Qualities of a Good Principal

Qualities of a Good Principal

Principals have difficult jobs. As the face and head of the school, they are responsible for the education that each student under their care receives and they set the tone of the school. They decide on staffing decisions and student discipline issues week in and week out. So what qualities should a good principal exhibit? Following is a list of nine characteristics that effective school leaders should possess.

01
Good teachers need to feel supported. They need to believe that when they have an issue in their classroom, they will get the help that they need. According to a survey of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, a third of the over 300 teachers who resigned in 1997-1998 did so due to lack of administrative support. This situation has not changed that much in the past decade. This is not to say that principals should blindly back teachers without using their own judgment. Obviously, teachers are human beings who make mistakes too. Nonetheless, the overall feeling from the principal should be one of belief and support.

02
Highly Visible
A good principal must be seen. He or she must be out in the hallways, interacting with students, participating in pep rallies, and attending sports matches. Their presence must be such that students know who they are and also feel comfortable approaching and interacting with them.

03
Effective Listener
Much of what principal will have to do with their time is listen to others: assistant principals, teachers, students, parents, and staff. Therefore, they need to learn and practice active listening skills every single day. They need to be present in each conversation despite the other hundred or so things that are calling for their attention. They also need to actually hear what is being said to them before coming up with their own response.

04
Problem Solver
Problem-solving is the core of the principal's job. In many cases, new principals come into a school particularly because of the issues it is facing. It might be that the school's test scores are really low, that it has a high number of discipline issues, or that it is facing financial issues due to poor leadership by the previous administrator. New or established, any principal will be asked to help with quite of a number of difficult and challenging situations each day. Therefore, they need to hone their problem-solving skills by learning to prioritize and provide concrete steps to solve the issues at hand.

05
Empowers Others
A good principal, just like a good CEO or another executive, should want to give their employees a sense of empowerment. Business management classes in college often point to companies like Harley-Davidson and Toyota who empower their employees to offer solutions to problems and even stop line production if a quality issue is noted. While teachers are typically in charge of their own classrooms, many feel powerless to affect the ethos of the school. Principals need to be open and responsive to teacher suggestions for school improvement.

06
Has a Clear Vision
A principal is the leader of the school. Ultimately, they have the responsibility for everything that goes on in the school. Their attitude and vision need to be loud and clear. They might find it useful to create their own vision statement which they post for all to see and must consistently enforce their own educational philosophy into the school setting.

One principal described his own first day on the job at a low performing school. He walked into the office and waited a few minutes to see what the receptionist staff located behind a high counter would do. It took quite a bit of time for them to even acknowledge his presence. Right then and there, he decided that his first act as principal would be to remove that high counter. His vision was one of an open environment where students and parents felt invited in, part of the community. Removing that counter was an important first step towards achieving this vision.

07
Fair and Consistent
Just like an effective teacher, principals must be fair and consistent. They need to have the same rules and procedures for all staff and students. They cannot show favoritism. They cannot allow their personal feelings or loyalties to cloud their judgment.

08
Discreet
Administrators must be discreet. They deal with sensitive issues each day including:
Health issues of students and staff
Difficult home situations for students
Hiring and firing decisions
Teacher evaluations
Disciplinary issues with staff
Continue Reading Below

09
Dedicated
A good administrator must be dedicated to the school and the belief that all decisions must be made in terms of the best interests of the students. A principal needs to embody school spirit. Just like being highly visible, it needs to be obvious to students that the principal loves the school and has their best interests at heart. Principals should normally be the first to arrive and the last to leave the school. This type of dedication can be difficult to maintain but pays enormous dividends with staff, students, and society at large.

Time is the Costliest..

Time is the Costliest..
--------------------------------
Most people look at their bank accounts with great attention and assess how much money they have to spend, to invest, and to give away. But they don’t look at their time the same way, and end up wasting this incredibly valuable resource. In fact, time is much more valuable than money because you can use your time to make money, but you can’t use money to purchase more time.

