Walk Away in the Sunshine: A Principal's Perspective

By Phyllis DiGiacomo Dunnam Ph.D.

Everyone wants to improve schooling. We are going to tell you some real-life war stories about one high school principals journey through the maze of secondary education. You will meet students, parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, and school boards, all trying hard but often working at cross-purposes and getting in one anothers way. In these stories the good guys win some and lose some, and some get rained out. But they all shed light on the murky world of educational theory and the way it works out in the real world.

The author, a former teacher and high school principal, has some strong, well-documented opinions about what real education ought to look like. Her purpose is not to increase polarization but to figure out what went wrong and is still going wrong, and why these things sometimes work. Finally, she offers a prescription that trumps the Back-to-Basics movement by exploring what the real basics are and offering a vision of what schools could be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 13, 2003
• ISBN: 9781462842421

Phyllis DiGiacomo Dunnam Ph.D.

Phyllis DiGiacomo Dunnam, Ph.D. was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1927. She graduated from high school with honors and then St. Joseph’s College in 1948 where she earned her B.A. in English. She then earned her M.S. in Educational Administration, M.A. in Counseling, and finally her Ph.D. in Administration. She also served as a Communications Officer in the US Navy during the Korean War. Her academic career spanned 23 years as a teacher, principal and administrator. During her 16-year professional career she served as a Senior Vice President, counselor and career consultant for an international company providing a broad range of consulting services to executives and other professionals.

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Copyright © 2003 by Phyllis DiGiacomo Dunnam.

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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PREFACE

CHAPTER I

THE SETTING

CHAPTER II

THE STUDENTS

CHAPTER III

THE PARENTS

CHAPTER IV

THE FACULTY

CHAPTER V

THE PRINCIPAL

CHAPTER VI

THE BOARD OF EDUCATION

CHAPTER VII

THE SUPERINTENDENTS

CHAPTER VIII

THE DECISION

EPILOGUE

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL FOOTNOTES

This book is dedicated to

Dr. Roy Fairfield and Dr. Avis Smalley

who share my belief in the true meaning of education.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my love and gratitude to my brother for his literary wit and support, without whom this book would not have come into existence.

I am deeply thankful to my sons Robert and James and daughters in-law Sherry and Tracey for their review and helpful feedback of the manuscript.

I am also thankful to my many friends who provided moral support in transforming this manuscript into this book.

PREFACE

No one in America today needs to have it pointed out that our schools are in a state of disarray. Parents and community are up in arms because so many students who graduate from high school cannot read or write well.

Moreover mounting numbers of failures in such areas as label reading, checkbook balancing, and credit financing have led adults to believe that our youth are leaving our schools with few, if any, skills essential to survival in the real world.

We educators have always been subject to criticism of one form or another, and in a democratic society of such diverse views and values as ours, we have expected it and dealt with it with as much good grace as we could muster and with varying degrees of success.

Today’s criticism, however, is much more frightening because I believe it is rooted in a violent reaction to the humanistic reforms of the sixties and early seventies. The result has been a simplistic solution for all of our educational ills, spearheaded by the popular war cry:Back to the basics! When we despair of dealing with the monstrous ills of our age, we look to the past for comfort and advice.

Meanwhile, back in the schools, a tremendous amount of internal squabbling is taking place. The finger of blame is pointing in all directions. To wit: College teachers are blaming high school teachers for failing to teach students how to read or write on a level acceptable to them. In one junior college in my area, there are 24 sections of Remedial English being taught every semester.

High school teachers meanwhile are muttering about the lack of skills displayed by the kids sent to them from junior high. In a neighboring city, where a Basic Skills test was given to 10th graders and 48% of them flunked, all eyes turned accusingly to the junior high.

Junior High Teachers are angry at their principals who, they say, insist on social promotions and tend to gloss over discipline problems so as to maintain a shining image at the central administration office.

Elementary teachers complain that there are so many extras in the curriculum that there is little time left for teaching basic skills. They too accuse their principals of condoning social promotions.

Principals respond defensively by citing the pressures put upon them by downtown. Denied input into educational decisions, they feel that they are drowning in special programs which they have neither understood nor requested. They have become human buffer zones for all controversies, whether they be between parents and teachers, teachers and downtown, teachers and students, etc.

in some cities this feeling of scapegoatism is so strong that there seems to be some behind-the-scenes maneuvering toward a principals’ union.

Central Staff tend to remain aloof and disdainful of the criticism leveled at them. Often their attitude seems to say We have the Big Picture. If teachers could know what we know and see what we see, they would understand our role better.

And so it goes—all over the country. It would seem that everyone is wrong, and everyone is right. No matter: the shibboleth of reactionary citizens is gaining strength—and I fear we are going to try to recapture some of the worst aspects of the (not so) good old days.

At this point, many people will say, If she’s going to give us some of that humanistic tripe, I don’t want to hear it. If I add here that I admit some errors of those of us who espouse the cause of freedom in education, I alienate those who are mounting the educational ramparts against the loud and persistent onslaughts of the reactionaries.

