Human beings are endowed with boundless traits and behaviors that spill into their work, their social life and their daily routine. Teachers bring their assorted personalities, including assets and failings to their workplace. Their coach, the principal, needs to identify and assess each teacher’s instructional stage of development just as teachers are expected to evaluate their students’ individual progress. The teacher’s coach must be a teacher of teachers.

Teachers, like the general public, come in all sizes and shapes. Their strengths and weaknesses affect their work. It falls on the shoulders of their classroom supervisor to judge their job-related attributes and evaluate them consistent with curriculum standards and district expectations. Some teachers are warm; some are not. Some feel affection for their students; some do not. Some are intuitive; some are not. Some are intellectual; some are not. Some are dynamic; some are not. Some are followers; some are not. Some are open; some are not. Some are confident; some are not; most are qualified; some are not BUT all are certified!

The instructional expert’s onus is less a burden than Atlas’s but the conscientious and expert instructional leader in our public schools carries a weighty load nevertheless. Unfortunately far too many lack the ability to shoulder their most important obligation, teaching teachers to teach!

Dr. Jennifer Myers juggles her daily agenda in an all-out effort to assist her teachers individually and collectively. Each teacher’s observation summaries are neatly filed in a drawer labeled Coaching Files. She can, at a moment’s notice, verify any teacher’s progress. At her own evaluation conferences with the superintendent, always held at the school, she proudly offers the file for his perusal. Jennifer is confident that her staff is exceptional with one exception.

At Jennifer’s early December mid-year evaluation conference at Clarksdale with Dr. Green, he had in front of him, as he always does, Jennifer’s staff directory. He scanned it before posing his standard question, “Jennifer, who are your best teachers, those you’d place in the top quarter?” That was always the easier response to his two-part question. The second, “Tell me who are in the bottom quartile,” was ever difficult because Jennifer judged all her teachers to be above average barring Harry Latter. To rank any teachers in the lowest quarter, she felt, was doing them an injustice. She always voiced her strong objection and told Superintendent Green that his question was unfair. But the corpulent Bernard Green was intimidating when he chose to be: dogged, tenacious and relentless. He delighted in placing his principals under pressure believing that some tension keeps them on their toes. His was a shrewd question and it always added a bit of stress to the principals’ conferences. After all, there had to be a bottom quarter even on outstanding staffs. The greater difficulty for a couple of Old River principals was that of having to describe in detail what they were doing about their lowest ranked teachers.

Jennifer placed Grace at the top of her list of best teachers with Harry at the bottom of a bell curved rating of her staff. It was gratifying to report on the gains made even with the top quarter. When discussing the bottom, Jennifer always felt she hadn’t done enough to make them better. That was Bernard’s Green’s goal: keep the heat on the lowest quartile.

Spotting Harry Latter’s name, Dr. Green remarked, “Oh, isn’t this the gentleman you recommended to

me in August?”

“Yes, Bernard, that’s he and you know it is.” Jennifer was a stand-up principal, willing to accept the admonishment that she knew was about to come.

“He’s the teacher about whom I pressed Willingham and here he is at the bottom of your list. How about that! Because of your constant ravings about your staff and your reluctance to identify the bottom quarter since they’re all so good, I’ll have to assume that Mr. Latter is competent.” Jennifer thought how skillful Dr. Green was. He was like a shoe salesman stuffing your feet into tight shoes and selling them to you because you really liked them at the time of purchase but refusing to take them back because you had taken them in spite of their tightness.

“No, not yet.”

“You know my next question.”

“Yes, and my answer is I’m working feverishly to make him a proficient teacher.” She went on to describe Harry’s three-and-a-half months at Clarksdale identifying each of Harry’s failings and her subsequent actions to upgrade him. Green perused the summary data in Harry Latter’s file.

“To be honest, Bernard, I don’t know if he’s going to make it in spite of my intensive work with him. I may have to come back to you and admit to having failed. Please don’t drag Dennis Willingham into it. I basically strong-armed him into trusting my judgment in spite of his own expressed concerns.”

“Don’t try to protect him, Jennifer, he had a job to do and didn’t do it. And I failed to do mine.”

“Mr. Latter hasn’t failed yet, Bernard, but, it’s true, I’m losing confidence. I wanted to show him how the clinical cycle could help him to become competent. He doesn’t seem to have the drive. He has to be spoon-fed. Though bright, he’s not ambitious.”

“He’s lazy is what you’re telling me.”

“Yes, that’s part of it but I think it’s mostly caused by lack of confidence.”

“Bullshit, Jennifer, get off that alibi. He’s lazy without ambition, that’s what you told me before putting icing on it. I’m not going to spend this whole hour on Mr. Latter. We need to discuss others as well as other matters.