Columbia College, at Columbia University established 1754Leading advocate of Core Curriculum in higher education
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I said in Part 1 WBWA, MYOC, that MBWA, Management By Walking Around, is just common sense. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not a fan of common sense. As often as not common sense is flat out incorrect. So please allow me to modify my statement: MBWA is generally good managment practice.
Indeed, I have seen MBWA used to with wonderful results at schools around the country. In Arizona I visited several elementary schools that were based on a concept called Core Curriculum. These schools were lead by dynamic school principals with strong support from their Superintendents and School Boards. The Principals often observed every classroom in their school each day. They would walk into the class unannounced, take notes, make comments, and ask questions of both the students and the teachers. They would examine the classroom displays and bulletin boards (only student work allowed and only work pertaining to that week’s school wide Core theme). They saw to it that Art, Music, and Physical education were related to that week's Core instructional unit. These Principals were two important things: expert teachers and intense taskmasters. They believed in and completely understood their curriculum. They had the courage to demand adherence to the curriculum and used very close oversight to correct or weed out bad instruction. Another thing these Principals had in common is that they delegated nearly all non-educational responsibilities to their non-professional office staff, leaving them time to do what the title Principal used to mean, that is Principal Instructor.
In Knox Principals have a hands-off approach to the classrooms. This actually might be the best thing considering the shortcomings of the administration and school board. If the administrators aren’t expert teachers they don’t have much business telling teachers what to do. That is why I found the attempt by our School Board and Superintendent to do some MBWA to be so very pathetic. All management techniques are only as good as the people implementing them. The School Board has to have a competent and quality vision for the school system. The Superintendent they hire must also be competent to bring that vision to fruition. I don’t believe that we have either of these elements in place. MBWA at Knox is destined to be ridiculous.
Too bad. In small system like ours it could be great.
Indeed, I have seen MBWA used to with wonderful results at schools around the country. In Arizona I visited several elementary schools that were based on a concept called Core Curriculum. These schools were lead by dynamic school principals with strong support from their Superintendents and School Boards. The Principals often observed every classroom in their school each day. They would walk into the class unannounced, take notes, make comments, and ask questions of both the students and the teachers. They would examine the classroom displays and bulletin boards (only student work allowed and only work pertaining to that week’s school wide Core theme). They saw to it that Art, Music, and Physical education were related to that week's Core instructional unit. These Principals were two important things: expert teachers and intense taskmasters. They believed in and completely understood their curriculum. They had the courage to demand adherence to the curriculum and used very close oversight to correct or weed out bad instruction. Another thing these Principals had in common is that they delegated nearly all non-educational responsibilities to their non-professional office staff, leaving them time to do what the title Principal used to mean, that is Principal Instructor.
In Knox Principals have a hands-off approach to the classrooms. This actually might be the best thing considering the shortcomings of the administration and school board. If the administrators aren’t expert teachers they don’t have much business telling teachers what to do. That is why I found the attempt by our School Board and Superintendent to do some MBWA to be so very pathetic. All management techniques are only as good as the people implementing them. The School Board has to have a competent and quality vision for the school system. The Superintendent they hire must also be competent to bring that vision to fruition. I don’t believe that we have either of these elements in place. MBWA at Knox is destined to be ridiculous.
Too bad. In small system like ours it could be great.
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