Swimming in the Deep End
The school year begins in about 3 weeks for us. I have spent the summer supposedly preparing myself for this new position: Associate Principal. I dutifully vacated my old post of Social Sciences Chair and attempted to leave the department and its offices more organized and user friendly than when I arrived--the old adage of: "Leave the World a Better Place Than When You Found it" was my mantra as I sifted through literally decades of old text books and files. I then began to make my new office my "home". Again I sifted through decades of books and files. At times I wondered if I was making the right decisions. After all, I've never done this job before so who am I to decide what stays and what goes? Slowly I gained confidence and books from the 1980s and 1990s on teaching methodologies were sent to the recycler, files were digitized, file cabinets removed. I'm not finished yet (10 boxes and counting still to review) but I feel much better about my &quo