I have now been in my new position for about 3 months. During this time I have been asked more than once “Do you miss being a campus principal?” There are parts of the job that I do miss. I guess in the stance of leadership perhaps in that this is YOUR building and your responsibility. As I look back I am extremely proud of the fact that under my leadership the campus reached some very nice academic recognition that has never before been done in my district.
In my new position I get a chance to talk to many of the principals and they appreciate that I have their perspective in mind when I am working with teachers and guiding them instructionally. In other words I have street cred.
In talking with the principals I hear what they are dealing with and I am reminded of how thin you are spread sometimes as a campus administrator.
The crap and yes it is crap that you deal with some of the students and their sense of entitlement to the world and how their parents just give in to their kids wants and needs because they just don’t want to deal with their kid being upset drives me crazy.
These parents do not realize what an unbelievably distorted person this is going to be when they grow up. Trust me I know someone like this. They are now in their mid 40’s and their sense of what is right and wrong and fair is totally screwed up. Because of their sense of entitlement they are getting ready to lose everything because they did not act responsibly? And they honestly do not understand how legally this is happening to them. You try to explain it to them but they just don’t get it? And why should they? Their entire life people have catered to them? Now this person is facing a very scary probability today. They are in their mid 40’s…..they stand to lose everything and I mean EVERYTHING. Even though a JUDGE is telling them this is the LAW they act like if they just stick their fingers in their ears, shut their eyes, and scream…CAN’T HEAR YOU. It will all go away.
So parents I ask you….would rather your kid understand how things really work at the age of 8 and deal with your child being upset or do you want them coming to live with you at the age of 45 because they nowhere to go?
Being married is easy but raising kids is hard!
There is no greater truth told. Trust me there are nights that Jack gets into one of his moods and I swear if you told him to go outside and have fun he would argue about it. We had a “family meeting” just last night with him about some choices he is making in dealing with some difficulties he is having with some of his friends. When we got to the part about his role in the problem he put his fingers in his ears and said, “I don’t want to talk about this” and he tried to leave our bedroom. I stopped him and told him we are not going anywhere until we talk this out. He did not like it and he was mad about it. He wanted to go watch a movie which he got to do when we were done.
It would have been a hell of a lot easier to just let him go. But I would rather him be upset now but learn something for the future. In the end he came to me and thanked me for talking to him and we have a deal set between him and me about what we are going to do in the future. It took right at 45 minutes out of my evening working with him.
Better that than him wanting to move back in when he is 45.
JDHTEACH
1 comment:
It is sad that the institution often gives in to the parents as well leaving their good, professional teachers left to hang. We have a teacher ready to call it quits with all she's been through this year. And next year this child will be in my grade level. WATCH OUT!
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