austraLasia #2974
School Middle Management Seminar, Macau
MACAU: 21
December 2011 --
A half-day workshop on school middle management was held in
Macau on 19
December. The topic was how school middle management can use
the
Preventive System in function of leadership and a whole school
approach
for school development. More than 50 teachers joined the
meeting. Most
of them expressed the view that this seminar was beneficial to
the
management of the school. Mr. Chan Tak Hang, retired school
principal
and Fr. Simon Lam, Provincial of China Province were the
speakers for
the occasion.
Fr. Lam highlighted four core values of the Preventive System
as the principle for school middle management. The first is internalization.
For educators, if the values of the Preventive System are not
recognized and internalized, they will not be effective. The
second is prevention.
Prevention does not refer to prohibition but the spirit of
prevention.
Only planting positive seeds in the hearts of the young,
nurturing them
with encouragement, support and companionship, can we achieve
good
results. The third is the building
of family atmosphere.
Building family atmosphere means that even if there are
different
opinions, we can still support each other at critical moments.
The
fourth is the most important core value - religion.
This is the energy of Don Bosco to continue his educational
mission.
Moreover, this is the most important element for developing
the whole
person.
Mr. Chan shared his real-life experience and re-defined middle
management in its different educational aspects. Firstly, it
is not
appropriate to apply industrial management principles to
education as
this is a matter of the heart which cannot be quantified. When
we
handle crisis at school and in individuals, alertness is
crucial and
preventive measures should be taken before it is too late.
Being a
middle manager, we should have a sense of self-evaluation to
assess the
effectiveness of our work. Mr. Chan said that he loves the
phrase
“Professional Retreat”. It implies stepping back, broadening
the
horizon and evaluating the situation, as well as external
factors and
influences.
After the seminar, participants obtained a better picture on
how they
could re-adjust their position in school middle management for
the
benefit of school development.