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Friday, March 1, 2024

The Science of Trauma

In an instant, a traumatic event can alter the chemistry of the human brain. The response to stress releases a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is known as the stress hormone and it triggers our brain into the "fight or flight" mode. This chemical has literally kept our species alive as our ancestors needed it to know how to respond in a life-threatening situation. As environmental factors threatened our survival, we adapted and learned from the chemical responses of our brains. We learned how to avoid the event, and we lived on and passed that information to our offspring.

A lot of science has emerged in the past few years that tells us (especially educators) how responses to trauma at a young age can impair a person's cognitive functions. Today, our students are not met with the same traumas that our ancestors faced. We are not fighting off a cave bear for survival. Instead, young people today face different, and more prolonged traumas that consistently increase the level of cortisol in their bodies. High levels of cortisol can lead to irritability, emotional instability, or depression. If those symptoms seem familiar to you, you're starting to make the connection. 

This week I pointed out the connection that many of our recent student suspensions have to the traumatic death of a former student. The sometimes violent reactions that these students display can be traced to their own inability to cope with questions that they do not have answers to and feelings about the event that they do not understand. Those emotions around the traumatic event are magnified in their homes and in their neighborhoods by others who are experiencing the same feelings. That environment keeps the levels of cortisol elevated and perpetuates the problem. This is the biological reason that we are seeing the actions that have been happening over the past couple of weeks. 

So what do you do to fight a normal biological response? The answer lies not just in biology, but also in sociology. Biologically, our bodies want to heal and will attempt to sleep. Other times, we can't stay still and need to release energy. (Do either of these sound familiar?) Our bodies can also regulate cortisol with other hormones like endorphins and oxytocin that make us feel better. Endorphins can come from laughing and oxytocin comes from feeling loved or belonging. These hormones make us feel safe again and happy.

If you've stuck with me through the science of the last four paragraphs, then I'll give you the moral of the story. To fix kids who have been exposed to repeated trauma, you have to love them. And when they do bad things that isn't always easy. We want to be upset as well because we are responding to stress. But darkness doesn't put an end to darkness, light does that. And loving a student doesn't mean avoiding consequences or lowering expectations, it means loving them hard enough to hold them to it and expecting more from them because you do. All kids in our environment are impacted in different ways, and right now, the best weapon that we have at our disposal is to love them. We all deserve it.

Friday, February 16, 2024

Talented

I am blessed to have two daughters who do well in school. In early grades, they were acknowledged with the educational marker of being Academically and Intellectually Gifted (AIG), a designation once referred to as Gifted and Talented. If you believe that nature is the reason, you could point to having two parents who were also blessed with that same designation in school. Or maybe nurture is your argument and you point out that both of their parents have advanced college degrees and education is highly valued in their home. Either way, we are quick to recognize academic talent in schools. If students are extremely hard-working and diligent, they might even earn a high enough GPA to get a scholarship or some sort of designation to speak at their graduation ceremony to formally recognize their hard work. While I'm extremely proud of students who have academic talent, this week gave me a couple of reminders of the many other talents that students have. These talents may never show up on a class rank and it probably won't earn any of them a single dollar in scholarships, but it can give you a glimpse of what kind of people these students have the potential to grow up to be. 

If you don't know David, you've almost certainly seen him in our school. David is Chinese and he is the only Multi-Language Learner in Mrs. Galue's ESL class that speaks Mandarin as a first language. David never misses school. Ever. He even comes on the exam makeup days. This week, as students brought chocolates to share with one another for Valentine's Day, David decided to give his classmates a different gift. He brought his violin from home and played for them. As I watched the video, I was so impressed with his confidence and pride in sharing his talent with his friends. This is not the same young man that was in our school just one year ago. 

That same day, our school hosted the annual Valentine's Day dance for our special needs students. It's hard not to smile watching these students have the time of their lives dancing in the gym. They are joined by teachers and students and Mrs. Duncan's class caters for the event each year with pride. And that's where Steve fits in. You may also know of Steve. He has a "colorful" discipline history and his associations outside of school have been questionable at best. He can be angry and sometimes volatile. He enjoys Duncan's Culinary class and has been a bit of a project for Coach Edwards this year. But despite his past, Steve also has talents. I could easily see them that day when he was caught doing the Cha-Cha Slide with our EC students, smiling from ear to ear. He is also not the same young man that was in our school one year ago.

Every student has a talent. While we formally recognize a few of those if they happen to show up on a standardized test or on an athletic team, it's fun to find the ones that don't always get recognized as easily. It's even more fun when we can find just the right moment to bring it out of them. And if they can't hold a full conversation in English, they may be able to share in another way. Perhaps the right opportunity can even make the toughest of students dance when a disabled class asks you to join. That's what teaching is all about; discovering how every student can be talented.

