Q: My principal is under tremendous stress. I get that. But the way he is managing his stress is causing me a lot of stress. He wants to have daily Zoom meetings with all of us, maintain multiple group documents where we chart our ideas and lesson plans — even post three daily moments of gratitude. There’s a “daily challenge,” too, some kind of trivia or pop culture question, and he wants us to share jokes, “interesting articles about education” and other “fun” stuff. He cares about us and he means well. I’m sure, for instance, that he read somewhere that gratitude can help people cope in difficult times, but all of these random and concurrent “assignments” are just contributing to my feelings of overload.
I know I’m not alone. One teacher quietly started crying in the middle of our last faculty Zoom call. She didn’t say anything, and I don’t think she realized we all could see her sitting there, the tears just streaming down her face. She’s a young teacher, maybe 25- or 26-year-old, and she has a one-year-old and a two-year-old at home. Her microphone was muted, but we could see those babies running around in their diapers behind her. Every now and then she would stop, turn around, and pull some hazard out of one of their hands. My heart went out to her.
I have school-aged children and many years of teaching experience to draw on, and like I said, I’m overwhelmed, so of course she is, too. My principal clearly thinks the way to deal with all of this is to get cracking and hit the ground running, but I think he’d be better off taking his foot off the gas and giving all of us a chance to catch our breath and process all the craziness happening in the world right now. I want to say something to him, and I actually think I’d be doing him a favor by being honest, but I’m not sure how to approach him constructively. I really don’t want to make him feel bad. This is hard on everyone.
A: It does sound like your principal is throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. His antidote to uncertainty seems to be productivity. Online lesson plans for the students! Daily check-ins and plenty of accountability! Even forced gratitude and jokes to lighten teachers’ moods! The issue is that he’s all over the place, and he doesn’t have enough emotional distance to notice that there’s a disconnect between his intent and his impact. By loading everyone up with nonessential tasks, he’s heightening anxiety, not lightening the mood.
Ask if you can schedule a phone or video call with him to share your concerns. Don’t try to communicate any of this over email. Start by expressing appreciation for the efforts he’s making to show how much he cares about your well-being, and acknowledge how hard he’s working to ensure distance learning gets off to a smooth start. Then ask permission to share some of your observations. Use “I” statements. You might say, “I know you mean well, but I’m having trouble keeping up with all the shared docs and daily meetings while also mastering a new way to teach, and I don’t think I’m alone. I’m not sure if you noticed that ‘Hannah’ was crying during our last faculty meeting, but I think it’s been especially hard for younger teachers and anyone who doesn’t feel confident about their ability to teach this way. I also think it’s challenging for the teachers who are parents of young children to divide their attention between home and work demands. I’m wondering if there’s a way to ensure that we all stay connected and organized without getting so overwhelmed. What do you think?”
Be strategic. You’ll have more success if you’re able to propose solutions that meet his needs as well. For example, his anxiety might go through the roof if he doesn’t feel that everyone has a plan in place, including him. If that’s the case, he might be open to decreasing the number of meetings while still requiring everyone to contribute individual lesson plans to a shared document. He also could make it clear that no one is required to share a joke or solve trivia questions.
And although you know how you feel, you can’t know for sure that others feel similarly, so you could suggest that he give teachers a short (but optional) survey to fill out. As a bonus, that would give him something to do and satisfy his desire to feel productive.
Remember that all of this is new for everyone, and your principal also has been thrown a curveball. He likely is fielding anxiety from the parents in your school community, too, and he may be shielding you from their negativity. So be kind, patient, and forgiving, and go out of your way to share positive feedback with him as well.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Phyllis L. Fagell
Phyllis L. Fagell is the school counselor at Landon School in Washington, D.C., a therapist at the Chrysalis Group in Bethesda, Md., and the author of the Career Confidential blog. She is also the author of Middle School Matters and Middle School Superpowers, available at https://amzn.to/3Pw0pcu.
