Fundamentals

Author Michael Fullen outlines four fundamentals of our jobs: curriculum, instruction, assessment, and professional culture.
We’re talking a far cry from the old "buildings, beans, and busses" fundamentals of principal-as-manager. But if you haven’t delegated some managerial tasks, delegate already, and do your real job as designer and role model for maximum teaching and learning.

That, according to Fullen, is what’s worth fighting for: "not system change, not change in others around us, but change in ourselves." Ten guidelines—all working together—are Fullen’s prescription for individual action:

Avoid "if only" statements, externalizing the blame and other forms of wishful thinking.
Start small, think big. Don’t overplan or overmanage.
Focus on fundamentals: curriculum, instruction, assessment, professional culture.
Practice fearlessness and other forms of risk taking.
Embrace diversity and resistance while empowering others.
Build a vision in relation to both goals and change processes.
Decide what you are not going to do.
Build allies.
Know when to be cautious.
Give up the search for the "silver bullet."