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Keynote speaker Carol Boothroyd leads administrators through an exercise during her presentation on humour, wellness and stress.
Raymond Gariépy
Leadership Essentials for Administrators Conference
The Alberta Teachers’ Association, in conjunction with the Council on School Administration, hosted the Leadership Essentials for Administrators conference in Calgary on November 22 and 23.
The conference, designed to assist recently appointed administrators in carrying out their responsibilities more effectively, was open to administrators who have either been appointed within the last two years or are new to the province of Alberta.
The conference provided administrators with opportunities to network with colleagues and to explore various topics relating to the role of administrator.
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The Dalai Lama does it every day and so do enlightened teachers—transcending life’s challenges with a smile and a laugh.
Humour and positive thinking turn good teachers into better ones, who are equipped to help their students cope with life’s many stresses, says Carol Boothroyd.
Boothroyd was a keynote speaker at the Leadership Essentials for Administrators conference. Conference participants were treated to Boothroyd’s quirky address as she tickled their funny bones with jokes and encouraged them to embrace humour as a step toward physical and mental health and wellness.
Humour is the best medicine, Boothroyd says, citing medical evidence showing that laughing out loud helps to decrease stress, reduce pain, aid healing, strengthen the immune system and open up the lungs. Buoyed by the medical profession’s findings, Boothroyd is an enthusiastic believer in the power of humour as a tool for developing positive thinking. She urged administrators to focus on the value of positive thinking and humour and to "let go of the need to be so darn grim." She concedes that it is not easy to move from the dark side to the bright side. At first, the process will be difficult, especially when in "every workplace there are always people who have made it their mission to make sure there is no joy squeaking out anywhere."
Negative people are powerful, Boothroyd warns. The antidote to negativity is for positive-thinking people to work as a team and slowly bring the negative people onside. One way to achieve this is by having fun in the workplace, school and classroom. But it is not just about having humorous moments, Boothroyd says. It has to do with sowing hope and appreciating life. Boothroyd advised administrators to be grateful every day for three things. "It’s a wonderful exercise, you don’t even have to make them up," she says. "What’s important is to start off with the attitude of gratitude" and "be evangelists—share this with your staffs, sell the idea."
Following her presentation, several administrators approached Boothroyd with a common message: "I’m new to the school, but we’re turning it around and starting to get people to lighten up."
"Children are where we need to have the brightness of humour," Boothroyd told the ATA News. "If you can’t find a way to have fun with kids, then be a landscape artist or drive a cab, but don’t be in the classroom." Negative people are detrimental to children’s well-being. "Children can be squished using humiliation and shame."
Boothroyd believes that the practice of humour should be undertaken as a lifelong skill, just like reading, learning to play a musical instrument or a sport. "I’m convinced that the more you practice humour, the more the brain actually grows connections that make it easier to be positive. The brain restructures itself around activities that we do over and over again. Practise gratitude, and you’ll discover the lighter side of things. But if you practise being miserable, then you’ll be really good at it."
An added benefit is that humour can help people learn to accept each other, she says. "If we can laugh with people of any colour, age or size, then we can find a way to take less notice of the differences and find ways that we are similar."
"The best teachers we had are likely the ones that made us laugh," Boothroyd says. "They were the best because they took that natural connection—humour—and exploited it."
"This is a wonderful conference"
Bobbie-Jo Douglas is the new vice-principal of École Rocky Elementary School, a dual-track elementary school in Rocky Mountain House. In addition to her administrative duties, Douglas teaches Grade 2 French immersion. The responsibilities associated with overseeing a school of 460 students and 44 staff, of which 25 are certificated teachers, is daunting, Douglas says.
Despite her "fairly steep learning curve," Douglas is confident that she is up to the task, thanks in part to the principal leadership program offered by Wild Rose Public Schools. Douglas started the program, which she calls a "mini-Master’s program training administrators," in February 2006. Her program of study ends next year.
About the Leadership Essentials for Administrators conference, Douglas commented:
"This is a wonderful conference. Today, we had a wonderful keynote speaker [Carol Boothroyd], who opened everything up on a laugh with some wonderful things to say. It is timely for me to sit back and laugh and learn about the ATA’s services for administrators. I had a better idea of what the ATA does for teachers, but as a brand new administrator, I didn’t know what was out there for us. Having the opportunity to ask questions of the keynote speaker and ATA personnel is critical because, after three months, I have so many questions. Now I know who to call and how to solicit that information."
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