For a long time our schools have been dreaming of a new type of principal. Traditionally, principals excluded themselves from the realm of children’s moral education because there was always a vice-principal responsible for all aspects of curricular and extracurricular activities. Lately these activities have been transformed into pure entertainment. Until recently, we had to accept the fact that a principal could not dominate the sphere of education. The process of real education was left behind by the professional necessities of schooling. The necessity of caring about students was also left behind. Instead educators became involved in the process of “filling” the minds of future citizens with purely scientific information. Today, looking at the results of our carelessness over the last twenty years, we have come full circle in our understanding that moral education and character development are the primary professional responsibilities of our schools. We are back to square one.

Faced with a lack of time, resources and information, every school principal needs to learn how to make important decisions quickly and successfully. This is an important skill even in those rare occasions when there is plenty of time, sufficient resources, and abundant information. One of the best methods for generating a variety of possible solutions for a given problem is through a “team approach.” This approach calls for the creation of a school management team of either volunteers or appointees and can include high school students, parents, and teachers who have specific skills or interests and who agree to serve on the team. Ideally, the team might include present and future school leaders or members who are interested in educational research, as well as, school department heads and other teachers.

School management cannot be effective without a principal establishing an image that is attractive and charming. In his/her daily professional routine, a school principal has to deal with at least four social groups: students, teachers, maintenance staff, and parents. I might also add local community representatives. In other words, the social arena of a principal’s activities is wide and diverse. This makes it even more difficult to preserve one’s image as charming and powerful. Many school principals have realized this complexity and turned serious attention to the process of remaking their own images. A well-crafted image will definitely help any principal to re-establish himself in the school and community environment, as well as building personal relationships with teachers, children, and parents. Such an image will certainly help to reaffirm one’s professional reputation and personal authority.

It is easy to be a school principal only on two conditions: if you love children and if you are not afraid of authorities. To love children means to trust them, to treat them as equals. When I say, equal, I do not mean equality in knowledge and experience, but rather treating students as equal human beings, whose life is ahead of them, who are smarter than we are, and who are quick-witted. My age allows me to ask a question: “What can I give them for the future?” I am asking this because our common future will be exactly the way our children will make it. Our mission is to help them think of this future but not build it for them.

A few years ago, a group of teachers and vice principals from Estonia visited our school. They were a group of educators, primarily interested in pursuing a future career as school principals. Considering that I had a great deal of school principalship experience, one of the visitors asked me the question: “What qualities should a school principal possess to create a really good school? Please formulate these qualities precisely and briefly.” I answered: “To create a really good school it does not require much from a principal. One should have smart and talented people around oneself (in some ways smarter and more talented than the principal) and give them a direction. Then, all the principal’s plans will be fulfilled, even better than one expected.” Certainly, my “simple” answer was sly enough. On the one hand, in real life this short formula contains a huge amount of work for a school principal, work that is full of deep insights and that is not easy at all. On the other hand, my answer was absolutely truthful but quite vague.

This article provides “snapshots” of a Russian school principal’s week. Included in the article are descriptions of school activities and meetings within the school and in the community. These descriptions provide a candid view of this writer’s management style. If you are not an experienced principal, prepare yourself for an exhausting whirlwind of action. Here are the entries from my diary for last week. I would like to share them with you. Let’s think of my notes as individual photographs. With that understood, dear friends, sit back and relax for you are going to have an intimate look at this principal’s photo album.