Jose Vilson's Blog, page 37
November 30, 2014
Educators Say The Darndest Things About Kids of Color
“He deserves to have been shot.”
When I logged into Facebook for the umpteenth time last week, I should have expected to read this. At any given moment, I’m reminded that we shouldn’t ever be desensitized to injustice and inhumanity, yet, I’ve grown so used to it that I deflect it, block it, or respond to it swiftly and concisely in the hopes that I don’t drain my energies that I could be using to lift up so many others doing great work. But I didn’t do any of that, but instead kept reading the thread, exalting the virtues of former officer Darren Wilson. Because the person who typed it wasn’t a random troll trying to spark vitriol with weird memes or FOX News talking points.
It was an educator, and (s)he’s going to carry that feeling to a classroom.
It’s important to say that there’s no one school of thought from where educators learn their craft, nor a standard set of beliefs education schools ascribe to that make the “perfect educator.” For many of us, the word “passion” and “love” create the foundation of our classrooms and the things we do. Even in our toughest moments, the “fake-it-till-you-make-it” mantra fits. Students will try their best to get on our last nerve, but we’re consistently in the business of building and re-building these relationships, putting our person aside for hours at a time and pulling our students into our lessons and into learning itself.
In some educators’ minds, that’s license to say whatever they want about kids without repercussions. An activist / unionist educator has worked for decades on anti-standardized testing and corporate reform. An art teacher who had to pay for all their supplies just to keep their class going. A teacher who came into teaching after working with children in India, Ethiopia, and Brazil. A teacher who gets the highest test scores for their students in the entire district. A teacher who uses civil rights leaders in their classes frequently as models for students to see. A nationally recognized educator with plaudits from organizations across the spectrum.
None of their qualifications disqualifies their versions of racism. None of it.
I’m not given to calling people racists on the fly, either. Yet, at this point, I’ve had hundreds of educators confide in me about all sorts of drama / trauma in their own school where they left with mouth agape, hoping that someone else might have heard the same thing come out of that one teacher’s mouth. Because of the nature of our business, we’re not quick enough to call each other in or out when they habitually line-step. How could the word of an educator of color trump the word of any white educator in a profession where educators of color only make up roughly 20% of educators overall? That’s maybe one or two for every school in the country it seems.
“YOU DON’T KNOW ME OR MY HEART!” I’ll hear. No, but, when given the chance to present themselves, some educators choose to present the worst, the ugliest, and the most malignant in us, and the rest of us stand by too often with our hands under our butts and our eyes to the clock.
How many adults do we know call kids a piece of crap and tell them so to their faces, but wouldn’t so much as utter that if they taught in an affluent neighborhood? How many adults expect less than nothing from children of color, or call them students of poverty a la Ruby Payne instead of students in poverty? How many adults made a joke about watermelons, turbans, or dogs in Chinese food and consistently degrade students in spite of the fact that they told the offended student “Oh don’t take things so seriously?” How many administrators make a teacher or student of color do something because they know they’ll be outnumbered, out-voiced, or out of a job if they don’t? How many of those administrators consider certain cultures subservient, model, quiet? How many anti-racists educators have taken a prep period to console a new white teacher to explain something about the children of color they’re working with only to get thrown under the bus the very next year by that very teacher?
How many of our students drop out not because they’re not capable, but because they don’t feel welcome in the school? And can we blame [insert favorite pundits from the left or right] for all of it somehow?
I have this school ID which says that I supposedly belong to this large network of educators across the country, who are sworn to love and protect the students in the building. We all have a mission and vision statement in our school buildings that say so. We say a pledge of allegiance every morning that secures liberty and justice for all.
Except I don’t believe everyone wants the same for all of our students. It’s one thing to try one’s best given the circumstances and working conditions and quite another to not see everyone in the classroom as worthy of the same love and care as is wont for students on the more affluent side of town.
Currently, the only education that’s currently the same across the country seems to be the status of race relations in our country. I don’t need everyone to hear me, but I need them please do take a listen to the stories of educators whose life experiences match the students most oppressed by our system. Our Trayvons, Aiyanas, and Michaels. If these educators won’t hear it from their fellow teachers, exemplary and confident and qualified, too, then the kids will speak.
If the stewards of this education carry out exactly what America does, then they are indeed doing exactly what their job is, and the rest of us standing up against racism are subversive.
