I have never been a member of the principal class and my leadership roles have been very middle level – curriculum coordinator, ICT coordinator, English head, and so on. I spend my time looking at the leadership team and being affected by them and I have done so for almost 40 years. So, I feel that can add to the discussion on school leadership.
I want to put forward a view of the led. I must stress that this is just one person’s account, mine, and that it must be, by its very nature subjective. Look upon it as a case study. The views expressed are mine and mine alone. I want to demonstrate that my vital role cannot be met without adequate leadership because anything that inhibits my proper functioning, and raises stress and discord.
I am going to start by briefly covering my world as a classroom teacher, a world that needs the care and attention and nurturing by the leadership team. I will touch on a number of ‘failures of leadership’ that I have heard of in my 40 years and record some leadership successes, raise my own conspiracy theory that the state system is being threatened and conclude with a plea that while school leaders, generally are doing a more than acceptable job, no one can rest on his or her laurels. Too much is at stake.
What do I, as a classroom teacher, do in a standard week? I am now reading from my work diary and I will explore one day. This day began with a general assembly where I spoke to encourage students to participate in a number of reading challenges. Then it was junior history and a need to check their books but first I had to collect their posters from Room A and their Texts from Room B and get them together in Room C! Then followed a senior English class that included a discussion on exam preparation and an instructional time on one of their Learning Outcomes. Finally, this class spent much time working through an assignment on the set text.
Next came a Middle School English with a spelling test, class talks and individual work on their book reports.
Finally, a junior history concluded the learning day with their continuing work on a Viking poster.
As well as my classroom duties, I am expected to introduce the new curriculum (often before the old one had been satisfactorily bedded down), use technology and run podcasts, blogs and websites. I am also expected to master video conferencing and incorporate interactive white boards into the curriculum.
Teachers, however, teach students – real live people! This fact can be lost in a list of daily activities and expectations.
Over the 40 years of my career, I have taught young people who have been sexually assaulted and abused, who have come to class drunk or high on other drugs. I have taught youngsters who have had no breakfast and who sleep in the laundry where drunken adults pass by to vomit all night into the toilet. I have taught homeless kids and bed hoppers. Students I have taught have been subject to homophobic attacks and general bullying. I have taught adults and single mums. I have taught the unwashed, the frightened, the brazen, the early sexualised and the angry. Some students have given up on learning and instinctively avoid set tasks. Many boys, especially, shun novels and school reading.
I have taught students with Aspergers and autism, I have taught the profoundly deaf and students with poor eye sight. I have had to make room for the wheelchairs and the aides. Furthermore, I have had my quota of ADHD youngsters and the Oppositional-Defiant.
Luckily, it is very rare to have all these issues, which draw further on the time, effort and emotional strength of the classroom teacher, in the one class at the one time.
Let me be honest, the vast majority of the young people I have taught are decent, keen young people and the leadership team’s contribution here has been at its best. I have also taught men and women who today serve their country with distinction in the Gulf, are senior officers in the police, are nurses, doctors, bankers and teachers, lawyers and finance managers. I have taught forensic scientists and farmers, all of whom, in the classroom, displayed hard work and ambition and, in their own way, challenged my skills, knowledge and classroom management.
This is not a bad record for an educational system that I believe is regularly belittled and denigrated. It is belittled and denigrated ironically, because the state system is rightly mandated to be inclusive. How can any one claim to be a classroom teacher and not have such a varied student body over the years? Again, I will admit that the leaders I have worked with over 40 years have actively endorsed this inclusiveness. It is their tradition, as well as my own.
It is a system and a tradition that gives every young Australian a chance to have a productive and fulfilling life and the role of the leadership team is to support the class room teacher in meeting the great challenges that do arise.
Over 40 years it has to be admitted that sometimes there can be a failure in leadership as I readily admit to have had my own failures in the classroom. After all, I am the teacher who proudly admits to having had to repeat year 10.
I must remind the readers that this is not a scientific study – it is still very subjective. They are my collective memories of stories I have witnessed and heard. Minor failures in leadership can make classroom teaching less effective than it should be.
