当斯图尔特·考德威尔, 英格伍德Woodworth-Monroe TK-8学校的新校长, 注意到教室里满是涂鸦的桌子, he decided not to wait for work crews which were already backed up with school improvement projects.
而不是, he invited parents to join him as he brought his own woodworking equipment 和 s和ed 和 varnished 24 tables. So the Mariner Make-over crew was born, named after the school’s mascot, a Mariner. The impact was immediate as one teacher told him in tears, “The whole vibe of the room is different.”
Why would a principal invest time to s和 graffiti-ed tables?
“Because parents need that level of care that comes from the heart,” Caldwell says. “It’s in line with Concordia’s values: I want my teachers, parents 和 staff to be happy to have their children at the school. They have to see that I’m rolling up my sleeves with them.”
Caldwell, who serves as an adjunct professor for 欧文康考迪亚大学's MAEd 和 Ed.D. 项目, has spent 25 years working in Title 1 schools in California, which have high poverty rates 和 lower academic performance. This summer he took the helm at a school in the Inglewood Unified School District which for eight years has been in state receivership for fiscal 和 instructional mismanagement.
"Stuart Caldwell has a creative underst和ing of the role of a principal, a genuine student-focused pedagogy 和 an encompassing belief in community involvement,托马斯·库珀说。, director of 欧文康考迪亚大学’s Professional Resource Center. “Creating community participation is foremost on his mind.”
Caldwell was aiming for politics when he fell into education. His father was a Harvard-trained professor who served with the CIA in Engl和 和 taught at the National War College in Washington, D.C.
“Given my family background, I was thinking law school 和 policy,” Stuart says.
He first took three years off after high school to frame houses 和 devote himself to technical rock climbing in Colorado — before a narrow escape led him to drop the sport. In college, he was driven to excel, 和 a job with a Congressman in Washington, D.C.似乎为他开辟了道路. While working on the reauthorization of Head Start bill 和 other educational matters, Caldwell realized he wanted to be in the trenches of education instead of in the halls of power. He returned to California 和 “dived in full-force” to teaching.
“我从一开始就喜欢它，”他说.
His first teaching gig was at a juvenile hall where every student in his first class had committed murder. Then came teaching posts in a local middle school, then a high school. In 2000, 考德威尔进入学校管理部门, 并拒绝了较富裕地区的职位空缺, 让郊区学校留在表现不佳的学校.
At Woodworth-Monroe, Caldwell’s table-repair effort energized parents.
“他们想知道，接下来会发生什么?” Caldwell says, so they got together to spend four hours scrubbing bathrooms. 下一个任务是把教室里的旧橱柜搬走.
Caldwell’s strategy is to spend his workdays anywhere but in his office.
“如果你把自己绑在桌子上, the school will march forward without you 和 quickly get out of control or find that you’re not necessary,他说. “I can’t change the learning trajectory 和 move the school forward from my desk, 所以在上学的时候, 几乎没有例外, 我几乎从来不在办公室. I’ll take my laptop with me 和 send emails in the classroom. 我在走廊里吃午饭. Kids 和 staff notice, 和 you’re able to affect a lot more.”
自2006年以来, Caldwell has taught a variety of courses in 欧文康考迪亚大学’s master’s program 和 EdD program, 包括法律和政策分析. A recent highlight for him is the master’s practicum class which he calls “action-based research, helping teachers identify something they want to change in their school, 研究别人做过什么, 实施战略和评估成功. 我上那门课很开心.”
“Concordia’s values very much line up with my own,” Caldwell says. “It’s a faith-based organization that is helping to have a positive impact on schools 和 children’s lives. Concordia is a small, powerful community of practitioners. 全体教职员工, 永久的或附属的, 曾经是或正在执业, 这样我们就知道作品背后是什么了. 这不是理论. 能参与其中是件好事.”
Education, Caldwell believes, is fundamentally relational. He schedules meetings in each school with every employee 和 a number of parents 和 students to hear their views of the school’s strengths 和 areas of need.
“You start to gather a feel for what people want to celebrate 和 the things that need to be shored up,他说. “It accelerates the personal relationships you need as a principal. 我们所做的一切都是建立在人际关系上的. The more I get to know our people 和 they get to know my heart, 我们一起完成的事情就越多.”
Along the way, Caldwell has earned two master’s degrees in the field of education, 和 a law degree. 他每天早上4点半游泳.m., 和 surfs on weekends with a couple of principal colleagues.
I get to be a teacher of teachers 和 affect the learning trajectory 和 outcomes for kids 和 adults
“And teaching classes at Concordia is my way to stay current in academia 和 give some of our upcoming leaders a little bit of insight from my own experience that hopefully will remove hurdles they will face.”
比如满是涂鸦的桌子.