How dare us.
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November 26, 2014
Men Explain Things To Women Too Often, In Education and Otherwise
“There’s that very famous New Yorker cartoon: “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” The cartoon was first published in 1993 — fairly interesting, I think, because it shows that by the early 1990s, the Internet had achieved if not a popular appeal, then enough of one that those who read the New Yorker could chuckle about the reference. The cartoon demonstrates too this sense that we have long had that the Internet offers privacy and anonymity, that we can experiment with identities online in ways that are severed from our bodies, from our material selves and that, potentially at least, the Internet can allow online participation for those denied it offline.
Perhaps, yes.
But sometimes when folks on the Internet discover “you’re a dog,” they do everything in their power to put you back in your place, to remind you of your body. To punish you for being there. To hurt you. To destroy you. Online and offline.”
In the spirit of naming names, Audrey forces us to look at these truths, the ones that so many of us are complicit in not giving much credence. In a world where the education leaders are predominantly men and the K-12 teachers are women, it’s incumbent upon all of us to revisit our own niche privileges, especially when we don’t have to worry about death threats just to keep our jobs.
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Week 13: Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See
This morning, I woke up in a haze.
After attending the Teachers for Social Justice curriculum fair in Chicago this weekend, I felt empowered to move students in a direction that continues to empower them. On Monday, my mind felt less optimistic about my day at school, in dealing with both students and adults. After school, and for the last 100 days, I knew that there would be no indictment, not because I thought people would misuse the system, but because this is the way the system is set up. Justice assumes that everyone is human; our system doesn’t assure justice.
My fingers quaked while finalizing my lesson plan this morning, trying to think of ways my students understanding the idea of direct variation. With 30 minutes left until showtime, I didn’t know how I would interject with this bit of conversation. There was no guise for me, no book for me to weave Michael Brown’s murder into, no poem to deconstruct in the lens of social justice, no standards in our math curriculum that would allow for the can of worms I needed to open today. [Please don’t talk to me about statistics. Just don’t.]
The stomps and chatter started up outside my classroom, and I took two deep breaths.
“Good morning, Mr. Vilson.”
The kids came in and I had to hold my breath for a minute. I wrote my objective and “Do Now” on the board as the kids went to their lockers. I delayed my good morning salute for a longer while than I’m used to. Just before I finished writing up the Do Now on my paper, the Pledge of Allegiance from one of our children on the loudspeaker, the daily ritual:
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty …”
No, you’re not indivisible. You’re not ‘with liberty and justice for all.’ Fuck this.
My face turned elsewhere, hands tucked in my pockets while the pledge took 20 seconds to finish. As I finished writing the Do Now, I had a split second of vulnerability.
“Today, ladies and gentlemen, you’ll notice that there’s an objective and a Do Now in front of you, but I need to say this: if anyone wants to talk about what happened last night, whether now or one-on-one, I’m available to do this.” They didn’t seem to understand. “After last night’s lack of indictment of Darren Wilson and the murder of Michael Brown, maybe you have something to say or get off your chest, and if so, I’ve dedicated this time right now for you to say your piece.”
With that, I opened the floor with little moderation from me. Students asked what happened, and I presented what facts I knew. Students felt angered and hurt by the typical timeline of things: cop shoots child of color and the cop gets away with it. One student asked for my personal opinion, and I couldn’t help but tell them as carefully as I could how outraged I was, and why it matters that I would do this.
They’re so used to their lives not mattering in the eyes of authorities.
I won’t mention much more about this early morning conversation, but after 20 minutes, my eighth graders made me away that they are way more conscious of America’s ills than people give them credit for. I did it again in the afternoon with my English co-teacher and that also felt positive. By the time I saw my third set of kids, though, I had already felt a full range of emotions, many of them helpless. Thus, I didn’t get around to it.
Many people have no idea what it’s like having to show strength in the darkest of times, to feel complicit in this American hypocrisy we call the “dream,” to call for hope when it can feel like bullshit. It’s easy to speak to Common Core, ed-tech, anti-testing, or whatever the niche issue is, but America needs to continue confronting the ways in which we dehumanize the very children we seek to teach, regardless of where we land on the edu-wonk spectrum. So many of us are so insulated from these incidents because we’ve never had to look at someone in the fact and tell them that the system they’ve been asked to trust doesn’t trust them when they look old enough.
