A Retired Massachusetts Principal Shares His Moral Compass

In this thoughtful Kappan article, former Massachusetts principal and superintendent John Ritchie quotes Emily Dickinson: The sailor cannot see the north – but knows the needle can. “On countless occasions,” says Ritchie, “I felt lost in a sea of complex challenges, conflicting expectations, and vexing problems – compounded by expectations that the principal always knows what to do. I came to rely more than anything else on my own compass to guide me.” Every new principal needs to develop a reliable compass, he says, and every veteran principal needs to be careful not to lose it. 

Ritchie says his guiding principles had less to do with educational vision and goals than with “attitudes, behaviors, and modes of operation.” He focused less on strategies for solving problems than on ways of approaching them; on treating people with respect, being a good listener, even with angry and unhappy people, and noticing and appreciating good deeds. The principalship was “immensely rewarding, enjoyable, and entertaining,” he says. “There was always something unexpected, hilarious, unbelievable, or quirky going on.”

However, Ritchie continues, “it is a cold fact that every principal will face dark and tough times, deal with tragedy, make painful decisions about cutting valuable programs, and conduct difficult conversations with students, teachers, or parents. The principalship is often a draining job, and there is always the danger of psychic exhaustion that results from being at the center point of a school, where the No. 1 requirement seems to be to do more, listen better, and be more places than any person could ever do or be.

“The tide of visitors that washes into a principal’s office almost any week brings with it an astonishing array of human stories of pain, frustration, pride, loneliness, or hope,” he says – “the overtly angry and aggressive parents who in reality are simply terrified by not knowing how to handle their child; the teacher who has lost a loved one and is struggling just to stay afloat, let alone teach; the student whose troublesome behavior is a mask for sadness, fear, anxiety, and for whom school is a daily nightmare… Everyone has a story to tell, everyone wants their story to be heard, and one of the principal’s responsibilities is to hear and respond meaningfully to these stories.” 

One of the basic paradoxes of the principalship, says Ritchie, is that on the one hand school leaders are the public face of the school every day, at a school dance, on the soccer field, and at the dry cleaner. “Simultaneously, being a principal is a solitary position,” he says. “No one else in a school has exactly the same job as the principal, knows the daily demands of the job or the many directions in which one is constantly pulled. No one knows about all the information that must be kept confidential, the tough decisions, the emotionally charged conversations. Since there’s only one principal, there really isn’t anyone else in the school available to share what it is like being principal, which is inevitably isolating. Solitariness is not the same as loneliness, but it can easily turn into loneliness, especially when paired with the tiring public demands of the job.” 

An important release from this isolation is communing with other principals, who know exactly what their fellow school leaders are talking about.

Ritchie says he struggled with the expectation that he be the disciplinarian-in-chief dispensing punishment for students’ errors and misdeeds. But school is a place to learn from mistakes, he believes, and punishment is often ineffective. He often tried to be “the chief dispenser of mercy and kindness, which is a difficult and sometimes risky balance to strike.” 

Ritchie is also skeptical about the expectation that principals be decisive, exhibiting “boldness, lack of equivocation, the courage to make tough decisions quickly, and deal with the consequences without flinching.” But this macho expectation often gets in the way of good decision-making, he believes. Schools are complex. Students are in a continual state of flux. “As a result, and quite wonderfully, ambiguity is part of the landscape of any school… [A] very different kind of decisiveness is often better suited to meet goals or solve problems. An effective principal has a mindset that embraces ambiguity rather than struggles to resolve or settle it. Being decisive isn’t only or mainly about acting. Being decisive is about approaching problems or decisions with a clear head and open mind, a willingness to examine all sides of an issue, and an ability to contemplate the possible unintended consequences of any choice. In this conception, being decisive often means having the courage not to make a decision until a problem has been thoroughly examined and understood.”

One of the biggest traps of the principalship, Ritchie continues, is trying to please everyone – parents, students, teachers, the community, the central office: “Trying to meet everyone’s expectations is a fool’s errand, and it takes a great deal of fortitude not to forget it.” 

Finally, Ritchie questions the expectation that principals need to have a destination in mind, a clear sense of where they are taking the school (a standard interview question for aspiring school leaders). “My experience was that this conventional concept of vision turns out to be limiting rather than energizing and can even distract a school from its real mission,” he says. “The fundamental work of a school leader is simple: engender and sustain the best possible environment for teaching and learning… Hire the best teachers you can find, support them in every way possible, help them grow, evaluate them fairly, set and exemplify high expectations for everyone, and create and insist on a climate and culture where students feel safe, known, and challenged. That’s the only vision a principal needs.” 

“The Effective and Reflective Principal” by John Ritchie in Phi Delta Kappan, May 2013 (Vol. 94, #8, p. 18-21), www.kappanmagazine.org; the author can be reached at ritchiejohn115@gmail.com. 

From the Marshall Memo #485