My Time in The Corner Office

MY TIME AS PRINCIPAL

                     It is important to bring broken people into a community of love, a

                               place where they feel accepted and recognized in their gifts, and

                               have a sense of belonging.

                              (Jean Vanier From Brokenness to Community)

Much has been written about the role of the principal.  Traditionally, the principal has been viewed as a school administrator or facility manager who issues directives from the corner office.  More recently, the role of the principal has been conceived as that of an instructional leader - one who, in reference to the word principal itself, serves as the main or lead teacher in the school.

Neither of these definitions of principal, however, captures fully either what I believed or experienced during the 6 years I spent in the principal's office in two Ottawa Catholic schools - Holy Trinity Catholic High School (2005-2009) and St. Francis Xavier High School (2009-2010).

Instead, my sense of the role of the principal is better reflected in the Jean Vanier quotation with which I began this post. For me, the principal work of a Catholic principal (pun intended) is to build a learning community in which all students and staff feel they are accepted and belong.  Unless students feel included at, valued by, and connected to their school, and teachers and other staff feel the same, neither the best administrative planning for a school nor the most effective instructional practices in the classrooms will result in academic achievement for students and a sense of well-being for all at the school.

My Principal's Page in an edition of the Trinity Yearbook

My view of the role of the principal was heavily influenced by the Early School Leaver Project that was conducted early in my time as Principal of Holy Trinity Catholic High School.  I first heard of the project during the spring of 2006 while I was representing the Catholic Principals' Council of Ontario on the Student Engagement Sub-Committee of the Learning to 18 Working Table.  From interviews conducted with close to 200 early school leavers, Dr. Bruce Ferguson identified "Disconnection and disengagement with the school culture and school community..." as the key reason why students dropped out of school.  His recommendations to school administrators and teachers, which I took to heart, were as follows:

1. Be more understanding
2. Be more flexible
3. Be more proactive     

Inspired by Jean Vanier's philosophy of belonging and Dr. Bruce Ferguson's emphasis on a caring, positive school climate, I focused my work at Holy Trinity on developing an open, caring, and responsive school environment.  During my first month as principal, I visited all homeroom classes to introduce myself and also met individually with all vice-principals, department heads, and curriculum leaders.  I made certain that both students and staff had direct access to me.  When I realized that some students and staff were hesitant to approach me in my office, I posted my Principal's Credo on my office door to make my intentions explicitly clear:

1. This door is always open to you.

2. Your interruptions are always welcome.

3.  If I am not in my office when you drop by (hopefully, because I am out and about the

     school), I will get back to you in a timely manner.

4. No one's dignity will be compromised in this office.

5. In this office, I will listen first, then speak.

6. In this office, our solution will be preferred to my or your solution.

I also made myself as available as possible by being in the school atrium before and after school and in the cafetorium and outside during lunch break.  I attended as many after school activities as I could. I also often walked to and from school. Many mornings, as I approached the school, students were gathered outside the building, and I was able to take the pulse, so to speak, of the student body by speaking with these groups.

During my time as Principal of Holy Trinity a 24-room addition was added

To build a sense of community among the staff, I profiled a different staff member in the Monday Morning Memo I issued every week.  To gather interesting (and sometimes humorous) information on the staff member I was profiling, I would often call the spouse, creating a personal connection with him or her, too.  The staff profiles I wrote were not only pleasant Monday morning surprises for the staff member I profiled, they were also effective ways to connect people at the school as they learned about their colleagues' backgrounds and interests.

As well, to promote a unifying sense of purpose among students and staff (what later writers termed uplift*), connecting with their hearts as well as their minds, I promoted well-established school-wide initiatives such as the annual Terry Fox Run and the Canned Food Drive.

