Principal's Page
Our Secret to Success is in our Team:
I recently read an article on Elon Musk and his hiring techniques. I have summarised the article down to points related to our school, our processes and our approach to learning.
Elon Musk has stated that often "college is for fun and not for learning." Musk prefers to put faith in skills rather than degrees.
It is interesting to note a similar approach from the Business Roundtable in New Zealand. Their advice to our government was they need new employees who can ask great questions, work collaboratively as a team to solve problems and are good at trial and error and creative thinking approaches. They told our government that discrete knowledge gained in a university was not of great use if the graduate did not know how to work in a team and did not have great soft skills such as interpersonal skills, the ability to problem solve and collaborate etc.
At WHS, we are very aware of these points. We encourage and support our children to be self-managing, self-motivating, self-moderating leaders of their own learning. We teach our children to be caring, creative, collaborative, concerned and contributing citizens.
Musk has companies such as Tesla and SpaceX that have attracted some of the brightest minds of our time from across the globe - no degree required. Musk's hiring process does require two things, which comes down to one thing: the two-hands test.
1. First-hand experience
Though there's much debate surrounding experience versus education, for Musk, it's not simply that experience matters more than education. Rather, experience is a form of education. And in many ways, it's the best education.
An Association of American Colleges and Universities report inadvertently proves Musk's theory. The AACU study found that three-quarters of hiring managers believe that a college education is essential. However, the reason wasn't based on a specific curriculum but on the soft skills acquired that college is said to confer. The same soft skills (i.e. creativity, emotional intelligence, resilience) are notoriously difficult to assess in an interview. The development of these skills is not isolated to college coursework or student life but also to real-life experiences.
In other words, education is not limited to what is taught within the walls of a classroom but what is learned through first-hand experiences.
2. Hands-on testing
A job interview is a test, but rather than actually examining a candidate's capabilities, many companies simply work to evaluate a candidate's knowledge. However, this is a fatal flaw, as there is a major difference between memorising and parroting information and actually understanding how something works. Musk recommends putting candidates to the test with highly relevant hands-on testing to overcome this challenge.
To test candidates effectively, we need to give tests or tasks that most closely match what the role itself may involve.
This is exactly what we do at Western Heights School. No teacher is employed here unless we have seen them teach a class of children - preferably ours here at WHS - first.
It is possible to put together an impressive CV. It is possible to be confident and convincing in an interview. The real test is the ability to establish a relationship with children, create a connection between the children and the intended learning outcomes, and then be reflective in your self-assessment of how successful you were in your intended outcomes.
I first introduced this approach to hiring new teachers over 20 years ago. It has helped us find the best teachers, and you can see the proof of that every day in every classroom at WHS.
As always - if you have questions or concerns about anything school-related - email me at macash@mac.com and I will get back to you asap
Take care all - tofa soifua.
Ash Maindonald
Principal.
