Introduction to Educational Administration was a bit of a wake-up call for me. When I began to gain a more thorough understanding of the massive umbrella of responsibilities that a good principal must account for I was overwhelmed. Before the course I essentially thought of a principal’s job as hiring the right people, creating the timetable, and handling the odd discipline issue. Little did I know…
Classes often involved balancing theory with pragmatic looks at real-life situations. As in several of my graduate courses, I soaked up a lot of hard-won wisdom from around the table. I was fortunate enough to take this course with many people who were already in administrative positions and had some really valuable insights to contribute. For me, it was certainly a case of “two ears, one mouth – listen rather than speak”.
One of the assignments in the course where I actually had a bit more relevant experience than most people around the room was in creating a professional learning network using various social media platforms. I think this really represented a broadening of horizons for many in the class and certainly resulted in some spirited debate in the value of social media as a practical tool to be used in our schools.
The artefact I chose from this course is my paper on seeing the principal as a literacy leader in a school. Before reading a book by Douglas Reeves I had never thought of the principal as a curriculum leader or expert teaching model before. All I knew was that I’d witnessed several classes of students in several different schools that had massive reading deficits and that we as a school and society seem to have accepted this was ok. These reading deficits have absolutely destructive impacts on our quest to make lifelong learners out of our students and drastically affected their ability to engage with many of the concepts presented in all subject areas. Having the principal of a school committed to the concept of literacy mastery for all students is a great first step toward making headway in this battle.