Every school has its own quirks that make things for the outsider sometimes hard to understand. When something happens that seems odd, when a process looks strange or cumbersome or just unfamiliar or unnecessary, first accept it.
Respect the history. The practices, procedures, expectations, and fears of your new school are threaded with unspoken assumptions that have grown from past experiences and struggles at the school. You were not a part of those experiences, but you must respect them and the lessons learned from them. Your new mantra, as the new principal, becomes, "Tell me about that," or "Help me to understand what I'm seeing," or "What just happened?"
Be careful not to pass judgment on things you don't understand. Be governed by the law of positive intentions and professional competence. Believe that the people who have been working at the school are doing the best job they know how to do. Believe first in their positive intentions and their professional competence. There will be reasons why things happen the way they do. And before you can have any credibility for discussing them, you must understand those reasons.
Appreciate the quirkiness of your new school at least until you understand why things happen the way they do.
No comments:
Post a Comment