Principals in Action

Reading the information about principals was very interesting as I work in three schools part time in the Catholic Diocese but have three different prinicpals with differing views about the TL. And in one school I have had two relieving prinicpals who again have different views about the TL. I remember having a discussion with one prinicpal upon starting who said, '...don't worry about planning with teachers as their non-contact is on different days so it will be too hard to manage'. A great start to 'collaborating with teachers on their planning! I was there to take their students for a 'library' lesson, with maybe some work on internet safety and websites but not tied directly to their units of work.

Hartzell's (2002) paper was straight forward and provided characteristics of effective library media services, concluding how principals can support libraries, especially as the principal is in control of everything within their school. I also thought it was interesting that Hartzell (2002) talked about the TL supporting the Principal in research collections, further to this was Haycock's (1999) view that the 'role of the principal is enhanced by...the teacher-librarian' (p.85) and Oberg's (2006) findings that 'teacher-librarians provided professional development for principals...' (p.15). This was a novel idea that the TL teaches the principal but I suppose it is true - we often have to inform the principal (and teachers) of what we are capable of doing and how we can do it.

All readings talk about the principal as the instigator of collaboration - that it is how the prinicpal models the role of TL collaborative planning to the teachers as to how effectively teachers take it up. That it is through 'active leadership of the principals and TL team' (Oberg, 2006) that affects the collaboration of planning in schools.