John Gabriel - Dealing with the Tough Stuff: Practical Solutions for School Administrators

Copyright 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gabriel, John G.

Dealing with the tough stuff : practical solutions for school administrators / John G. Gabriel and Paul C. Farmer. First edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-118-13294-4 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-22511-0 (ebk.); 978-1-118-23862-2 (ebk.); 978-1-118-26321-1 (ebk.)

1. School management and organization. 2. First year school principals. I. Farmer, Paul C. II. Title.

LB2805.G128 2012

371.2dc23

2012011846

To the countless teachers and administrators who selflessly dedicate their lives to one of service: we have been honored to know and work with you, and we thank you for helping us become effective administrators.

FOREWORD

This is the book I needed when I started teaching almost forty years ago. In order to be a good math teacher, I thought, I needed to know the Pythagorean Theorem somewhat better than my students. I needed to reward good performance and punish bad performance. I needed to keep parents happy and, most of all, keep the principal out of my classroom. What could possibly go wrong with this theory of teaching?

As Gabriel and Farmer incisively remind us, I was dead wrong in my early theories. While I was worrying about parents and principals, I was forgetting about studentsthe daily dramas of their lives and the real work of teaching and leadership that presented challenges far beyond ensuring that my students understood that the square of the hypotenuse was equal to the square of the two sides of a right triangle. In fact, as the authors forcefully write, the triangle most important to students is not that of Pythagoras but rather of friend, foe, and teacher in the drama of school. Although I continue to think that the Pythagorean Theorem is important, this book helps me understand that administrators and teachers would be well advised to pay as much attention to the friends and rivals of Pythagoras as to his theorem.

What can school leaders do to improve the school environment for students, teachers, and administrators? Prevailing opinions suggest a range of contradictory solutions, from improving teacher efficacy by employing greater levels of data analysis to relieving teachers stress and anxiety by eliminating data analysis. Perhaps we should give students more freedom? Nolets restrict their choices so that they gain proficiency and defer their preferences until later. Shall we give school principals the discretion to respond to local needs, or create a consistent system of curriculum and assessment in the hopes that this will provide equity for all students within the system? Although strong arguments can be made for a variety of educational options, Gabriel and Farmer appeal to the more immediate needs of school administrators. The authors remind us that the imperative of improving schools in the real world is not always accomplished through strategic plans or gauzy vision statements. What school leaders need are practical solutions to address their most persistent challenge: How can we engage students, teachers, and leaders today with maximum learning and minimum disruption?

The answers, the authors suggest, include a consistent and practical set of protocols for responding to students, in which adults in the school model respectful responses to challenges. Their lessons extend far beyond classroom conflicts. (Indeed, their advice would be sound for many boardroom brawls I have witnessed.) Superintendents cabinets, board meetings, and parent organizations would all benefit from these thoughtful protocols for dealing with disagreement and dissent.

This is an immensely practical book, providing a vital resource to new school administrators while at the same time helping veteran educators recognize that the remedies we used decades ago may not be as effective as we thought. I particularly appreciate the blend of twenty-first-century strategies, sensitive to digital natives, with tried-and-true methods for dealing with student disruptions, which respond to age-old motivational dynamics between students and teachers.

Although some of the advice in the book may strike the reader as common sense, most educators know that common sense is decidedly uncommon. Just listen, the authors suggest, when my initial inclination is to lecture. Dont bluff, these pages advise, when my instinct is that of the blowhard, full of bluster and blame. I wish I could say that Ive learned every lesson that Gabriel and Farmer have to offer, but the simple truth is that all of us who work with adolescents and preadolescents must look in the mirror and acknowledge the chasm between what we know to be effective practice and our daily reality. That is precisely the reason that this book is so effective: it is born of practitioners. Although some readers may sigh and say, What a blinding flash of the obvious! other observers will wonder why such seemingly obvious findings are not more commonly reflected in our collective professional practices.