Teacher Series: Valuable lessons learned!
Valuable lessons learned!
Many years ago, in an international school, there was this teacher from another country who taught in the secondary school. I was in charge of middle years and she reported to me. Every morning the national anthem would play and she would just walk without paying any heed to it. All of us would freeze and be statues, but this teacher would continue walking to wherever she was going. There would be students who would try to get to their class and I would gesture to them to stand and wait till the anthem was over, and in front of these students, the teacher would be merrily walking, not paying any heed to the anthem.
Now I know that technically, the teacher does not need to pay attention to the anthem as she is not a local teacher and is from another country. But I thought to myself, "If I were in another country and if the locals stood up as a mark of respect when the anthem was playing, I would do the same. If the locals' way of showing respect was standing in silence, I would also stand in silence". So I spoke to the teacher and asked her to stand still and not walk when the anthem played. I told her that it is a mark of respect and does not look good in front of students. She said yes, but she continued to go about her work during the anthem. Maybe where she came from, respect was to be given only to her country's anthem. It is still a debate whether foreigners need to stand for the national anthem of another country. Can be tricky if the teacher refuses. I learned that navigating cultural boundaries can be sometimes difficult.
The same teacher taught a lesson once. I was observing the lesson. I was a young leader then and quite raw. When I completed the observation document, I wrote something pertaining to the lesson in the observation. When I shared the observation document with her, she laughed. I asked her why she was laughing. She said that if someone else read the document, the sentence that related to the lesson, would not make any sense to them. They would not know the contents of the lesson and what the observation was referring to. I thanked her and told her that I would remove it. New leaders, this may happen to you when experienced teachers would tell you that what you are doing is wrong. Rather than getting upset or angry or having a hurt ego, please use this as a learning opportunity and thank them. In one of the schools I taught in, we came up with the concept of a ‘Core team’. The team comprised of experienced teachers who played important roles in the school. All decisions related to the programme were discussed and finalised in the core team meeting. Presentations were shared and checked. This helps by not putting the complete onus on one leader. If the leader’s guidance or interpretation is incorrect, the whole school would not get it wrong as this would already have been discussed in the core team, different perspectives sought and the best way forward decided upon. I have these core teams now in all the schools I work in.
Once I was explaining to all teachers some new connections that they had to make. The same expat teacher asked me, “Can you give me an example”? At that moment, I could not think of a single example. I quickly asked the Humanities teacher to come up with one. He gave an example and teachers understood what needed to be done. So new leaders, before you ask teachers to do anything, go prepared with models, samples and examples. This is what I do now…I go to meetings with samples or models so that teachers have a clear idea of what to expect.
In another school, I was in charge of the school activities which included the school magazine. I remember visiting the lead teachers and co-teacher for this activity at least two to three times, asking them progress on the school magazine. They kept telling me that progress was slow, students were collecting information but they were confident it will come together at the end. These were the days of printed magazines and not digital ones and printing would take time. The lead teacher was an experienced teacher and I respected him. So I believed that he would deliver. Then maybe in March or April with only a couple of months for school to end, I went to them asking if they have received the draft. They said that the school magazine will not be published that year as students had done very little work. I asked them that as supervisors, why did they not bring this to my notice earlier. I also asked them if they kept records of attendance and comments about work students had done that semester. The co-teacher told me "The attendance is not here, but maintained by me in a separate book and I have written comments as well." The lead teacher, listening to this, jumped in and angrily asked me, "What is this? Is this some kind of kind of interrogation? You cannot expect us to be responsible if the students do not work. I take offence to the way you are questioning us. This is not a courtroom". The teacher was red in the face and visibly upset and my first thought was to explain that the buck stopped with me. Therefore, I decided to drop the idea of asking the co-teacher to show the attendance records and focussed on explaining to them that I was ultimately responsible and I also had some explaining to do to senior management. To this date, I regret not asking for the attendance records and comments.
The lead teacher repeated that supervisors of activities cannot be responsible for students not doing their work. I told them that they had almost eight months to let me know about the state of affairs, but they did not. The lead teacher said that he would complain about me. I asked him to go ahead. I went to the Head of Secondary and narrated what happened. I told him to speak to the teacher about his unfair response and lack of accountability. Unfortunately, it was too late for the magazine to be published with students getting ready for exams. With little to zero content collected so far, that year, the magazine did not get published. I apologised profusely to the Head of Secondary and said that it was my fault; I should have checked more regularly and since the school magazine was important, I should have made changes to the plan rather than take the word of the lead and co-teachers that it would get done.
The Head of Secondary and the school were nice enough not to pin the blame on me. But I learned a very valuable lesson. In other schools where I worked later, the students who worked on the school magazine, created posts for the school blog and social media pages regularly throughout the year. That way, the content and photos were collected regularly and the school magazine or yearbook was created by selecting from this content with the addition of a few more pieces. We also tried to match the teacher with the role and got teachers not only with good English but also who were responsible and committed and could get work done. Additionally, we picked students who were responsible and committed too. This way, nobody had to wait until the end to find out that there was nothing done!
I have learned from my mistakes. I have evolved into a better leader and reflecting on these experiences have made me wiser! As Henry Ford said “The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing”.