Time is the great equalizer. Each day has only 24 hours—nobody has any more than anyone else. Everyone, from poets to presidents, fills those hours, one after the other, until they are all filled up. Every single minute is unique, and once gone, can never be regained.

When you look at someone who has accomplished a lot, you can be pretty sure that he or she has spent considerable amounts of time mastering the required skills, filling hours upon hours with hard work. There are those who look at others’ accomplishments and say, “I had that idea," or “I could have done that.” But ideas are cheap and intentions are just that. If you don’t invest the time needed to achieve those goals then all you have are empty ambitions.

People often say, “I don’t have the time to …” Fill in the blank with whatever you like: exercise, make dinner, write a book, start a company, run for political office. What makes these people think that they have less time than anyone else? Of course they don’t. We all have the same 24 hours in each day and make real decisions about how we spend them. If you really want to get in shape, then carve out time to exercise. If you want to write a book, then pick up a pen and do it. And, if you want to run for president, then get started. It isn’t going to happen if you plan your day around your favorite TV shows or spend hours updating your Facebook page. These are entertaining distractions that eat up your irreplaceable time.
There is an oft-quoted saying that "time is money." You can interpret this to mean that time is a valuable currency. In fact, each day another 24 hours is deposited into each of our “bank accounts.” We get a choice about how to spend these hours. We decide how much we spend right away, how much gets invested for the future, and how much we give away. The worst choice is to waste these hours by letting them slip away.
It is almost night, and I have six more hours to invest today!

The mistry of Luck....How to respond to what life delivers.

The mistry of Luck....How to respond to what life delivers.
__________________

Luck: Success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one’s own actions.

In this definition, apparently is the operative word.

Most people believe that good luck is completely out of their control. That just isn’t the case at all. Each of us has a long list of levers for unleashing good fortune. However, luck appears to be brought on by chance because other people rarely see all those levers in action.
After years of observing what makes people successful, it is clear that good luck results from a definable list of tiny choices—micro-behaviors—that allow you to squeeze just a little more juice out of every day, ultimately amplifying your long-term chances of success.
well known quote by the famous scientist, Louis Pasteur, states that, “Fortune favors the prepared mind.” This is absolutely true… But, what exactly is a prepared mind? What makes us receptive to chance events, and able to capitalize on them?

There is “physics” to luck since all of life is a matter of cause and effect.

This can be compared to the relationship between our genetics and our environment in determining who we become. As we now know, both are instrumental in shaping us, and they are deeply intertwined—our genetics influences how we engage with our environment, and our environment influences which traits are expressed.

The same is true with luck and our behavior. Luck captures the things that happen to us, and our behavior encapsulates the things over which we have control. You can debate which comes first, but in the end, they are inexorably connected.

We are locked in a continuous dance with the world where we trade off who is leading and who is following.

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Tina Seelig Ph.D.
CreativityRulz

The Physics of Luck
How to respond to what life delivers.
Posted Jul 19, 2019

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Luck: Success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one’s own actions.

In this definition, apparently is the operative word.

Most people believe that good luck is completely out of their control. That just isn’t the case at all. Each of us has a long list of levers for unleashing good fortune. However, luck appears to be brought on by chance because other people rarely see all those levers in action.

article continues after advertisement

After years of observing what makes people successful, it is clear that good luck results from a definable list of tiny choices—micro-behaviors—that allow you to squeeze just a little more juice out of every day, ultimately amplifying your long-term chances of success.

Unfortunately, we usually look at others who have achieved remarkable things and point to a few visible moments that unlocked opportunities for them, and we look at our own life as a series of lucky and/or unlucky breaks, such as meeting an influential person, stumbling upon an interesting job, having an accident, or getting fired.

Consider this example from Michael Lewis, the author of many very successful books, including Liar’s Poker and Money Ball. During his commencement address at Princeton, he traced much of his success to luck.

