leadership in high schools

A priority for all organizations, non-profit and profit is employee mentorship and investment in time and training.  Money spent up front on these endeavors pays off hugely.  Examine Barack Obama and his meteoric rise.  The Democaratic Party is to be credited for its grafting, nurturing and eco-friendly growth of this candidate in the political arena.  By “eco-friendly’”  I mean more compatible and more widely accepted.  I believe that Andrew Honeychurch has hit the mark using a horticultural example, applying it to education and students in the classroom.  The Japanese would applaud this, they use this widely in their gardening techniques.  Do we in schools invest enough time in employee growth, nurturing and teaching?.  This is an issue that is germaine to the hiring and retention of our paraprofessionals in particular.  We have to do a lot more than the little that we are not doing. 

The age of workers and their entering behavior has changed markedly.  They are nuch younger than the work force that is still bolstering our schools (20s as oppossed to the vast numbers of folks in their 40s and 50+, and their understanding of employer expectations is different.  In my most recent hires, I have found that the Y generation, those who could do no wrong when they were in school and have been fed a diet of “no failure” and everything is an “A” grade, cannot understand simple employer expectations – be on time and no you cannot offer repeated apologies and expect to keep your job.   ”No, you cannot leave your work site without informing your supervisor.”  “No, you cannot tack on extra time to your lunch break or combine both breaks and lunch and be away from your work site without permission for an hour.”  “No you cannot fall asleep in the classroom you are assigned and  especially when the students are learning in class.”  “No, you cannot come to work looking like you are hung over.”  ” No, you do not splash water on your hair and face saying you need to wake up”, without expecting folks to assume you are ill-suited for the job at hand. 

In deference to  the late Bernie Mac, “America(Schools) your graduates are now “terrorizing” you in your own work place.  Its hit home baby.” 

Our graduates are ill prepared to be successful in the very work place they were nurtured in and now the employer, the school, is faced with a base level of misunderstanding and ignorance that affects work climate, safety and all future training and investment.  Bottom line it’s all very costly.  However, I see hope now that the graduates are coming home to roost as it were, applying to schools for work, and we in schools are seeing the effects of an ill prepared work force, I do believe that our world wide ranking – (America is rated 13th in the world in terms of school success) is poised to improve.  We love a good challenge and now we have it.  We as educators have no choice!  Talk about an infectious sore that never heals – school graduates who cannot even get jobs in schools!  What did we graduate?  Why are these students not more like the successes we can identify in the work place?  They better be………………

Andrew thank you for your quiet, gently response that reflects the time we should all take in nurturing new employees irrespective of our offices.  I believe that the failure of an employee is reflective of our collective failure exemplified in the simple statement broadcast daily on our news -”we never saw this coming, why did this happen?.  He/She was such a nice person, church going, a family person, made cookies for children, brought in stuff …………….

A tragedy none the less.