What Administrators Need from Teachers

I was asked to participate in a series of blog posts over at Dangerously Irrelevant. Scott McLeod first asked teachers to write about “What Teachers Need from Administrators” and then I was included as part of the subsequent posts on “What Administrators Need from Teachers”.

It occurs to me that I submitted that post for a national audience without sharing it here, on this blog, for our own teachers. So here it is. Would love to hear what you think!

5 Comments
  1. After reading your blog to “Dangerously Irrelevant:” I would like to make a few comments. First and foremost, I believe it was a very good blog. If we can do all those points, we would have a much better school. However, there are two points I would like to comment on. The first comment is on the Shared Leadership piece. In the twenty plus years I have been in Randolph we have had a Shared Decision Making Committee. I, as well as many teachers have been a part of that committee throughout the years. The standard joke in the faculty room is “Yeah they come up with the decision, and share it with us”. We are creatures formed by our past. We have learned in the past that the only decisions that we make are ones administrators have not wanted to make. Keep in mind our history and earn the trust of teachers who would love to help you with important decisions that affect us all. The second comment is on the judging piece, While I agree that we must stop judging one another and we must stop bashing one another, I do not agree with one comment, You stated “You’re probably not as great as you think you are…”. If I didn’t think I was as good as I am as a teacher, I would have retired. If we do not think we are good, if we do not strive to be good, we will not be good. I understand the spirit of your message. We can’t think of ourselves as better than everyone else. But we absolutely need to feel good about the job that we do. As a response blogger on “Dangerously Irrelevant” stated:
    “so much negative energy out there, and now with so much scrutiny placed on our teachers, many have become paranoid and edgy” If we are good at what we do, let us celebrate it, let us acknowledge it! And this is my acknowledgment to you, thank you for the terrific job that you do!

  2. Have you ever considered requiring all students to wear their Student ID around their necks at all times? I think this would be a great ID.

  3. Thanks for such a quick and thorough reply! I think sometimes it is easier for people to develop their relationship with their PLN than it is to develop their PLC. 😉

  4. Phil,
    From our perspective at Randolph, the PLC is within district. Teachers self selected groups of six or less and self selected topics related to Learning with Passion, Innovation and Leadership that impact student achievement. We studied the work of the DuFours and will use PLCs as a structure for professional development this year and in the future. The PLN encompasses all of the connections I have to others. . . everything from my RSS feeds, fellow bloggers, experts in the field who I read regularly, to my own superintendents group and state organizations.

    The best example I can think of involves one of our PLCs at the elementary school who during their collaboration time last week connected to a tech integration person in Pennsylvania via Skype. How did they connect with her? One of the teachers knows this person through her own PLN. She served as a resource for the work that PLC was doing together.

    Not sure if those are the technical distinctions and am sure many people use the terms interchangeably. For me, that’s the difference. Our admin team here is my PLC, we study specific subjects together toward our goal of Learning with Passion, Innovation and Leadership. LOTS of people I’ve never even met are in my PLN.

    Thanks for asking—Kimberly

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