Lawyers and dotors all go to university to specialize in their different fields.
For a Principal there is no university that trains how to be a principal. You get your degree in education or other diplomas but nowhere are you taught how to run a school. It is like a business, with some compassion.
A new principal relies on what he learned from other principals where he worked as a teacher.
In my lifetime I had six principals who I worked for. Four of them were excellent and two of them were really hopeless.
Four good principals taught me to have empathy with all children in the school, to listen to their problems, and to give them good advice.
As I said before respect is earned and not given.
I was very fortunate to get a promotion every four years, first as head of department, then as Deputy Principal and two years later I became a Principal at a very big school with more than a thousand children.
I can assure you that the hardest day of my life was the day I became Deputy Principal of a school. I walked into a school with a staff of 40 teachers and there were 30 student teachers. The Principal had been in hospital for the last three months and I did not know a soul.
That evening I took a photo of the whole staff with their names written on it so that I could figure out who was who at the school.
The second day went a bit better as at least I now knew who the student teachers were and I knew the names of a few teachers.
When the headmaster returned it was unbelievable. Everything that I had done, he immediately changed back to the way he wanted it.
He was a horrible person, and changing things back would have been fine, but he was shouting and cursing at everyone. He had no respect for the female teachers and after this series of events continued for about two months, I knocked on his office door and closed the door behind me.
It was clear that he did not like me and he asked me what I wanted.
I told him straight that day. I told him that I did not approve of the way he treated the staff, especially the ladies.
When he spoke he thought everyone had to hop, skip and jump to what he wanted and that was against my grain and definitely not the way to treat anybody.
He was one of the best examples of how not to run a school. Luckily for me and him two years later I became Principal of my own school.
The first day as principal I did the same by taking a photo home to learn who everyone was and I felt very at home because this was a mining community which I knew and understood, as my first few years of teaching was also in a mining community.
A mining community is totally different from any other community. These parents are straightforward people but the salt of the earth, and if they are on your side anything is possible and usually turns out positive.
As a student I worked in the deepest mine in Africa, for that reason I knew exactly how they felt and thought. Maybe you will understand this one, because they all drank beer when they came out of the mine as it is extremely hot.
So I never felt bad when I saw a parent drink beer after work no matter what time it was.
I have so many stories I can tell but will just tell this one short one. Some teachers do not know how to handle discipline so all they do is send the children to the office.
One the teachers came to the office with two little boys around about 7 years old. She told me that the girl sitting in front of them is complaining as they were pulling her hair.
She could not figure out which one was the culprit. I told her to go back to class and I would see if I could identify the culprit. The 13 year old's always put their cricket bats in my office until practice after school.
This was for safekeeping as well as safety reasons. There were about 4 cricket bats standing in the corner of my office.
What nobody knew was that I had a small tape recorder and it fit into my calendar on my desk.
I switched it on and put it in there. I told the boys to sit and wait for me as I was just going outside to take a phone call.
I left them alone in my office.
When I came back a few minutes later I took the tape recorder and sent them to wait outside the office.
I listened to what they said and this was really funny.
The one little boy said to the other we better tell the truth now as he is going to kill us with those cricket bats today.
After all my laughter I called them back and put the cricket bat on my desk.
O.K. now tell me the truth and like one man it all came out. Of course, I did not kill or hit them but warned them never to do it again.
I must say they became such sweet kids and they were never sent to the office again.
Both of them became leaders and very smart kids.
I hope you enjoyed my post and there are so much more that I want to share with you.
I hope you have a wonderful day from me here at the Wild Coast.
