Chapter 1

Bitten by the Life-long Learner Bug

I clearly remember the day I decided to become a life-long learner. I was sitting in the back of a high school English class. As a brand new assistant principal, I was observing a teacher for the first time. Although, I had never been formally trained for the task, I had been observed a few times over the previous 13 years. I felt very confident that I was up for the job. After all, I thought, how hard could it be to check to see if the students behaved and that the bulletin boards were neat and appealing?
         The longer I sat in that classroom, the more befuddled I became. I questioned myself – wondering what I was doing there and what was I supposed to be looking at or for. Heck – at the time, I was not even certified to be an administrator. My only qualification to be in the back of that room was that I had 10 years experience as the "head teacher" of an alternative secondary school. Oh, I almost forgot, I was also a former football coach. In the years that followed, I often wondered if that position should have been listed first on my resume.

The Road to Awareness

         I had not always wanted to be a high school administrator. I became one, sort of, following my second year as a special education teacher in a school for troubled adolescents. At 24 years-old, I had been one of the founding teachers, given the charge by a special education director to develop a program that would keep students with serious emotional problems out of expensive, residential programs. At the time, I knew nothing about teaching and even less about troubled teenagers. But I was a jock, who had a good rapport with kids; qualities that were held in high regard by the special education director. I was one of four teachers working in the school back then, and the oldest male was given the title of head teacher. The kids got the best of him, I’m afraid. After less than two years, he quit. He also left his wife, adopted the Muslim religion, and changed his name. Being the next and only man in the line of succession, I was offered and took the job, despite being engaged to be married and fearing a similar demise. There also were two older and as equally qualified women, but at that point in my career I was oblivious to the discriminatory hiring procedures.
         My own positive assessment of success as this quasi-head of a school for special-needs students had left me feeling pretty cocky. I believed that my natural ability to relate to "tough kids" was all that good pedagogy was about. As for leading a school, I was convinced I had a natural gift. In retrospect, however, my skill was enhanced greatly, if not completely, by a wonderful, collaborative teaching staff. Because we were dealing with such volatile and unmotivated children, we met every morning before school and every afternoon after school just trying to keep our heads above water. We were a team in every sense of the word and I was the school leader in name only.

An Intoxicating Culture

         Before I knew much about the cultural norm of collegiality and the important skill of collaboration, this inexperienced group of special educators did a great deal of daily team learning. Peter Senge (1990) would have been proud of us. We did it not because we understood his five disciplines of organizational management, rather that we were in a survival mode and knew we needed each other desperately. Our twice daily, staff meetings, were a means of keeping one step ahead of the students and not at all about examining data or collaborating to increase academic achievement. Our ignorance of the ways typical school bureaucracies work and our passion for helping kids turned out to be our greatest assets.
         In retrospect, this healthy team spirit was one of the reasons I would experience trouble in the future. I would continually attempt to recapture this positive school culture in the traditional high schools in which I worked. One not only where the lines between the leader and the lead were blurred, but also one in which the personal relationships between the staff, the students, the parents, and the administration were nurturing, caring, and deep. We were more than a high functioning team, we were a family. We were on call at all hours of the night and weekends and we had each others’ backs, both in and out of school. Together, we celebrated birthdays and births, weddings and anniversaries. This form of ultra-collegiality would be something I continually worked to develop, but would never recapture again.

Culture Shock

         So I was not prepared for the shock that I was to encounter in the world of secondary-school administration as I began my new job as and assistant high-school principal. But I was confident that my deep concern for children tempered by my years of being fair and consistent with street-smart kids, would be enough to get me by until I learned the ropes. And after all, what was I worried about? At my new high school, there were two veteran administrators in the building to guide me in the start of my career as a real public-school administrator.
         I soon discovered that the term mentored administrator was an oxymoron. Based on the number of secondary-school administrators that I know, it became apparent to me that districts and schools of education do an inadequate job of training school leaders in this country. I realized that my experience of learn-as-you-go was typical of the principal colleagues I met over the next 16 years (see Mawhinney, 2005). No wonder we tend to be managers instead of instructional leaders. There are so few role models, mentors, and/or coaches.
         I was not prepared for the distance that existed between the teaching staff and me the first day I arrived. There was a natural distrust, a feeling among the faculty that I was not one of them and never would be. My efforts at establishing a collegial relationship worked to some degree, but never to the extent that I had experienced in my previous job. But I was hopeful. I could see that it just needed a little work. Teachers wanted to be nurtured as much as students. They needed to be recognized for their hard work and treated with dignity and respect. They needed to be supported and praised publicly and given feedback privately. They needed to be guided in creating a shared vision and involved in dialogue that examined assumptions long outdated. They needed to collaborate around a purpose, one that was centered on increasing student achievement. They were good people. I knew I could help!

A Rude (but important) Awakening

         During my five years as an assistant principal in Massachusetts, I was fortunate to become involved in a training program sponsored by the department of education called the Commonwealth Leadership Academy. In 1988, the state-level educators understood that schools would not improve without well-trained leaders. A cohort of veteran, new, and aspiring administrators were sequestered away at an exclusive, private college to read about, discuss, and plan how to become effective school leaders. I went with a friend and expected it to be like most of the educational workshops that I had attended; chalk and talk; sit and listen; and watch the clock – then have fun at night. Instead, what I experienced changed my life, both personally and professionally.
         The training was outstanding. Not only was I exposed to cutting edge leadership literature, but the sessions were well planned and taught in a professional manner. I began the week as a cocky, but ignorant administrator and finished as a deflated assistant principal who realized that the gap between what he knew and what he should know was not a crevice but an abyss.

