Support For Administrators

Teachers are tired right now.  And, we haven't been shy about saying so.  Twitter is filled with tired teachers talking about how tired they are.  There are articles and polls about how many plan to leave the profession at the end of the year.  I can relate to the exhaustion and have concerns about the imminent teacher shortages that are most certainly to follow.

What I cannot relate to is the discussion about unsupportive administrators with unrealistic expectations.  I know they are out there, but I am beyond blessed to work in a school with administrators who listen to us, love us, and protect us.  During the first two weeks after Christmas break, every school in America was dealing with too few substitutes to cover the classes whose teachers were out.  This was happening in my school as well.  Our executive leadership team covered as many classes as possible to minimize teachers subbing for each other.  While they can't take away the stress of this difficult time, they have done everything they can to hold us up through it.

A little less than a year ago, we had a department chair meeting, in which I cracked from the stress of the year.  I mean I fell apart.  I cried through the entire meeting.  Every time I tried to articulate a thought, I couldn't get it out because I was envisioning a future of hybrid learning and couldn't take the thought of it.  After the meeting, I said to a friend of mine, "I've never left a meeting less sure of how it went."  While I knew they had listened to us, I couldn't gauge what the outcome of it would be.  Several weeks later, at a different meeting, it was clear they had responded to our feedback.  I was grateful and relieved and felt like there was a light at the end of the tunnel.  

In America, there's nothing easier than complaining about the decision made by those above you.  It is easy to think they sit in their office all day and don't remember what it is like to be in your position.  It is easy to think you would make different decisions if you had their jobs.  I remind myself frequently that I would not want to be the one making those decisions.  No matter what they do, they will hear from those who disagree.  They not only have to make tough decisions; they have to defend them.  I don't like having to do that, and I can't imagine a job in which that is such a large part of what I do.  

I have rules for a lot of things in my life, and one set of criteria governs what I will speak up about in a meeting.  

1. Do I care deeply enough about this issue to desire to add to the outcome of the discussion?  
2. Do I believe I can change the outcome of the conversation by speaking up?

The answer to number 1 is yes more often than not.  I've been teaching for a long time, and I care about a lot of things.  It is important to note, however, that I don't have to have to have a firm opinion on everything.  

The answer to number 2 is yes slightly less often but only slightly less.  If our administration presents a question for input in a meeting, it is because they truly want input and will listen.  There are a few issues in which I am aware that my opinion is different from the majority, so those are the few times where the answer to number 1 might be yes and 2 might be no.  I'm not going to keep arguing something just to be ornery.  Those are in meetings where a decision has not yet been made.  Once a decision is made, I would have to answer a really emphatic yes to both questions in order to go to the administration.  I think there might even be a third question.  Would I want to defend this decision to upset students, parents, or others who object to it?  That's an awfully high bar, so it isn't going to happen very often.  

Teachers are tired, yes.  Our entire profession has been put through the wringer for the past two calendar years.  And the whiplash from the adoration we received in March 2020 to the current state of affairs (where parents in some states are pushing to ban books or demand lesson plans for the year to be posted for review so they can make sure their kids aren't being taught anything they don't like) has been jolting.  But teachers, please do keep in mind that most of what your administrators do is not front-facing.  They are not just sitting in their offices.  They are tired too.  They may not be facing students every day the way we are, but they are doing a job we wouldn't want to do.  They were given just as little preparation for the pandemic as we were, and they have been fighting through it for just as long.  They may not be having to enforce mask mandates in the room in the same way we are, but they are getting the angry emails from parents over the decision to have them.  

We are all fighting through this the best way we can.  Your human administrators need your support as much as you need theirs.