Hi! Mary here. Erin mentioned the other day that we don't
have anything on our blog that references my move to administration. So...now we do! (That's kinda how the CRL work. She tells me what to do and I drop everything
and slave away until it meets her approval.)
(Just kidding.) Enjoy!
*****
I used to hate lunch duty.
When I was teaching, I would have one 20 minute lunch duty
every six school days, and I detested it. Lunch duty is loud, smelly,
uncomfortable, and loud. Once, I made a
deal with a colleague; he covered one of my lunch duties in exchange for me
grading 25 of his 8th grade Social Studies essays. (Only 25? A
bargain.)
Now I serve three lunch duties a day. Three 20 minute
lunch periods coupled with transition time means I currently spend an hour and
a half of every day surrounded by noise, cafeteria smells, the heat of 180
bodies packed into an enclosed space, and noise. What’s more, in
comparison to some of the other things I deal with in the course of a day,
lunch duty is a breeze. I actually look
forward to it.
And that, in a nutshell, is how I describe the transition
from teacher to administrator.
After thirteen years in a middle school ELA classroom, I
became an administrator in January of 2016. I took the job with all
kinds of wide eyed enthusiasm about the impact I’d be able to have. As a teacher, I said in my interview, I could
only reach 80-100 kids each year. As an administrator, I’d have access to
almost 500! Think of how I could shape
them, mold them, positively influence them to become the change makers the
world needs so desperately. I would use my role to connect with students
in new and meaningful ways, leading them in literacy initiatives and community
service endeavors and mentoring them into compassionate contributors to the
local and global community.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I see now that I was
full of shit.
You know what I do as an administrator? I go to lunch
duty three times a day. I try to fit in
classroom visits as often as I can, but it’s not nearly often enough. I
call angry parents. I talk to
angry
teachers. I organize MCAS. And I investigate incidents. A lot.
I’ve said many times, and I’m sure people have assumed I was
joking, (I’m not) that instead of curriculum design and budgeting, my graduate
classes should have taught me how to conduct an investigation. And I
don’t mean an educational law class, I mean literally HOW to interrogate
someone. What to say, the appropriate
tone of voice, what to ask, what to repeat, what to write down, who to
question, when to call parents, when to call Central Office, when to call the
police. Watching reruns of Law and Order may be more educational for
prospective administrators than pretty much anything I took whilst pursuing my
license.
In an ideal world, administrators truly could shape the
lives of every student in their building. In an ideal world, there are no
bullying investigations, no complains about the parking lot, no special
schedules to be created, no data management systems to navigate. The
administrative job of my interviewing dreams did not include learning how to
save security camera footage or repeating truly vile language to appalled
parents. In an ideal world, kids are
nice to each other, each child comes from a supportive and capable household,
there is peace and harmony in the world, and we all live happily ever after.
Before I go too far down the path of negativity (too late?)
there are parts of my administrative job that I very much enjoy. For example,
our evaluation process of observation and conversation, reviewing evidence
towards standards and providing feedback, is awesome. I love visiting
classrooms and seeing lessons. It's such
a treat to get out of the four walls of one classroom and into cool places like
Science and Math and Spanish and Art. If
not for administration, I'd have zero idea what, let alone appreciation and
admiration for, what goes on in a STEM classroom. I love seeing where subjects connect and
support each other. In team meetings
teachers would always talk about how some kids shine in other areas. As an administrator, now I get to *see* it. As an administrator, I get to see everything
and talk to teachers about it and provide feedback that I hope will help them
evolve as a practitioner. I love
it. Evaluating and helping teachers
improve their practice is almost like teaching.
 |
| Interacting with kids via bulletin board. |
Ah, there’s the rub. I think the hardest part about
moving from a classroom to an office is that I desperately miss teaching.
I miss feeling excited about kids and content and projects. I miss getting them to laugh and watching
them grow and improve. I miss planning lessons in my brain every time
I
hear a cool song. I miss reveling the
language of a good poem. I miss
Shakespeare and Frost and Angelou. I miss Scout and Jem, Liesel and
Rudy. I miss seeing kids get wrapped up
in the beauty of a literary moment. I
miss crying with them when a good book ends.
I even miss being huddled on the floor in the corner of a classroom,
quietly reassuring kids that they’re going to be okay and that I’ll do anything
to keep them safe. I never thought I’d miss that, but I do. I miss teaching and everything that goes with
it.
So I teach when I can. When students are suspended,
they spend the day in my office where I willingly teach everything from 6th
grade Math to 8th grade Spanish. When I have to provide feedback and
redirection in the cafeteria, I sit next to children and I teach. When a student is in danger of failing and
all other efforts have fallen flat, I take them into my office and I teach.
I’ve embraced the discipline process as a platform for
education. I’ve developed lesson plans
for bullying, hate symbols, racial language, and vaping. I teach in the one-on-one conversations I
have with students when conducting an investigation. I teach when
students come to report a problem or
As a literary leader, Erin thinks my new position has
brought benefits. She calls me CRL 2.0. And I suppose I have been able to
provide a new perspective and understanding of logistics and impact when we’re
planning whole school events. Sure, I’ve installed a new “Principal’s
Bookshelf” in the lobby, and I was able to get new copies of The
Giver ordered pretty darn quickly for our 7th graders, and I guess I’ll
have to content myself with that for now.
To answer those people who ask, “do you like it?” I say the
jury is still out. I’m a stronger, more resilient version of myself now
than I was two years ago. That’s good,
right?
To answer the those people who ask, “should I get my admin
license?” I have to ask...how do you feel about lunch duty?
