O Captain My Captain

I have to brag about our new principal a little bit. Bragging words from me about a principal are really high praise right now. After my experience last year, I have been slow (snail paced) to put any trust into administration. I haven't gotten over that yet. The other day when someone from BFF teams said something about packing up rooms, I replied "Maybe I'll be told on the last day of school to pack up my room and move to kindergarten."

"I think that would just send you over the edge," she said.

"No," I answered, "I'll never be surprised by anything like that again now. I expect that kind of nonsense." I didn't realize that I still felt that way until I heard it coming out of my mouth. I do, though.

BUT I digress. I wanted to say why I am inspired to write about how much I like my new principal even though I don't trust him--although that is not his fault.

I like him because he is really a team player and because he is open and supportive of teacher ideas. I am new at this, but I think that has got to be pretty rare. BFF team is implementing a big group read naturally program, and wanted my good friend Mrs. Bear from fifth grade to come and work with us since she has successfully implemented such a program in fifth grade. We wanted her for two days and each day for forty minutes. Not only was the new principal supportive of this plan, he volunteered to cover Mrs. Bear's class for the whole eighty minutes. He has also been teaching one of the focused skill groups third grade runs every week and has not given us trouble about any supplies or copies. He really supports teachers and I have never gotten to experience this before.

Another member of BFF team and I were talking today about how the whole environment of our school is less stressed out. It's true!

I can't say that my faith is blindly in administration now, but I will say as far as principals go this is the sort of principal that I want to work for. My old principal had the pseudonym on this blog, Principal Sadie. Today, I am making a pseudonym for my new principal. I am naming him Captain. I chose this name off of the famous poem O Captain My Captain because he has been a leader who is helping our school work as a team. I hope that next year I don't get riffed or shuffled around because I would like to work for Captain again. I have been able to grow a lot this year and it is because I have had enough space and enough support to reach more of my potential.