Walking the Corridors: A Parent-Leader’s Reflection on Learning and Teaching

There is an old saying that you should never work where you eat. I would like to propose a new one: Never work where your kid goes to school, unless you’re ready for some real character-building experiences.

As I walked through the corridors today, checking on our students' entry and exit routines, I glanced into a classroom and spotted my son, deeply engrossed in his work, and then he looked up, staring at me. In that split second, I wondered if he was silently pleading, “please just keep walking”, or if I was just projecting my own awareness of the moment. Either way, I smiled to myself, knowing that these moments highlight both the privilege and the challenge of my dual role.

Every morning, as families navigate school drop-offs and last-minute reminders about lunches and assignments, I see firsthand the dedication of parents ensuring their children start the day prepared. These seemingly small routines like checking timetables, wearing the right uniform, and negotiating screen time are the foundation of a child’s ability to enter the school day with confidence. Predictability and calmness in these moments matter. They shape the mindset students bring into their learning, and I see the impact every day in our classrooms.

As a leader, my role is to ensure that these transitions extend into the school environment. Entry and exit routines are not just about moving students from one space to another, they are about setting the tone for learning. A structured, calm start to each lesson fosters a sense of security, readiness, and engagement. It allows students to step into their learning space with focus, knowing what is expected and feeling supported by their teachers and peers.

As a parent, I understand that home life can sometimes feel anything but structured or predictable. There are mornings where shoes go missing, lunches are forgotten, and the rush to get out the door feels like a military operation. But these shared moments, no matter how chaotic, are also part of what connects us. We are all doing our best to prepare our children not just for school, but for life.

At Damascus College, we want to build on what families do so well, creating a seamless bridge between home and school, where learning is supported, behaviour expectations are clear, and students feel a sense of belonging. The routines we reinforce in the classroom mirror the consistency and care that parents provide at home, ensuring that students are set up for success in a world that often demands adaptability and resilience.

So, to every parent navigating the delicate dance of raising a teenager, whether it is managing homework stress, encouraging responsibility, or simply surviving the daily rollercoaster—I see you. You are doing an incredible job. And as both a leader and a fellow parent, I will continue to work towards making school a place where your child feels safe, supported, and ready to learn, just as you do at home. Because ultimately, we are all working towards the same goal: raising young people who are confident, capable, and ready to take on the world.

The Brainstorm Book and the Parenting Tightrope

Daniel J. Siegel, in The Brainstorm Book, talks about the importance of fostering an adolescent’s ability to integrate logic, emotion, and experience into a coherent sense of self. A great book, which I thoroughly recommend, but when I read this, I had to laugh. Because if there is one thing you learn as both a parent and an educator, it is that coherence is often an aspiration rather than a reality.

As a leader, I am deeply invested in structured learning, scaffolding, and explicit instruction. As a parent, I am invested in my son being happy, resilient, and maybe, just maybe, getting his homework done without an existential crisis over apostrophes and full stops. This dual perspective has taught me that the way we talk about learning at school needs to make sense at the dinner table, too. It is easy to say “We use cognitive load theory to support effective instruction,” but much harder to explain why my son still thinks he can revise for a test by staring at his notes like they will reveal their secrets telepathically.

Take, for instance, the art of getting a teenager to talk about their day. I have asked my son, countless times, ‘How was school?’ only to be met with a one-word answer: ‘Good.’ If I probe further, I might get a grunt. Siegel suggests that during adolescence, a teenager’s brain undergoes massive changes, causing their social and emotional responses to shift unpredictably. This explains why one day my son might be enthusiastically discussing a class debate and the next, treating me like I am an inconvenience in his highly important routine of gaming.

One morning, as we were about to leave for work, my son was in a state of panic. His laptop, which he had responsibly plugged in the night before was dead. Absolutely lifeless. The horror in his eyes was palpable as he tried to process what had gone wrong. After a quick investigation, the culprit was revealed, the wall switch had never been turned on. According to Siegel, adolescent brains are still developing their ability to plan and prioritise, which explains why the simple act of double-checking a power switch can elude even the most well-intentioned teenager. Understanding this does not make it any less frustrating, but it does remind me that patience and gentle guidance (with a side of humour) are often the best approach.

This dual perspective, seeing how students learn at school while experiencing teenage decision-making at home has taught me that learning does not stop at the classroom door. The way we support our children at home is just as important as what happens at school. The conversations (often repeated) around effort, resilience, and learning from mistakes help shape their developing brains and reinforce the lessons they encounter in class.

The Parent-Teacher-Leader Triangle

One of the biggest misconceptions about being a leader where your child goes to school is that you must have all the answers. Spoiler alert: I don’t. (And neither do you, dear parents, if you have ever tried reasoning with a tired teenager at 9:30 p.m.) What I do have is an appreciation for the work teachers put in every day to ensure students grow, not just in academic achievement, but in character.

John Hattie’s research on visible learning reminds us that “feedback is one of the most powerful influences on learning and achievement” (Hattie, 2009). But feedback is not just about grades, it is about how we talk to our children about learning. My son does not need me to be his second (or third, or fourth) teacher at home. He needs me to be the parent who listens, supports, and, when necessary, reminds him that deadlines are real and no, I cannot “just email his teacher” to negotiate a last-minute extension.

Empathy, Expectations, and the Occasional Embarrassing Moment

When you are both a school leader and a parent, you develop a certain awareness of how your child experiences school. My son, for example, If I ask if he needs help with an assignment, it is ‘'Dad, I’m ok, I’ve got this.' But if I don’t ask, it is 'Why didn’t you help me? ' It’s another no-win scenario, much like trying to explain why the school internet does not support gaming apps during class.

But what I have learned, both as a parent and a leader, is that my role is not about being perfect. It is about showing up. It is about trusting the teachers to do their work, trusting my son to navigate his own learning journey (building agency), and trusting myself to know when to step in and when to step back.

The Takeaway for Families

So, what is the lesson here? Perhaps it is that learning is not just something that happens between 9:00 a.m. and 3:18 p.m. It is in the conversations we have at home, in the way we model curiosity, in how we encourage our children to persist through difficulty. It is in the moments when we set aside our own anxieties about success and simply ask, ‘What did you learn today?’ (And then prepare for the inevitable one-word answer: “Nothing.”)

As parents, our role is not to control the learning process, it is to support it. And as someone who has a foot in both worlds, I can say with certainty: it is messy, it is complicated, and sometimes it is downright hilarious. But it is also one of the greatest privileges of my life.

References

Hattie, J. (2009). Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement. Routledge. Siegel, D. J. (2014). Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain. TarcherPerigee.

Pillai, Xavier (2025). An Amazing, Beautiful Son.