| It Is The Principal That Counts |
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| Monday, 27 October 2008 05:17 | ||||
I was chatting to Andy Field of the Effective ICT website, via Twitter, last night. We were having a discussion – no mean feat in itself when you consider that you’re only allowed 140 characters! – when I said:
He is, of course, right, and it’s something which I had been saying, more or less, just the day before in a presentation to a group of teachers. In my experience, and this is borne out by research, the single biggest determinant of whether educational technology makes an impact is the principal of the school or college. There are various ways in which the principal can affect people’s perception of educational technology. The most damaging is the subtle undermining that often goes on, even if unintentional. I mentioned to the teachers gathered for my talk that in one school I worked in, whenever I ran a whole-school in-service training session on using educational technology in the classroom, the principal and his deputies would disappear en masse, in order to have a planning meeting. (It’s interesting that when I said that, many heads were nodding, and there were many wry smiles: I was clearly not alone in having had this experience.) I was hardly surprised, therefore, but nevertheless shocked, when the Head of English was quite unprofessional. We had arranged for me to work with her and her older students on using technology in their lessons. After 10 minutes, only a couple of the students had turned up. When I commented on that, she said, well within earshot of the students who had turned up: That was an interesting thing in itself. In principle, he was very much in favour. He made money available, and was insistent that the facilities were used. By other people: He would not even touch a computer himself. What sort of message does that give? I firmly believe that what people pick up on is not what is said, but on what is sometimes referred to as “the hidden curriculum” in the context of children and young people. Teachers in general, and principals in particular, should walk the talk. But if you find yourself in an unsupportive environment, what can you do about it? One of the more insidious effects is a slow erosion of your self-confidence. I should therefore thoroughly recommend getting involved with like-minded people. That can be in the form of joining and becoming active in an organisation, commenting on people’s blogs (like this one, for instance!), writing your own blog, or joining in the conversation in Twitter. And that’s where we came in. Last night, I was having a debate with, at one point, four people, about whether a UK government agency should give a USB stick containing open source software to every student in the country. It’s not a matter of who is right, and who is wrong. We grow professionally by the company we keep and the conversations we take part in. I don’t have any stake in Twitter, but if you’d like to find out what other ed tech professionals get out of it, read this article and view the presentations. And on the subject of collaboration (because that’s what it is, in a sense), if you have been involved in an online collaborative project then please take a few minutes to share your experiences through this survey. Get your students to take part too (they can do so anonymously, so online safety should not be an issue). Getting back to the main theme of today’s post, one of the most effective ways of coping with having to work with unsupportive managers is to become well-respected in your field by a community of peers. At the end of the day, who cares what your principal says or does if you’re doing something that is benefiting a much wider, and far more sensible, group of people?
POSTED ON HOTCHALK.COM
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I mourn for the faculty and staff at my old school because things will likely not get better for some time.