The Skillful Teacher

Create a Paper and E-Mail Trail
Many of the agreements we make in the course of our daily life are
verbal. We agree whose turn it is to get milk today, who will be
responsible for getting the kids off to school, which of the many
pressing bills we should try to pay first, and so on. Because we know
and trust those we are making agreements with, there is no need to
write these down. You don’t usually write down agreements made
around the dinner table, TV set, or in bed. This reliance on good
faith verbal negotiations usually extends to the professional agree-
ments we make as teachers.
There are two big problems with this extension. The first is that
words are notoriously slippery and opaque. Postmodernism teaches
us that the words we use to communicate our thoughts never cap-
ture exactly what we are thinking and that we have no control over
the meanings others take from our words. So an agreement we make
with students, colleagues, or superiors may be understood in one
way or deemed to extend to one set of circumstances that is clear
to us, but be understood in very different ways or seen as applying
to a much broader range of circumstances by those we are coming
to agreement with. When this difference exists we are often com-
pletely unaware of it. We continue along quite happy and secure in
our knowledge of what we think we have agreed to until something
happens that causes us to realize that those we depend on, or those
who have power over us, are expecting us to act in ways we feel con-
travene the understanding we had. Then a situation arises in which
we feel abandoned by those we previously had trusted. This is
because we perceive them now as having betrayed a clear agreement
we had made. They, in turn, start to view us as uncooperative, recal-
citrant troublemakers who say one thing on one day and then refuse
to abide by this on another day.
This difference of interpretation is particularly frustrating when
it arises in the context of decisions in which the continuance of
employment is at stake. Most grievance hearings sought by those
who feel they have been unjustly denied an extension of their 
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contract, or the award of tenure, boil down to the teacher feeling she
has had no clear, unequivocal prior warning of a problem while her
superiors feel that numerous verbal warnings were issued to her. The
grievance hearing then becomes a “he said-she said” matter, in which
the benefit of the doubt usually goes to the superior who has been at
the institution for a much longer period of time. Because the con-
versations at issue are usually one on one, with no witnesses present to
testify at a later date as to which person is remembering the conver-
sation correctly, no clear resolution suggests itself. This is why docu-
mentation of prior warnings is so crucial in decisions to fire someone.
The second problem with relying on verbal agreements made at
work is that those we have made agreements with often move out
of their positions to be replaced by people who were not party to
the original conversation. A colleague on your teaching team leaves
or an administrator is promoted to another position or reaches the
end of their term of office, with the result that the original verbal
agreements you reached with those people are now rendered null
and void. However, we often act as if they are still in place, naïvely
assuming this to be the case. The new colleague or superior, on the
other hand, has a quite different understanding of your role and
obligation, and this understanding sooner or later (usually sooner)
comes slap up against your own. The relationship then sours as you
feel this person is unfairly trying to take advantage of you, while
your colleague or superior feels you are dragging your feet and try-
ing to get out of work.
Although perfect transparency of communication, in which
each person clearly and fully understands exactly what the other
person is saying, is probably impossible, we can certainly get closer
to or further away from it. One thing that helps us move closer to
this unattainable transparent ideal is the existence of a written
record. This is why one of the most important pieces of advice I give
to colleagues newly arrived to the profession is to create a paper trail
of agreements made. Every time you have a conversation that
involves you coming to an agreement on some aspect of your
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responsibilities, or that entails a team dividing up their labor in as
efficient a way as possible, this should be written down and distrib-
uted to all involved in the conversation. Every time you agree on a
set of responsibilities with an administrative superior, this should
be written down and communicated with that person.
Because most administrators have a thousand and one things to
take up their time, they may well feel that the verbal conversation is
sufficient. However, I urge teachers to write up any conversation
involving a discussion of their roles and responsibilities and to send
a dated copy of this message to the administrator concerned. This
message or memo should also ask for a quick reply indicating
whether or not the administrator feels this is an accurate record of
the conversation. If no response is forthcoming, then the dated
memo or message should be sent a second time, along with a note
saying that if no reply is received within a week that this will be
taken as an indication that the administrator agrees that the memo
or message accurately summarizes the understanding reached. This
does not have to be done in any kind of confrontational way. You
should say you are writing this merely for the historical record and
to make sure both parties understand what they have agreed to.
It’s also a good idea to keep a paper trail of your efforts to adhere
to agreements that are made. If you have agreed to a new set of
responsibilities but there is dispute as to how these might be met,
you should write a quick memo each time you feel you have worked
to meet these responsibilities and send a copy of this to the relevant
administrator or colleague. This can be marked FYI (for your infor-
mation) rather than as needing a response. If this message is sent in
e-mail form, then the absence of an “undeliverable message” auto-
matic e-mail response indicates the message has been received by
the person you intend to read it (though it does not guarantee the
person has actually opened and studied its contents!). If at any later
date you are then accused of not having performed whatever tasks
you agreed to, you have a paper trail or electronic record of how you
have assiduously undertaken and reported these.
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Finally, a paper trail should be created that documents any of
your noteworthy accomplishments that can then be produced in
times when people accuse you of not pulling your weight. Keeping
a file documenting our accomplishments is hard for those of us who
feel that teaching should be about helping students learn not about
trumpeting our own achievements. But if you want to keep helping
students learn, you need to be in an arena—a college classroom—
where you can accomplish this while still being paid. Having a
paper trail that comprises a public record of your achievements
along with any external recognition you have received for these is
invaluable in helping you stay in a situation where you can con-
tinue your work. Anytime a superior jots you a quick “well done”
note acknowledging your successful completion of a task, copy it
and file it for later possible use. Anytime you receive an unsolicited
letter of thanks or recognition from a student or colleague (both
inside and outside your institution), copy and file it. Anytime you
achieve a particular goal—getting a paper published, giving a pre-
sentation at a conference, being asked by other faculty groups inside
or outside your institution to come and address them regarding the