First rule of job security (from Machines Are the Easy Part)

From Machines Are the Easy Part; People Are the Hard Part. 

Illustrations by Brady Johnson

14. First Rule of Job Security: Find out what problems are keeping your boss from sleeping well at night.

If you can’t list the top three things that your supervisor worries about, your job may be vulnerable.

My boss, Ed, the superintendent worries about finances, public perception of the effectiveness of our district, and (bless his heart) if all our kids are getting the best education possible. 

Now it is my job to:

• First, honestly work toward helping relieve Ed’s worries

• Second, make sure he knows of those efforts

What keeps your boss awake at night?

 15. Remember the Drill Bit Rule

An old maxim states: “People don't buy a drill bit because they want a drill bit; they buy them because they want a hole.”

• You don't buy technology because you want technology; you buy it because you want a more effective school.

• You don’t have a library for the sake of having a library; you have a library because you want better educated kids.

Too often we confuse the thing with the reason for the thing, much to our own peril. Having a computer on every desk is not a goal. Having x number of books in the library is not a goal. These may be means to reach a goal, but they are not the goal itself.

16. We can no longer afford to only work with the living.

The standing advice for achieving success in staff development activities has been:

Work with the living.

A parent once approached me at an open house. “You’re the technology director,” she confirmed. “I just love what Miss Smith is doing with the third graders in her classroom. The computer-created booklets, the keypal project, the video-taped presentations – all of it. These are good skills that kids need.”

“Thanks,” says I, puffing up a bit.

“But here is my problem,” the parent continued. “My little Susie has Mr. Brown for his third grade teacher and Mr. Brown wouldn’t know a computer if it bit him in the butt. When are you going to do something about that?”

Parents see technology and information literacy skills as too important for their children to be left to the chance of getting a technology-savvy teacher.

We’ve got to start having reasonable technology-use expectations of all teachers – not just those with respiration.