Mr. Gradgrind could have inconspicuously signaled Ms. Newbody
to speak with him, and he could have pointed out the error so she could
correct it. Or, he could have waited until the post-observation conference
and had her correct the mistake the next day. If he felt that she needed to
actually see how to teach this topic, he could have offered to teach her
next class (as a guest teacher who asked permission of Ms. Newbody to
teach a topic he was an expert on) so she could observe him.
The bottom line is that when he met with the principal and Ms. New-
body, Mr. Gradgrind had to validate her feelings. He needed to apologize:
“I’m sorry I handled the situation in this way. I promise not to do this
again.” And, once this was done, he could work with Ms. Newbody to
help her improve her classroom management skills.
In all these situations, the school leader is implementing many of the ideas
presented in chapters 2 and 3. By listening carefully, she is defusing situ-
ations by apologizing. She is resisting the temptation to place the blame
on anyone other than herself. Of course, we are all human. In our own
minds, we do assign blame.
A sensible rule of thumb is that the party to blame in any situation is
the one whose words or actions initiated the problem. So, in the first sce-
nario, Mary was clearly to blame: She should not have cut her class. In the
second scenario, Ms. Sniffle was to blame for using the word stupid and
admonishing Michael publicly. In the third scenario, Mr. Gradgrind was
clearly at fault. Any supervisor knows that a new teacher will have issues
with classroom management and will be very nervous when formally ob-
served. In this last case especially, though, the principal would bear even
greater blame, for she should have trained Mr. Gradgrind better so this
incident would never have occurred.
As educators, we deal with words all the time. We teach classes where
every student hears what we say in a slightly different way. Our facial
expressions and actions are scrutinized and what may be a smile to one
person could be a sneer or a leer to another. When we realize that a word
or a look or an action may have been misinterpreted, we need to stop,
apologize that whatever was not what we meant, and correct ourselves.
This is common sense. Unfortunately, common sense is often in short
order these days while egoism is rampant. To create a positive school
Give the Credit; Take the Blame 49