Tag Archives: school

Other duties as assigned

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One of my favourite running jokes is that the biggest part of a Principal’s job is ‘Other duties as assigned’. The funniest part is that none of them are actually assigned. They are the jobs that spring up unexpectedly, and don’t really belong to anyone, and so they are either something a principal does themselves or something the principal has to delegate, which in itself is a task to do.

It can be as gross as clearing dog poop off of a field between custodial shifts. As industrious as assembling shelving that you thought would come pre-assembled. As mundane as scheduling staff at a special event to ensure appropriate supervision. Or as glorious as getting duck taped to a wall or getting a face full of whipping cream. It’s 1001 other duties ‘as assigned’… or it can be the many wonderful things I shared in my post called ‘Role of the Principal’ back when I was in China in 2010.

It’s really all the ‘other’ duties that makes a principal a principal.

Pedagogy and Activity

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“Here’s a great tool to help you…”

What inevitably comes next is a description of an activity devoid of pedagogy and purpose. As technology has crept into education, time and again I’ve seen the focus be on activity and ‘engagement’ but the so-called engagement is more about keeping a student’s attention rather than focusing on the learning intention; on the intended learning outcomes.

When achievement sneaks in, it’s not about student comprehension, but rather on improving test scores, a proxy for measuring success that is far from perfect. Again, this does not help with the practice of good teaching,

17 years ago I wrote that ‘Best Practice is still Practice’, and said, “What we don’t need is a bunch of processes labeled as ‘best practice’ to limit us from seeking something that is yet more effective.  Best practice is still just practice.” We also don’t need a lot of flashy new tools that pretend to be about our practice when really they are just activities that keep student engaged and occupied. Activities that don’t really focus on meaningfully engaging students as learners on a learning journey.

What’s the pedagogy behind the activity?

School and measuring intelligence

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A few months back I saw a video from a very articulate young girl who goes by Gluten Free Runner on TikTok. I liked the video but didn’t follow her. She just came back on my feed again and her recent video definitely earned her a follow.

She asks, “What if the way we measure intelligence is completely missing the point?” And then she reads a journal entry she wrote about school. I don’t want to say much about it other than please listen to it.

The description shared on the video says this:

“There’s a concept recently learned about called Goodhart’s Law: when a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure.

We’ve optimized what can be measured: grades, test scores, credentials, things like that.

Maybe part of the issue is that we started treating those measurements as the thing itself, instead of just rough indicators of something much more complex.

Maybe the goal of education shouldn’t be to decide who is “smartest,” per se, but to help people understand how they can best contribute.”

Here is her video: https://www.tiktok.com/@gluten.free.runne/video/7649444429090000142

My favourite part is her questioning if we are being educated or schooled? “Education is a process. Schooling is an institution.”

No notes… just go watch her video.

The June rush

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I want to say that I’m not going to miss the June rush, but I will. I always chuckle a little when people who are not in education say things like, “You must be winding down to summer now.” It’s much more like ‘ramping up’ than ‘winding down’. There is so much going on in a school in June, and adding retirement events to this just makes it feel a little overwhelming.

Today is a crazy day for me. We have next year’s incoming students visiting for the day, followed by our final PAC meeting, followed by a district retirement dinner. From the moment I hit the gym at 6am until 8pm tonight I don’t have a moment to spare. That said, it should be a really fun day too.

That’s the thing about the June rush, it is simultaneously great and exhausting. It’s a month of dichotomies. It’s I time of event-after-event, but each one of those events is a bit of a celebration. There is excitement about graduation, and ending the year, and there is the sense that the pace is all too much. There is the excitement of changes to come, and the sense of sadness of things ending.

Here’s the thing about the June rush, it’s easy to get stuck in the busyness, in the rush and the planning of event after event, in the checking off the last time you have to do something, and in the melancholy of knowing things are coming to an end. Meanwhile, each event is a gift. Each event is an opportunity to spend time with students and colleagues, and to celebrate the year that was. Yes, June is really busy, but within that busyness is hidden many moments to appreciate.

Office referrals

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I’ve repeatedly said what a privilege it was to start my teaching career where I did. I was surrounded by new and truly great teachers whom I got to grow up with. Some of them are still my closest friends today, and many of them are principals. Even the ones who didn’t go the route of administration, are still great teacher leaders today.

One benefit of entering the profession in this incredible environment is that we had a culture of sharing and cooperation, and it was common to see another teacher or the principal or vice principal visit classrooms. If the VP walked into your room, you didn’t stop teaching, you kept going until a good stopping point. In fact, the VP might even contribute to the lesson.

Another aspect of this is that we barely ever sent anyone to the office. In 9 years at a middle school I can only remember sending 2 students to the office, there might have been more, but like I mentioned in my post, “The 4 ‘D’s leading to office discipline”, I could count my office referrals on one hand. But the point I want to make here was also mentioned in that post but not explicitly discussed.

When you get into administration of a school, one of the most shocking things you’ll encounter is that some teachers use the administration as part of their classroom management strategy. Coming from the environment I did, teachers managed their classroom and something ‘really serious’ had to happen before a student was sent to the office. Other than that, we figured things out.

