How to be a good editor

Nosing around books on education I find this advice on being a head teacher.

It’s in a book by Tim Brighouse, How Successful Headteachers Survive and Thrive.

• Heads should greet children and teachers as they enter school.
• They should go on a daily walk, talking to kitchen staff and cleaners as well as teachers, and sometimes follow a pupil through a day’s lessons.
• They should be not scolds but skalds - a Scandinavian word for poets who inspire warriors before battle - recalling great deeds and anticipating further triumphs.
• They should say “we”, not “I”.
• And they should spend two hours a week doing “acts of unexpected kindness”, remembering birthdays and writing appreciative notes.

Not bad advice for editors too.

Add comment April 30th, 2008