Dedicate, Motivate, Inspire!
Recently I tweeted the following statement: “Professionalism is…” A few people responded with their opinions.
What is professionalism in your eyes? How does it look and feel in your school?
Nearly completing my first year as an AP, I have come to wonder how professionalism is seen through other people’s views. I found myself comparing my own professionalism as a teacher for the past 10 years to now as an AP.
My dear colleague yet again came to my rescue. He gave me an interesting article to read. It wa
s all about a manager and a leader and the differences between the two and the characteristics of each one. He handed it to me and told me to read it and then we would discuss it and that he would like to hear my feedback. I didn’t understand why he wanted me to do that but I went ahead and read it while I was doing my physiotherapy session.
Our days are getting crazier by the second. My to do list is getting longer and longer. There is not enough minutes in the day to get everything done. Not when you have meetings, parent meetings, staff to check in on, students problems to solve and the list goes on and on. I am sure many of you in an admin role can relate and understand what we go through. I have schedules I need to work on for next year but I can’t seem to get around to it. We had to edit reports cards last week which was about 603 pages. We had parent conferences this week and so many issues took place in between. On top of all of that, my daughter was sick with a high fever which meant many sleepless nights but managed to pull through. How? It’s beyond me. I honestly think we are robots at times and not human. Despite all of that, we get through it and get the things that need to get done. We are there for our staff, students and parents. Is it tiring ? YES. Exhausting? YES. Worth it? YES.
A dear colleague of mine and I were chit chatting about a certain situation. Mid conversation he said to me, “Dana, paint your own picture to each individual you speak to, do not let them paint their own picture of you. You have made your point and taken that stand.” I stared at him for a moment and his sentence has been stuck in my head ever since we last spoke. That comment was so powerful and true! He gave me a few examples and it all made sense and clicked in my head. It amazes me how 1 sentence can change the situation all around. It makes more sense when people say, “you are not fine?” or “Why aren’t you smiling/Where is that smile?” or “I can never imagine you so mad or angry.”
A few days ago, I saw one of my staff members snap at another teacher without knowing. I thought to myself she might be having a bad day. A few days after that she did it again to another teacher without realizing once again. I thought wait, I need to tell her. If she’s moving up into a leadership position then she can not be like this at all. I don’t want people not liking her from day one. So I thought to myself tomorrow, I will speak to her off the record and as a friend. I knew wording it would be hard and I didn’t want her to get upset nor take it the wrong way.
We had our National/Liberation day coming up and being a proud Kuwaiti, I wanted to make the day more exciting in ES. I wanted to have a day of activities and not just a parade like we’ve had in the past. My goal was to bring back the spirit. The KG AP and myself came up with a plan. For this day to happen we needed to have a committee. We knew that there was no way we could have pulled it off by ourselves as we simply didn’t have the time. After we planned everything out I sent out an email to staff asking if anyone was interested in joining us. I honestly didn’t expect many staff to volunteer but a couple of them said, “When we read your name we knew it would be an organized event and you are fun to work with. That’s why we wanted to join.” That comment put the biggest smile on my face.
It’s that time of year where we ask our staff to place their orders for next year. We extended their deadline one extra day. The deadline day was here! Did I do my AP order for next year? No. Did I have time to sit with the KG AP and discuss what we need to order? No. Do I know how much I have as an AP to order? No. Did my excel/link work from office 365 NO. Yes, I made sure all my staff questions were all asked before I sat down to do my own order. The staff left for the weekend and I sat down for 3.5 hours straight and completed my order. The deadline was met!
Why are parents becoming needy and hard to deal with year after year? Why is it always their child and no one else’s? Over the last 11 years parents have changed. I must say that I’ve seen all sorts of parents from my 1st to my 10th year teaching and has continued now into my 1st year as an AP.
Thank God for the weekend. I just had one of the roughest weeks I have ever had. I am glad it’s over. There are so many things going on at once and at times it’s hard to keep up with. Friday is family day, one day out of the week should honestly be dedicated to spending time with your family. I wanted to disconnect from work and not be reached by anyone from work. Is it wrong to feel that way? So I decided to leave my work phone at home. It’s my time, my family, my sanity. I barely see my family during the week so I owe it to them to give them my undivided attention to them without any distraction.
We had 10 minutes to eat and decompress and instead the KG AP and I sat down and wrote our very own AP job description. We listed what we do minute by minute from the moment we enter the school till the time we leave. Yes our official working hours is from 7:15 till 3. But we are always here by 6:30 am and we leave by 4pm at the earliest. There are days that that we leave at 5pm depending on what we have to do since there is never any time during the day.