But the glisten in my students’ eyes gives me hope. Maybe they’ll do better than we do.
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November 19, 2014
Beautiful Bytes of Data
The young man wearing blue jeans and a red and white polo shirt is anxious. He frequently looks at his watch, shaking his head while staring at the train tracks. He is restless and angry and impatient because the train is late again. He bends over and grabs a handful of gravel, throwing the shattered stone against a pair of cold steel rails. A few commuters standing on the train platform watch, quietly wondering why the young man is so upset. It is, after all, a bright and sunny afternoon. A solitary businessman wearing a Brooks Brothers suit is too busy texting to notice anything.
Damn. Why are fuckin’ trains always late? Why does it have to be late today?
The young man kicks an empty bottle of Diet Coke.
Why bother making plans when people just screw ‘em up?
In the distance two serpentine lights appear, silent and ominous, signaling the arrival of the 6:15 from Grand Central Station.
Finally. He peeks at his watch and feels a sigh of relief.
The young man smiles. It’s been a long time since he has smiled, but his nerves are calm now and he will not miss his appointment. Life is hectic enough, and missing scheduled appointments make him feel rushed and nervous.
The train’s engineer pushes the throttle forward and the massive juggernaut of steel and glass and people race toward the concrete platform.
The young man waits until he can see the flushed face of the engineer, and then he steps in front of the train.
The man in the Brooks Brothers suit stops texting. He will be late for work today.
The word data slides easily off the tongue but has no personality and sounds as dry as a funeral drum. School administrators try to grace the word by telling parents that “data-driven school districts” will radically change public education, hoping that a staccato of words and a flare of alliteration will impress a captive audience. Some disingenuous school officials assert that “data-driven” is an essential tool for effectively managing a business, so why not a school system?
But it’s all a ruse. The sum of all the rhetoric about the importance of designing data-driven school districts is a shell game, a slight of hand practiced by illusionists to distract trusting parents who believe school administrators know what is best for their children. Anything “data-driven” must be beneficial for schools, parents are told, because data is information, and information is necessary to make sound decisions about curriculum, instruction and learning. And since even the best used car salesperson can no longer sell the faux elixir of Common Core now that this failed one-size-fits-all education policy has been exposed, school administrators need a new mantra to mystify parents.
Data has an ugly side, a face that frequently emerges when it is misinterpreted or convoluted to justify a faulty assumption or bad decision. The countless financial manipulations practiced by Wall Street brokers and bankers have repeatedly proven that data can be exploited and cause financial ruin for millions of people. Data may be defined as a set of values of quantitative and qualitative variables, and business savors at the trough of data, but schools should be people-driven rather than data-driven institutions.
The young man who stepped in front of the train was a beautiful byte of data, but he was more than the sum of the quantitative information collected by a data-driven school district. His social and emotional data fills less space on his school district’s list of quantifiable student data than math and science scores, and that is the shame of the present state of American public education.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, Suicide is the SECOND leading cause of death for ages 10-24, and more teenagers and young adults die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia, influenza, and chronic lung disease … combined. Need quantitative data? Each day in our nation, there are an average of over 5,400 suicide attempts by young people grades 7-12, and four out of five teens who have attempted suicide give clear warning signs. Maybe its time to take off the blinders of a data-driven school district to see clearly that our students are suffering.
Data is not our generation’s penicillin. It is an ugly word used by school administrators, policy makers, and government officials to demean the greatest social institution ever designed by human hands – a public school. Data is being used to compare the United States with countries such as Finland because the Finns score higher on international math and science tests, but can someone – anyone – tell me what Finland produces with their wealth of science and math knowledge?
[crickets]
The United States may score lower on international math and science tests, but somehow we instill creativity in our students and produce amazing technologies.
I taught and helped mentor the young man who stepped in front of the train. I helped him get a scholarship to a vocational school after he earned a high school diploma. He wanted to be an electrician, but I also knew about the many demons that tormented his gentle soul. He endured a miserable childhood, never knew his father, drank too much, and could not leash his black dog of depression. I tried to place him on a road that could lead him to a better place, believing that terra firma would make him feel a clearer path to success and salvation, but he could not see nor feel the ground beneath his feet. I failed.
I believe the vast majority of classroom teachers are not opposed to collecting data that may enhance instructional strategies or improve learning, but do object to a school system trying to emulate a business model designed to increase production and profits rather than enhance social and emotional growth. The social and emotional learning needs of children are too often omitted when describing the purpose of a “data-driven school district” and this is a flawed education philosophy.
