It has struck me several times that Palmer is reflecting on college teaching and I'm reminded of that again on page 147 when he describes the usual format of teacher evaluations. That's not the usual format for evaluating K-12 faculty and then again, tenure has a completely different connotation in K-12 education than it does in higher education. Tenure in higher ed is, I believe,a great stumbling block to the kind of community that Palmer envisions and to the accountability that is necessary to create that type of community.
I like a great deal of what Palmer has to say about leadership especially on page 164 when he states: "Leadership in the academy means looking behind the masks we wear and perceiving our true condition." He goes on to point out that leaders often are called to see in teachers more than they might see in themselves. It strikes me, from a few years of practice, that this is dead on. People get stuck in routine, they are distracted by the rest of their lives, they coast in those last few years before retirement with the hope they can land the plane running only on fumes. But the leader has to stir the tanks so to speak, to help that person find the drive to make their last year as good as their first.
When I became principal I needed someone to teach an AP government class. We had only one choice at that time - a 35 year veteran of teaching the lower track kids. John had not had a new thought or practice in 25 years relative to his subject and he was coasting on to the finish line. My VP told me he'd never agree, or at least not easily agree, to changing things and then there was the worry if he'd actually be good at it. I told him all the reasons he'd be great at it (much of that was fiction since I didn't really know him yet at all!). I felt a bit like a used car salesmen and in way I knew I might have to sell the used car to the parents!
It turned out that John rose to the occasion. He found his second wind in teaching and really was spectacular. He looked tired at the end of each day but he seemed happy about being reengaged in what I think really gives him joy.
There's one success story - if you have a lot of time I'd be happy to share a dozen or so of my failures as a leader!
In so many ways I think we suffer from a lack of the types of leaders that can bring us out of ourselves and into a new way of being. To move forward with the type of community of which Palmer writes and of which the Christian message compels us to seek, we need to move beyond what seems to me to be a crisis of leadership.
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Walter, thank you for sharing that anecdote. I'd love to hear more. I do have time to hear your "failures" too. I am very much interested in anecdotes as a way of proceeding.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, we have a similar evaluation system at my school. Students do complete quantitative evaluations. However, the administration rightly recognizes that such evaluations are only one piece of the overall evaluation. If nothing else, student evaluations can be useful for ascertaining student perceptions of a class and a teacher.
It took me a minute to realize he was talking about teaching as a college professor. I suppose it's natural to relate my own experience as a secondary educator to other situations such as the one from our reading.
ReplyDeleteIt's almost as if I'm breaking the "ground rules" of this chapter, but for my own personal understanding of his situation.
I agree that the best leadership has the effect of calling out our gifts, enabling flourishing through helping to identify that part of us which sings and creating a context for singing.
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