In Defensive of Principals
At the beginning of the year, the first thing you can start to do for your principal is be helpful.
Oscar Wilde divided the world into two categories: the charming and the tedious. Don’t be standing in the line of teachers marked “Tedious” that is always forming outside your principal’s door.
Try and show that you're normal and that you are there to work and teach children. Ask if there's anything you can do to help over and above teaching music. Like offer to testify under oath in their behalf at the trial that grew out of a parent’s complaint.
If a friendship develops between the two of you, remember that it developed during your 7.5 hour job day as well as your principal’s 7.5 hour job day. There will be times when they have to put your friendship on hold and deal with issues in a way that you might not agree but that's part of the job for both of you. Be forgiving. Learn to forget such situations and carry no umbrage.
Chances are, the principal's job has become more complex, dense, and unrelenting since they took the gig, just as it has in the teacher’s world.
More and more has been added to their plate of duties and nothing has been taken off.
Then there is the whole thing about job security or lack thereof.
If you are a teacher in a public school and have achieved tenure, which usually takes three years, you are golden for the rest of your career. It's going to take a lot for them to fire you.
Principals’ contracts are not so robust and are more on the fragile and annual renewal side of things. Often times, their contract is for two years with the option for the superintendent to extend it for another two years.
The Solution
While your prime directive might be to improve the lives of our students, can we all admit that it's okay to try and improve the lives of our principals and department heads?
If you want to make inroads with a department head or principal, I think the best tactic is to find the middle of the road and be in it.
It will take time to build a relationship with your principal. Don’t jump the gun by asking for stuff the first day or first week. Offer to help in any way possible. Try to predict what they need and offer to help out.
Show them how you are a normal teacher, that your head is screwed on straight, and that you're also teaching things like reading skills in your classroom that improve the overall quality of their school's standardized test scores.
When they talk in a full staff meeting, maintain eye contact and shut your mouth. I don’t care if everyone at your table is laughing and passing notes, don’t talk. More on that in another post.
Face it. If there wasn't a law that required classroom teachers to have the duty free period every day, most music teachers would probably be jettison and replace with a reading teacher.
Don't try to teach your administrators how to play rhythm sticks or tuba the right way. Don’t try to teach them anything.
Talk to your principal about what music was like when they were a kid. If they have kids, ask about their children’s experience in music. Start a conversation. Do more listening than talking.
Find out which music teachers your principals like. Why do they like them? What skills and attitudes do those teachers always bring to the party? Make sure some of their game is in your arsenal of skills.
Attend board meetings. Learn how things are done. Be your principal’s advocate to their boss.
Have your students write an invitation to your admin to visit on a specific day at a specific time to hear them perform something that sounds and looks really good.
Send admin and any board members you have developed a relationship with videos of performances in your class. Have introductions by kids including the principal's name and send them to your principal as well as your principal’s boss.
Just like you have a supervisor, so do your administrators, and your boss’s boss can be influenced by what we to do or don't do.
Write a “to whom it may concern” letter in support of your principal if at all possible. And share it with them.
I had one principal who was forced out at his job and I wrote a letter for him. I also had another principle who, after two weeks in the school, I wanted to make sure he understood how much I appreciated it his efforts in my school's behalf. So I wrote him a glowing letter, too.
This Is The Bottom Line
When you take a job at a school, whether you're a teacher or principal, don't expect things to get better but plan on them possibly getting worse.
Do your research. If word on the street is that the school culture is contaminated by a bad principal or admin team or compromised by a toxic staff, do not take the job, no matter how much money they offer you. You're better than that and can find something better.
If you're already in a school where the well water is slowly being poisoned by a bad administrator, there is “no shame in your game” should you decide to leave.
Don’t make matters worse by trying to be a proxy department head.
But leave as attractively as possible. You are creating a memory for your principal and department head entitled “this is what music teachers are like”. Make the start for the next music teacher who replaces you easier by orchestrating the best exit possible for yourself.