The young man was a beautiful byte of data. Now he is a cold dead statistic.
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November 15, 2014
If This Keeps Happening, The Teaching Profession Is Doomed
Last week, NPR Ed interviewed me and four other teachers for its 50 Great Teachers Series in an article entitled: “5 Great Teachers On What Makes A Great Teacher.” I was gassed because they actually took the time to draw a cool sketch of me for the piece, and the drawing looks like me. Just as important was the fact that we actually took a reflective look at the teaching profession from the lens of “why teach” and not “why does teaching suck?” That opens up a different dialogue than I currently see in [hyperbole alert] 90% of all teacher blogs right now.
Then I jumped into the NPR Facebook comment section. For why, I’m not sure.
Maybe I wanted to know if what I had to say made any sense. My friends seemed to like what I had to say, but they’re not a good measure of my writing because they actually like me. What about the people who haven’t read my blog, my book, or anything I’ve written in the last five years, before I became a mainstream rapper?
Parsing through the comments, I’ve selected just a few to respond to because these ideas, even coming off Facebook, are prevalent enough that I think the teaching profession will go nowhere if we keep letting the errorists win. I stripped their identities because you can find it for yourself.
I’m tired of teaching taking this sort of focal point – as if we’re trying to justify our jobs 1) to the nation 2) to our communities and 3) to ourselves. We’re never going to see an article called ” Five great butchers on what makes a great butcher” or “Five great code writers on what it takes to be a code writer” because those jobs aren’t constantly getting ripped by outsiders and politicians or by anyone in an armchair who thinks they can do it better than we can.
I’m looking for the piece that finds five teachers who are great without anyone in the public eye knowing it. Five teachers who are so busy doing their job that they haven’t become bloggers, administrators, college professors, etc. They are the really great teachers because they love it so much that it is all they do.
(the follow-up) The real best teachers wouldn’t be interested in this type of self-promotion.
I’d like to hear from five teachers who have remained in public school classrooms for their entire careers (at least 30 years). I tire of hearing from the teachers who were so great that they left the classroom to instead discuss and write about it.
I know, I know. It’s my fault for jumping into comments, but these folk attached their real names to their opinions, not to mention that I’ve heard some of these on more than one occasion in other forums. (I replied to all of these personally, so there.)
Let’s start with the contradiction that many teachers currently harbor: teachers do a thankless job, but many of us want to be thanked, not just in person, but in the media. Which one is it? And when an entity decides to do a piece with actual educators and folks respected in their fields, we decide to crap on their efforts because they couldn’t possibly be real teachers? Is this a profession of long-term self-loathing? Do they genuinely believe the featured teachers didn’t somehow deserve the accolades, or is it because they wanted to be interviewed?
The other contradiction we clearly face is what it means to be in the public eye. We can’t simultaneously say that teachers don’t seek the media or writing opportunities and then get mad when we don’t get to speak about education in the public. Which one is it? Do we want a profession that can’t speak about its own profession for fear that teachers are seen as too ambitious? If so, we can’t get mad when others don’t speak about teaching the way we want them to.
For many folks, it’s unbelievable that a teacher wants to write an article about their jobs, get on television to speak about how proud they are to teach students, or have meetings with policy officials about the ways in which laws and mandates affect their profession. That’s leadership, too. We need to stop buying into the idea that teachers only teach at the behest and under the thumb of whoever their district leader is.
In other words, rise up. Yes, it’s worth prefacing all of this by asking ourselves what makes a great teacher. But if we don’t even want to hold each other up, what chance does the teaching profession have for growth? I don’t know three of the panelists personally, but Renee Moore doesn’t see herself as the “only one,” but one of many, all of whom deserve to shine. I’d say more, but she would blush because, as hundreds of folks would attest, she’s a forever teacher, regardless of where she is now.
It’s one thing for a teacher to get out there without real pedagogical skills or experience in the classroom, but we have to find ways to revere the profession even amongst and within our ranks. That helps us all.
The old adage is that the comment sections of any blog are where debate go to die, but we might have also found the gravesite for the future of teaching. What do you think? Am I onto something or am I nuts?
