One Thing I’d Like Every School Principal To Do

I’m a high-school teacher-aide. That means for a couple of days a week, I drop into classrooms of teenagers to support students who have a little bit of difficulty (or a lot of difficulty) learning.

I freaking love that job.

I’m a former church student pastor, so I’ve long held a soft spot for teenagers — especially this current generation.

Photo by Sam Balye on Unsplash

Never has it been harder to grow up than it is in this current age. Teenagers now have it rough in so many ways, and I will go to the mat against any adult who unfairly belittles their plight or orders them just to ‘harden up and deal with it like we had to’. But that’s for another post, another time.

Back to me as a TA at my old high school two days a week…

The school I’m at does assemblies every single day. On Monday, the Principal addresses Years 12 & 13 first, then Year 11, and then Years 9 & 10 in a series of 25-minute gatherings, then the other days each year level has its assembly with Deans and notices and awards given out, etc.

Here’s what I want my principal to do, and every other principal in the world should also do this:

Get rid of that bloody lectern on the stage.

As anyone who has had to address a crowd (let alone a crowd of teenagers) will tell you, attention is the hardest thing to gain, and the easiest thing in the world to lose. If you’ve got 500+ high schoolers in a room, and something important to tell them, you better be good at getting and holding their attention or you are simply wasting your time, and their time.

The key thing stopping you from getting their attention in the first place is your insistence on standing behind a thing for the duration of your talk.

Getting the attention of teenagers is difficult, so why make it more difficult by putting a literal barrier between yourself and them while you’re talking to them?

Now if it’s a formal assembly, and your podium is part of the heritage of your school because it was made from the great Kauri tree that once stood where the school is now located, or it’s from the wreckage of a ship that the founding principal’s ancestors came to this country on in the 19th century, then sure —…