Adminfo - and Vice Principals

Schools need to ensure that students are learning deeply and
are becoming thoughtful citizens who are valued. As a new
principal, this resonates with me. I want to be sure that when
decisions for my school are made, they develop from best
practices and I am able to provide solid evidence to support
the tacit knowledge experienced educators possess.
“work” was “done.” I would answer
yes, but in truth I was lying: the work
of an educator is never done. I did
not want my mother to worry or to
think I was a bad teacher, but I knew
I would have to eventually find a way
to resolve the conflict I was having
about being untruthful. To compound
my dilemma, my training had
led me to believe that there would
be a lot of hard work in my first few
years as a teacher, but then it would
be easier because my work would be
already prepared. The theory was that
as I approached five years of teaching
it would become a nine-to-three job,
unless there was a staff meeting. As I
passed my fifth year and there was still
always more work that could be done,
I began to understand that this initial
and narrow view of education was inaccurate.
I needed to explain the idea
of learning being a process and not a
product to my mother so that I could
not only be truthful to her, but also
to myself. This realization allowed me
to be comfortable with the fact that
to grow as a teacher my paradigm for
teaching had to shift. I could now
give myself permission to let tough
concepts both for my students, and
for myself, time to marinate. The
fundamental yet simple cooking principle
of taking an unappetizing piece
of meat adding some spice and the
most important ingredient, time, has
implications in education. Education
and cuisine both require an appropriate
set of circumstances so that the
“toughness” can be mellowed and the
once unpalatable can be appreciated.
“Powerful Leadership is distributed
February 08 • Adminfo • 10
because the work of instructional improvement
is distributed,” Elmore
wrote. When all stakeholders in the
educational system are contributing
to ensure learning takes place, great
things happen. A core value from
the formal and informal leaders with
which I have worked comes from the
idea that there is a synergy when we
come together: many minds are better
than one, and that many hands
make light work. In education, it is
important that our work is actualized
in a thoughtful and smart way so that
it can be sustained over time. As a
formal leader in the school, I encourage
teachers to utilize the strengths
and talents of themselves and other
staff. We work together to share classes
with each other so
students will receive
instruction in art
and physical education
from the most
qualified and talented
teachers in these areas.
To continue on
the theme of distributed
leadership, we
can use the knowledge
base for performance
standards that
we already have as a
staff and look at how
we can start to incorporate
more formative
assessment into
our practice.
Elmore’s article articulates
various problems
with the NCLB
policy, but there appears
to be some unanswered questions.
There is still much investigation
educators must undertake to better
understand the learning process
themselves, but where is the moral
accountability of the politicians to
become informed of the true issues
in education I wonder what can be
done to measure both internally and
externally a school’s growth during
a time of improving practice. How
you measure this growth is especially
important when trying to decide if a
school has reached a temporary plateau,
or is “cruising” and on the verge
of “sinking.”
Rhonda Togyi is principal at Fort
Fraser Elementary in the Nechako
Lakes School District. She wrote this
paper as part of her requirements for
her ED-D532 course at the University
of Victoria (Faculty of Education,
Certificate in School Management
and Leadership). This is her first article
for Adminfo. She can be reached at
rtogyi@mail.sd91.bc.ca
Our cartoonist is Rod Maclean, a former Surrey principal.
For a weekly cartoon email Rod at ramaclean@shaw.ca