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Diane Ravitch and David B. Cohen Review My Book On The Same Day
One of my friends mentioned that my book might not just be Book of the Spring and Summer, but of the Fall, too, given the rhythm of the school year. I smiled at the thought because, within that time period from March to April, I had completed edits to the book, finished my Math for America application, and turned in my National Board Certification papers. Little did I know that reviews from Publishers’ Weekly, The Nation, and others would still roll in, lauding the work of a full-time public middle school math teacher.
Then Diane Ravitch and David B. Cohen dropped their reviews today.
The power in both of these is, even though I’ve known them for years now, they came at my texts from backgrounds that aren’t akin to mine and they still found a way to walk in my size 13s for a couple of hundred pages. First, read this from Dr. Ravitch:
Jose Luis Vilson gives his readers a heavy dose of honesty, self-reflection, and insight. He cares passionately about his students. He fights for them (and occasionally spars with them). He loves his work. How many people can say, as Vilson, does, that they love what they do? That is what the detractors of teachers never understand; it is a joy that they will not experience. Vilson shares his joy and his experience.
The second from David B. Cohen, a California teacher current on sabbatical to write about the best practices happening in the Golden State:
But near the end of the book, José brings the narrative back to something more elemental, essential, foundational to everything else we wrestle with in the public sphere, as he writes movingly about the calling, the feeling of being a teacher: “Teaching has given me no choice but to activate my best inner qualities and to accept and embrace that I will never stop being a student myself. I love that every day there’s a new set of problems for me to solve. Even as I’m teaching my kids math, I’m learning along with them” (214).
I would hope, and expect, that This Is Not a Test will activate the best qualities in anyone who reads with curiosity and empathy.
After taking the time to read both of them today, I’m happy that people of all backgrounds read the book for the piece it was, not simply holding hands and Kumbaya (not to be confused with Kwanzaa) around a book that confronts race and class in education head-on.
Even the white people who pretend to not “see race” have to respect that.
photo c/o David Cohen, 2011
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November 11, 2014
Is Fundraising The Path Towards Equitable Schools? [New York Times]
Last week, The New York Times asked me if I believe in fundraising. My initial answer, “Yes, but it depends on what the money is for.”
You should feel free to disagree, but I’m always at a loss about fundraising because it perpetuates inequity in our schools. While one set of kids has to raise funds just for new textbooks and basketball uniforms, the other can just ask a few parents to drop a $100 check off at school for a trip to Washington D.C. without much work.
I’m also arguing for a true re-distribution of education tax money, especially on the local level. We can call it whatever we want, but we know our current funding source for schools is completely messed up. In fact, there are school systems that will raise taxes to assure that their own school gets more money for new facilities, but fight tooth and nail if the same money can help all schools in the state meet budgetary needs. It’s the sort of cognitive dissonance that makes fundraising ironically necessary.
There are “good schools” that, without fundraising, wouldn’t be able to afford non-core teachers and activities. In the essay, I’m arguing that, yes, we need to raise taxes and more evenly redistribute said taxes so all schools can get an equitable education.We can’t fundraise our way to equitable schools.
In any case, tell me what you think after you’ve read it. Thanks, all.
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November 8, 2014
Voting Happens In Between Elections
What do I tell my students about voting?
“You put [Democrats] first, and they put you last. ‘Cause you’re a chump. A political chump! … Any time you throw your weight behind a political party that controls two-thirds of the government, and that party can’t keep the promise that it made to you during election time, and you are dumb enough to walk around continuing to identify yourself with that party — you’re not only a chump but you’re a traitor to your race.” – Malcolm X re: Blacks giving 80% of the vote to Democrats
“Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.” – Howard Zinn
“I believe that voting is the first act of building a community as well as building a country.” – John Ensign
“As a citizen, you need to know how to be a part of it, how to express yourself – and not just by voting.” – Sandra Day O’Connor
“The work of the political activist involves a certain tension between the requirement that position be taken on current issues as they arise and the desire that one’s contributions will somehow survive the ravages of time.” – Angela Davis
I don’t want to diss those who voted in earnest, but, as someone who left the Democratic party a while ago, I’m seeing that voting is nice, but it’s but a smaller part of how a democracy ought to function. Yet, our kids are learning the catchphrases spouted on TV. In the last week, I’ve heard things like, “Obama lost!” “Reduce taxes!” “Rich people ought to pay as much as poor people for this country.” Children aren’t as informed as adults, maybe, but it doesn’t make them any less attuned to the disparate conditions we’ve had across the country. Regardless of who’s in charge, kids at the bottom don’t feel like they see much difference in living conditions.