“One night I was invited to a dinner where I sat next to the wife of a big shot of a big Wall Street investment bank, Salomon Brothers. She more or less forced her husband to give me a job. I knew next to nothing about Salomon Brothers. But Salomon Brothers happened to be where Wall Street was being reinvented—into the Wall Street we’ve come to know and love today. When I got there I was assigned, almost arbitrarily, to the very best job in the place to observe the growing madness: They turned me into the house derivatives expert.”

He used this experience to inspire and inform his 1989 bestseller Liar’s Poker. He went on in his talk to attribute that success to luck:

“All of a sudden people were telling me I was a born writer. This was absurd. Even I could see that there was another, more true narrative, with luck as its theme. What were the odds of being seated at that dinner next to that Salomon Brothers lady? Of landing inside the best Wall Street firm to write the story of the age? Of landing in the seat with the best view of the business?”

Not so fast…

Don’t be fooled by this simple version of the story. There were countless things that Michael Lewis needed to do before, during, and after the conversation with the woman at the dinner that set him up for success. Focusing just on that chance meeting distracts us from what really happened. Yes, he was fortunate to sit next to someone who was influential in helping him get a job at Salomon Brothers. But, hundreds of people sat next to that woman over the years and she didn’t convince her husband to hire them, and thousands of people worked at Salomon Brothers but none of them wrote a bestseller about their experience.

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What set Michael Lewis up to see and seize this opportunity?

A well known quote by the famous scientist, Louis Pasteur, states that, “Fortune favors the prepared mind.” This is absolutely true… But, what exactly is a prepared mind? What makes us receptive to chance events, and able to capitalize on them?

There is “physics” to luck since all of life is a matter of cause and effect.

This can be compared to the relationship between our genetics and our environment in determining who we become. As we now know, both are instrumental in shaping us, and they are deeply intertwined—our genetics influences how we engage with our environment, and our environment influences which traits are expressed.

The same is true with luck and our behavior. Luck captures the things that happen to us, and our behavior encapsulates the things over which we have control. You can debate which comes first, but in the end, they are inexorably connected.

We are locked in a continuous dance with the world where we trade off who is leading and who is following.

article continues after advertisement

Once the dance begins, we have immense control over our luck because it is a direct result of our behavior. You certainly can’t control everything that happens to you, but you do control your responses.

Luck results when we know when and how to lead in our dance with life. For example, in Michael Lewis’s story, he randomly sat next to the woman at dinner and took advantage of that opportunity to impress her enough to introduce him to her husband. He was a follower when he sat down, and became a leader when he engaged the woman in conversation, resulting in future opportunities to lead and follow. And, we can be sure that during the process of writing his books, and his involvement in the movies based on them, that there were hundreds of times when he shifted from follower to leader as surprising events occurred along the way.

The dance we do in life includes several partners—the world, other people, and ourselves. We are, therefore, doing several dances at once. We react to what the environment throws at us; to our friends, family, colleagues, and strangers; and we hone our own thoughts and feelings. This is complicated because they also influence each other. By understanding the underlying physics of these relationships, we are much better prepared to unleash luck, and remember, “Chance favors the prepared mind.”

Don’t be distracted by the way we use the word luck in our everyday jargon. Often it is deployed as an excuse. For example, people frequently attribute their successes to luck, saying they’re “lucky” to modestly mask the skills they’ve mobilized. And, we give others and ourselves a break by blaming poor performance on bad luck. A careful observer will look behind the curtain to see what actually happened to attract or repel good fortune.

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Essentially, by understanding the physics of luck we are much more prepared to identify and capture opportunities that lead us to our desired goals, allowing us to thrive, not just survive.

Of course, all people start life in different positions—some have more intelligence, more money, more beauty, better health, and live in environments with more choices. And, really horrible things can happen to us along the way. However, we all have much more control over our lives than we imagine. We can learn how to respond to what life delivers, squeezing more luck out of every day.

Effective habits of an effective teacher

Effective habits of an effective teacher

1. Enjoys Teaching

Teaching is meant to be a very enjoyable and rewarding career field. You should only become a teacher if you love children and intend on caring for them with your heart. You cannot expect the kids to have fun if you are not having fun with them! If you only read the instructions out of a textbook, it's ineffective. Instead, make your lessons come alive by making it as interactive and engaging as possible.