Bullying by other staff members has been a real issue over the 40 years. One incident of staff-to-staff bullying was pursued to the extent of the bully going through filing cabinets to find ‘their’ material obviously ‘stolen’ by the victim. So much for the idea of ‘collegiate’ staff! Bullying includes harassing and abusing of the victim. Teachers have been shouted at and put down in front of students and have had their mail and email intercepted. Often, leadership is at quandary as to what to do. Clear guidelines are ignored.
Teachers can find themselves the ‘victims’ of wrong-headed planning, the leadership trying to impose a 21st century teaching style on buildings designed for another age, too small and inflexible without serious negotiations and discussions with the staff or a complete understanding of the requirements of the new curriculum and teaching styles.
One teacher I know found his future career plans decided by the toss of a coin! While there is nothing wrong with this, the teacher concerned was left wondering about the concept of the one outstanding candidate? He felt he would have been more accepting if he had been told that on the day he was not the best candidate. Another teacher, having submitted the application and CV, was short-listed and went through the interview only to be told that yes, he was the best candidate but they had decided not to change staff ‘in mid-stream’!
Teaching is full on. The expectation to master technology successfully enough for it to have value within the class beyond mere gimmick can raise stress levels. The leadership often pushes this technology even knowing that their staff may not have the time to master it successfully.
I have heard of one teacher, rightly determined to get on, volunteered for a crippling workload and suffering serious health problems as a result. It could be said that the leadership failed to consider the possible consequences of this teacher’s enthusiasm and be more prepared to share some of the onerous tasks around.
Many staff employed under contracts, with all the disadvantages that arise from a lack of permanency, appear confused at what can come across as the quixotic nature of selection, the perceived arbitrary decision-making and the randomness of appointment. They can be distracted by the need to write regular applications and the fear of the next term, without employment, always looms.
However, here are examples of the positive role that the leadership can make to the effectiveness of classroom teachers. I have, in my 40 years, seen the leadership team negotiate and lead in the introduction of technology and generously given staff time to master these new skills. I know of principals who go out of their way to calm parental feathers over some teacher’s careless and unthinking comments. I have seen leaders say ‘No’ when they have had to say ‘No’ because of budgetary restraints and justify their decisions firmly but sympathetically. I have seen a principal patiently sit a school refuser in his office and work through schoolwork, building the youngster’s confidence, over many weeks. Again, brevity requires a subject list.
All these impact positively on the classroom teacher.
Some people would claim that many of these issues, both the negative and the positive are small, even petty, but remember the complexity of the job, the challenging natures of all students and these issues can, and do, assume an importance as irritants, as distractions, and can feed the conspiracy theories. Many government school teachers feel besieged. The leadership, undoubtedly, feel the same pressures but they must ensure, to the best of their abilities, that these irritants are kept to a minimum. The teachers deserve it and the system deserves it, as our mandate is so central to the ongoing health and wealth of the individual students, their families and the nation.
I am left observing that leadership in a modern government school can be pretty thankless and it is no wonder that they have fewer and fewer applicants for principal and assistant principal positions. These jobs are central to the smooth functioning of the classroom teacher because, when they fail, even in small ways, the consequences can be, for the individual teacher unforeseen and far-reaching.
Discuss presentationABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mr Richard Opie has been a classroom teacher for nearly 40 years. He has taught in a number of rural Victorian government secondary schools. For the last 21 years he has been at Warracknabeal Secondary College, about 350 kilometres north-west of Melbourne, in Victoria, Australia. At this school he teaches English, history and ICT.
At Warracknabeal SC Richard is the head of English and ICT mentor. Other jobs have included curriculum coordinator, computer coordinator, VASS coordinator and MIPs manager. At previous schools, Richard has been a careers teacher, work experience coordinator, senior school coordinator and house teacher.
Richard studied at Monash University (full-time) and RMIT (part-time and by correspondence). He has completed an entry level Certificate of Art (Multimedia) by night school at the local adult education centre. Richard and his wife live 50 kilometres from Warracknabeal on a small property. Their four children now work and study away from home. His nights are disturbed by a neurotic dog and uber-temperamental cats. He is a keen genealogist, photographer and reader.