Effect and Effectiveness

It is amazing to me how one person can change the environment of a small school. Bring on a "filler", a 2nd or perhaps 3rd string to take on the role of a star, and chaos is likely to ensue. Such is the case with a small institution.

Clearly, another hiring mistake has been made in a BIG way. I totally respect experience, my elders and that dynamic of fraternal organizations called "senior" or "upper class"...those that have conquered before me. But I am also acutely aware that this position power lasts only briefly before the deeds have a chance to be planted. 100 days in the case of the President of the U.S. I suspect then that new teachers get only 10-30 by extrapolation.

He is terrible. He is chaotically disorganized. He has so few teacher positive qualities. And he is turning off students as quickly as he has come. Out of 28 registered students for one of his classes this week, 5 showed up and I suspect (as represented by the number of Facebook and IM windows I saw open in front of me) that only 1 was paying any attention at all. When student recognize low quality they walk with their feet since they can't walk with their wallets once invested in the semester.

I thought it was a aberrancy because of the GREAT teachers clinicians that I have had in my past. I believed what Dr. Stead said about the history of medicine education, that clinicians had a duty to teach. But the moral of the story is clear...clinicians can tell great stories but can't teach automatically. It is clearly a skill in classroom & time management, preparation, humility, organization, communication, planning and delivery that requires attention and deliberate learning. Even perhaps "unlearning" of bad habits. But what else are they to do? They are truly unfit to do little else, and that in lies the conundrum of hiring authorities.

And on a small campus, the implications of poor hiring are inversely proportional to the size of the campus. The smaller the campus, the greater the impact of both good, and unfortunately, poor teachers.