I ask each reader to withhold judgment and join me in an honest and soul-searching journey spanning three years (19751978). In the pages that follow, I will share with you my experiences as an administrator in a small secondary school. I will tell it like it is,(my apologies to the English purists . . .) with no jargon, no educationese to clutter up the meaning of the experience.

I set out on my journey to search for answers. I try to bridge the gap between the structured and constricted role of the administrator and that of the humanist who believes in the inherent strength and goodness of all people. In a sense, I become a healthy schizophrenic. If that be paradox, so be it.

Let us begin . . .

CHAPTER I

THE SETTING

MEMOS FROM THE MAINLAND I

A School Principal’s Job is Simple As A to Z

What does a school principal do? I put that question to Samuel Dolnick, President of the Chicago Principals Association. You should ask first what a principal doesn’t do, Dolnick replied. He doesn’t sweep the corridors. He doesn’t shovel coal or fire the boilers. He doesn’t shovel snow off the sidewalks or take care of the lawn. But he does about everything else." In these days when education is becoming an increasingly complex business and society is forcing upon the schools more and more roles, just what does the principal do? Phi Delta Kappa, a professional education journal, has published the response of one principal. Willard Hansen of Pacoima (Cal.) Junior High School.

And this is what Hansen said: Well. I spend the greater part of my working day—and before school, after school, on weekends, very early in the morning and late at night, and at times in my sleep. . . .

Accepting, accounting, acting, advising, agonizing, alternating, amusing, analyzing, applauding, arguing, articulating, asking, attending, authorizing, avoiding, banking, begging, believing, bending, bolstering, boozing, bridging, broaching, buffering . . .

"Changing, chastizing, cheating, choosing, circulating, cleaning, collecting, comforting, commiserating, compiling, complementing, complimenting, composing, compressing, compromising, concocting, conducting, conferring, conforming, congratulating, conniving, conserving, consoling, consulting, contemplating, contradicting, convening, coordinating, correcting, correlating, corresponding, cultivating, cursing . . .

"Dealing, deciding, delegating, demanding, designating, designing, digging, disbelieving, dishing, disliking, divining, dreaming, dumping, duplicating, dusting, empathizing, energizing, enjoying, enlightening, entertaining, evaluating, excusing, exhausting, expanding, expecting, falsifying, figuring, flattering, flushing, forgetting, forgiving, formalizing, forming, frowning, fumbling, gathering, greeting, granting, graying . . .

"Hearing, helping, hiding, hiring, holding, hoping, hopping, humoring, informing, inheriting, interpreting, interviewing, inviting, jeopardizing, knocking, learning, limiting, listening, loading, longing, loving, magnifying, manipulating, manufacturing, meeting, mobilizing, negotiating, notarizing, obeying, ordering, patronizing, paying, philosophizing, playing, pleasing, popularizing, pretending, prioritizing, protecting, publicizing, rapping, reading, re-reading, rectifying, reflecting, rejecting, repeating, replying running (away, from, and to) . . .

"Satisfying, saving, scavenging, selecting, serving, shafting, shocking, shorting, Signing, Sitting, smiling, speaking, sponging, standing, suggesting, summarizing, supervising, suspecting, sweating, sympathizing, systematizing, taking, talking, tearing, telephoning, theorizing, thinking, traveling, trying, upholding, urging, vacillating, viewing, Vilifying, visiting, walking, washing, wheeling, wiping, wondering, writing, Xeroxinq, yelling. . .

And would you believe even a little zig-zagging? 1

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN PORT DIABLO?

As the early evening fog settles in over Port Diablo, Lawnmower Joe rocks forward on his bar stool at the Aloha House and begins to philosophize about the difficulties of this frigid winter on the island.

There aren’t any people on this damn island . . . Don’t just ask me. Ask anyone. And don’t ask me any questions. I don’t want any of that crap. There just isn’t anybody here. And no money neither.

Bob R., a realtor, says Port Diablo is going to be an instant Miami Beach before long. A quarter of the town would welcome the money if not the crowds. A quarter will move out if it ever happens. A quarter is confident the island is safe, sound, and cursed so that if there ever is development a hurricane will blow it all away. Everyone else is too soused to care.

One newcomer from California says Port Diablo has the nicest people in the world, and another thinks that he’s living in an outlaw haven where people beat up one another in bars at night and cross out the faces on the wanted posters in the post office by day . . .

Clearly the straight gray line of rational thought will get us nowhere if we’re foolish enough to try to plumb the metaphysical depths of Port Diablo, the town of 1,200 that sprawls like a drunken sailor along the fingernail of an otherwise uninhabited Dune Island . . . 2

PORT D. SCHOOL FIRE INVESTIGATED

PORT DIABLO—An investigation continued yesterday afternoon into a fire at the elementary school that law enforcement officials believe was started in an attempt to cover up a burglary.

The fire, which started about 2 a.m., gutted a teachers’ workroom and caused smoke damage in other parts of the school.

Elementary school students were given the day