Reflections on a Week
with Principals
by Robert Rivera-Amezola
The evening before our summer Institute for principals began, I was at a dinner with friends and as the meal was ending and our time together was drawing to a close we each shared what lay before us in the week ahead. Since most of my friends are not educators, when it was my turn, I simply described that I would be working with two other co-facilitators and a group of school district principals for a week thinking about inquiry and the upcoming school year. At this point, one of my friends remarked, “sounds like a group full of egos.”
I remember feeling immediately defensive. Never having been a principal before, I have however been “administered” by several over the course of my teaching career and have known others personally. It is true that stories abound of tyrannical administrators and questionable educational leaders, but such is the stuff of teacher lounge chatter. Sort of like the copy machine that always breaks down or the proverbial helicopter parent, it all comes with the territory. Personally, I don’t have stories of bad principals. Instead, my experience is about ordinary people attempting to do extraordinary things. For example, my earliest principal memory is of the very first one for whom I worked who was tasked with the job of fitting 120 freshmen and sophomores in a 4-room warehouse while the permanent high school was being completed. Years later I worked for another principal who asked me to help him chaperone a group of 8th graders to a sort of pep rally for middle school students at a nearby university. The kids were supposed to jump up and shout out in pride as the announcer called out the name of each school. This group of reticent 13 year-olds was having none of that, no matter what kind of coaxing the principal did. Most recently, while completing my own administrator certification, I was in awe as one of my cooperating principals singlehandedly watched over and delivered a math lesson in the auditorium of the school to 3 classrooms whose teachers had called in absent that day.
What stood out to me most from the weeklong Institute for principals was how their stories were ripe for the telling. It was abundantly clear that the unique space that was created for the principals in a low stress environment over the course of a week in the middle of the summer offered a sanctuary where mutual respect was forged, confidentiality upheld, and risks were encouraged. This was a luxury seldom afforded in the course of a normal school year when the stress of running a school can frustrate the best attempts to be reflective about one’s practice. In true writing project form, principals were encouraged to write, reflect, and learn from each other.
Each day of the week was anticipated by a silent morning read by authors like Amy Tan, Pat Carini, and Shaun Tan to help stimulate thinking about the day’s theme. Speakers from Penn’s Graduate School of Education like Susan Lytle, Gerald Campano, and James Lytle helped the principals think through salient issues and trouble preconceived notions about leadership, literacy, and inquiry. One day, a panel of community organizations presented their unique perspectives on the neighborhoods they serve and the services they provide. One of the most meaningful days was when the principals were joined by some of their teachers to discuss instructional programming at their schools. It highlighted the premise that no one can run a school alone. Indeed, it takes a community.
The principals have agreed to keep the spirit of the summer Institute alive by meeting throughout the year. On the last day, in fact, they marked dates on a calendar and identified the schools where they would meet. When I consider the ego comment offered by my friend that night at dinner, in some sense I am not surprised. Leading a school is a uniquely solitary position (underscored by the fact that budget constraints today preclude most principals from sharing responsibility with an assistant). However, if the comment was offered in the popular parlance that I think it was intended, you couldn’t have encountered a less self-absorbed group of personalities. I am not naïve to think that this small band of principals was representative of all school leaders. Nor could I say that five days was enough to assess the full range of their leadership capabilities. What was clear was that these leaders allowed themselves to “not know,” and to indulge in a community of learners—even if it was just a week.
Robert Rivera-Amezola is currently the PhilWP Scholar. He is a Curriculum Development Specialist with the Office of Multilingual Curriculum and Programs of the School District of Philadelphia. He became a teacher consultant with the Philadelphia Writing Project in 2005. Robert served as co-facilitator for 2014 Summer Institute for Principals.