A Dilemma That All Teachers, Principals, and Superintendents Face: Supervising Others While Seeking Their Approval

In the second week of my superintendency in the mid-1970s, the head of the principals group (there were 35 schools in the Arlington, VA school district), met me in the stairwell of the Administration building and we chatted a few moments about the weather and the beginning of the school year. He leaned toward me and whispered whether I would like to join a Friday night poker game with a small group of veteran principals in the district. He added that my predecessor and key district administrators had played cards weekly for years. I paused and said: “Let me think about it.” After dinner when the kids had gone upstairs to do their homework, I told Barbara about the invitation and we discussed it thoroughly. My wife pointed out that the invitation was a very important gesture on the part of veteran administrators who had been clearly unenthusiastic when the Arlington School Board had appointed me. I was not only an outsider but a first-time superintendent who had worked across the river…