Perhaps I am still naive to think that I could carve out some time in my day for reflection, introspection, looking back on the learning that took place... If nothing else, I have learned in the past four years as a vice principal that time is precious, I rarely spend it in ways that I plan. In my former life as a classroom teacher, I blogged with my kids all the time. I even taught teachers to blog and it was amazing to engage in the process of communicating and publishing thoughts and ideas. So I thought with the upcoming school year and the new challenges that lie ahead - working with a new principal, potential job action and all it entails, helping staff through a major technological changeover, to name a few... - there would be much to reflect on and a whole lot of learning going on. I am fortunate to have a great partner in the other vice principal I work with but sometimes there just isn't the time or energy digest all that is going on. I figured this was just as good a platform as any. Will anyone read it? Don't know. Would be nice. I would love to hear from other school leaders. No one else knows what this job is like, and in the grand scheme of a school system, no matter its size, administrators are so few in comparison and our role is quite different. So! This year the plan is to commit just 10 minutes each day looking at the learning going on all around me. We seem to spend a lot time telling students about the importance of metacognition but I don't that we do enough of that work for ourselves. 10 minutes...
Never thought I'd EVER type a title like that. Pandemics were only events I had taught about during my History classes. The experience thus far can only be described as surreal. It's been a part of our reality for nearly 10 months now and the fear and uncertainty is still not lost on me with the reporting of daily infection and death rates. It has been my single greatest challenge as a leader to date to show up to work everyday imbuing optimism that we're going to be ok, that school is a safe place to be. I have to say that on 98% of those days, I have believed just that. We have be so very fortunate not to have experienced any positive diagnoses of COVID-19 so far. Implementing the new health and safety protocols, while tedious and laborious, has not been all that difficult. Sure, the work up front was a lot - signage, taping arrows and cues on the walls and floors, rearranging classroom furniture to establish social distancing in the classrooms ... as the Principal, th
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