My first assignment as VP was filled with office referrals that shocked me. I can’t tell you how many times I thought to myself, ‘That’s it? That’s all this kid did? And that’s why he’s in my office?’ This was my biggest adjustment, a huge realization of how amazing my first 9 years were at Como Lake Middle School. We had a culture of learning and caring that was significantly above the norm, and so ‘normal’ felt insufficient.

I currently work at schools where I find that not only are office referrals appropriate, but I’ll often get a ‘heads-up’ of a potential issue, and then that issue could still get handled without me. But my first VP job was a shocker. The adjustment I had to make was to not make unhealthy comparisons to my previous experience. Yes, this issue would have been handled differently at Como Lake, but things are different here.

It was a hard transition, to be supportive and not judgmental. Like I said before, “In my eyes, sending a kid to the office was essentially telling the kid, “I cant manage you,” which takes away any leverage I may have the next time this student has any challenging behaviour.”

Now, the complaints I deal with for my online school are often ones where parents are already involved, making the situation a bit more complicated before they get to me. Or at Inquiry Hub, kids are sent to me to solve good problems… they want to do a project that needs special permission or considerations. I love solving problems where my biggest challenge is, how do I get to ‘Yes’? How do I solve this problem so that our students can benefit? These are by far my favourite office referrals… rather than doling out consequences for inappropriate behaviour.

Where it all started

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Facebook reshared a ‘Blast from the past’ post with me, it was a Daily-Ink post titled, ‘I teach leadership not followship’. This title is a quote from friend, and first teaching mentor, Dave Sands. What I enjoyed most about seeing this post again was the Facebook comments on it. Here are 2 from colleagues and one from myself:

Dave MacLean:

l’ve drawn from so many experiences from our days as Lakers. Truly the environment that pushed all of us in such a healthy way. So many strong leaders with such mutual respect for each other. I would be lying if I said there weren’t days where I pang for those days of pedagogical debate and learning. Tha for the trip down memory lane. I was recently at Como for an articulation meeting and our legacies are still present in the culture 15 years later.

 

David Truss:

Dave MacLean I can’t think of a richer learning environment than what we had. I believe that more than 1/3 of the teachers we worked with in the first 5 years at Como Lake became administrators… yet it was always about collaboration not competition, and servant leadership, by staff as well as students.

 

Elaan Bauder Gudlaugson:

Dave MacLean, David Truss

Como Lake was my first experience in education that taught me about how I wanted “school” to be. The staff made all the difference.

 

I’m fortunate to have reunited with Elaan, and we have worked together again at Inquiry Hub for the last 5 years. And she’s right… the staff really does make the difference!

It’s hard not to get a bit nostalgic as I head into retirement. And this is a good thing. To this day my closest friends are still people I connected with in those early years of teaching. We knew we had something special going on. We still see former students in the community who tell us things like, “We could tell you liked each other and that you liked us.” And, “Those were the best years of school for me.”

I entered education with an inspiring group of people who were also amazing educators and leaders. We grew up together as educators and we watched our families and children grow up too. I wish every educator could find a community like this in their early years, because I know I had something special.

There is nothing wrong with being nostalgic when I can frame it as being lucky and blessed to have had the opportunities to learn and grow within the community that I got to. It paved the way to a career I can look back on with love, warmth and fondness.

____

Update: Two more posts where I share this perspective.

The lone principal

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I have been the lone administrator for my schools since September 2009. In fact, I only ever had one Vice Principal position for a year and a half before that, with a principal in the building, and so I’ve been ‘on my own’ for over 90% of my time as a school leader.

In February a vice principal was given a district level role in my building and we both learned that he was going to be my replacement when I retired at the end of this school year. While his current role did pull him out of our building a fair bit, we had regular meetings that allowed us to have time together that is almost never available with a traditional transfer of school principals. This time has been an absolute gift.

Even more than the transfer of knowledge around two programs outside of the traditional school setting, what I’ve really enjoyed is the collegial conversations and support. There are a lot of challenges to being the lone administrator in a building and to have a colleague to work with over the past few months has been very special.

To all the principals and vice principals who get to team up in a school, never forget what a privilege it is to have colleagues that you get to work with directly on a daily basis. And to all the lone administrators out there, find your people and book time to spend with them.

Besides these past few months, I also had 2 meetings a month with our principal of the adult learning centre & summer learning. She and I worked together when I first started with the online school and she was the department head.

Also, for the past few years I have had 2 other principals running completely different programs in my building. Although most day to day activities keep us apart, we still occasionally have time to connect, share, and even support each other.

I can’t express how valuable these meetings have been. Lone administrators need to seek out other lone administrators and find a reason to connect regularly. Not something ad hoc, but something scheduled. These past few months have really made me appreciate just how valuable it is to have a colleague you can really talk to and work through things with. It has been an absolute blessing to have this collegial opportunity to end my career.

“Don’t Bring a Résumé. Bring Receipts.”

