DOUBLE TAP TO ZOOM WITH PHONE OR TABLET I 20 Chapter 1 q Expect People to Treat You Differently When you’re a teacher, you’re one of the teaching team. You work together, laugh together, and occasionally complain about the supervisors together. Although complaints should always go to the person with whom you have an issue, people who have common jobs usually develop common bonds. That common bond can create an unintentional separation between teachers and supervisors. Even when supervisors do everything they can to make staff feel respected and well treated, there will still be a division by virtue of the differ- ence in titles, hierarchy, compensation, communication, meetings, and such. As a supervisor you may still work in the classroom alongside other teachers doing many of the things they do, but you are still the supervisor, and because of that you hold a special role and are seen as different by the staff you supervise. Even those who were or are your friends may treat you differently than they used to. That’s okay. You do have a new role now and you will be different. You may not be able to share all the information you once did because of confidentiality issues. You may be out of the room more often because of meetings and paperwork. You may not get invited to after-work social activities, because people may feel they can’t talk freely around you. Yes, you’re the same person, but in your job, you really are different. You have different responsibilities and priorities, and often a different level of commitment to work. winning ways q Work for Respect, Not Approval In a way, we really do want people to treat us differently. As supervisors, we want them to follow our lead, consider our suggestions, and complete our requests. Yet we often feel bad when everyone “doesn’t like us” or “isn’t our friend.” At work we can certainly be friendly, but we can’t expect everyone to be our friends, nor will we feel like being friends with everyone. What should we expect as a supervisor? We should expect others to respect us but not necessarily to like us or even agree with us all the time. We should also expect others to feel comfortable questioning our decisions yet present a united front to families and children. And we should expect oth- ers to know that we will consistently communicate openly and honestly even when that means conveying diffi cult messages. COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL