OPINION: Growing ourselves through growing others . . . Helen Kinsey-Wightman
We have an advantage as educational leaders in that, as teachers, our success is derived from how well we grow our students as learners. In becoming leaders of other teachers we merely need to make the transition from growing children to growing adults. Simple! I was given my first leadership position after 3 years of teaching – I led a team of 5 teachers one of whom caused me many hours of reflection, self-doubt and a few tears of frustration. I’ll call him Brian. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him – he was funny and intelligent – or that he was a poor teacher. To be fair, looking back on it now, he wasn’t in an easy position. In fact some might say he was in pole position for a mid-life crisis – he was a man in his late 50’s, his wife (10 years his junior) was an ambitious member of the senior leadership team and his team leader (yours truly) was 26 years old, had been teaching for 3 years and would spend hours and hours dreaming up great (and sometimes not so great) ideas to challenge her team towards teaching excellence. My challenge was that his most frequent response to my new ideas and readings on latest research was to smile sagely and (both literally and figuratively) pat me on the knee. It was back in the days when wolf whistling, ponytail pulling and knee patting were not universally acknowledged to be inappropriate in the workplace – so given the option of making a complaint to my senior leader (his wife!) or sucking it up I chose the latter. I was fortunate that another of my team members was a high school teacher who, following her return to work after the birth of her second child, had challenged herself to make the move to primary school teaching. She became my mentor and together we worked on strategies to deal with Brian; at the same time I helped her to make the changes required to adapt
her practice to a primary classroom. Reflecting back over my career I have had many such mutually beneficial mentoring relationships. My first 6 week primary teaching practice was with an inspirational teacher whose name I sadly cannot remember. She had an unwavering belief in her 36 strong class of 7 year olds. We learned about Chief Seattle and how he stood up to the US Government in defence of the environment – she announced we would create a totem pole for our assembly. When I asked her for the design she said, ‘Oh, I have no idea dear – the children will work it out . . . ’ Luckily someone’s dad worked at a carpet warehouse and the next day he turned up with a 6 foot cardboard roll which I spent the next week decorating with papier-mâché Weetbix box faces while
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listening in on her teaching of reading. I introduced her to Run DMC/Aerosmith’s version of ‘Walk this Way’ and we had an assembly that would have undoubtedly gone viral on YouTube (if only it had been invented back then!) When I arrived in New Zealand I had 15 years of international teaching experience behind me but no idea how things were done here. I dutifully read my contract and discovered I was required to adhere to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi – I asked my Principal whether there was a programme for overseas trained teachers when they would explain what this meant – there wasn’t but his phone call to the ministry led to the discovery that there was a paid time allocation for my professional development. He suggested that I might like to mentor a provisionally registered teacher. Mike was fresh out of Otago Uni, he taught me to say Kia ora, told me to watch Scarfies, and told me all about the essentials of NZ student culture such as setting sofas on fire and rolling mates downhill in wheelie bins – he also invited me to my first (and now I think about it last) crate party. Although his Kapiti Coast flat didn’t have much in the way of furniture (hence the crate party) he told me it was a big step up from the house he had shared with 5 mates in Dunedin. Apparently its practical layout and lack of non-essential items like doors meant that the boys could sit on the toilet whilst being in reach of the oven to cook sausages on a Sunday morning. I have to say this knowledge does cause me to take a deep breath when some of our best and brightest from Girls’ High announce they are off to Otago! A couple of years later Mike headed off to London to do his OE and I went on to mentor Nadia. I worked with her to develop strategies for her
feisty group of Y5/6 boys while she shared ideas about thinking skills and introduced me to Tony Ryan whose blog I went on to use as a discussion tool within the senior leadership team. Thanks to Facebook I was pleased to learn that earlier this year Nadia was appointed as a Deputy Principal. I recently attended a 3 day cross sector mentoring conference run by TRCC – as an organisation run by teachers for teachers I find their courses to be consistently relevant and of high quality. I have done much reflection since about how school leaders can deliberately create opportunities for teacher mentoring to flourish beyond the initial years of provisional registration. I have concluded that as a starting point the provision of professional learning for the development of mentoring skills would be of benefit to all teachers – whether they use these skills in mentoring students, younger staff or peers, gaining experience in active listening and ‘open to learning’ conversations would be of benefit to everyone. My Principal recently announced her retirement. I have to confess that my first thought was an entirely selfish, ‘Not yet – I still have so much to learn from you.’ However, looking back over my career I can confidently say that if we remain open to learning and reflection good mentors will always appear and it is up to us to make the time so that as mentor or mentee we can learn together.
Artwork courtesy of Tauranga Intermediate School Kennedy Crowther, 2012
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