“Taking the form of rules and laws (in the spirit of Murphy's Law), all the statements…are original as best I remember, formulated over 40 years working in education.”
Here are my rules:
1. Hensley’s Disclaimer: Anything that you don’t like, stop reading.
2. Hensley’s Thoughts on Job Assignments: Give the worst jobs to the people who complain the most.
3. Hensley’s Observation About Public Speaking: Make it short. Nobody really wants to hear your long drawn out stories!
4. Hensley’s Rule of Technology Reliability: Always have a backup plan.
5. Hensley’s Question About Fairness: Nothing in life is fair. So get over it and move on.
6. Hensley’s Observation About Office Climate: Remember that your boss deserves your loyalty because that is the person who hired you…and can fire you.
7. Hensley’s Rule of Sincerity: People always know if you are not sincere so don’t fake it.
8. Hensley’s Rule on Coasting: Coasting doesn’t always get you to where you hoped to be.
9. Hensley’s Rule of Creativity in the Workplace and Classroom: Others don’t always appreciate it but if you enjoy it, go for it!
10. Hensley’s Rule of Indispensability: Always look busy so no one can think that you are not needed.
11. Hensley’s Rule of Technology Perspective: Try to plan for tech problems ahead of time so they won’t seem like a big problem.
12. Hensley’s Observation about Progress: Remember your goal and if you reached it, then you have made progress.
13. Hensley’s First Rule of Effective Advocacy: Try to show that your advocacy will positively affect the most people.
14. Hensley’s Observation on Internet Resources: The internet is just a tool and not the person who uses the tool.
15. Hensley’s Law of Searching: Always bookmark the page you like because you may never find it again.
16. Hensley’s Caution on Collaboration: Respect the other collaborators, even if you don’t agree with them.
17. Hensley’s Common Sense Economy: Do away with busing children to school. Get back to neighborhood schools. Use the money saved from busing to improve that school.
18. Hensley’s Observation on the School of Hard Knocks: Realize something is wrong if you keep making the same mistakes over again.
19. Hensley’s Observation of Policy-Making: Those that determine policy should have to spend a week in the place their policy affects.
20. Hensley’s First Rule of Change: Change is inevitable, and most people won’t like it.
21. Hensley’s Second Rule of Change: Change is good and eventually people will accept it.
22. Hensley’s Third Rule of Change: If enough people don’t like it, someone is sure to rebel.
23. Hensley’s First Law of Effective Supervision: Know the people you hire and trust that they will do their job. If they don’t, get rid of them.
24. Hensley’s Law of Consultants: Look for strengths within your employees first before hiring from outside.
25. Hensley’s Rule of Projects: Make sure your project has a real purpose and that you aren’t doing a project just to keep people busy.
26. Hensley’s First Law of Presentations: Do not read the bullet points on your slides.
27. Hensley’s Second Law of Presentations: Use one word on each slide to give you a clue on what you want to say.
28. Hensley’s Third Law of Presentations: Use interesting graphics to catch the audience’s interest.
29. Hensley’s Fourth Law of Presentations: Take notice of your audience and adapt what you are saying to their needs.
30. Hensley’s Law of Assessment: Make sure you are assessing student’s understanding of what you have taught.
31. Hensley’s Law of Taking Responsibility: Be willing to own up to it if you plan on doing it.
32. Hensley’s Relationship Advice to Children: Honesty and trust will get you through the bad times.
33. Hensley’s Law of Stress Management: Don’t ignore stress because it is there. Figure out a way to handle it or it will handle you.
What other advice would you offer? Please share.
1 comment:
Lots of wisdom here, Pat! Thanks for sharing.
Doug
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