The featured picture was from a recent tweet that seemed to get a lot of conversations started about what school leadership is about or could be about. In my mind, these two questions take all the things we do as administrators and boil it all down to the two most essential elements of the job. I have these posted on my desk, so at the end of the day I can sit back and reflect to see if I did the job I needed to do for my students and staff.
The first, “What did you do today to promote student learning?” This is first because it is what everyone in the building is here for: learning. Everything we do and every resource that is paid for and provided exist for that one purpose. The lights, the internet, the furniture, the lunches, the classrooms, all of this is present to provide learning. Salaries of all staff are for student learning to be made the priority. Fellow administrators, we are paid to promote learning and see that it is happening. Knowing this, we are bound to do all in our power to know, model, support, design and accommodate everything under our supervision to the goal of learning. If I merely manage the building, see that schedules are followed, and things are “orderly” then I have missed a HUGE part of what the school day was supposed to be about.
So, how do you promote student learning as a school leader? You talk about learning and not teaching. You design lessons with teachers. You provide professional learning. You collaborate with others. You examine and test resources. You form relationships with students and staff. You observe as many classrooms as physically possible every day. You do everything you can to keep learning about learning. If you resign yourself to being a school manager, then you are robbing your students and teachers of their potential and the powerful transformation the school you serve could experience. Leaders, we are duty bound to promote learning above all other things. Anything less is professional negligence.
The second question, if you think about it, also supports your efforts to answering the first, “What did you do today to support teachers?” Teachers are our front-line, in the thick of it, rock stars. They are the ones who have the most interaction with our learners. They are the ones who we entrust with the lion’s share of the job we are all here to accomplish, learning. It is paramount that we as leaders do everything we can to support our teachers. We must support them in every way we can, professionally, mentally, emotionally, physically. We, leaders, are not paid to order and oversee, but to serve and support our teachers in the classroom.
Supporting teachers can be stepping in and modeling a lesson in the classroom, collaborating with teams to design quality learning, communicating with parents on a teacher’s behalf, covering a duty for a teacher in need, researching resources and finding supplies. Leaders are here to lighten the load, not add more to it. Just as “every child deserves a great teacher, not by chance, but by design,” I believe “every teacher deserves a great leader, not by chance by commitment.” Commitment to what matters, and what matters most is learning.
There are times I find that I might struggle reflecting and getting some solid answers to my two questions. This is when I ask myself a secret 3rd question. “What got in the way?” If I have trouble answering 1 and 2, then I MUST find out what hindered my ability to perform today? Was it meetings? Was it student discipline? Parent conferences? Staff issues? What got in my way of promoting learning and supporting teachers? Then, I can ask myself how tomorrow I can make intentional decisions to avoid the roadblocks in the way of my purpose and be the best school leader I can be.
The 2 questions are why we are here. Nothing else is more important.