2. Makes a Difference

As a teacher, you need to be aware and remember the great responsibility that comes with your profession. One of your goals ought to be. Make a difference in their lives. Make them feel special, safe and secure when they are in your classroom. Be the positive influence in their lives. You never know what your students went through before entering your classroom on a particular day or what conditions they are going home to after your class. So, just in case they are not getting enough support from home, at least you will make a difference and provide that to them.

3. Spreads Positivity

Bring positive energy into the classroom every single day. You have a beautiful smile so don't forget to flash it as much as possible throughout the day. I know that you face battles of your own in your personal life but once you enter that classroom, you should leave all of it behind before you step foot in the door. Your students deserve more than for you to take your frustration out on them. No matter how you are feeling, how much sleep you've gotten or how frustrated you are, never let that show. Even if you are having a bad day, learn to put on a mask in front of the students and let them think of you as a superhero! Be someone who is always positive, happy and smiling. Always remember that positive energy is contagious and it is up to you to spread it. Don't let other people's negativity bring you down with them.

4. Gets Personal

This is the fun part and absolutely important for being an effective teacher! Get to know your students and their interests so that you can find ways to connect with them. Don't forget to also tell them about yours! Also, it is important to get to know their learning styles so that you can cater to each of them as an individual. In addition, make an effort to get to know their parents as well. Speaking to the parents should not be looked at as an obligation but rather, an honour. In the beginning of the school year, make it known that they can come to you about anything at anytime of the year. In addition, try to get to know your colleagues on a personal level as well. You will be much happier if you can find a strong support network in and outside of school.

5. Gives 100%

Whether you are delivering a lesson, writing report cards or offering support to a colleague - give 100%. Do your job for the love of teaching and not because you feel obligated to do it. Do it for self-growth. Do it to inspire others. Do it so that your students will get the most out of what you are teaching them. Give 100% for yourself, students, parents, school and everyone who believes in you. Never give up and try your best - that's all that you can do.

6. Stays Organized

Never fall behind on the marking or filing of students' work. Try your best to be on top of it and not let the pile grow past your head! It will save you a lot of time in the long run. It is also important to keep an organized planner and plan ahead! The likelihood of last minute lesson plans being effective are slim. Lastly, keep a journal handy and jot down your ideas as soon as an inspired idea forms in your mind. Then, make a plan to put those ideas in action.

7. Is Open-Minded

As a teacher, there are going to be times where you will be observed formally or informally. You are constantly being evaluated and criticized by your boss, teachers, parents and even children. Instead of feeling bitter when somebody has something to say about your teaching, be open-minded when receiving constructive criticism and form a plan of action. Prove that you are the effective teacher that you want to be. Nobody is perfect and there is always room for improvement. Sometimes, others see what you fail to see.

8. Has Standards

Create standards for your students and for yourself. From the beginning, make sure that they know what is acceptable versus what isn't.

9. Finds Inspiration

An effective teacher is one who is creative but that doesn't mean that you have to create everything from scratch! Find inspiration from as many sources as you can. Whether it comes from books, education, Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook, blogs, TpT or what have you, keep finding it!

10. Embraces Change

In life, things don't always go according to plan. This is particularly true when it comes to teaching. Be flexible and go with the flow when change occurs. An effective teacher does not complain about changes when a new principal arrives. They do not feel the need to mention how good they had it at their last school or with their last group of students compared to their current circumstances. Instead of stressing about change, embrace it with both hands and show that you are capable of hitting every curve ball that comes your way!

11. Creates Reflection

An effective teacher reflects on their teaching to evolve as a teacher. Think about what went well and what you would do differently next time. You need to remember that we all have "failed" lessons from time to time. Instead of looking at it as a failure, think about it as a lesson and learn from it. As teachers, your education and learning is ongoing. There is always more to learn and know about in order to strengthen your teaching skills. Keep reflecting on your work and educating yourself on what you find are your "weaknesses" as we all have them! The most important part is recognizing them and being able to work on them to improve your teaching skills.
Let your passion for teaching shine through each and everyday!!!
Enjoy every teaching moment to the fullest!!!

