A Principal’s Job Is Also to Teach

July 29, 2013 Categories: School Leaders and Administration / Whole School

Early in my career as a school leader, I learned a great lesson: that as a principal, I needed to help children learn the skills that would enable the behavior their teachers and I wanted to see. As a teacher, I'd used myriad proactive and reactive approaches to handle classroom situations. But once in the principal's office, I was less certain about how to be supportive when a teacher and a struggling student needed my help. Like many novice principals, at first I saw myself primarily as an imposer of consequences.
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APR

16

2013

Kensington Avenue Magnet School

Teachers and administrators at Kensington Avenue Magnet School view the Responsive Classroom approach as a foundation upon which they can build. "We look at each new initiative through a Responsive Classroom lens,"…
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APR

16

2013

Strong Leadership Results in More Effective Teachers

Research has confirmed it: Principals play a crucial role in teachers’ use of Responsive Classroom practices. The study. A recently completed three-year study conducted by the University of Virginia’s Curry School of…
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FEB

06

2013

Chewing on Ideas

Like many educators these days, the teachers in my building have new initiatives added to our plates each year. We need (and want!) to collaborate as a faculty about them, but it's…
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DEC

14

2012

SOAR Schools

At SOAR, a network of public charter schools in Northeast Denver, Responsive Classroom practices are embedded in the daily life of schools, and the approach itself is integrated into the network's core…
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DEC

12

2012

Parent Outreach for Busy Leaders

Teachers are encouraged to reach out early and often to their students' parents and families, and with good reason. If children are to succeed at school, teachers need to get to know…
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OCT

15

2012

More Bullyproofing on the Bus

The school bus is a hot spot for bullying, one of the least supervised and least programmed parts of children's school day. With nothing to do and no one to stop them,…
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AUG

10

2012

Bullying at Camp

Summer camp was a big part of my childhood. When I think back to my experiences at sleep-away camp, I remember a clear line between the camp with an atmosphere of safety…
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AUG

01

2012

Dismissal Time

A few years ago, at dismissal time at Four Corners Elementary School in Greenfield, Massachusetts, 229 students in grades K through 5 would leave their classrooms simultaneously and head for the school's…
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JUL

19

2012

Bullyproofing the Playground

The playground is a hot spot for bullying in schools. Often lightly supervised, recess takes place outside the structures and expectations of the classroom. It's a time when children try out mean…
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JUL

12

2012

No Bullying on This Bus!

Bus rides are often the least supervised part of children's school days. They are also a part of the day without structured activities. That's a terrible combination. No wonder we hear about…
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JUL

03

2012

Bullying and the Bus Monitor

Have you watched that video that shows middle school students on a school bus, bullying their bus monitor? I watched it a few days ago. The video is painful, even disgusting, but…
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APR

10

2012

Garfield Elementary

Garfield Elementary, a K–6 public school, began its Responsive Classroom initiative seven years ago. Located in Fairfax County, the sixth-largest public school district in the U.S., Garfield is a Title I school…
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APR

10

2012

Lessons from Co-Teaching

In my kindergarten classroom, there are two teachers: Pat Douglass and myself. We combined our classes two years ago by opening up the wall between our classrooms and merging them into one.…
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JAN

24

2012

Building Community One Child at a Time

Grafton Elementary School has 750 students in grades 3 to 5. With over 200 children at each grade level, it's easy for children to feel invisible, especially in spaces beyond the classroom,…
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JAN

10

2012

Revisiting Rules

I have such great memories of my third grade students' enthusiasm during the gymnastics unit in physical education. After this special, they'd come back to our classroom full of excitement about what…
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OCT

24

2011

How We Want Our School to Be

Several years ago, teachers at Ironia Elementary, a suburban New Jersey school with 600 students in kindergarten through fifth grade, began working with their students each September to create classroom rules—simple but…
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OCT

17

2011

Coaching: Not Just for Athletes

Everyone knows that coaching is a key to top performance and excellence in athletics, so why don't we apply the same idea more widely to teaching? In "Personal Best," a recent article…
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JUL

21

2011

Learning on the Playground

Were you one of the kids who got picked last for kickball? I was, and I hated it, until I figured out how to beat the system. My Catholic school didn’t have…
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JUL

20

2011

Setting the Stage for Successful Assemblies

School assemblies, including those involving families, are an important part of building a strong school community. Whether it’s a science group presenting during the school day or a student band performing in…
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APR

04

2011

The Art of Rules

As an art teacher, I'm always looking for ways to adapt Responsive Classroom practices to specialist areas. Here's an idea I came up with for having students do the Hopes and Dreams…
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APR

01

2011

Summer Reading for Teachers

We asked four Responsive Classroom consultants,"What's one great resource for teachers as they look ahead to the next school year?" Here are their responses:
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APR

01

2011

Leadership That Inspires Change: Three Keys to Success

When Rita White stepped into her first principalship at an inner-city school in Memphis, Tennessee, she faced daunting challenges. The school of 980 students was on the state’s “needs improvement” list, students…
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MAR

25

2011

Let’s Do Lunch!

All too often, the caring, cooperative, responsible, friendly behavior that is expected, practiced, and seen in the classroom breaks down when the children hit the lunchroom. To truly change the dynamics of…
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MAR

17

2011

Using the Responsive Classroom Approach in Special Area Classrooms

Music teachers, art teachers, physical education teachers, librarians, and other specialists are an integral part of school and play a role, as all staff members do, in teaching children to be responsible,…
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FEB

02

2011

What Keeps You Inspired?

In the throes of a winter snow storm, progress reports, parent conferences, state testing and the flu season, imagine what might have inspired these comments:"This was totally worth giving up two weekends!""This…
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FEB

01

2011

Encouraging Classroom Visits and Peer Observations

Heather Anderson remembers the year she decided to go to art with her second grade class as “magical.” As she worked on art projects alongside her students, she saw children who struggled…
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