At the beginning of the year, the first thing you can start to do for your principal is be helpful.
Oscar Wilde divided the world into two categories: the charming and the tedious. Don’t be standing in the line of teachers marked “Tedious” that is always forming outside your principal’s door.
Try and show that you're normal and that you are there to work and teach children. Ask if there's anything you can do to help over and above teaching music. Like offer to testify under oath in their behalf at the trial that grew out of a parent’s complaint.
If a friendship develops between the two of you, remember that it developed during your 7.5 hour job day as well as your principal’s 7.5 hour job day. There will be times when they have to put your friendship on hold and deal with issues in a way that you might not agree but that's part of the job for both of you. Be forgiving. Learn to forget such situations and carry no umbrage.
Chances are, the principal's job has become more complex, dense, and unrelenting since they took the gig, just as it has in the teacher’s world.
More and more has been added to their plate of duties and nothing has been taken off.
Then there is the whole thing about job security or lack thereof.
If you are a teacher in a public school and have achieved tenure, which usually takes three years, you are golden for the rest of your career. It's going to take a lot for them to fire you.
Principals’ contracts are not so robust and are more on the fragile and annual renewal side of things. Often times, their contract is for two years with the option for the superintendent to extend it for another two years.
The Solution
While your prime directive might be to improve the lives of our students, can we all admit that it's okay to try and improve the lives of our principals and department heads?
If you want to make inroads with a department head or principal, I think the best tactic is to find the middle of the road and be in it.
It will take time to build a relationship with your principal. Don’t jump the gun by asking for stuff the first day or first week. Offer to help in any way possible. Try to predict what they need and offer to help out.
Show them how you are a normal teacher, that your head is screwed on straight, and that you're also teaching things like reading skills in your classroom that improve the overall quality of their school's standardized test scores.
When they talk in a full staff meeting, maintain eye contact and shut your mouth. I don’t care if everyone at your table is laughing and passing notes, don’t talk. More on that in another post.
Face it. If there wasn't a law that required classroom teachers to have the duty free period every day, most music teachers would probably be jettison and replace with a reading teacher.
Don't try to teach your administrators how to play rhythm sticks or tuba the right way. Don’t try to teach them anything.
Talk to your principal about what music was like when they were a kid. If they have kids, ask about their children’s experience in music. Start a conversation. Do more listening than talking.
Find out which music teachers your principals like. Why do they like them? What skills and attitudes do those teachers always bring to the party? Make sure some of their game is in your arsenal of skills.
Attend board meetings. Learn how things are done. Be your principal’s advocate to their boss.
Have your students write an invitation to your admin to visit on a specific day at a specific time to hear them perform something that sounds and looks really good.
Send admin and any board members you have developed a relationship with videos of performances in your class. Have introductions by kids including the principal's name and send them to your principal as well as your principal’s boss.
Just like you have a supervisor, so do your administrators, and your boss’s boss can be influenced by what we to do or don't do.
Write a “to whom it may concern” letter in support of your principal if at all possible. And share it with them.
I had one principal who was forced out at his job and I wrote a letter for him. I also had another principle who, after two weeks in the school, I wanted to make sure he understood how much I appreciated it his efforts in my school's behalf. So I wrote him a glowing letter, too.
This Is The Bottom Line
When you take a job at a school, whether you're a teacher or principal, don't expect things to get better but plan on them possibly getting worse.
Do your research. If word on the street is that the school culture is contaminated by a bad principal or admin team or compromised by a toxic staff, do not take the job, no matter how much money they offer you. You're better than that and can find something better.
If you're already in a school where the well water is slowly being poisoned by a bad administrator, there is “no shame in your game” should you decide to leave.
Don’t make matters worse by trying to be a proxy department head.
But leave as attractively as possible. You are creating a memory for your principal and department head entitled “this is what music teachers are like”. Make the start for the next music teacher who replaces you easier by orchestrating the best exit possible for yourself.