Friendly reminder about new clothes and hiring fairs

[Heliotrope]

I've had mostly good leadership, and of the bad ones all but one still had good intentions but lacked some skills.

TT and PsyGuy are painting a bleaker picture of IE than what I've seen around me, and I've got many years under my belt.
It might be a 'glass half full / half empty' thing, although in this case I'd say the glass is a lot more than half full.
Also, I've definitely not found a higher proportion of poor & mediocre leadership at the highest tier schools, quite the opposite.

The number of bad leadership is about the same in IE as it is in other lines of work. Some of my non-teaching friends back home complain about their management just as often as my teacher friends. It's almost as though IT and those in IE leadership positions are regular people.

[PsyGuy]

I dont see as much good and bad in leadership but more a lot of mediocre leadership. As too elite tier ISs its a lot easier to get by in leadership when you have a significant (bloated) team of other leadership members which is more common in first and elite tier ISs. Its one thing to have the resources to delegate the workload to others than it is to have to do it yourself.

[teacher tan]

@Heliotrope
That depends on how closely you work with the admin. If you are an 8 to 4 teacher, you will hardly know them. If you work with them closely on a weekly basis to shape policies, you'll get to know their (in)competence and the frustrations that come with it. Most teachers fall into the former.

[Thames Pirate]

I would argue that it depends far more on how established and how large the school is. At small schools, decision making is more collaborative than top-down, and at start ups, policies are very much being crafted as the school figures things out. So teachers and admin work together closely in those schools.

Additionally, teachers and admin might work together on specific initiatives, etc. I know that I have worked some admin far more closely than others.

The thing is that they are all human, and that means they are both flawed and generally not purely evil. There is always a mix of positive and negative. Even the best schools have thins about which one can complain--they are just relatively minor, balanced out by the good, etc. A negative person, however, will find those things. The positive person will just roll with them and focus on all the things going well. I think this is why sid made the comment he did about your mindset--your thinking that all admin are bad sends the signal that you are the person who only sees the bad and can't focus on the positive. Additionally, seeing the best in people and attributing mostly good intentions is a skill that needs to be practiced. It matters because we need to see students that way to serve them best. That doesn't mean being blindly naive to their faults, but attributing only the worst is a far cry from being aware of the shortcomings of admin.

[PsyGuy]

@Thames Pirate

Whats to say that @teacher tan isnt reporting his experience with leadership accurately. Maybe its not an issue of paradigm or perception, or somehow a character flaw on their part, maybe the past leadership they worked with in those ISs really is just horribly bad and incompetent.

[Heliotrope]

teacher tan wrote:
> @Heliotrope
> That depends on how closely you work with the admin. If you are an 8 to 4
> teacher, you will hardly know them. If you work with them closely on a
> weekly basis to shape policies, you'll get to know their (in)competence and
> the frustrations that come with it. Most teachers fall into the former.

I fall into the latter.

I guess you've had really bad luck with your schools, because nobody I know shares your opinion of leadership (talking about leadership is a hobby of lots of teachers when they get together), apart from the rotten apple now and then.

Well, there was one colleague that did complain a lot about all of leadership, but he complained about EVERYTHING – his glass wasn't just half empty, but it needed cleaning, contained the wrong kind of water, lacked a straw, etc.

[Thames Pirate]

PsyGuy wrote:
> @Thames Pirate
>
> Whats to say that @teacher tan isnt reporting his experience with
> leadership accurately. Maybe its not an issue of paradigm or perception, or
> somehow a character flaw on their part, maybe the past leadership they
> worked with in those ISs really is just horribly bad and incompetent.

I love when you are contrary just for the heck of it. Maybe people leave the stitches in on purpose? Maybe TT has only ever worked with some of the most awful people on the planet? At least it's entertaining, and I know you like having the last word, even if it's just rephrasing what someone else said in a wordier way or making these pointless remarks.

[sid]

LOL

[shadowjack]

<grabs the popcorn and cola and sits down on the couch...>

[PsyGuy]

@Thames Pirate

Theyre not pointless if their accurate and valid, your entire premise for your position is that the experience of @teacher tan is wrong because your experience differs. You have different paradigms, theirs isnt invalid because you dont share the same POV.

[Thames Pirate]

LOL. I rest my case.

[PsyGuy]

Happy to hear your conceding your claim.

[Heliotrope]

PsyGuy wrote:
> Happy to hear your conceding your claim.

It means something different PsyGuy, and you've just proven her right again:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictio ... st-my-case

("said when you believe that something that has just happened or been said proves that you are right or telling the truth")

[sid]

LOL

[teacher tan]

sid started this post for the least trivial of all reasons and his 'new clothes' mountain is not as big as his alpine molehill. Sounds like he has a lotta spare time on his plate.