Tips for Teachers
The Good Leader
For the past seven years, I have been training school leaders in character education. I run the Sanford N. McDonnell Leadership Academy in Character Education, a year-long professional development opportunity for St. Louis-area school administrators. So I have gotten to know many principals and assistant principals and their schools. And I have learned as much from them, as, hopefully, they have learned from me.
One of the things I have learned is that being a principal is quite like being a teacher. Only your students are adults who work for you. The parallels between what I teach teachers about classroom management and what I have found I need to teach principals about staff management are surprisingly frequent and powerful.
Teachers Need Guidance, Too
Just as students have personalities, alliances, conflicts, worries, strengths, and weaknesses, so do teachers. And just as teachers need, periodically, to intervene with intrapersonal and/or interpersonal crises among the students in their classrooms and schools, so do administrators need to intervene to support the resolution of conflicts between staff members or to support a teacher through a personal crisis. And just as teachers' jobs are defined in large part as shepherding the personal and academic development of their students, so is the administrator's job partly one of shepherding the personal and professional development of his or her staff.
Given the ubiquitous lament from principals that there is simply not enough time to deal with all that is on their respective plates, think about how much productive time could be recouped if principals knew how to manage the behavior of their staff effectively, just as quality classroom instruction time is recouped when teachers know how to manage student misbehavior effectively.
Principals Can Shepherd Staff
It is widely recognized that newly-minted teachers come to schools only minimally prepared for the tasks of teaching academic content and managing students and classrooms. They learn much of their craft on the job. Professional experience is the forge in which their professional competency is formed to a large degree.
Principals need to shepherd this process. They do so in part by creating mentoring programs and support groups for new teachers, observing their classrooms and providing feedback, and, as good principals, actually modeling good instructional and behavior management processes.
Teachers’ Social Competence Is Crucial
But there is another part of managing staff, and this is largely ignored: Teachers are people too, and as a consequence they have needs, emotions, social incompatibilities, life crises, communication problems, and just bad days. All of this can disrupt school functioning, both academic and behavioral. Whenever any of us is struggling, we can benefit greatly from a supervisor who can intervene, support, solve, or otherwise make a positive contribution to our quandary. For teachers, this often should be the principal.
As a psychologist, I have come to recognize that we all have our limitations, weaknesses, foibles, and danger zones. The development of the staff is also the responsibility of the principal. Principals need to know how to improve the social and emotional competencies of their staff and how to foster the character development of their staff so that such conflicts and disruptions are minimized (although they will never be eradicated).
Teachers Model Good Character
If a school is to succeed, teachers need to be hitting on all cylinders. Such school success is both academic and behavioral; that is, if kids are to learn and to develop good character and social and emotional competencies, then the adults in the building need to be competent and have good character.
All of this is still about student character development and learning. These are the two main purposes of education. Good schools foster academic learning and student development, especially character development. For them to be successful, teachers need to be socially and emotionally competent, professionally skilled instructors, and to have good character themselves. And they need to be able to get along socially and professionally with each other; in other words, to form a professional, ethical, and caring learning community of adults. But for teachers to become that, principals need to know how to manage their staffs so that they can become the best teachers and people possible. Graduate schools of education need to start paying attention to such training, and school districts need to consider such attributes in hiring and training principals. And the character circle goes round and round.
By Dr. Marvin W. Berkowitz
Professor of Character Education
University of Missouri, St. Louis
Dr. Berkowitz, a developmental psychologist, is the inaugural Sanford N. McDonnell Professor of Character Education at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. Among his many publications are his recent book Parenting for Good and his research review for the Character Education Partnership, What Works in Character Education.
Copyright © 2005 Dr. Marvin W. Berkowitz
