Toward the end of January I went before our Faculty Development Board (FDB) again. We have what is falsely referred to as “tenure” but is really just a six-year contract, and then one appears before the Board again.
This was my third time going through FDB. I should have written a reflection after the preceding two, and so I wanted to record a few thoughts this time through. I’ve delayed writing this however because I wanted my emotions to settle.
I enjoyed meeting with my Department Chair and two of the three Assistant Principals[1] as part of the overall process[2]; in three of those meetings I felt personally understood, valued, and challenged to grow as an educator. There were also three separate observations of my teaching as part of this process; two of which I found very helpful for the critical eye they cast on my instruction.
There were three parts of the FDB process that I did not like[3]. First, I did not find the actual process of writing my actual Reflection and Professional Development Plan beneficial because I regularly engage in a critical analysis of my own teaching and learning, and so the Reflection and Plan felt redundant. Second, I felt neither personally understood nor valued by one of the Assistant Principals. I know my value to that part of the school’s mission and to hear neither “Thank you” nor “I appreciate you/ your work” from that supervisor was disheartening. Additionally, I am aware of my particular strengths and weaknesses in that realm of the school, and I felt that AP either did not understand or care; that supervisor kept pushing, for their own needs, for me to do things in areas I feel I should not. Third, sitting before the Faculty Development Board, I felt unknown. It felt – based on the questions that were asked and those left unasked – as if my collagues neither know me, as a person, nor my work beyond the most superficial level.
As an introvert, I should be used to people not knowing me; and that’s my own fault because I so rarely open up. But in an evaluative process, I somehow expected my colleagues and supervisors to make an attempt to get to know me and my work. The questions from the Board felt rote, felt stock. So few were specific, I left the two-hour meeting wondering if they had actually read my Reflection and Plan or understood it.
Further, it has now been four weeks since I appeared before the Faculty Development Board, and I haven’t had a single communique. Perhaps I failed, perhaps I’ll be let go at the end of this year, or perhaps I’ll be given some award; the fact is, I don’t know. If I was prone to worry, the absence of any communication for an entire month following such an important meeting would surely be cause.
-
We (currently) have an Assistant Principal of Academics, Student Affairs, and Campus Ministry. ↩
-
Currently this is a twelve-step process, involving nine separate meetings averaging a 45-minutes each. ↩
-
I need to make note of these for myself, but I also have to keep things as vague as possible because these notes are about my feelings; they are not necessarily about what others have done or do. ↩