No, I'm really bad at it.
Because the task of delegating has been so difficult for me over the years, I've found that one way I've allowed myself to be comfortable with it is to maintain blind spots in my skills...to know what I want but not how to do it. If I knew how to do it, I'd want to do it myself.
So for many years now, I've been throwing kids onto computers to edit video in Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro without knowing how to do anything myself. "You learn by fiddling around," I tell students.
And as for newspaper, one of the reasons my print edition usually turns out fairly well is because I send as many kids as possible to a fantastic summer camp where they learn mad InDesign skills (shameless plug for Ball State University's summer journalism camps), and my outgoing seniors spend their final month and publication cycle training their replacements for the following year. I definitely believe in the value of such a system and have seen excellent results.
But I have to admit to days when I would hide in my classroom while my staff was in the newspaper office debating how to do something technical. I sort of hated being asked a technical question and responding with a shrug. I'm not sure that it ever discredited my authority or the respect my students had for me, but it did make me feel a little...less. This would translate to other areas, such as volunteering to give presentations at conventions and conferences. What business have I to teach other advisers how to do anything?
One of the reasons I wanted to be here this week was to begin to fill in some of those gaps, and I think I accomplished that. I'm no more of an expert flying out of Phoenix than I was flying in, but I'm definitely in better shape. I feel like I have a game plan for tackling the things I didn't know much about before.
I've never been afraid to ask my own students: "show me how you did that." But I would often avoid such a directive because not knowing how to do something meant I could pass it off to someone else and make it seem like I simply had too much to do.
I wonder how many of our colleagues and administrators understand just how vast, deep and wide our skill sets must be to be effective publication advisers and journalism teachers! We have to be writers, managers, artists, photographers, graphic designers, tech support, grammar nazis, editors, extroverts, business managers, public relations people, videographers, film editors, armchair lawyers, and so much more, all in the same room and all at the same time!
So here's to all of you, who are required to know how to do so much in so little time. And here's to delegating...
Keith Carlson
Naperville Central High School
Naperville, Ill.
Love this. I am the WORST at delegating.
ReplyDeleteSteve Elliott
Arizona State University
Phoenix
Keith, I'm so excited about the Ed Sullivan video. I am going to share this with my teacher friends for sure! I have said time and time again that my job is, "just to keep the plates spinning." This is exactly how I feel during the day! Thanks for sharing.Oh, and one thing that makes me feel better about not knowing everything is that we are teaching kids to THINK. You can't possibly teach them every possible technique that they would need to do every single effect! You give them the basic tools they need and a platform on which to do it. They do the rest through exploration. Sounds cheesy, but it's true!
ReplyDelete"If I knew how to do it, I'd want to do it myself." A great line. It's so hard to relinquish control, especially when our names are associated with the product the students are putting out. And, when time is tight, it is so much easier to do things ourselves (if we know how), than to sit patiently and talk a student through a particular skill, or model for them how something is done.
ReplyDeleteAlso, before the institute, I had absolutely no idea how to edit a video. As a consequence, even though our newspaper is entirely online, we posted only two videos last year, and these came from a student who took it upon himself to shoot and edit video without any instruction. As much as I tried to tell the students we needed more video, I'm realizing now that because I couldn't do it myself, I had very little room to complain when my students didn't do it, either.
Now, because I can at least model some video editing for students, I can actually expect them to do it, too, and our site should benefit significantly from it. The gaps in my learning meant that my students weren't getting the instruction that would have benefited the entire operation.
And your last paragraph: golden.
David Gwizdala
James B. Conant High School
Hoffman Estates, Illinois