Blogging About The Kindergarten Teacher's Evaluation By "The Administrator"

Whether you work in private enterprise or in a public school, chances are eventually you will encounter one of THOSE supervisors. You may recognize him or her by their condescending tone or “Iamalwaysrightanddon’tyouforgetit “attitude. If you haven’t ever had the pleasure, count yourself lucky!


I was lucky enough to have just such an administrator for one year in the public schools. Teachers cringed when they heard the click click of her high heels coming down the hall. I had recently come back from maternity leave and had to be placed in a different school due to the length of my leave. The teachers in the school warned me about THE supervisor but by that time, I had twenty years of experience under my belt and wasn’t too worried. My philosophy was to listen, smile and then do what I knew was right for kids. If necessary, I could always beg forgiveness rather than ask permission.

I got through the school year with no confrontations that The Principal was famous for and it was time for my end of the year evaluation. I smiled at the secretaries as I entered The Principal’s office ready for my evaluation.

Once I sat down, I will never forget her looking at me and saying “How can you unleash the cross-curricular higher-order thinking in your students that will expedite their learning?” I looked at her for a minute and then asked “Could you run that by me again?” She obligingly repeated herself.

I sat there for a minute and then answered “ I don’t know what you just said to me, but if you would like to know what I do to help my students achieve success, I would be happy to share that with you.” She just looked at me so I began to do just that. The rest of the evaluation went fine and as I exited her office, I saw the secretaries stifling their laughter with their hands over their mouths. They had tears in their eyes they were laughing so hard. One had to get up and head to the bathroom because she couldn’t stop laughing. She motioned for me to follow her and when she could finally talk, she told me that they had heard everything since the door was open. They thought it was so funny that I had “taken her down a peg”. I replied that I hadn’t meant to. I just figured that rather than engage in educational jargon and a guessing game, I would just cut to the chase. I got a good evaluation by the way.

As for the Principal, she was transferred to another school the next year. On one of the very last teacher workdays, she was sitting behind her desk with her feet crossed and propped up on her desk. As she conversed with someone on the telephone about her recent promotion, some of the staff witnessed her lean a little too far back in her chair when all of a sudden……crash! All they could see were her feet shooting straight up in the air. She evidently lost her balance and her chair fell back to the floor. Now THAT might have taken her down a peg!