Friday, February 9, 2024

He Who Holds the Story, Holds the Power

Most of you know that I was a history teacher. Despite my affinity for math, I decided to teach history because I get caught up in the stories. Most of the recorded history we know is told by the dominant group, the most powerful culture, or the victor in the battle. We know their side and it isn't until many years later (sometimes never) that we learn more about the group that came up short. The winner, not the loser, gets to tell the story. And for that reason, he who holds that story, holds the power. 

For a little while now, I've been working with some other state leaders on this same idea. We have been advocating that parents and community members need to know the stories of our public schools. In a time when parents have more choice than ever before from charter schools or private schools, it is easy for parents to become overwhelmed and to look beyond the greatness that traditional public schools have to offer. And for that reason, we've been trying to advocate that school leaders do a better job of telling those great stories. Well, all of that talk got me thinking this week about the power of our personal stories. We all have experiences that brought us to where we are today and so many of those stories would be inspirational to the students that we teach and interact with. Your story as a person and as an educator is your purpose and your drive to show up and do the things that you do. But without telling that story, we can miss an opportunity to relate to students and to gain trust in them as someone who has perhaps shared some of the same experiences that they have. We do a lot to learn the stories of our students, and that part of teaching is vital. But along the way, be sure to tell yours as well. You never know who may be listening and who might just gain inspiration from what you have to say. That inspiration and those grounding moments are what build authentic interest between us as people and what give us the power to draw from one another. 

He who holds the story, holds the power. Are you telling yours?

Friday, January 26, 2024

Check Yourself

I have been working on a project for a while now to change some policy and budget legislation. With election season upon us and the interim budget changes getting ready to start, that work has kicked back up. This time around I have some new thought partners in the process and it's been super helpful. It's always nice to have a partner on a project who carries their weight on tasks and can talk the talk and walk the walk. Last weekend we did some revising to the policy and drafted some new ideas for messaging. It was really good work. While it was all fresh in my brain, I sent the information out to a larger group with all of the ideas that we had talked through. It was literally a giant brainstorm put into organizers and carefully drafted words. And I seriously messed up. I gave absolutely no credit to my partner for their contribution to it. It wasn't on purpose but it hurt their feelings. And rather than let that get in the way, they let me know. 

Have you ever messed up and not given credit where it was due? I feel like I do it at the worst possible times. I put my head down and focus so hard on a goal, and in the process, sometimes forget about those that are working on it with me. Luckily, this person was great enough to check me in a nice way, but if that hadn't happened, I could have lost out on a thought partner or even lost a friend. The truth is that we all have partnerships like the one I referenced every day. These are the people that you ask to do things to help you personally and professionally. They get you through things, listen to you rant and (if you're lucky) check you when you mess up. It's important to have people like this in our lives. They hold us support us but also hold us accountable. You very likely work with some of these people. They are the ones who don't mind stepping in with some other part of your life is in chaos. They are the ones that are our first pick to work with when we have a task or a challenge. They are the ones that you would do the very same thing for in return. So before you mess up like I did, take a minute this week and check yourself. Who are the people you count on and appreciate that you might not give credit to? Give them that credit. It will mean the world to them and that feels so much better than the feeling of regret when you realize you didn't.

Friday, January 19, 2024

The Costs of Umbrellas and Funnels

Part of my work outside of my role as the principal of Greene Central involves providing professional development and courses for new and aspiring administrators. I also do some policy and advocacy work around the role of school administrators. These roles usually mean that I have to explain what modern principals do each day, week, month, and school year. The job has changed a lot since I started it and today, we find ourselves in the middle on mandates from the district, the state or the federal government and the students, teachers and community that we lead. So when a new need or policy arises, we find ourselves having to make a decision on how to go about it. Usually that decision requires that we be an umbrella or a funnel. 

As an umbrella, I try to shelter those below me from as much as I can. Having an umbrella in a storm doesn't guarantee that you stay dry, but it does a great deal to protect you from being soaked. As a metaphor, it means that while teachers and students might get some exposure, generally I try to cover them myself by taking on the bulk of the implementation of that new thing. Conversely, by choosing to be a funnel, I have to pass things along to teachers and students to do and I direct that as much as possible as it moves through me. Parent contact for absences, tardies and smaller classroom behaviors are a good example of this. I help direct policies that ask teachers to do the first interventions because there are more teachers than there are counselors and administrators to take this on daily. 

There are costs to umbrellas and funnels. As a teacher, it's probably easier for you to see the cost of a funnel. It comes as an ask of your time at the expense of something else you would have been doing. It's "another thing" to think about and adds something to your plate. It doesn't always feel fair, even if you understand it's purpose. The same is true for umbrellas. When I decide to shelter teachers or students, it means that it is another thing that I take on and there's almost certainly an opportunity cost. It could mean that I'm less visible, have less time to be in classrooms, or direct less resources to something that had previously done just fine. 

For either choice, there is a cost. But here's the thing; we know it's going to rain. New things will come and will ask for our time and attention. New problems will arise. So when that rain falls, we can have an umbrella or a funnel waiting, or we can all just get soaked in the storm and no one wants that. So maybe we need to do a better job of talking about what we do with and for one another. Just understanding and appreciating the burdens that we carry can give us tons of perspective. Becasue while the costs of umbrella and funnels can sometimes feel quite high, the costs of finding shelter in a storm are always priceless.

Friday, January 12, 2024

Courage

Like most young children, my younger brother fixated on different things as he grew up. TV shows and movies are often watched on endless repeat for kids at that age and for some strange reason, his first addiction was to The Wizard of Oz. My brother is five years younger than I am so I have pretty vivid memories of being subjected to watching that movie over and over again. To this day I could probably quote it word for word. As I grew up and read the novel by L. Frank Baum, I gained a different appreciation for the messages in the story. Later as a student of history, I learned that the characters were metaphors for different American political figures and themes. This week I was reminded of one of those characters, the Cowardly Lion. 

Someone asked me a great question this week. "What makes a good leader?" There are so many different qualities that we respect in good leaders, so it seems like such a trick question to try to narrow it down. When you do try, the definition that emerges almost seems inhuman and free of faults. In our minds, they are universally revered and inspire us. They have answers to questions when we don't. They pull us up when we are down and somehow never seem down themselves. It doesn't take much pause to know that those ideas are unachievable, even for the best of leaders. So what is it? My answer was courage. Courage is deciding to take action even when you are afraid or unsure. It's knowing that you may not be right, and being willing to deal with that because you know that doing nothing might be worse in many situations. It means to take a chance to be the first voice to speak up, the one that cares for others, and the one to take action when there is no clear path. 

In The Wizard of Oz, the Cowardly Lion struggled with a lack of courage. He emerges in the story with a loud roar to be feared, but at the first sign of resistance, he cries and backs down. However, throughout the story, his attachment to the group and their mission gives him opportunities to be a leader. His actions are never for himself and he's always motivated by doing something for the group. The irony at the end of the story is that he had a heart (courage) all along. Being a leader is inside all of us. We are classroom leaders, leaders on the playing field and other extracurricular activities, leaders in teacher groups, and just life leaders for students and peers. And just like the Cowardly Lion, those traits are inside of each of us. It often just takes a little courage for them to come out and to take a chance to do what we felt was right or needed. 

Friday, January 5, 2024

Inaction

At the end of 2022, my life was in the midst of a lot of change. I felt as if I was constantly chasing my tail to meet the new expectations that had been thrown upon me as the state's POY, while also trying to figure out how to do my job back at school and be a parent and spouse at home. I was doing everything and felt like I was achieving very little. I'm a pretty reflective person and with all that I was doing, I hadn't taken time to assess how I was doing. I decided to deliberately carve out some time each day to refocus and reflect and the best way that I knew to do that free of distraction was to go for a run. I went for a run every day in 2023 and it did wonders for me. I made time for myself and the physical activity helped my mental health quite a bit. But this story isn't about the action of daily running, it's about what I didn't do before; the inaction. 

It was no revelation to me that I was drowning in the months leading up to my decision to make a change. I've been there before and we all probably have. We have something new come into our lives, maybe a job, a relationship, or a child, and it drastically changes our daily activity and how we spend our time. The new thing demands something of us and we somewhat subconsciously stop doing other things. We change. But change isn't always good or easy and some of the things that we left behind were good for us. They provided a sense of identity or a distraction from the stresses of life. That's exactly where I was. I had let go of the things that gave me joy and filled that space with more expectations. The inaction of taking care of myself was taking a toll on me. I knew that I should be doing a better job of managing my life, but I thought that I could be everything to everyone and I was wrong. 

Inactions can be found everywhere and they usually aren't a surprise to us when we realize the consequence. They can be inactions in our personal lives or inactions in our professional lives that jump up and remind us of something that we should have done. I chose the start of the new year in 2023 to turn that inaction into action that I knew would be positive for me. It had a trickle-down effect as I reprioritized how I spent my time in my personal and professional life. Simply put, I knew better and I decided to do better. The start of a new semester is a great time to do the same for us all. Each of us probably is aware of some inaction that jumped up and bit us at some point. Perhaps you put off making contact with a student's parent the way you should have and they didn't pass in the end. Maybe you didn't invest your time into something that you told yourself you would do at the start of the year and now it's still staring at you as a reminder. Yours could have also been personal and it impacted your professional life. Whatever it is, now is a great time to change that thing. It's never too late to turn inaction into action and we often just need a good push to make it happen. This is your push. Do that thing that you know will make you better. I promise you'll be happy that you did.