Education and Indoctrination

The difference between education and indoctrination is that education opens the mind, while indoctrination closes it.

Education is a process-driven approach to engaging in the knowledge and ideas of the world.

Education is playful, experimental, mysterious.
Indoctrination, on the other hand, is a results-driven approach that aims to instill in people a set of habits and beliefs that align with an ideology or political agenda.

Indoctrination narrows the lens through which we are able to see the world and insures that all of the information we receive is interpreted through the filter of the promoted ideology.

Education can be directly supported by data that is derived from facts. Indoctrination tends to use language that encompasses everything, referring to ‘all’, or ‘every’, as though the insights created are a statement of fact for each and every individual of a group.

Education points out that there are different solutions, often to the same problem.
Indoctrination poses the belief that there is only one solution to a problem.
Education uses statistical analysis to encourage thought toward reasoning, and proposed solution finding. Indoctrination often uses statistics, but has offered no analysis of size, duration, control subjects, criteria, or duration of the gathering of those statistics.

Education involves the seeking of facts, and learning about what is the truth, and what is not.
Indoctrination is aimed at influencing people to believe in facts, without being able to back up these newfound facts with anything but opinion.

How a teacher inspire a student?

How to teacher inspire a student?

Inspiration is the key which helps all of us to travel in a exact path. Specifically in education field that is teaching. Most of the teachers feel that by taking their kids out if the class to explore the real world, that passion will ignited in them that has the potential to drive them to succeed in life." A teacher with the ability to inspire students is the type of teacher who will be long remembered.

Inspiring students is integral to ensure their success and encouraging them to fulfil their potential. Students who are inspired by their teachers can accomplish amazing things, and that motivation almost always stays with them. That's because inspiration is one of the most important gifts a teacher can provide students. A teacher that inspires is a role model, an influence that goes beyond academic achievement beyond academic achievement. If you want to be a great educator you must connect with your pupils and reach them on multiple levels, because the best teachers are committed to their students both inside and outside the classroom. So how does a teacher take the leap from educator to inspiring role model?

The inspiring educator strives to spark motivation in all students in a way that Spurs academic achievement and galvanizes success via motivational influence. As a teacher , have you been inspired to work harder or pursue a particular goal? Were you inspired to become an educator by one of your own great teachers? Inspiration can take many  forms, from helping a pupil through the academic year and their  short - term goals,to guide them towards their future career.

Years after graduation, many working professionals will still cite a particular teacher as the one who fostered their love of what they currently do and attribute their accomplishments to that educator. Inspiration teachers can be the thing of movies, like " stand and deliver" - the story of Jaine Escalante, a high school teacher who successfully inspired his drop out prone students to learn calculus. But great teachers are not born. One can learn to be an inspiring teacher. To realize that goal, teachers need to aspire to inspire. Becoming an influence in a student's life begins by forging strong relationships. In doing so educators are able to affect virtually every aspect of their students' lives, teaching them the important life lessons that will help them succeed beyond term papers and standardized test.

• Learning to inspire...

Great teachers are remembered not for the knowledge they impart but for the way they encourage and lift their students achievement, not just in a subject but also in the important skills if living a fulfilling life. How one teaches can be taken to a new level with the proper instruction. Teaching can bring the highest degree of satisfaction to oneself and their students. These skills include happiness inspiration, compassion, curiosity and resilience are essential for both the learner and the teacher.

• Inspirational objectives:

A great teacher makes learning fun as stimulating,engaging lessons are pivotal to a student's academic success. Some students who are more prone to misbehavior, truancy or disengagement are more dependent on an engaging teacher. Making your classroom an exciting environment for learning will hold the students fascination and students learn best when they are both challenged and interested . It's part of motivating students, which may not be easy, but which will benefit students
immeasurably in the long run.