The Annual Terry Fox Run/Walk at Holy Trinity was consistently one
of the top 10 fundraising events of its kind in the province

When it came to leading the instructional program at the school, I recognized from the onset that there were teachers at Holy Trinity who knew much more about their subject areas than I did, and that many good pedagogical practices were already being employed by many of the teachers.  Having a background in literacy, I chose to lead in this area while allowing others at the school to lead in the equally important areas of numeracy and student pathways.

Years later, Michael Fullan wrote about the "dangerous half-truth" (Indelible Leadership, 12) of the principal improving student achievement by personally leading and micro-managing the instructional practices at the school.  Instead, I was more comfortable with listening to the wisdom of the group, learning from it, and, accordingly, setting a course for innovation. In short, I adopted what Fullan later described as a lead learner role, and leveraged the power of the group "...to move the group." (Fullan The Principal, 29)  Sometimes, I led the professional learning - as I did with the concept of teaching reading in the subject area.  However, many times, I let teachers lead.  What was critical, as Fullan noted in The Principal, was that although I as principal didn't always lead, I always participated. (86)

Surprisingly though, it wasn't Michael Fullan who primarily influenced me in taking, as principal, this lead learner stance.  Instead, my inspiration came from a great book called Shepherd Leadership: Wisdom for Leaders from Psalm 23, written by Blaine McCormick and David Davenport.  The quotation from that book that governed my approach to school leadership (and which I kept under the blotter on my desk) reads as follows: "To shepherd effectively, one must know when to lead, when to follow, and when to get out of the way." (51)

Many great initiatives that improved student engagement and achievement were launched by the talented staff at Holy Trinity during my time there as principal.  One such initiative was Back on Track, which was a credit rescue program. Another innovation was an inter-disciplinary initiative whereby students could earn two grade 9 or 10 credits at a time by completing one set of assignments.  In grade 9 Religion, experiential learning opportunities through the Shepherds of Good Hope and Kanata Food Cupboard were introduced.  For grade 8 students at risk, we partnered with St. Nicholas High School to offer 'flash forward' grade 9 Hospitality and Travel & Tourism credits.  I introduced an experiential learning opportunity for English classes whereby, a couple of times each year, students created an insert called The Trinity Times for the local Kanata Kourier-Standard newspaper.  It was an opportunity for students to write for a real audience and to reflect on their learning and the positive climate at this great school.     

Front page on one edition of the Holy Trinity Times

                                               * Uplifting Leadership, Andy Hargreaves, Alan Boyle, & Alma Harris

My Years as a Vice-Principal

Reflections on My Time as a VP

Me on my 'perch' above the St. Pat's High School Mall

After 15 plus years as a classroom teacher, in January of 1998, I began my second career in education as an administrator. 

For the next 7 years, I performed the role of vice-principal at 3 different high schools with the Ottawa Catholic School Board: Holy Trinity (1998), St. Patrick's High School (1998-2003), and St. Nicholas Adult High School (2003-2005).

My first Admin Team - Holy Trinity 1998
L. to R. VPs Mike Nugent, Me, Bill Gartland
Principal Anne-Marie McGillis in front

At times, I found that being a VP in a high school was a rather thankless and unappreciated  role.  For one thing, I was oftened tasked with dealing with disciplinary issues in the classroom, in the hallways, on the school buses, and even in the broader community.  This meant that many of my interactions with students were not ones that they enjoyed.  As well, many of the daily tasks assigned to me were managerial in nature and took me away from the reason I chose education as a vocation - my passion for teaching and learning.  

However, as I settled into the VP role at St. Patrick's, I made a commitment to shattering the traditional image of the unsmiling disciplinarian and, as I had as a teacher, got involved in school life and extra-curriculars to build positive relationships with students.  Then, when students were sent to me for disciplinary reasons, they would know that I valued them.  As well, by working in partnership with parents, teachers, and, counselors when students misbehaved, I realized I could, through a caring and restorative approach, help these students to develop the self-confidence, self-respect, empathy for others, and optimism that they were previously lacking.

