Today’s Tip: Be Thoughtful
Every principal has the same complaint. A district level leader demands the principal drop everything and attend a meeting or take a call…with no consideration of how this impacts what was planned for the day.
Thoughtless? Probably. There may be a critical issue the district leader wants the principal to address….but there is likely little understanding of how this impacts the work of the principal…and the mission of improving teaching and learning.
In SAMs, we advise a principals to focus on what they can control…not what they can’t. You can’t control what your supervisor does. You can control what you do, however.
Think about how your own actions impact teachers in exactly the same way your supervisor’s actions impact you. Do you force others to change their plans to meet what you need? Is this the kind of thoughtful and caring leadership you want to show?
Can you be more thoughtful than your supervisor?
Thoughtful SAM leaders would never consider interrupting a teacher’s class, or “pulling” a teacher away from a PLC or PD session, unless it was truly an emergency. Give this some thought. Were you thoughtful or thoughtless last week?
We get it. It wasn’t your intention to decrease the teacher’s effectiveness. But if you think about it…that’s exactly what happened in many schools every day.
Have you considered that most public address announcement that you, or your front office makes, do exactly the same thing? These announcements interrupt the flow of the teacher’s work. This is exactly the opposite of what we should allow to happen.
So why does this happen? Easy. Are you thoughtful…or not? Talk about this in your SAM Daily Meeting today?
Remember to register for the 16th Annual National SAM Conference ASAP.
Even if the conference is included in your service agreement you must register to attend…and there are a limited number of seats. 74% of the available seats have been taken as of this morning.
To register: https://bit.ly/3cO5q0z