In an era of talking points, there seems to be something more that we should speak to.
As an adult, I’m presumably more informed about politics and vote strategically, voting locally and nationally for candidates that somewhat mirror my own priorities. Yet, I too don’t know how to explain the legacies of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo or even President Barack Obama without going into the murky waters of ultra-compromise when Republicans on the “other side” are so willing to stand their ground on the backs of the poor and colored. So when I choose a candidate that might represent my interests, he or she don’t have a chance because the big two are just that powerful.
Maybe the best approach, then, is just to let kids know that elections don’t just happen every two years or four years. People might have died for the right to cast their votes when it’s time, which is why we shouldn’t waste it on candidates that don’t believe in the people who voted them in.
Jose
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November 6, 2014
Good Teacher, Mad City [1,000,000 Hits, And To Many More]
Dear Reader,
A big thank you is appropriate here.
One of the biggest lies popular teacher bloggers tell others is that we write for ourselves. We don’t. We write for audience, whoever the audience in mind happens to be. Sometimes, we do it because we want to be more than just footnotes to the histories of education out there. Other times, we do it because we see a necessary narrative that we can fill with our gifts. Most of us don’t even think about this blessing to communicate the emotions and concerns of thousands of people across the country (and perhaps the world) and truncate these thoughts into 400-word essays.
The best bloggers I’ve met just nod, smile, and talk about Andrew Cuomo crapping on teachers again.
So thank you for reading. Blogging is one of the only spaces I could be in full control, but choose not to be. In person, I’m guarded for fear of vulnerability, a disposition from being raised in the hood. Yet, online, with the exception of a few naysayers here, I’ve been inundated with comments, letters, and other shows of support. This holds me up in the classroom in more ways than you’ll ever know, and keeps me going in the work I’m hoping to do in advancing discussions of teacher leadership, race, and math across the country.
More importantly, it’s my hope that everything I’ve written here connects with you in some form. Even though it’s only my name in the headline, I consider this a success for anyone who believes in this new narrative. Thanks, a million times over.
Best,
Jose
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November 4, 2014
Bad Principals, Too
At this point, I’ve tackled bad teachers not once but twice, and even wondered if I was a bad teacher. Yet, people fully expected me to talk about bad administration, especially bad principals. Sadly, the current narrative amongst teachers is to lay all the blame at the feed of administrators, at students, at parents, and everything and one else for a number of reasons, some good, some not-so-much. Even my nicest colleagues still look to their administrator when things are going great or awful. National surveys have shown, principals feel like their jobs are more difficult than ever before, so we need our principals to be more, not less, competent at their job. Then maybe we’d reform the vision for principal as just a boss and more as a teacher of teachers. “That’s why you get paid the big bucks” seems appropriate because, on paper, the principal is the highest paid person in the building, so they have the most to shoulder in the building.
Except when they don’t. Thus, a few questions:
What is a bad administrator? How many principals have you actually met? If you’ve met them, how do they work? Do they actually do anything, and, if they do, can you make a quick list of five things you’re sure that the principal does? If you can, does that list outweigh whatever personal grievances you have about the principal’s management style? Do they walk briskly down the hallway trying to put out fires or walk slowly, glossing over every tile and every Post-In note on the bulletin boards? Are they experts in a subject area or expert binder-gatherers? Are their suits grey, black, or purple? Are they cordial with people who walk into the building and staff members or do they project a consistent disinterest to any set of folks?
Can you trust your administrator?
When you walk into their office, does your blood boil or do your toes get cold? Do you welcome their feedback as administrators or do you roll your eyes and hope they don’t just spit out whatever framework jabber they just learned at a principal’s meeting? Do you want them in your classroom or not? Do you feel informed when you listen to them during the inevitable hour-long school session you have or are you left stunted by the lack of anything that he or she just said? Does favoritism feel real at your school, and if so, what does favoritism look like?
Most importantly, do they know the students’ names? Do the students know him? Do they care to know him? How would they characterize him? Do they begrudgingly acknowledge the admin or do they genuinely reach out to them and look to them for leadership? Do parents feel like they’re a part of the school community, too?
What is your vision for a good principal? Or a bad principal?
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