With a great group of St. Patrick's HS students at CHEO Teletho

Through frequent classroom visits, discussions with teachers, and participation in teacher learning groups, I also forged relationships with teachers and was able to work with them and sometimes assist them - particularly those who were inexperienced and/or strugging - in developing greater competence, confidence, and passion in their role.

Years later, in  a book called Redeeming Administration, Ann M. Garrido expressed very well how blessed I was in my work as VP:

               By its very character, administration offers the opportunity to grow

               in the capacity for agape [selfless love].  By its very character,

               administration encourages the practice of giving oneself freely and

               abundently without always knowing what good one has done or who

               has been touched. (58)

I had my head shaved in support of a cancer fundraiser at St. Pat's

It was an unexpected pleasure to learn that, as  a VP, I didn't need to give up being a teacher.  It required some careful planning and prioritizing but, at St. Pat's, I became an English-teacher-at-large of sorts and, when invited, taught lessons on writing and literature.  My favourite was introductory lessons on Shakespeare and whichever of the bard's plays the class was beginning to study.

During my 7 years as a vice-principal, I had the great joy of  being a part of some dynamic administrative teams.  Under the leadership of the principal, the VPs in a high school work very closely together and come to rely on each other.  A special bond forms among administrators as they tackle the daily challenges that present themselves.   Some of the particularly memorable issues we dealt with while I was a VP at St. Pat's were as follows:

• the stabbing of a student
• the dawning of the new millenium and Y2K anxieties
• the first administration of the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (2001)
• the double cohort graduation (2003)

However, the most dramatic development during my time at St. Pat's was the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York.  With a predominantly Catholic student population at the school but many Muslim students as well, we held our collective breath the day after 911 concerned about its impact on the students and how they would react.  We needn't have been concerned - As a strong faith community, they responded with compassion and kindness.

There were also many lighter moments with admin team colleagues during my time as a VP.  At St. Pat's, we often gathered in Principal Joe Mullally's office at the end of a busy day or week and laughed ourself silly, recalling all the comical and absurd things that had happened.   

One of my Admin Teams at St. Pat's
-  with Principal Joe Mullally & VP Brid McDonald

My Teaching Career Part 2 - St. Matthew

My Teaching Days at St. Matthew

1985-86 St. Matthew Staff
My first year at this great school

In the fall of 1985, I returned to Ottawa to teach at St. Matthew High School.  The transition from Eastwood Collegiate Institute (ECI) in Kitchener - a large, well-established grade 9-OAC high school - to St. Matt's was a difficult one.   At the time, St. Matt's was a relatively new middle school (grades 7 to 10) which was now adding grade 11 (due to the extension that year of full funding to Catholic schools in Ontario).  My teaching schedule dramatically changed from a straightforward schedule of grade 9, 10, and 11 English classes at ECI to a chaotic mixture of subjects and grades at St. Matt's: grade 7 Religion and English, grade 9 and 10 English, and grade 11 Ancient History.  That's right - I had 5 different courses for which to prep.   

My saving grace in that first year at St. Matt's was the tremendous support I received from the other teachers and the great feeling of camaraderie I sensed among the staff  The school was truly a Catholic-Christian community.  We not only taught together but as well we played and prayed together.

After my first year at St. Matt's, I knew I had found my permanent teaching home.  I immersed myself into the life of the school, coaching teams and helping out with the Student Activity Council. The students both challenged and intrigued me, and drove me constantly to want to provide for them the very best learning opportunities that I possibly could.  

Hamming it up with the talented teaches in the English Department

I formed a great network of close friends among the staff of St. Matthew.  On Wednesday nights, we played basketball; Friday after school it was staff hockey; and in the spring and summer, several of us played together on a softball team.  However, most pleasing of all was how all the staff worked together to build a great school community where all students felt they belonged and were able to grow.  In so many ways, we lived out the school's motto: 'People Together With Purpose'.