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In the article, ‘The Proof Economy’ Anand Sanwal says, “Don’t Bring a Résumé. Bring Receipts.” Anand starts with two definitions saying that we’ve moved from the Parchment Economy to a Proof Economy,

“We’ve entered the Proof Economy, a world where the most valuable signal isn’t where you went to school, what your GPA was, or which honors you collected, but what you’ve actually done and can do. In this new landscape, demonstrated ability trumps pedigree, and what you’ve built matters more than where you studied.

Meanwhile, the Parchment Economy, that centuries-old system where formal credentials and institutional validation serve as proxies for capability, is losing its monopoly on opportunity. The elaborate dance of transcripts, recommendation letters, diplomas and prestige markers is becoming increasingly irrelevant in field after field.”

This is something I’ve been describing for a while now, without properly defining the difference in the two ‘economies’. Beyond credentialed professionals like doctors, engineers, and lawyers, what now matters most is your portfolio, not your schooling certificates. ‘What is it that you can do better than others to earn you a spot in our organization?’ (Regardless of your credentials.)

Anand says,

“When anyone can access expertise through prompts and build a prototype video, software product or design via AI, the value shifts decisively from knowledge possession to knowledge application.”

But for me the most interesting section in his article is:

What Education Needs to Become

If we accept that we’re entering the Proof Economy, schools can’t just add a few electives or rethink assessment to focus on progress and not perfection..

They need to rewire what they reward.

We should expect:

  • Projects over problem sets: Real-world challenges that apply knowledge, not just recall it.
  • Portfolios over transcripts: A body of work that shows thinking, skill, and growth.
  • Public work over private grading: Output that lives in the world, not a Google Doc.
  • Coaching over compliance: Adults who challenge and support, not just evaluate.
  • Failure as fuel: A system that treats failed attempts as essential steps, not permanent marks.

At Inquiry Hub Secondary our students are still entrenched in the old public education system in that they complete required courses to meet provincial high school graduation requirements, and most of them still head off to university, college, or a technical institute to further their studies. However, along the way they are given the time, space, and credits (towards their graduation), to produce documentation of learning in areas of interest. They have an opportunity to design and build projects, (documented receipts), most other students could only get done on their own time, outside of traditional classrooms.

They also get to live in an environment where they have to cooperate with fellow students in scrum projects with tight timelines and defined roles (not just group projects with everyone having identical outcomes and expectations). They have to do frequent presentations, alone and in groups, with training to give and receive feedback with radical candour. They understand iteration, they pivot based on where their learning takes them, and they embrace failure as learning opportunities because sometimes obstacles become the way. And they are provided with greater and greater autonomy over their time as they progress from Grade 9 to 12.

Essentially, Inquiry Hub students still get their resume of courses, but they are also provided the opportunity to bring receipts too.

The benefits of a long tenure

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Last night I had my second to last PAC (Parent Advisory Council) meeting for Inquiry Hub Secondary School before I retire. I’ve had the privilege of running the school for almost 13 years. Year one of the school I was the co-founding VP, and half of a year in my principal got promoted. I’ve had the honour of running the school ever since.

At the PAC meeting I noted that in that entire time, I’ve only had two PAC presidents, both with 3 kids going through the school. This got me thinking of how rare these two stats are. It’s unusual to see a principal of a school go past 7 or 8 years, and rarer still to be approaching 13 years. The longest you will usually see a PAC President keep their position is 4 years.

Sometimes it’s good to mix things up, but there are times when you’ve got a good thing going, and it’s fantastic to stay and make things really work. I feel blessed that I’ve had that opportunity, and that I’ve been in a stable community of families that love and support what we do. It has made the journey extremely rewarding.

Close to the source

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Please visit Kelly Tenkely’s Substack and read, ‘Staying Close to the Source’. She starts with a wonderful metaphor,

“I was the kind of kid who loved to collect rocks. I was especially taken with any rock found in a stream or lake. Those rocks felt different. They seemed uniquely magical, luminous, and glittering just below the surface. Smooth, as if they’d been polished over time, their colors saturated and alive.”

… “Each time we visit a learner-centered school, I’m struck by that same kind of magic.”

I’ve had visitors to Inquiry Hub tell be they could feel this magic. They’ve described that this is a special place. They’ve been struck by the way our students share their learning experiences, and how open they are to articulate both their learning processes and their personal inquiries.

We still have percentage grades in grades 10-12, we are still a BC, Canada school providing our students with a regular diploma that they would get at any other school. But we offer opportunities that most students don’t get. We can’t compete with elective course offerings a big high school can provide, but we can have students design their own elective… but only after 1-2 years of doing shorter, less comprehensive, inquiries with continual reflection and sharing built into the process.

I’m not sure how this compares to the schools Kelly visited, but her post concludes with:

“May we stay closer to the source where learning happens. 

May we teach educators how to notice, how to listen, how to see the glitter. 

May we trust that teachers can sit beside learners and bear witness to their growth, without needing to pull it out of context to prove it exists.

Learning, when you’re close enough to see it, is unmistakable.”

This spoke to me, and reminded me of the special teachers and students I get to work with. I encourage everyone to read Kelly’s full post.