Skip to main content

The Value of Investing in the Few

For the last two years, I have been offering professional development for my staff that I call Tech Tuesdays. One day each month, I don't permit any field trips to allow for a day where staff won't be need for additional supervision. This allows them to "drop in" on their prep time for a micro PD session that gives them practical ideas/tips/resources that they can begin to use the next day. I ask the staff to drive the focus for each day so sometimes, these days turn into clinic-like scenarios where I help them to troubleshoot some of the "blips" they have encountered along their journey towards broadening their technological skill set.

This means that one day each month, my time belongs exclusively to the staff. It's not meant to be some sort of token gesture. The intention behind it is simply to show the staff that I am committed to supported their learning as much as the kids. The staff made it clear early on that they will "entertain" PD so long as it happened in-house and it was delivered by the VPs. The reasoning behind it was simple: we understand the staff and school. We know what is needed to help meet school and department goals, which support the system initiatives. Since we do the majority of the Teacher Performance Appraisals, we have a particularly good vantage point of the areas that could stand to benefit from some professional learning.

You would think that my conference room is busting at the seems each month. It's not. On average 12-15 teachers sign up for the various sessions. This past week, I only saw 5. Initially I was completely disappointed and with one more session left for the school year, I contemplated cancelling it. Upon reflecting on the conversations I had with these 5 teachers, I concluded that each conversation, having helped to move 5 teachers forward in their practice, which I knew would ultimately benefit a lot of kids, were well worth the investment of my day. I shared my knowledge and learned a few things I didn't know from teachers who had begun tinkering- "... just like you encouraged us to, Chris..." - some of them said. What I think was even more valuable were the parts of the conversations that weren't even remotely related to technology. It gave me the chance to catch up with 5 teachers on the staff and talk about how they were doing. It was nice. Really. I never really appreciated the value of investing that sort of time in relationship-building with teachers, especially if it wasn't related to work. When I'm at work, I'm there to work and not foster personal relationships beyond the school. I think that it's important that teachers regard their administrators as fellow human beings, who are going through the same trials and tribulations in their own lives, people who aren't afraid to speak about their challenges. I think it has cultivate a lot of trust between me and a great number of teachers on staff. That is priceless.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Leading During a Pandemic

 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

Catholic Education Week 2020

Tomorrow marks the beginning of Catholic Education Week. It is truly a gift to be able to work in a publicly-funded Catholic school, where we can be free to express our faith so freely and unapologetically. It's a bit sad that we are presently in quarantine and cannot gather in community to celebrate this wonderful gift but my staff and I decided to capitalize on the marvel that is social media to stay connected to our students. We wanted to inspire hope and encourage them from our homes, to theirs. I challenged my staff to select a favourite Scripture passage that they felt evokes a great sense of hope and each day on our school's Twitter feed, I feature a staff member with their quote. I also posted these photos into all of the Google Classrooms that the staff were running for  distance learning. In our special community, where relationships are so key to student success, we thought it was important for the kids to see our faces. We called our little project #motivatedbyfaith

I Am a Catholic Principal!

Yesterday was National School Principal Day and this lovely nod from CPCO showed up on my Twitter feed! Prior to its release, I had to complete a questionnaire and what is featured on this image is the answer to a question that asked about what I thought was greatest accomplishment over the past year. I thought I would share all of the responses to the other questions that were asked. Is there a personal experience/incident that led you to choose this vocation? Please describe. I never planned for a career in Administration because I loved teaching too much. In ongoing discussion with a Superintendent-mentor, I began to realize how much more I could help students who really needed it. I also began to realize the potential that existed to influence change at both the local and systemic level in terms of supporting a variety of student needs through various initiatives. What do you love the most about being a Catholic school leader? What I have come to truly appreciate and love