

I separate being a leader from being a manager.  A leader does the right thing.  He or she has vision and bigger picture thinking.  A leader brings people together.  A manager does things right.  He or she does the budget right.  I thought I was becoming more of a manager than a leader.

                         

To be successful the kids have to make a connection someplace to the school.  They connect where they are drawn.  There are Drama kids, athletic kids, Science Olympic kids and Interact kids.  I need to support them.  I adopted the jazz band this year.  I love to see them.  I'd rather be doing that then sitting behind a computer.  Kids give me more energy than I probably give them.