AVOID MAKING BROAD ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT ANY SCHOOL AND ITS LEADERSHIP or WHY YOU SHOULD BUY MY BOOK!

The past 10 blogs dealt with issues in our school system. The next blogs are from the “cutting room floor” of my book. After relating 10 reasons to run from teaching, please remember there needs to be some temperance when making broad assumptions about all schools and their leaders. Otherwise we will continue to loose our best and brightest teachers. Read more about the wonderful times I experienced in “RESCUE THE TEACHER, SAVE THE CHILD!”

Here are some ideas in becoming proactive with a good administrator:

*If you are a performing arts teacher, get to know your administrator’s expectations before you do any teaching! Over the 46 year span, most principals I worked with were either former PE teachers/coaches or academic teachers. The area of performing arts is a mystery and usually misunderstood by those who never experienced the performing arts. Auditions, in particular, pose as troublesome. In an academic subject, where there is a right and wrong way, transferring that mindset to the essence of auditions does not translate. The only way you will have success and support is to make sure you and your administrator are on the same page. Ideally, accomplishing this before you even take the job would prove the best approach.

*When setting up an exchange of ideas and norms with your administrator, it should be done in August before school begins. You should have a clear rubric of how you audition your students along with a statement of purpose. I possessed both but did not feel compelled to share them with my new administrator. I assumed she respected me for the decades of success I garnered. Hindsight is 20/20. Assuming anything with an administrator places you in rough waters before your boat launches. A clear reckoning with the administrator, before the first audition ever takes place, would provide a proactive stance. Go one step further: record the collaboration with your admin, as a joint statement. With his permission, place it on your website. Tomorrow’s blog will cover appropriate questions to assure the agreement reflects both the admin and the instructor.

Enjoy a summer read which addresses these situations and provides solutions. Rescue the Teacher, Save the Child! is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.