Principal Investigator
When looking for grant money, the lead researcher is normally known as the principal investigator. It's his team, his overall concept and plan. What's amusing is the frequency with which people misspell the term 'principle investigator' — that would actually be someone who investigates principles, the basic ideas behind something.
But just as 'principle investigator' might mean 'investigator of principles', so too can 'principal investigator' mean 'investigator of principals' — that is, someone who looks into school leaders to see if they're kosher or not. This is the point that tickled me when someone recently called me 'principal investigator'.
I've never set out to be such a one. I've always been happy to contribute bits of research to a research group. And yet, these days, I am getting a lot of phone calls asking me to use my professional training and insight to analyse the performance of school principals.
About the only qualification I have for such a demanding task is the 'A' I got for a module I took a long time ago on principalship. Even then, the module was more on the mechanism of the office and how the accompanying powers might be used to effect school change through a range of human resource manoeuvres.
It was at around this point of self-denial that one of my interlocutors gave me a funny look. "Man," he said, "how much time have you spent reading and researching school management and school leaders anyway?"
Then it dawned on me. I am indeed somewhat qualified to do this because I've spent a fair amount of time on it already. I'm a lot more qualified than a layman even though I'm a lot less qualified than someone who's spent her or his whole life doing academic research on it. Maybe it helps that I've spent almost two decades working with a range of principals both as fellow-professional and slave.
And so, here I am, a principal researcher. I'm still pretty amused.
But just as 'principle investigator' might mean 'investigator of principles', so too can 'principal investigator' mean 'investigator of principals' — that is, someone who looks into school leaders to see if they're kosher or not. This is the point that tickled me when someone recently called me 'principal investigator'.
I've never set out to be such a one. I've always been happy to contribute bits of research to a research group. And yet, these days, I am getting a lot of phone calls asking me to use my professional training and insight to analyse the performance of school principals.
About the only qualification I have for such a demanding task is the 'A' I got for a module I took a long time ago on principalship. Even then, the module was more on the mechanism of the office and how the accompanying powers might be used to effect school change through a range of human resource manoeuvres.
It was at around this point of self-denial that one of my interlocutors gave me a funny look. "Man," he said, "how much time have you spent reading and researching school management and school leaders anyway?"
Then it dawned on me. I am indeed somewhat qualified to do this because I've spent a fair amount of time on it already. I'm a lot more qualified than a layman even though I'm a lot less qualified than someone who's spent her or his whole life doing academic research on it. Maybe it helps that I've spent almost two decades working with a range of principals both as fellow-professional and slave.
And so, here I am, a principal researcher. I'm still pretty amused.
Labels: Principalship, Research
etched with acid at 11:27:00 pm
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