Walk and talk

I spent this afternoon hiking with two teachers. None of us brought a camera, which turned out to be too bad. We had spectacular views of the Hudson. Turkey hawks circled and perched near us. Heavy birds! They shook the branches when they took off. Beautiful fall flowers were briefly in bloom. I think we saw raspberries (bushes, no berries). And just a hint of the start of foliage. Oh yeah, we were at Storm King, across the Hudson from Breakneck Ridge.

Right, so these were teachers. We talked about normal things, like if the Mets were going to choke bad enough for the Phillies to pass them, and hiking, and ‘ooo, what a view’ and Summer Vacation stories and other teacher sorts of things.

The hottest teacher topics were things I blog: ATRs, restructuring, that sort. We also talked about beginning the year, and setting the beginning tone in the classroom, and little reward systems and incentives we use to get good, productive behavior out of our students.

But the most interesting topic was pretty hot. Do we need Assistant Principals? How much do they really do? How much of what they do is really needed? And how much of what they do can or should be done by teachers? Where would non-supervisory coordinators make more sense?

Except we were arguing. Cool, we disagreed & agreed & disagreed more. But next time, only 2 at a time, so that the 3rd person can watch the trail markers.