One day in January of 2001, a friend of a friend passed my name along to an editor at USA Today. This editor asked me to write a one-thousand word Day in the Life piece to go along with a story they were going to publish about the work of school principals. Eager to expose the inner workings of a job that just kept on getting harder, I agreed.
Within a few weeks, I realized that a thousand words wouldn't even come close to showing what actually happened in a typical day, or even an easy day.That short a format wouldn't have allowed me to summarize or list the hundred conversations, the hundreds of people, the sounds, smells, mishaps, surprises, small and large victories, that never stop happening in a public elementary school.
By the time I started writing what turned into my memoir Principal: A Personal History, I had put in fifteen years as leader of first one elementary school, and then another, in Tucson, my hometown. I had grown puzzled and frustrated by how much more difficult my job had gotten over that time. You might expect that it would be a simple matter of accumulating experience and then applying the wisdom gained as each new school year came around.
I believe that school leadership is crucial to the success of our democracy, and that if we don't get this sorted out pretty soon, our troubles will grow. My book, Principal, does not provide the answers, but provides for the first time in the current era an inside look at what happens in schools from the perspective of the school leader. The answers to the questions raised, I believe, need to come from informed conversation, one that I hope to start.
In future posts, I'll include some excerpts, some thoughts about what's not in the book, the occasional rant or thoughtful reflection about current issues, and updates on the process and progress of publication.
Since this is my first experience blogging, I hope you will bear with me as I figure it all out!
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