No, I haven’t lost my job as an assistant principal, I’m just trying to redefine it a little bit.

You’ve heard it before. It’s been played out and talked to death in grad school programs around the country and beat nearly to death around the blogosphere:

School administrators are no longer just able to act as managers. They need to be instructional leaders.

The trouble is, if we aren’t good teachers and learners, how do we know good teaching and learning when we see it? And if we don’t know it when we see it, how can we possibly be expected to lead it?

Sure, we have checklists and observation instruments to help us collect data during classroom observations, but quantifying a teacher based on a checklist and one 20-30 minute visit? Come on – we argue against doing that to kids – how can it possibly be used to help a teacher improve his or her instruction in the classroom?

I believe that we are what we repeatedly do. If teachers and students see us sitting in our offices plugging away on paperwork and doling out discipline, that becomes our job description. On the other hand, if we spend time out in the building, visiting classrooms, even teaching classes, it will go along way toward being seen in that other light. I’m a teacher and I’ve never stopped trying to improve at it.

Sounds easy. We’ve, of course, heard it before. But I made a commitment this year to actually do it instead of just talking and reading about it. The side effects? Here’s a mid-year report on some of my findings:

• I’ve finished all of my “district-required” teacher evals. So I can just sit in my office and coast until May, right? No. In fact, the side effect of this one is that when my teachers know that their evals are done, my continued presence in their classrooms is a little less threatening. Suddenly, I’m there to support, not to evaluate. That in itself has changed the teacher/administrator dynamic. We’ve gotten the “official” stuff out of the way – now let’s get down to the good stuff.
• I’m in classrooms. A lot. My proudest moment this year was when a student came up to me in the halls and said, “So, like, what are you? In all my classes or something?”
• Teaching a class, even if it’s just occasionally, earns you instant credibility with students. Who would’ve thunk it? I taught one Calculus class for a teacher on Monday and now the students — students who I would typically never get to meet — are high-fiving me in the hall and calling me Mr. Calculus. They asked the teacher if she would always get Mr. Elias to “sub” for her. Now, I’m not saying I did a bang-up job in there – I did OK. But I think the novelty of having an administrator who actually taught (read: didn’t just get called in to babysit while the “real” sub was on the way in) kept them engaged. Plus, I’m sure watching me struggle through a bleary recollection and attempted explanation of Rolle’s Theorem, while painful for me, was especially enjoyable for them.
• Teaching a class, even if it’s just occasionally, earns you instant credibility with teachers. I had some appreciative comments from the math department for stepping in. But who would have expected a Language Arts teacher to walk up to me yesterday and remark, “I heard you’re a pretty good Calculus teacher.” The kids are being very generous, of course, but it was nice to hear just the same.

So I didn’t think I was doing anything special, but lo and behold the little things add up. I’ve earned instant street cred. Now when I talk about instruction, my audience knows I’m not afraid to walk the walk.

It’s made me a better administrator instructional leader, it’s improved my job satisfaction (I’m working harder than I’ve ever worked before, but on good stuff instead of a constant stream of disciplinary infractions!), and it’s made me aspire to be a better teacher myself.

It’s taken me a few years to get to this point, but it’s been worth the ride. So, administrators, if you’re sitting in your office mired in paperwork and a stack of referrals, stand up, grab a master schedule, and start wandering in and out of classrooms. Check to see which teachers will be out of the building on Friday and offer to pick up a class or two for them – it’s a busy sub day in most schools so you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding an uncovered class or two!

We are what we repeatedly do. So make sure that what you’re doing is the stuff that really matters.