My Principal...A Superhero?
When I was growing up, I had an elementary principal who may have been a superhero in disguise. When you think about it though, the job of a principal is similar to that of a superhero. They are called upon by those in power to provide strength and leadership; and often have to fight against the system as well as the forces and situations aligned against them. Much like the life of many superheroes, the principalship is often a lonely, demanding, and thankless profession. A super principal must call upon not only their special "powers" in pedagogy and leadership, but also their keen instincts in working with people in order to prevail. While often overburdened with responsibilities, and underappreciated for the work that they often do behind the scenes, principals deserve special attention due to their impact on the overall success of the school, teachers, and students. Fullan (2001), concluded that school administrators were crucial to the development, articulation, implementation, and stewardship of the supported vision for the school.
The important role that school administrators play in the success of the educational environment was recently highlighted by a group of seminal researchers and scholars:
"In developing a starting point for this six-year study, we claimed, based on a preliminary review of research, that leadership is second only to classroom instruction as an influence on student learning, after six additional years of research, we are even more confident about this claim. To date we have not found a single case of a school improving its student achievement record in the absence of talented leadership." (Seashore Louis, Leithwood, Wahlstrom, & Anderson, 2010, p. 9)
When I was in elementary school, my principal did many different things for our school and district that would be done today by several different people. One of the things he did in addition to his principal duties was to serve as the PE teacher for our school. He started PE class every day with calisthenics and then we usually played some type of game that involved a ball. In the spring we all participated in the Presidential Physical Fitness Test. I never made it past the chin-ups, and I only ever knew one person to actually complete the challenge. We thought that kid was a superstar!
Another thing that made our principal a superhero was that in addition to teaching PE on our campus, he also taught one section of either a physics or chemistry class at the high school across town. He taught my chemistry and physics classes. He was very intelligent and knew Chemistry and Physics inside and out. His tests were impossibly difficult, and in order to pass you had to know what you were doing; you couldn't fake it with him. He also coached the math team at both the elementary and high school level and helped many students advance to regional and state competitions.
It would be easy to assume from the description that I have given of my principal thus far, that he was a workaholic nerd.; nothing could be farther from the truth. In addition to his hard work ethic and his academic prowess, he was simultaneously the scariest person I have ever known and the best storyteller ever (more about the storytelling later). In the area of discipline, we all knew we had better behave or he would paddle us and then call our parents who would paddle us again harder when we got home. Woe to any of us who were sent to wait in the hallway by our teachers. If our principal found us in the hallway, we were without excuse and had to accompany him on down to the office to face our punishment. One of my classmates who had been sent to the office, chose to run out of the office and run to his grandmother's house rather than to stay and get paddled. In discipline situations back then, the principal didn't try to reason with students or worry too much about the reaction of the parents. Discipline at our school really simple and went something like this: "What did you do, here's how many swats you are going to get, don't do that again, bend over, swats, now go back to class." There were no discipline referral forms, no behavior intervention plans, and no trips to the counselor to see if they could determine why you were acting out. I'm not saying that those things are not needed and valued today, but simply pointing out that they were not present back then.
Our principal was a master storyteller. He had a way of telling fantastic stories in the most deadpan style imaginable and then expecting you to believe it. When we were younger, most of us did believe that he rode his milk cow to school every day and fought alligators at night. By the time I made it to high school, I knew the milk cow thing wasn't true, but I didn't doubt that he could beat up an alligator. I almost didn't mention this for fear of not being believed myself, but in addition to all of the above duties, our principal also had a regular bus route. He got to school early and drove out in the country to pick up kids on a rural route and after school he would drop them off. This guy was like the energizer bunny; he just kept going and going and going! I started 1st grade in his school in 1974 and he was still the principal there when I graduated from high school in 1986. I'm not sure when he finished his tenure as principal, but I believe he was there for almost 20 years. The average tenure of a principal today is much, much shorter!
Looking back on this experience 40 years later with the hindsight of my own experience as a school administrator, I wonder how my principal was able to actually do that job. It is certainly not one that I would wish for today. Granted, it was a small rural school with less than 200 students, but when I think of all the demands that are placed on principals these days, I wonder if he could have survived in that position for that long if the expectations were as high for administrators back then as they are now. Back then, there were no standardized tests that were "high stakes" and schools were not subject to rigorous accountability as they are today. Judging from the different functions that my principal had to perform, I believe that he actually ended up doing a lot of the jobs that nobody else could or would do. Our school and our community was very poor and I assume that it was necessary for administrators to pull this kind of extra duty so that everything ran as it should. He made a difference by showing up and using his talents anywhere they were needed. At the end of the day, that is really all that any of us can do. Today, principals still do many different jobs, but the stakes and the expectations are much higher than they were when I was in elementary school. If my principal had to be a superhero to do his job, what type of superhero do I need to be and what powers do I need to be able to wield in order to do my job successfully? While being gifted in pedagogy and leadership skills may sound like enough, I kind of wish that as a principal I could have the mind of Professor Xavier, the abilities of Wolverine, and the gadgets of Batman...now that would be a very interesting and cool combination! Awesome!
References
Fullan, M. (2001). The new meaning of educational change (3rd ed.). New York and London: Teachers College Press
Seashore Louis, K., Leithwood, K., Wahlstrom, K., & Anderson, S. (2010). Investigating the links to improved student learning. Washington, DC: Wallace Foundation
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