Education leadership concepts and practice

¶ … Green's work entitled "Your First Year As A Principal: Everything You Need To Know that They Don't Teach You In School." This reflection will provide some of the ideas that resonated most loudly with my approach and philosophy. This essay will also give examples where I tend to disagree with the author and would suggest other alternatives.

It's Up to You

The most interesting concepts surrounding this work, is that there are so many things that a new principal will be exposed to during their first year. The only thing to truly expect is the unexpected. The author stressed that as a principal, it is up to that individual to lead the school in the desired direction. Do not sit back and wait for others to take charge as this job is explicitly laid out for a leader to take charge. She emphasized this when she wrote " in assessing your situation, you have now realized your first resource for success is you. Yes, you. You are the leader of the institution. You are the one invaluable resource your teachers need to help produce successful students. Without you their job is impossible."

While the sheer responsibility of guiding a large institution where hundreds of people are depending on your leadership and wisdom may scare some, Green, presents a reality where this is ultimately true. I certainly appreciate the candor and effort dedicated to isolating the principal as the chief operator of the organization, where all things must pass through.

The Book As A Pedagogical Tool

I appreciate this author's efforts in this writing because she laid out this first year of duty in a logical and step-by-step fashion. In essence, this book could be used as a blueprint for anyone who has not been educated on how to administer a school or similar institution. By emphasizing the first step of carefully assessing the situation in the beginning of the book, much of the hard work appears to be simply to observe and notice the environment.

As the book progresses along the time line of the first year, a principal could use this text as a guide to help cover areas that are lacking. The book is not sugar coated, not does the author expect the challenges a principal in this situation would easily overcome. However she does strike an empathetic tone, that tempts the reader into fully subscribing to the recommendations of the author through her easy style of writing and the very accessible, if not overly simply rote instructions that are written in a very matter of fact tone of emotion.

The Use and Misuse Of Examples

Throughout this text, the author inserts many practical examples and fictitious situations that attempt to highlight the concepts that are previously discussed in the book. At times these efforts are appreciated, but at other times they become a distraction. One of the main concepts of this book is the idea that a principal must identify and subjectively alter problems that are unique to his or her personal situation. Too many examples are presented to elucidate on any clear manner on many topics as the cast of characters becomes too complex and cumbersome to follow. This may be more of a result of having to fill up pages to fulfill other requirements not known to the reading audiences.

Lessons Learned

Regardless of some of the aesthetic critiques of this work, I mostly enjoyed what it had to offer and consider this book to be a considerable resource and reference as one dedicated to the profession of education. The book's final chapter is what really captured my imagination, and is the most important part of the author's argument.