A few years after I started teaching at St. Matt's, I was appointed Department Head of English.  I loved the role.  I not only got to work with an incredibly talented group of language arts teachers at the school but as well collaborated frequently, through Subject Council, with the other English DHs in the Carleton Roman Catholic School Board.  I became good friends with many of my English DH colleagues - particularly with those who spent a magical summer with me at Oxford University (Keble College) completing an Honour Specialist in English.

The Oxford Incident - Summer 1989
I had the time of my life!

Having learned early in my teaching career in Kitchener-Waterloo that the sage on the stage approach to teaching was not effective, I embraced at St. Matt's a student-centred  guide on the side approach. When it came to literature study, I used methodologies such as incentive contracts in order to differentiate learning opportunities for students and allow them to be creative in their responses to their encounters with what they read.  I also relied heavily on collaborative approaches whereby each small group of students would attempt to persuade - in a manner that was both thought-provoking and entertaining - the rest of the class of the validity of a particular interpretation of a novel or play .  The videos, radio plays, dramatizations, and displays the students designed helped them develop both their critical thinking and communication skills.

I recall times when I would marvel at the level of student engagement and focus as they developed their presentations.  Years later, I discovered that a psychologist named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called this state of hyper-focus learning flow.  For me, though, these moments when I could almost hear the students' minds humming and sense them gaining confidence and competence in their abilities to think deeply and communicate clearly were pure magic...  I would step outside myself for the moment and simply marvel at the human capacity for learning.  In the words of John Magee in his beautiful poem "High Flight", at those times, I felt as though:

                                I ...slipped the surly bonds of earth 

                               And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings:

                               ...Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.  

As much as I enjoyed teaching English and loved being a part of the St. Matt's community, the intensity of the classroom, the frequent late nights spent prepping lessons, and the far-too-many lost weekends of marking essays and assignments sometimes took their toll on me.  In the midst of one particularly long day of teaching and marking (and after too short a night of sleep), I recall a student teacher commenting on my Jekyll and Hyde performance.  As I collapsed at the end of the day on a sofa in the staff room, he noted, "You seem so different than a moment ago when you were so animated and energized in the classroom."  Oh yes, my dear young teacher-in-the-making, teaching is both engrossing and exhausting!

One of my favourite pictures of me at St. Matthew
- Thoroughly engrossed in assessment

One of the most memorable (and sad) days of my life was Friday, December 19, 1997, my last day of teaching at St. Matthew High School.  In the morning, I listened with great interest as an OAC student did a presentation on his independent study, which was on a relatively new and emerging medium of communication called the internet!  In the afternoon, in a portable, I taught my final English class - a challenging group of grade 9s.  

After the final bell sounded, the students left quickly.  I stood and stared for several minutes out a window at the students rushing happily along to get on school buses.  When the last bus pulled away from the school, I quietly exited the portable and walked down a mostly deserted hallway in the school, briefcase in hand.  I climbed a flight of stairs to the 2nd floor and paused briefly by the library to look at a display I had put up some time time ago.  It read:  English is to ... Read, Write, Listen, Speak, View, and Think.  Then I walked into the English Prep room, where I had spend countless hours collaborating with other teachers, designing lessons, and marking papers.  I took one last long look around, thanked God for blessing me with 12 plus years of membership in this wonderful school community, closed and locked the door, and bid adieu to my teaching career.

As I said at the final St. Matthew staff meeting I attended, "I can honestly say I enjoyed every single day that I taught at this marvellous school."

St. Matthew Staff - 1995-96

   

My Teaching Career Part 1: Waterloo County

*** As I am retiring in January 2017 after 35 years in education, I will be sharing my 

       memories in 5 posts as follows:

       1. My teaching days in Waterloo County 
       2. My memories of St. Matthew High School (Orleans)
       3. My years as a Vice-Principal
       4. My time as a Principal
       4. My time as a supervisory officer 

Reflections on My Classroom Years in Waterloo County

I began my teaching career at Elmira District Secondary School (EDSS) in September of 1982.  Why, you might ask, did a guy born and raised in Ottawa choose to teach with the Waterloo County School Board?  The simple answer is that I accepted the very first teaching job offer I received!

