KNOW YOUR TEACHER-A magic moment

This is about a special event every teacher attend with some hesitance to begin with and only to end with a sense of healing, fulfillment and hope like never before. This is what happened…

I suppressed my tears as my teacher wept, I smiled when my store Incharge declared her dream with pride, I shed a tear when my laboratory assistant became tearful to a feeling of hopelessness, I commended the moral strength of my teacher who fought to become an inspiring person and he praised my kindness and care I gave to everyone, I laughed with my teacher to a life of tragedy when she made fun of her tribulations, and I saw dreams in my librarians’ hopes for better future.

We believe that, it is important for teachers to know the backstory of every student, and that knowing their story inspires learning and change in behavior. If it vital for teachers to know his students, it is even more indispensable for principal to listen to teachers and support staff’s deepest stories. Then, we can call ourselves a family, can reach out in times of pain and joy with impartiality and genuineness.

 

This is a time when teachers, even support staff sit for a deeper conversation with their principal. It is a time where principal and his colleague find strength and hope together, like a father and a son on an adventure that will define the future of their children. We sit facing each other, as equals, as a friend, as someone who want to listen and who want to speak without hesitance, telling their forgotten stories and reliving their memories.

Sometimes there were tears and an awakening moments, sometimes realization of a forgotten strengths, often a relief from stories hidden until the day, always a healing and a hope to perform better, and to live and work together more productively.

 

Would it not make school life a happier space if principal knew his teacher more than as his work colleague? Would a happier teacher and an acquainted principal not make classroom livelier learning space and school a meaningful home?

That is where Know Your Teacher programme (KYTp) comes as an answer for Dechentsemo Central School. This was envisioned by principal, intended to deepen connection with colleagues and understanding to nurture students in novel ways. This is one of the platforms for Principal to talk to teachers beyond the professional mandate, to enhance   professional intimacy, humane connection and rapport as a working colleague. The program is aimed at understanding the teachers’ history and his life, his highest virtues and deepest hopes, his dreams and difficulties, to enable deeper understanding of teachers. The sitting creates avenues to explore emotional panaroma in strengthening relationship and reverence between the leader and the led..

 The core objectives of KYTp are to-

1.        Build good rapport between teachers and Principal

2.      Know the needs and interests of the Teacher

3.      Know the strength and weaknesses of the Teacher

4.      Build sense of family and fraternity

I will always cherish this hour of sitting as a venture that connects visions and aspirations of the principal with his colleagues. This knowing, this profound connection, lifts the respect and value in our uniqueness of experiences and personalities, brining understanding about life everyone waged through, and enables compassionate leadership and filial harmony in the work place.   

 

For Dechentsemo CS, this is a magic moment when teacher and support staff can sit with principal to re-live the past and find strength, to live the moment and connect, and live the future by chartering visions and dreams for school together. This magic moment helped me identify special skills, talents and aptitudes, to touch the emotional chord of their life’s experiences and know the weakness and strengths of the teachers. This is Know Your Teacher programme.

 

 

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9 PRINCIPALSHIP WAYS NOT FOR ME

The topmost beliefs I adhere to as a principal are what will make my leadership more meaningful to the nation. 

1. NOT only about academic excellence

While strategizing for academic excellence is important, the responsibility of transforming students’ values and behaviour by motivating and directing towards becoming a better human being is of transcendental importance. It’s better, for a long term and holistic wellbeing, to nurture a disciplined graduate than a academic wizard without humane values.

2. NOT only about great speeches

Leadership is not about only giving inspiring speeches but making deeper connection with colleagues and students, knowing everyone from their deepest sadnesses to the highest successes, from their crudest manners to their magnificent character, from their farthest visions to their innermost values. It’s important as leaders to ‘not lose the common touch’ that Kipling advises in his famour poem ‘If-‘

3. NOT power and a mistaken pride

I have neither rejoiced nor taken arrogant pride in the power that comes with title we are honoured. Leadership is rather a Responsibility to lead, guide and care and an Accountability to manage, transform and perform, while also ensuring safety and serenity of everyone. It’s position from where values are exemplified and actions are displayed for students and colleagues to imbibe.

4. NOT a position for autocracy

Leadership is a position of authority from where we define and direct, counsel and correct, to fulfill the vision of the agency. It’s a position from where we manage people and resources, discipline and situations as a team than as an individual. Leadership position is neither an opportunity to be an autocratic nor a luxury to live an aristocratic leisure of life. 

5. NOT an a place of threat and fear

A good leader must refrain from yelling and threatening his subordinate whether in office or outside. A good leader does not command his subordinate by fear or oppression, or by embarrassing or ridiculing in private or public. In my leadership tradition, I always try seek calmer and more diplomatic ways of expressing differences or dissatisfaction, keeping in mind that my subordinates are as human as I am. My office is an open door to walk in without so much of a hassle outside the door. 

6. NOT blind to small things 

I believe in ‘small things matter, and what matters is not small for anyone.’ I believe every individual staff I serve, from sweeper the vice principal, from the seniormost to the most recent recruit, everyone arrives as a result of our karmic fruition, and everyone is a vault of diverse knowledge and talents, everyone with different experiences. Every small things about them are asset to a school. And whether it is small things people say or small things people do, it is important leader honour and appreciate their time and effort. A leader cannot have blindsight on what every individuals are.

7. NOT a leader lost on the chair 

If a leader does not become part of every workplaces, every part of his kingship, every part of every events happening, there with be disconnection from the soul amd spirit of the workplace. As a principal, to the extent I attend every students and staff programmes, even attending needs of my staff to every fortune and amd misfortunes. I walk the campus and the offices, from kitchen to staffroom, laboratories to library, basketball court to football pitch, hostels to houses of my staff from time to time. I never miss where tears are shed, I always there where laughter is sounded, where meals are served to drinks are poured. My office is spent on the heels more than on the leather chair. That is what leader should be, I believe.

8. NOT less than a oratory maestro 

A leader, particularly principal, cannot be anything less than the best in his leadership speeches. How a principal delivers from the podium, during gatherings and meetings, to individuals and masses, can either impede quality performance or make a resounding impact to evoking change in thought and behaviour. It is important that leaders are storehouse of knowledge, with clarity of purpose, able to verbalize and translate the subtlest thoughts and emotions and an inspiration by every word he speaks. Great leaders have have always been great speakers.

9. NOT only a speaker but a doer too

Great leaders are those who are able to inspire culture changes in a system, and these leaders live the change they ideate for others. If a leader aspire to make veganism a practice for the organisation, the leader must be a vegan, even if it is for that day. To make reading culture a vibrant activity, the leader must be a reader; to make artistic skill a learning skill for students, it helps to be an artist; and for a teacher, principal is an example teacher to listen to. 

Leadership excellence is defined by what a leader exemplifies. While leader cannot be maestro of everything, he can be an inspiration by advocating and supporting for greater good of the organisation.

This is for my own reflection than to prove that these are what leaders should be. I could be wrong but every leader must live his leadership life knowing what leader he is.

Namgyal Tshering

Principal, Executive Specialist

Dechentsemo CS, Punakha Dzongkhag

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