I found out shortly after I was hired that the principal also wanted me to take over duties as department head. I was honored and talked with the person who had been doing many of the duties without the title for several years. Since she was going to be out much of the following year for maternity leave, she gladly said I should step in and use my experience to help the department.

I attended my first mandatory teacher training (professional development is what the title of the day implied) and left there completely frustrated. This was not the training that professional educators should endure. I left there knowing that my plan to “lay low” and take it easy was not going to work.

To say that coming in during the middle of the year as the new girl and as the department head has been a challenge is an understatement. There have been times when I thought change was not possible and times when I thought it was not worth my effort. Our school has so many positives, it is unfair to only look at the negatives. The problem is that those negatives were standing in the way of so many positive possibilities. Working with our wonderful principal (who has only been here since August) we put together two of our own professional development days. We got several faculty members to use their expertise and offered numerous workshops. Lunch was donated by our PTO, and our new school improvement specialist came and did icebreaker activities. It lasted two days and went off without a hitch.

Here is the cool thing. I watched my colleagues who were also frustrated, unmotivated, burned out, stressed out, and beat down finally turn a corner. There was real community… real morale… real collaboration. We had almost our entire faculty there on two of their summer days.

Our principal and I have several sayings… call them Mantras…

“Baby Steps”- this one is used when I want things to move faster and change quicker… I am a North personality, by the way (go getter, aggressive)

“Move forward and leave the others behind”- this one is used when we know that there are always going to be people who will be resistant to change

“Are we having fun yet?”- When frustration gets the best of me.

“EASY!”- When frustration makes me say things I might regret

Our wikispace is a wonderful collection of the day and a great contrast to the first professional development I experienced in this district. Our faculty really felt refreshed after these days. I am also going to post some of the evaluation comments. It really was a success. I am so fortunate to have great people to work with!

Please offer your comments:

Can anyone suggest other ways to increase community within a faculty?

Have you had one of these WOW experiences? Explain.

How do you cope with those who are completely resistant to change?

P.S. Our Assistant Principal has nicknamed this school the Galapagos because he says there is no place like it. I want to say that the Galapagos has volcanoes on it, and I believe we have just started rumbling things up in the bottom of that volcano.

Well, today I had to stay home from school. My one-year old had a sinus infection and had been running a fever last night (24 hours fever free daycare rule, you know). So we got up at the usual time and saw dad and brother off to school. I caught up on email, fed him breakfast, changed some diapers, etc. He seemed to be feeling great, so I took the rare opportunity to call my salon and see if they might possibly have an opening this morning. Bingo! 10:45 appointment! I packed the diaper bag and the little one, snotty nose and all, and headed out. I got there a bit early and was entertaining the little one and happened to listen to the conversation at the check out desk. It went something like this:

“You know we just found out last night that Craig failed a big project”

” Oh really, he just came out and told you?”

“No the school has this online thing that let’s you see kid’s grades. We saw it last night and confronted him. It was on a poetry booklet. He showed it to me. It was pretty thrown together.”

“Well, I think that writing is just totally opinion anyway. I don’t see how anyone can grade something that is your personal thoughts.”

“I don’t think it deserved a good grade. Actually we like this teacher. We have had such better luck at the high school than we did at the middle school. Those teachers just got there tenure and are biding their time until retirement. My kids hated it.”

Now, there are several things I would like to address in this eavesdropping session.

First, the “writing is personal” comment-

Writing is personal. It is a creation. It is the highest level of Bloom’s particularly when you are doing creative writing like poetry. Because of this we must evaluate it. Unfortunately many teachers grade writing and other projects with red marks and a number. I have always used rubrics. My question is this- do parents and students understand rubrics? Does it make the evaluation of the writing more meaningful or more confusing?

Second, the middle school teachers have tenure-

We see this all of the time in professions where one’s job is not totally dependent on one’s accountability and/ or results. I cannot tell you how many times I have gotten behind a slow driver in a work truck and made the comment, “He obviously gets paid by the hour and not by the job.” Are we in a profession now that is filling up with those just biding their time until retirement? I know there are a few out there that go full speed for their students, but are we the minority? Are there any 21st Century Teachers as Andrew Churches points out in his insightful blog post?

Finally, kudos to the school district that uses an online gradebook that parents can view, and kudos to the parents that utilize that privilege!