Message from the President

Message from the President

Phil Hatlen
Texas School for the blind and Visually Impaired

Needed: A Few good Professionals. At last count, there were four openings for superintendents of schools for the blind in the U.S. The Illinois School for the Visually Impaired has finally announced a national search, many months after their superintendent resigned and returned to Alaska. Our friend Charles Bernardo has decided to retire from the Governor Morehead School and is looking forward to peaceful and relaxed years in Florida. The Mississippi School for the Blind is now advertising nationally for a new superintendent. And, as you will note in the advertisement in this publication, Gerald Conn will soon be retiring from the Oklahoma School for the Blind.

I haven't been a superintendent long enough to know if this is normal attrition or an unusually high "blip" in our profession. I do know two things, however. One is that some colleagues whom I like and respect a lot are moving into a new era in their lives, and I will miss them very much. The other thing I know is that they will be hard to replace, because our entire profession has been neither conscious nor systematic in assuring a future generation of leaders. University preparation programs have experienced this paucity of new leaders as they have tried to recruit new professors in the area of visually impaired. I'm sure that there are potential new superintendents that have the capability to emerge as leaders in the next century at all four of our schools for the blind mentioned above. However, I remain concerned that we do not approach our need for new leaders in anything that comes close to a systematic and careful manner.

What are the characteristics of a potential leader? I wish I really knew, for I have been wrong more than right in attempting to assess the future of one of my colleagues. But, at the risk of creating some level of debate and discussion, I will tell you that the first thing I would look for in a potential leader is at least five years' experience as a teacher of blind and visually impaired students. I want my potential leader to be well-grounded in curriculum and instruction. I want my future leader to have experienced both success and failure in teaching skills to children. I want my colleague to know the ecstatic heights one can experience when a child learns ... really learns! My choice for leader will be someone who honors and never condemns parents, who humbly listens to what can be learned from others, and especially from children. I want my next leader to look at a visually presented instructional lesson and know immediately how to present the same concept either tactually or auditorally, or both. And I want this person to have a burning passion for equality of rights and access for all human beings.

And what would I be looking for if I were on the hiring committee for the position at the Governor Morehead School? Obviously, I value experience in visual impairment over any other characteristic for leadership. This is not necessarily a popular position. General educators are often tapped to be superintendents of schools for the blind, and we've had some brilliant ones as colleagues. Some think that the best candidate for a superintendent in this era would be an MBA. Not me... give me someone who has given a significant portion of her/his professional life to the education of blind and visually impaired children. Give me someone who can hit the ground running when it comes to instruction, curriculum, learning, educational materials, and everything else that constitutes education.

What's the down side of my choice? Well, this new leader will need to learn a lot about personnel management in a hurry. This person will have to learn about budgets, determining priorities, assigning resources, being political, working with the community, etc. I don't know about you, but I'll take the creative, experienced, passionate, committed teacher ... and all the rest will come.

I look forward to hearing from many of you on this topic.

Vol 5 No. 1 February 1999 contents

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