Hopeful and Hoping

         But I was hopeful. I left that idyllic, small-college town aware that there was a knowledge base of teaching and of leadership that would help me not only sit in any classroom and observe in a competent fashion, but to coach teachers to become better at their craft. I was not bitten, I was stung. I never again wanted to feel befuddled supervising a teacher. I wanted to become an instructional leader, a super instructional coach!
         Knowledge is power, but its possession gives responsibility to its holder. Once a leader has it, she can no longer operate business as usual. She also cannot walk around the building looking down her nose with the smug confidence that sometimes inhabits the psyche of one who believes she knows more than everyone else. My point is that life as an uninformed leader is a much simpler one. What you don't know about being an instructional leader won't hurt you and it may even help you keep your job. For being a change agent in an organization that abhors change and embraces the status quo, is like trying to take a new-born cub from a mother lion.
         I worked under two principals as an assistant. In both cases, I desperately wanted to learn more by bouncing my new knowledge off of their experienced perceptions. Unfortunately, there were no structures in place to make that happen. Neither one had the time or inclination to discuss leadership and learning with me. I was a mentee in search of a mentor.
         My experience certainly was not an unusual one. After all, being an assistant principal and a former coach is usually enough to qualify one for a principalship, given that you pay your dues and remain in the same system. In retrospect, I could easily have remained where I was, not made waves, and become a mediocre high-school principal.
         Fortunately, the individuals who developed the leadership academy had built follow up into the program. The cadre of educational leaders with whom I began my metamorphosis, would continue to gather with the original consultant for an incredible ten-year period. I had a built-in sounding board to reaffirm what I was not able to discuss at work.

A Dearth of Caring

         While I came to understand why there was a distrustful gap between teachers and administrators, I was even more confused at the emotional distance between the adults who worked in the high school and the students. I had spent my previous 13 years working in a program that did everything to make school more inviting for kids. We had to or they would choose not to attend. We nurtured and counseled them, we made school interesting, and we were very careful as to the way we imposed consequences—enforcing rules respectfully without taking away dignity. We seldom showed anger or raised our voices.
         As the school disciplinarian, I came to witness first-hand the way some adults seemed to routinely degrade adolescents. It was my belief that they were carrying with them some old parental scripts when they walked through the schoolhouse door. It bothered me then, and continues to this day, that high schools are very sterile places. We too often confuse rigor with making a school an uncomfortable place for young people. The way some of the veteran teachers reacted reminded me of the Grumpy Old Man on Saturday Night Live. “When I was a kid, school was a miserable place to be—and I liked it!”
         In looking back, wanting to make school an inviting place for children though the development of personal relationship building was another mental model that would get in the way of my experiencing success in a culture that distrusted anyone who felt that forging an emotional bond with teenagers was unhealthy. At the end of my first year as an assistant principal, I received a note from two graduating seniors with whom I had very little contact, but evidently made a lasting impression. I have displayed it on my desk ever since just to remind me that any kindness we do for young people in our schools is worth doing. It said:
Thank you for being a wonderfully warm person with so much to offer. Thank you for always being there for us. No one could have done a better job. You have shown us the true meaning of school.
         At the time, I was shocked. I was not used to being recognized for caring. At the alternative school, where I had previously worked, all the adults acted in that manner. It was just the way we did things. This thank you note from two students I hardly knew would help create the vision for creating a caring and nurturing school culture that I would carry with me throughout the remainder of my career.

Getting My Own School

         When it came time to interview for a principal's position, I felt confident that my experience, knowledge, and desire to make a school a kid-centered place "where people wanted to come and love to stay" would make me a desirable candidate. I had to convince a large committee of high-school constituents in a small-town district that I was the leader they were looking for.
         I was excited and a bit anxious about leading a small high school in an upper middle-class community. I was a fan of Ted Sizer (1992) and the nine common principles of the Coalition of Essential Schools. I agreed with him that a good school was one in which every student was known well by at least one adult and that promotion and graduation should be based on an agreed-upon performance judged by a committee of students and adults. I was a firm believer in the power of school culture and was familiar with the norms (Saphier & King, 1987) that needed to be addressed to promote such an environment. I also had a vision of being a visible member of the community, joining a local service agency, walking my dog in town, and saying hello to parents and students outside the confines of the school building. Because I loved being around students and their families, I could not wait to attend sporting events and extra-curricular activities.
         The selection committee was impressed—the superintendent called me after the initial interview (there were to be two more) and informed me that I was the leading candidate. When I was offered the position, I eagerly accepted. Finally, I was going to be a high school principal; I was going to help create a school where I would be happy to send my own children; a place where people would love to come and hate to leave!
         The remainder of my story will be about the ten years I spent working in that small high school and the negative and toxic forces I had to face on a daily basis. There were no training programs available then or today that possibly could have prepared me for what I was about to encounter. With high hopes, great intentions, and a burning desire to make a difference, I began my journey down a road laced with hidden land mines and sealed with a substance that once it got on you; it slowly ate away at your belief in yourself and your credibility in the eyes of others.

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