Sunday, April 10, 2016

2016 and the move to Administration

It's two or so years since my last post and a fair bit has happened.  From Head of Department to Dean of Studies to Deputy Principal of senior school.  It would appear that my career has gone from strength to strength.

Perhaps on paper, but it sure has had its ups and downs.  The hardest part about the transition to administration by far is the loneliness that goes with it.  In a small public high school there are 5-6 administrators, generally dealing with different issues than teaching staff.  First and foremost, you are by necessity distancing yourself from teaching colleagues.  You now have a line to carry, whether you believe in it or not, in order to provide a united front for the school.  Disunity among admin is tantamount to a dysfunctional school.  The vision for the school starts here.  Managing friendships and management is not easy to do, and it is often more practical not to try and draw a line in the sand.  You work long hours with limited contact with anyone other than discipline cases and parents that are highly defensive and in many cases feel powerless to positively change the situation.

Next is the management of staff.  Vocational staff are lofty in their ideals and don't mind how many hours they work, career staff are there to collect a wage in order to provide a livelihood for their families.  Most teachers fall between these two extremes.  The way both staff are managed are completely different and requires a deft touch to massage egos and be mindful of family commitments.  Some are purely burnt out, others ineffectual, others outstanding but require careful stroking.  To be honest this is where I get criticised because personally I believe we are paid a lot to do a job.  The bare minimum expectation is that you do it.  I'm often a little too black and white about this and this causes me trouble.  Stroking staff is not an attribute that I have been required to develop in the past, and I find it mildly distasteful.  We do what we do due to personal motivation, lack the motivation and you are not doing your job.    Unlike with students, motivation has always been the problem of staff themselves.  There is an element of motivating staff required, but when teaching philosophies are so diametrically opposed, reconciling yourself to saying what needs to be said to maintain a status quo rather than dealing with the issue I find difficult.  I feel I am learning, but on this front I appear a slow learner.

Perception is always an issue.  People cannot see what you are doing, and judge you based on how well you do their task.  Sure it may not be the most important task that needs doing, but it is to them.  That student that did not pick up a piece of paper, that is late to class, has not completed homework can be just as important to resolve as the incident where a student has been assaulted.  Talk in the staffroom forgets all the good done and focuses on the current issue as if it was the "thing" wrong with the school.  Sentiment changes and your popularity with staff changes likewise as policy that is implemented is not always popular.  You are rarely judged on how well something is implemented or considered, the only comment I can recall said to me is that "you are a good operator".

The last two years were hard, transitioning from a job that I had done well for some time (as teacher and Head of Mathematics) to a job that was challenging due to staffing constraints (as Head of Math/Science) to a role that I found difficult and was initially ill defined (as Dean of Studies) and now temporarily to Deputy.  In each role I assisted the person moving behind me into it by improving process, building a functional team (or improving a dysfunctional one) and providing a foundation to build upon future success.

Physically and emotionally there has been a toll, one that is still being paid.  The returns from teaching are harder to find away from the classroom - there is a high from teaching that is poorly understood or recognised.  Take that high away and I see little to recommend in the job other than a wage that sends my girls to private schools - somehow from being a vocational teacher, I have become a career administrator.  My task now is to find the reward and vocation in the job in other areas; be that strategic development, staff development, staff managment, timetabling, career counselling, student counselling, curriculum development, marketing, behaviour and risk management or the other ten hats a Deputy or Dean of Studies wears.

1 comment:

  1. Indeed transition is difficult. I must say, the job of principal is far more difficult than Head of Department. There is politics in every department and as an admin, you have to co-ordinate among these departments. Sometimes, one has to do something out of the league just to get popularity like introduce new codes of conduct, or implementing an old rule strictly. The thing is, while managing all this chaos, one gets lonely.

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