I cut my teaching teeth, as the saying goes, at EDSS.  I am indebted to William (Bill) Exley, who was the Department Head of English there in 1982-1983.  Bill spent considerable time and energy mentoring me in the art of teaching English.  From him I learned that the role of a language arts teacher was two-fold: to help students develop both a deeper appreciation of good literature and a commitment to clarity in expression.  Bill Exley had what perhaps his most famous student, the prolific writer Malcolm Gladwell, identified as "presence" - that charismatic aspect that all great teachers going back to Socrates have possessed.  (Note: Gladwell mentions Bill Exley's teacher presence in What The Dog Saw, p. 131)

Malcolm Gladwell (bottom left)
with Elmira Debating Team

As much as I learned from mentors such as Bill Exley, I learned even more from my students during my first year of teaching at EDSS.  At the end of the year, I asked all the students to comment on how effective they thought I had been as their teacher.  Their responses were quite humbling.  Although some said some complimentary things, a significant number suggested that I needed to spend less time teaching English and more time helping them understand what was being taught!  Needless to say, I had a rather sleepless night in late June when I finished reading all of their comments.

In my very first classroom at Elmira DSS
(The picture was taken on a Saturday; I didn't dress like that when I taught!)

However, from that time forward, I was resolved that I would never again lose sight of individual student needs in the drive to cover the curriculum.  Looking back, I am so very grateful to these grade 9 and 10 students at EDSS for their honest and invaluable feedback.  

When my one-year contract expired at EDSS, I moved on to Eastwood Collegiate Institute (ECI) in the heart of Kitchener.  Unlike at EDSS, where I taught a mix of English and History, at Eastwood I taught all English - grade 9, 10, and 11.  It was great to be in one subject area, but the marking load was daunting.  I spent many lost weekends during those 2 years at ECI marking essays, and during exam weeks, a few sleepless nights.

 

Despite the heavy teaching load at ECI, I got involved in a number of extracurricular activities, as I also had at EDSS.  I figured that doing so was a good way to not only build rapport with students but also contribute to the very positive climate at the school.  I served as yearbook advisor and also coached the Midget Boys' Basketball team.  At EDSS, I had also helped out with both cross-country running and track and field.  A veteran teacher at EDSS said something to me that stuck with me during my entire teaching career: "Good for you, Peter ... Nobody had to tell you to get involved around here."

Me with a talented group of Midget boys basketball players at ECI (1984)

In many ways, ECI was a school ahead of its time.  Its staff was devoted to success for all students and meeting a variety of student needs.  One innovative practice it featured was Language Clinics. These were early versions of achievement centres, in which groups of students who were identified as struggling to make standard in literacy were placed in small remedial groups for one period a day to receive intensive support from a language arts teacher.  These Language Clinics also were used to provide enrichment activities such as speed reading for gifted students.  I had the great privilege one year of being assigned a Language Clinic period.

As a young single teacher, I also found ECI a fun place to teach.  I hung out with a small group of young and mostly single teachers.  There was lots to enjoy in the Kitchener-Waterloo region, including picturesque towns like St. Jacob's and Elora, the nearby Stratford Festival, and of course, Oktoberfest.   

I even had a brush with greatness while helping out as the shot putt official at the regional high school track & field meet one spring.  Shot putt was a field event I knew little about; however, even I was impressed with one student in the event, whose name was Junior Lewis.  He threw the heavy ball several feet further than anyone else.  I learned a short time later that this young man, Lennox Lewis, was the reigning World Junior Heavyweight Boxing Champion.  A few years later, he went on to win the Olympic Gold Medal in heavyweight boxing in Seoul, Korea (1988) and became Heavyweight Champion of the World! (If only I had kept the shot putt, or taken some photos!)